We indeed live in perilous times.  Listening to history as a historian I would warn of the repeat failures of our thinking.  We were isolationist before both World Wars until we could no long stay out of them.  It was not a great strategy.  We did not believe we would ever be attached until we were bombed on December 7th...a Day that we remember will live in Infamy. 

Let nights nuclear scare might have become another such day!

I think we should look at this from the standpoint of cancer therapy...you can choose to cut the tip of a finger off if the cancer is there...or remove the finger before the cancer spreads to the whole hand.

Through many years this cancer has spread...much like in WWII...until we had to cut it out. We cannot let this cancer spread.