While comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam are frequent, particularly amongst the leftist, a more accurate comparison would liken Iraq and Korea. In both cases a proxy war was and is being fought between two much larger opposing camps: Communism vs. the Free World in Korea and Radical Islam vs. the Free World in Iraq.

In Korea a war nominally between North and South Korea was actually a war between the US and the Soviet Union. In Iraq, the Iraqis may be shouldering the lion's share of the fight, but the actual fight pits the US and Western freedom vs. Iran, Al Qaeda, and other radical Islamic elements. In both instances the forces of evil aim to impose a hard-line dictatorial regime that rules by oppression (though South Korea was hardly a model for democracy in the 1950s). In Iraq we see the opening salvo in radical Islam's quest for world domination, if we loose here the stage is set for a grand sweep across the globe. Though some may dismiss such talk as shear folly, the reality is inescapable.

Iran, for its part will become the arsenal of radical Islam. The Iranians are already supplying insurgents in Iraq with arms and equipment, and once they have developed an indigenous nuclear weapons program all bets are off. The Iranians will never formally use nuclear weapons in action against their neighbors, but once such weapons have been developed, proliferation will become a covert matter of state policy. Every terror cell from here to Hamburg will gain these weapons and will use them against the West and Israel with reckless abandon.

At this point the options available to the US and its allies are quite limited. Sanctions will never work, just as they have never worked with any regime in the annals of human history. An Iraq style invasion will never work. For all the carnage in Iraq it would not even begin to compare with the scale of slaughter to be visited upon an Iranian invader. A nuclear assault, unless designed to take out the entire Islamic world, would invite massive global terror, just imagine the hijackings and bombings of the 1970s and 1980s multiplied by 100,000.

Can diplomacy work? Possibly, but doubtful. Our best hope is to stand our ground in Iraq and defeat terror their before it can be exported. The domino theory dismissed by leftists then and now, is every bit as much true today as it was then. As then President Eisenhower noted 50 years ago, submission to these insurgent elements will encourage the spread of this virulent toxin, providing further momentum for expansion and further subjugation. Unless radical Islam is contained and subsequently crushed the west will face generations of terror. Unfortunately those willing to stand against these savages with deeds as well as words are few and far between. Or in the words of Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie following the Italian fascist invasion of his country shortly before WWII "I must still fight on until my tardy allies appear, and if they never come, I say to you without bitterness, the West will perish."