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Re-establishing the Power of Deterrence

(Washington Times) Clifford D. May - If you're still unsure about whether President Trump did the right thing when he launched 59 cruise missiles at Syria's Shayrat air base last week, consider the alternative. He knew that Assad had again used chemical weapons to murder Syrian civilians. He knew that Iran and Russia had enabled this atrocity, as they have many others. He knew he had two choices. He could shrug and instruct his UN ambassador to deliver a tearful speech calling on the "international community" to do something. Or he could demonstrate that the U.S. still has the power and the grit to stand up to tyrants and terrorists - thereby beginning to re-establish America's deterrent capability. In the last century, most Americans recognized, in some cases with enormous reluctance, that there was no good alternative to doing whatever was necessary to rout the Nazis and Communists, whose goal was to kill off the democratic experiment. In this century, jihadists and Islamists harbor the same ambition. We can attempt to appease them. We can try to make ourselves inoffensive to them. We can keep our hand extended, hoping that in time they will unclench their fists. Or we can decide instead to plan for a long war that will end with the defeat of these latest enemies of America and the rest of the civilized world. The writer is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2017-04-13 00:00:00
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