Ridding the world of bin Laden is nice, but not consequential. It is politics, not policy. The immediate threat to the world right now is not the freelance terrorism that bin Laden superimposed on it in the 90’s and beyond, no matter how graphic and close to home, but the state- sponsored evil that is being assembled in nuclear reactor sites in Iran and North Korea. Israelis recognize this threat. But too many in America do not. More importantly, the President doesn’t, or at least is not disposed enough against it to act.
It was a good thing when Hitler was declared dead at the end of World War II, but it did nothing to alter the massive destruction he brought to the world and the absolute devastation he visited on the Jewish people. With hindsight we all acknowledge that it would have been better if he were dead sooner than 1945.
We are there again now.  It is 1938 again, and it seems we learned little as we deal with similar choices. This time it is Israel that is the Czechoslovakia of our time. She is the country that the world is willing to sacrifice instead of confronting the evil in our midst (see Ken Levin’s superb piece). Today it is Radical Islam that is playing the role of National Socialism while Arabs inside Israel act out the part of Sudetenland Germans.
Until the West is ready and willing to take down this era’s Hitler, Ahmadinejad, or at the very least support those Iranians who would, the glee and rejoicing is premature. Acting to stop the oncoming catastrophe seems to be beyond this President.  So very much like his predecessors who led America and Europe in the 1930’s, he is much more adept at dealing with threats that have passed than  facing up to the deluge to come.

– nrg