Ongoing problems in Iran, North Korea, and Syria demand a serious response. I’m sympathetic towards the position that, in order to send a message, the United States has to occasionally pick out someone and throw them up against the wall.

I call this the “Hama Solution.”

Over the last few decades, Syria has been uniquely free of difficulties with Islamists. There’s a reason for that. In the early 1980’s, the Syrians suffered from difficulties caused by an Iranian-inspired branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. From the 1970’s on, the Syrians had great difficulty in fighting off a rising Islamist tide. Finally, the dictator of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, decided that he’d had enough.

The city of Hama, a medium-sized Syrian city, was widely considered to be the center of the Islamist insurgency. Assad ordered his forces to level the city. The Syrian military shelled the city and used poison gas to flush out buildings where Islamists were believed to be hiding.

The total deaths were estimated to be somewhere in the range of 20,000. But the insurgency stopped and Assad’s regime survived.

What the United States faces at the present time is a spiraling crisis. Not only are we confronted with the threat posed by al-Qaeda and the continuing terrorist insurgency in Iraq, but we also face a nuclear-armed North Korea, a Syrian-Iranian alliance, and the strong possibility of conflict with a Venezuela which is increasingly aligned with China and involved in the Civil War in Columbia. And, of course, we have the increasingly alarming Chinese menace lurking in the shadows.

There are too many problems to be dealt with even if the entire American Armed Forces were available. As it stands, of course, any major crisis would require massive call-ups of reserve units. The various partners in chaos are aware of this truth.

Frankly, I think that there’s a belief that the United States operates within a certain threshold of violence. The opponents that the United States have confronted in recent years have possessed only a certain level of capability. There’s a belief, I think, that a certain degree of military strength will render one invulnerable to challenge.

Iraq showed both the potential and the disadvantages of American power. The initial invasion showed the strength of the US Armed Forces. The lessons of the insurgency are not terribly relevant to these powers (save perhaps Syria), since, by the time they get a chance to fight the US in that way, they’ll have been long removed from power. What they’ve learned is about the fragility of American public opinion and the unwillingness of the American public to tolerate losses.
Remember: overall total US losses in two years of fighting in Iraq remain under 1500. Most of those losses have been in a slow and steady trickle, too slow to shock the American public.

What would the result in the United States be if, somehow, five hundred Americans died in a single battle? What would the reaction be to the sinking of a Destroyer or even, God forbid, an Aircraft Carrier? What would the reaction be to the losses of a few dozen combat aircraft?

No one knows for certain. However, what we’ve seen of the patriotism of certain segments of society is not encouraging. What we’ve seen of the resolve on a Oprahfied general population is, likewise, disturbing. I have little doubt which way an extended debate about a confrontation with a nuclear power would end.

Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons because they believe that, once they have them, the United States won’t dare to challenge them. Venezuela is buying advanced weapons from China because it believes that the combination of those weapons, and the tie with China, will forestall any American challenge to their bid for regional dominance. Syria is attempting to tie its fortune to Iran, hoping that the United States will decline to challenge any ally of an Iran that is the supreme regional power.

What’s now required is something to shake up the situation. What’s needed is something to convince the plotters of American power. Something needs to happen that reaches out to them and says, “Don’t fuck with us.”

What’s called for is an action so extreme that the whole world will get the message. What’s needed is an action which screams out, “attention must be paid.”

Now: where would this strike come? The new Iranian-Syrian alliance makes drastic action in that part of the world undesirable, to say the least. It’s questionable whether or not the US armed forces are, at present, capable of holding Iraq and invading both Iran and Syria. Lesser actions will bring the threat of extreme retaliation which would demand such a response.

The Venezuela situation is serious, but not one that presently demands extreme action. In any case, too few among the American public are presently aware of the menace posed by Hugo Chavez.

That leaves North Korea as the obvious target. It’s really very simple. Attacking North Korea would do several things.
First, it would convince the world that the United States is willing to attack a nuclear power if necessary. This would remove the present-day illusion that the possession of nuclear weapons is a talisman that provides immunity from attack.

Naturally, this would require more than a simple pin-prick strike. In order to ensure the complete destruction of North Korea’s nuclear war-making potential, it would be necessary to strike with nuclear weapons.

But it would be worth it.

If the United States used nuclear weapons to strike at and destroy North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, it would send shockwaves around the world. Iran, Syria, and (most importantly) China would get the message. The whole of the world would get the message.