FWIW - Dan Simmons, a SF author who is one of the more literary in the field and still a good storyteller, and NOT one I would have expected to take this position, wrote this short story on his blog back in 2006.

http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm

Also, back in 2001, many of us who woke up to one degree or another with 9/11, and realized that the Iranian embassy, the Cole, the first bombing attempt, they all meant something, knew this would be a long, long war.

One of the big logical traps that rational people fall into is believing that other peoples in the world are rational too, which leads to the conclusion, that. "Common ground" can be found because at a certain basic human level we all want the same thing.

Ron Paul's completely unrealistic statements on foreign policy show that he has fallen into this trap in total Neville Chamberlin fashion.

"One nuclear bomb on Israel would be a total catastrophe for the world. Even if Iran was destroyed in retaliation, they would have fulfilled Ayatollah Khomeini's famous saying "better that Iran becomes a smoking ruin if it advances the cause of Islam around the world"

I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now. Khomeini had an exquisite sense of self-preservation. He spent his whole life spewing blood-curdling calls for martyrdom, but it was always someone else's martyrdom. When the Shah's secret police went after him, he ran away to the safety & comfort of Paris. He didn't set foot in Iran again until the Shah was safely gone. In a decade of savage trench warfare in the Iran-Iraq war, he never once risked his neck by going anywhere near the front lines where hundreds of thousands of Iranians were slaughtered in his name. He died peacefully of old age in his bed. All of today's ayatollahs intend to do the same. None of them loves Allah half as much as they love themselves. And they, their families and their cronies are fabulously rich. They didn't pile up all those billions to have them incinerated.

The ayatollahs need nukes for 2 reasons:

A) As insurance against the sort of regime change carried out in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya

B) As instruments of extortion

By using them this way, they could maintain their theocracy for a long time to come. They know that if they tossed nukes at Israel, they themselves would not survive the aftermath.

And looking at the bigger picture, what if every Muslim country on earth, from Morocco to Malaysia, became a rabid Islamic state? Would that really mean that they won, the West lost, and the Caliphate would rule the world? Nope. Their oil will run out eventually, and by then the Caliphate will be nothing but one gigantic Somalia, a shithole full of starving beggars. Islam has a self-destruct button, and it might be in the West's best interests to help them push it.

9/11?

I blame the Mexicans.

.... interestingly, I lost a lot of friends on 9/11 and shortly after. Hung out with a relatively progressive crowd for a military guy but didn't buy into all of it. Was willing to read it and try to understand all the "nuance."

Anyway, 9/11 happened, and I pointed out the fact that at this point in time, we obviously have enemies who, no matter how just they feel their cause, are leaving us no option but to kill them before they kill themselves killing us.

I would have thought that this would be plain, obvious truth, looming over everything like the dust and smoke from the towers themselves, but you would have thought I spoke lunacy and heresy.

Sorry for the double comment - but the reason I mentioned the above is the last paragraph from what you excerpted...

“Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you,” said the Time Traveler. “Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You haven’t figured that out yet – the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.”

Agreeing with:
- Isabelle:

One of the big logical traps that rational people fall into is believing that other peoples in the world are rational too

Yes - denial remains our greatest problem.

- Martin:

The ayatollahs need nukes for 2 reasons

Nukes are useless to prevent regime change, you cannot use them locally.

What many don't notice is the vicious, long-term feuds within the Muslim world. Everything the Saudis do - from courting the Americans to funding sharia terror schools - is focused on defending/defeating the hated Shia Iranians and asserting leadership of the Sunni majority faction.

Iran's subversion of Syria and Lebanon is also part of this - the Assad dynasty are Allawites {a small minority sect).

It's not impossible to conceive of the Arabs a-bombing each other before Israel.

"Nukes are useless to prevent regime change"

Would NATO have imposed a no-fly zone over Libya if Quackdaffy had nukes? Would the rebels be celebrating in Tripoli today without all that Western firepower on their side? I'd say no. So nukes are useful in preventing foreign militaries from getting involved in regime change.

"Everything the Saudis do...is focused on defending/defeating the hated Shia Iranians"

It's fun to notice that the Saudis never felt the need to counter the Zionist Entity's nukes with bombs of their own, but they're shitting themselves now that their fellow Muslims across the Gulf are on the brink of going nuclear.