Keep a cool head and get tough.

Tigerhawk has linked to this NY Times article and used it to launch a discussion regarding What Is to Be Done. I sketched out a few operational ideas in my previous post, and I have continued to think about it as the implications of UN Resolution 1701 have begun to sink in and the impossibility of its implementation have become apparent.

The overarching considerations are whether we capitulate, tread water, or fight.

A hardcore of the Kucinich left is likely to either overtly call for capitulation or recommend policies that very clearly lead to enormous losses of strategic capital, if they can be pinned down to making concrete recommendations at all. However, I do think smarter leftist pols in the U.S. are aware that the time to say "just fight competently" is past. Clearly the idea that we should capitulate to dhimmitude is abhorrent to me, so I will leave it to others to make the case.

The middle option of treading water has probably already been deployed: we can specifically refer to it as UN Resolution 1701. Because there are no Freeworld actors capable of pursuing any productive policies under the conditions of UNR 1701, the breathing space afforded to us is very limited, and I hereby speculate that the main impetus behind U.S. support for it cannot be the irrational idea that we thought it represented a true solution to the Hizbollah/Israel dispute. I suspect intelligence obtained from raiding hardened Hizbollah command and control centers forced this precipitous cease-fire. I hesitate to speculate further, but this information was probably Very Bad.

To continue to fight will require realistic bipartisan recognition of the current dire situation. We must soberly face the fact that we may have to temporarily surrender some civil rights, and that this will disproportionately affect muslims. Any such increase in the intrusiveness of Western governments cannot be implemented in a manner that makes it indistinguishable from Sharia law.

The above would serve as a prelude to serious efforts to harden domestic terror targets, as undoubtedly Islamists have pre-positioned assets within the U.S. These efforts would include sealing the borders. Now. In addition, any domestic terror cells currently being monitored should probably be rolled up if possible.

Simultaneously, we have to neutralize the operational capabilities of recognized hostiles without regard to national borders. These include Islamist assets in "Talibanistan", Iran, Syria, and East Africa. Where bodies of conventional armed forces are present, these must be destroyed. Likewise, we should contemplate seizing oil fields in southern Iran while destroying their capacity to place oil on the market. The resulting surge in the price of oil will not do the mullahs any good if they can't sell it.

In looking at the Iraq wars of 1991 and 2003, we see writ large the idea that half-measures in the present lead to much suffering in the future. The ascendancy of Iran after the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime partially vindicates the George H. W. Bush administration's decision not to remove him at the close of Gulf War I. Even Dick Cheney promoted this decision until it became obvious that Saddam was neither contained nor containable.

Olmert's debacle has now removed any question from my mind about prospects for containing Iran's Twelvers and their Khomeinist agenda. Their perception is that they have received God's Own Mandate to pursue their irhab.