I’m more of a traditionalist than @jaytkay, so I say we invade Haiti… again.
I don’t for a second believe in the tit-for-tat retaliation scenario that @Winters and @josie have put forth. Not. One. Bit.
No, the people who give us needed intel on radical groups on their soil do so because of their recognition that things are starting to spin out of control—meaning out of their control as well as ours—and would like to put off the next world war for a few more decades if they can.
Aside from the fact that Obama is no Archduke Ferdinand, and the US is no Ottoman Empire, there are a lot of parallels to this period in history and the early 1900s. Something like the scenario described above could conceivably set off another world war. No thinking person wants that, and fortunately we still seem to have mostly thinking people in charge.
I used to think that as much as we all decry nuclear weapons and hated the fact that all through the 1960s until 1990 and beyond the USA and USSR had their arsenals pointed at each other… having that in place, and a bit of thought behind them actually prevented war between those two enemies. I fear that if enough demagogues take power in the Middle East there may not be that kind of thoughtful restraint any more.
I’m not as optimistic as Tom Lehrer, either. I don’t think it’ll be over in an hour and a half.