The Mighty Middle takes a thoughtful position on the “Tancredo question” (should the U.S. threaten the use of nuclear weapons against Mecca if Islamic terrorists use a nuclear weapon in the U.S.?). Key point:

Q. Which brings us back to deterrence. If you say we cannot reliably deter Al Qaeda, who would we be deterring?

A. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Iran. The first five have actively supported terror in the past, and continue to either actively support, or display remarkable tolerance toward, Jihadists today. The ideological foundation of the Jihadists is Saudi Wahhabism. This is a radical version of Islam preached with official Saudi support. Jihad is openly taught in Pakistan – a country which does only what it finds expedient to confront Jihadists. The Jihadists are given material support from Syria and Sudan. In other words, for all their PR moves, for all their on-again-off-again raids on Jihadists, none of these five countries has acted against Jihadists in the way they would act if they believed we were as serious about this war as we were about WWII or the Cold War.

The more discussion on this issue, the better — for the greater the chances it becomes a meme known in the Islamic world. It’s the equivalent of the Chinese periodically rolling out a general threatening to nuke Los Angeles — it establishes an outside parameter that the other side needs to consider.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 3:04 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.