Restraint

Consider this...

We all know that the U.S. has engaged the Muslim world in many ways post 9/11. Some of those activities have been good, some bad, and some decidedly, profoundly, maddeningly stupid. But the most amazing thing about the U.S. response to 9/11 is what DID NOT happen. In the history of the world there has never been a nation who, so injured, has restrained itself so greatly as the United States since the 9/11 attacks. And that restraint is all the more amazing when you consider the staggering military power possessed by America. I will remind you, dear reader, that WW1 was triggered by the assassination of a single man.

What if the shoe bomb were on the other foot? How would the Islamic world respond if a group of radical American Christians hijacked four Middle East based airliners and flew them into the Dome of the Rock, the central Medina mosque, and the Kaaba at the peak moment of the Hajj so that the largest number of Muslims were killed by the event? What if substantive financial links were found between those hijackers and the government of the United States? How might the Muslim world respond to such a heinous attack?

I'll say it again in a different way - never in human history has one nation possessed greater power to retaliate against attack than the U.S. today. Never in human history has a nation had a more compelling reason to retaliate - even blindly and irrationally - than did the U.S. after 9/11. And even in the context of the United States' ongoing and messy military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, never in human history has a nation chosen to restrain itself so dramatically as has the U.S. post 9/11.

And perhaps the most ironic thing of all is that a large portion of the Islamic world perceives our restraint as weakness deserving of disrespect.