And submit the proposition that if we had just cleaned up the smoking debris of the WTC and all gone home to our lives, and not done anything at all, that the terrorists would have left us alone.

That Afghanistan would have spent the next ten years knocking statues down and killing women and ignoring the West. That Saddam would have retired and his kids would have taken up knitting. That Iran and North Korea really need those reactors for electricity.

The Democratic school of foreign policy, that if we just stick our heads far enough up our own asses, that no bad guys will be able to see us, appeals to some people. It doesn't involve action. It doesn't involve the military. It doesn't involve political risk. It doesn't annoy leftists overseas. And most important to a leftist, it doesn't involve independent action apart from a mob, i.e. the U.N.