Whoa, let's not gallop right off the cliff!

 Senator McCain, once upon a time GOP candidate for President, is getting a little carried away with the cowboy diplomacy. While attending the World Economic Forum, which is being held right in the middle of the Middle East, the Senator said, "Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria.... Iran's rulers would be wise to heed similar counsel."  America just spent Three Quarters of a Trillion Dollars in military operations in the Middle East, and lost over 4,000 American lives, in the last nine years. And you want to gallop right off that cliff again? After nine years in Iraq, you want to engage Iran in a military conflict?

Have you forgotten that you folks in the Congress and the Administration are working to substantially cut the military budget? One-fourth of Obama's magical jobs act is money saved from not fighting wars. And aside from the Billion or so spent "not" fighting the "non-war" in Libya, our President and Fearless Leader has ordered "boots on the ground" in Uganda in a maneuver much like that which sucked America into Vietnam.

Of course, the good Senator is not alone. Ms. Clinton, our august Secretary of State, has been in Pakistan, delivering the message that if Pakistan is unwilling or unable to fight insurgents, the U.S. "would show" them how to fight the insurgents. She says the U.S. has no intention of deploying troops in Pakistan, that the favored method is reconciliation and peace - with the cooperation of the Pakistani government.  However, the "message" was sufficiently alarming that Afghanistan - yes, the place Americans have been fighting and dying to recover from the Taliban - said it would come to the aid of Pakistan, and stand with her against America, should America choose to invade Pakistan.

Afghanistan's response ought to serve as a dash of cold water in the face for Mr. McCain and Ms. Clinton. In other words, whoa up there, let's not gallop right off the cliff, okay? While you cowboys are out saber-rattling, you need to take a good hard look at what has been accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan up to this point.

What about Iraq? We won there, right? Sort of. We are leaving on such unfriendly terms that Obama failed to secure immunity from prosecution for American soldiers, let alone negotiate for U.S. bases in the country.  So the troops are coming home. It's a relief and blessing for the million men and women who served there, and their families. It's a campaign victory for Mr. Obama, who is bringing them home right on President Bush's timetable, but it is a military stalemate. Iraq is not stable, and many of the current leaders have strong ties with Iran, so it is likely to become an Iranian dependency. If that occurs, it means that all the American money and blood spent knocked out a dictator who was little more than an annoyance to us - but who stymied Iran's ambitions for power in the Middle East. Strategically, it could be a disaster for the U.S. While Ms. Clinton assures the world of U.S. commitment to Iraqi democracy, the past nine years have shown that it takes "boots on the ground" to keep it going - and the Iraqis are no longer keen on having our boots on their ground.

Then there's Egypt of the "Arab Spring." While that revolution was brought about as a popular rebellion, try finding the secularists and socialists now. They are quietly disappearing from the news, except for reports like the man sentenced to three years in prison for Facebook comments denigrating Islam. 

And our NATO "victory" in Libya? The National Transitional Council has just announced that Libya intends to adopt Shari'a Law as the basis for its legal system and repeal all non-Shari'a laws. Yes, the dictator is gone, but the radicals are moving in. And America, the country that can't stand even a whisper of the Bible or Judeo-Christian ethical system on which it was founded, is busy congratulating them even as they choose the Islamic religious system as the basis for their laws.

Strategically, that's 0 - 4, if you are keeping score.

For decades, America negotiated with and successfully made treaties with those who held common interests, while we tolerated, or perhaps ignored, those nations which did not harm us. Not all of the governments were necessarily "good" or "free," but then, we didn't deem it the job of the American Government to make everybody "good" or "free," either. It was not nations which have proved to be the most formidable threat to the U.S., but small groups committed to death-dealing ideology. If America would return to its founding ideology, instead of denying, distorting, and demonizing that ideology, it would survive, for ideology must be countered with ideology. However, "tolerating" and "accommodating" the ideology of those who would kill you is no protection. The worst thing America could do is send another million soldiers off the cliff of Syria, or Pakistan, or Iran; it merely gives the radicals every excuse they need to recruit new followers.