Thomas P.M. Barnett

EDITORIAL: "The Taepodong Democrats: Missile-defense politics in the age of Kim Jong Il," Wall Street Journal, 21 July 2006, p. A14.

A sad, unimaginative piece from the board at WSJ, giving the leftover logic of why missile defense is still our strategic salvation.

Now, don't get me wrong. No one in their right mind is against TBMD, or theater ballistic missile defense, or the sort of Patriot stuff that sort of works. That, I would spend bucks on.

I'm talking the dreamy strategic stuff that's somehow supposed to keep Kim in the box, or solve our troubled relationship with Iran. How strategic missile defense stops Iran from sending in Hezbollah against Israel is beyond me, but such is the state of the logic here.

Here's my favorite line: "Neither logic nor deterrence are the first words that come to mind when we think of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Oh really!

I'd say the man is quite logically deterring our attack right now in Lebanon.

This is a sad sort of nonsense from the WSJ. Journalists as strategists--gets you in trouble almost every time.