The United States is not a pre-emptive country. That is, we do not start wars. It took Pearl Harbor to get us into WW II. We shrugged off the Japanese invasion of China, the fall of France and the Nazi invasion of Russia and stayed where we were until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in a fit of suicidal insanity. After that we beat the crap out of everyone.
9/11 was an impulse function to us. It drove us to take action. That impulse is dying down. We're tired and bored and just want the whole thing to go away so we can go back to watching "2 1/2 Men." Which, by the way, is a hideously unfunny show. All the name calling and yelling doesn't change who we are as a nation. No matter what the danger is, we just do not take violent, pre-emptive measures against our enemies. The nutjob in Iran can make all the speeches he wants and we'll still go snowboarding next weekend. If he makes the mistake of attacking, we'll turn Iran into slag.
Our enemies never manage to figure this out. They see our lazy, slovenly ways as a sign of weakness. It's not. Osama thought that Bill Clinton fleeing Somalia defined us. He urged more attacks on the US. He was wrong. The Japanese figured things the same way and got flattened as a result.
While General Tojo and Osama got it wrong, so has Dean Barnett. He wants everyone to be up in arms about Iran or Iraq or Syria or Dirkadirkastan. Whatever. I'm going to go scour YouTube for funny videos and hang out with my kids. Call me when the bombs hit. After that, watch out.
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