We're Hoisting Gay Pride Flags Over Our Embassies. They're Sprinting For The Weapons Locker

Three recent events to consider.

• Israel bombed Syrian positions. An Israeli civilian teenager was killed by assailants from Syria while driving in a car in the Golan Heights. Two other occupants of the car were injured. One dead, two injured Israelis earned Syria a major air strike where 9 targets were wiped off the face of the Earth with unknown Syrian casualties. The Israelis came out and explicitly said they didn't care who killed the teen, the Syrian government was responsible for attacks emanating from their nation. Israeli retribution was swift and overwhelming. I've no idea what the American ambassador's response was to the event or even if he's managed to get his thumb out of his mouth yet.

• A running theme in the news coverage of ISIS is how fast they've progressed across Iraq. Reading this wonderful bit by Mark Steyn, it occurred to me that if ISIS had decided to conquer Iraq and moved as fast as they could to gather, train, equip, plan and supply an army of 12,000 starting when America arrested the film maker in response to the jihadist attack on the Benghazi Embassy, it would probably have taken about this long to get the thing going. The question, "How are they moving so fast?" is the wrong one to ask. A far better one is the logistics one, "Working backwards, when did they set their supply train in motion and what caused them to get going?"

• In Tel Aviv, the Gay Pride flag was hoisted over the American Embassy.

Taking off my American blinders for a minute and looking at the world from the point of view of a warlord or national leader surrounded by enemies, it's obvious that there's no sheriff in town any more. None at all. In Benghazi, American territory was burned and Americans were killed. The response was so self-emasculating that I wonder if the warlords dove for their phones as soon as they read the Obama line of excuses and that an American film maker had been arrested. Those phone calls would have gone to their generals and weapons merchants. They must have been pressing the speed dial buttons so hard that they nearly broke their fingers.

If Benghazi hadn't been enough to convince them the leashes were off, then the red line in Syria did. By that time, anyone who was still scratching their heads, wondering if the Great Satan was still willing to wield a big stick were probably kicking themselves and dialing twice as fast, knowing the quicker ones had stolen a march on them.

If I were an arms dealer, I'd be increasing my sales staff and telling my suppliers to ramp up production. The global superpower has decided to focus on whether or not two men who sodomize each other can call themselves "husband and wife" while everyone else is arming, training, mobilizing, attacking and bombing.

They might also be thinking that they've got two and a half more years to redraw maps to their liking and grow too powerful to be pushed around easily. That's another reason to be sprinting. Anyone not running for the weapons locker now has got to be thinking they've waited almost too long.

Bonus Question: What if Obama suddenly came out of his choom haze, dropped the bong and found his inner Otto von Bismarck? How long would it take to bring a combat force of, say, 35,000 men into Iraq, complete with supplies, equipment and air power? The problem with sitting around arguing gender theory with each other while the rest of the world is showing young men how to sight an RPG is that the date at which we can affect events on the ground keeps slipping farther and farther into the future, giving our enemies time to grow ever more powerful.