Strategies in the War on Terror

1) Play Defense. Do some police work to catch some bad guys, but essentially accept that you'll get hit every now and then, until the Islamic world sorts itself out. I would characterize this as the center point of Democratic Party opinion.

2) Surrender. Stop supporting Israel, pull all troops out of the Middle East, and look the other way when quasi-fascist regimes take over places that are far away. This is the "far left" solution.

3) Reform the Middle East. Find the most vulnerable nasty regimes, and replace it with something better. Decent regimes should drain the swamp of rage that creates terrorism. This is the Bush administration policy. How's that working out?

4) Kill'em All. The drunken-frat-boy approach to foreign policy.

5) Divide and Conquer. If the Shiites and Sunnis are at each other's throats, will they have time to worry about the Palestinians, much less us?

We tried (3) but it's dead. We may have an opportunity to do (5), a less ethical, but possibly quite effective, option. We can set the region ablaze (and maybe make our problems go away) by pulling out of Iraq now.