A Scary Thought…
Fred Barnes has an interesting premise in The Weekly Standard; what if the Democrats were in power now? It’s an interesting question, and I believe that his analysis is pretty good. I’d argue that we’d see another case of Clintonesque wagging the dog rather than the Afghan invasion, leaving al-Qaeda free to detonate a nuclear/biological weapon in a major American city. I fervently believe that there would have been a biological attack had the planners and executers of those attacks not been daisy-cuttered out of existence, arrested, detained, or forced to flee. In the end, I agree with the ever-brilliant Glenn Reynolds that a daisy cutter bomb is the best homeland security measure ever invented.
Barnes also points out that our foriegn policy would be based on multilaterialism and trying to stay in the good graces of Europe. First, Europe is generally going to be anti-American no matter what as they resent American prosperity in general more than American policy. Second, Machiavelli was right – it’s better to be feared than to be loved. Quite frankly, right now our enemies, despite their rhetoric are probably very afraid… as they well should be.