Israel would not go quietly

By James Lewis

"Do not go gently to that dark night" sang Dylan Thomas in a wonderful poem about death. There is a slightly hysterical rumor afoot that the United States (and, needless to say, Europe) would be happy to abandon Israel's security for its own safe oil supply, guaranteed by Ahmadinejad and his band of Merry Mullahs. That's bizarre. Israel is far more powerful than North Korea, and Kim has been able to freely moon the "international community," the United States and even his Big Brother Hu Jintao. That's with a one-megaton fizzle. Israel has an estimated 100-200 deliverable nuclear weapons.

Obviously the Israelis don't want to lose their allies, both real ones, like the United States, and fly-by-nights like France. So it will never come to the point of the government threatening to use nukes. But all sane leaders in the Middle East --- which may rule out a few --- know perfectly well that in the last resort the Israelis would use the Samson Option.

So there's a fair amount of panicky speculation. "Israel's today's Czechoslovakia," ready to be sacrificed to the first Hitler-wannabe with nukes. It doesn't make any sense.

Having said that, we're all in for a scary time as long as (1) proliferation continues to bad characters like Kim and Ahmadinejad, and (2) we don't have near-perfect defenses against those weapons. Thanks to our liberal friends, our defenses are just barely catching up to the threat.

Any reasonable observer has to believe that we're in for Cold War Two against Islamofascism - if we in the coalition of the willing remain lucky and steadfast. We cannot count on Europe, but we can count on the English-speaking countries, with the possible exception of the mother country herself.