It's WWIII, and U.S. is out of ideas?

Last week's headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River. World War III has begun. It's not perfectly clear when it started. Perhaps it was after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Perhaps it was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993. What is clear is that this war has a long fuse and, while we are not in the full-scale combat phase that marked World Wars I and II, we seem to be heading there. The expanding hostilities mean it's time to give this conflict a name, one that focuses the mind and clarifies the big picture. The war on terror, or the war of terror, has tentacles that reach much of the globe. It is a world war. While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. Even the hapless wanna-bes busted in Miami ordered guns and military equipment from a man they thought was from Al Qaeda. Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun. The feeling that the wheels are coming off the world has only one recent comparison, the time when America's head-butt with communism sprouted hot spots from Cuba to Vietnam. Yet ultimately the policy of mutual assured destruction worked because American and Soviet leaders didn't want their countries hit by nuclear bombs. Such rational thinking is quaint next to the ravings of North Korean nut Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They both seem to be dying to die - and set the world on fire. And don't forget Osama Bin Laden's declaration that it is the duty of every Muslim to acquire a "Muslim bomb." Is there any doubt he would use it if he had it? I sound pessimistic because I am. Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years. But what choice does he have now that the pillars of his post-9/11 foreign policy are crumbling? As Harvard Prof. Joseph Nye argues in Foreign Affairs magazine, Bush's strategy of "reducing Washington's reliance on permanent alliances and international institutions, expanding the traditional right of preemption into a new doctrine of preventive war and advocating coercive democratization as a solution to Middle Eastern terrorism" amounted to a bid for a "legacy of transformation." The first two ideas have been repealed. The third brought Hamas into power and has so far failed to take root in Iraq or anywhere else. I believed Iraq was the key, that if we prevailed there, momentum would shift in our favor. Now I'm not sure. We still must prevail there, but Iraq could mean nothing if Iran or Bin Laden get the bomb or North Korea uses one. Meanwhile, I'm definitely not using any tunnels. Originally published on July 9, 2006