We need to understand and accept that there are reasons why the location in the world that civilization supposedly began and flourished before even the Greeks failed so miserably in moving into the modern world. Leave them to their misery and let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Keep our ICBM's pointed at them, keep our Naval forces in range, let them know that if they ever dare to threaten the shores of this country that we'll destroy them - all of that, yes. But when you hear a rattlesnake brrrr in the weeds, you walk around it - you don't go digging through the weeds.

The real war is over ideas. However, the analogy to war misdirects any thinking on this problem. A culture of reality and reason is the only foundation for peace and prosperity. Efforts to extend the Enlightenment by trade and commerce, via cinema, music, and education, are not dramatic and sudden, but they are all that has ever worked.

The current horrors in Iraq are a culmination of the so-called "Arab Spring" in which undemocratic mobs from different Islamic sects were painted as activists for freedom, which they never were or could ever be.