There's a great line in a fairly good movie called "8 MM", where Max California tells Tom Welles this:

If you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you.

Let's consider a scenario in which America capitulates to Radical Islam and the greater Middle East; consider it because it looms dead ahead.

As the news progresses by the hour, it is important for us to reflect for a moment on the things that have brought us here. First of course was the invasion of Iraq. Never mind Afghanistan. Never mind the 20 some odd years of bee stings levied against us by the growing and intentionally ignored rise of Radical Islam; the whole of history and the greater context won't be fully appreciated in the time I have left on this earth that God has granted me.

In terms of Iraq, we raced along the body of the snake and very quickly removed its head. We see in hind sight that we took the writhing body left behind dramatically too lightly, and find ourselves STILL trying to force theAC serpent to lie still. Agree or not, there ARE outside influences, ones outside Iraq's borders that keep that snake writhing and squirming. And those outside influences live very close by.

Don't take MY word for it, look to the seditious news dinosaur, the New York Times, who tells us Hezbollah Said to Help Shiite Army in Iraq, and further reports from that dreaded "condition of anonymity" source I keep hoping to meet:

Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also cooperated, though there is debate about whether it has the blessing of the senior leaders in Syria.

And we are about to go to the Prom with these guys because of the "Losing Wars For Dummies™" Commission.

In the aftermath of the "first" mission accomplished, we have experienced much of what we should have expected were we to learn from history and evaluate its wisdom as we determined our way forward. Alas, we have yet to learn from history.

We should have remembered how we felt when we were under the King's rule. We should have remembered how we felt about his soldiers living among us, and we should have remembered that these feelings caused us to rise up against it in every manner and form we could muster.

So too should we have revisited the stories of the Crusades. We should have gone back to those times of conquest and the struggles for self-promotion and decimation wrought on the peoples of all the lands over which Christians and Muslims fought.

We should have researched the fighting methods of the day, and reflected on the extent to which those methods led the Muslims to the stature of ultimate victor, and we should have taken into account the extent to which many of those same fighting methods continue to be successfully used today. We should also have considered the aftermath of the Europe grown weary of war, having shifting their focus to their own regions and their own cultures and the fall into what would become the "Renaissance" and a capitulation to Islam that they should just go forward enjoying their spoils in the desert and leave us to more intellectual pursuits.

We should recall these things now for this is the co-existence peace plan the newly elected majority is planning for us.

With further investigation into the subsequent generations, the Ottoman Empire being the last of its might before the World Wars would ensue, we might have been able to prevent finding ourselves squarely back where we were over a thousand years ago. We might not have had to again face a clash of cultures; ours self-serving and refined and civilized and theirs a survivalist theocracy, with a heaping dose of tyranny and barbarism with no compunction for any unbelieving human life, thrown in for good measure.

With the former Caliphate's bees nest thoroughly whacked, and with the promotion to power broker status for Iran by our own hands, we face the call for capitulation. All that is left, really, is whether and how we answer that call.

Lest anyone forget, Ahmadinejad has made it quite clear regarding his wishes for the fate of Israel. He has been consistent in his assertions that they have no right to the lands of Palestine, and even reminds us of this in his Love Letter to the American people VIA THE UN, OF ALL UNBIASED MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD, NO SIDE-TAKING PLACES.

He suggests our government is an island, wreaking havoc on all of us and trampling our Constitution, and that we have thus far been unable to do anything but sit idly by while the "devil" George Bush has his way with us. What you won't hear the so-called Main Stream Media tell you in the coming days is that his letter also includes the normal steps associated with establishing a dhimmitude or "legal status of a free non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia — Islamic law." They also won't remind you that he believes in, and considers himself engaged with attempting to bring forth the 12th Imam or "the ultimate saviour of mankind." And, you should not be surprised to learn this saviour is a Muslim.

Part and parcel to such a master plan, of course, includes regaining the Caliphate last lost by the Ottomans to the Turks not so very long ago. A look at the map of the Caliphate in 750 AD should look eerily familiar to anyone keeping track of the places in the world where Radical Islam has taken hold.

So, keep score here. Iraq collapses and the US and UK and the remaining Coalition withdraws. Iraq returns to Sharia law. Check. Israel goes away. Nukes will take care of that...what's a few hundred thousand Muslim martyr's lives in the general scheme of things if it facilitates the death of the Zionist pigs? We got millions more of them anyway. Palestine returns to Sharia law. Check. Big piece of the Caliphate re-assembles. Check. Somalia finalizes being taken over by the ICU. Sharia law is invoked. Check. Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and maybe Kenya next. Sharia law. Check.

If you STILL don't believe Iran has big ambitions, and considers themselves in an excellent strategic position in this regard, thanks to our efforts in Iraq, I offer you Arnaud de Borchgrave from the Washington Times, and his imperial wisdom and insight to make the case for the extent to which Iran is of our own making. He reports that Iranians themselves are eternally grateful for the West and this Administration HANDING them supremacy in the region without them having to fire a single shot:

Iran can either facilitate or humiliate a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Key mullahs now say Iran should assist a U.S. exit that would enhance Iran's regional power. The argument, put forward by Moshen Rezai, secretary of the government's "Expediency Council," states that "America's arrival in the region presented Iran with an historic opportunity."

"The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us," said Mr. Rezai, "no superpower has ever done anything similar. America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Saddam Hussein. ... It did all this in order to confront us face to face, and in order to place us under siege. But the American teeth got so stuck in the soil of Iraq and Afghanistan that if they manage to drag themselves back to Washington in one piece, they should thank Allah."

America, therefore, "presents us with an opportunity rather than a threat -- not because it intended to, but because its estimates were wrong and made many mistakes," argued Mr. Rezai. Washington, he said, "has now despaired of toppling the Islamic Republic. The threats we face... are about blocking Iran's influence in the region. This is a vital national interest and the entire nuclear dispute revolves around it."

Mr. Rezai said, "now that the Democrats have both houses of Congress," it was incumbent upon Iran to "behave reasonably." America's policies and goals in the Middle East won't change, he concluded, but methods will and "put aside Bush's warmongering methods," and both countries "will stay clear of aggressive confrontations."

A must read comes to us from Andrew McCarthy over at National Review Online , and it should be enough to get you moving away from the post-election slumber and news-listlessness you find yourselves in a month out from the re-taking of the Majority by the Democrats. McCarthy is on to something I fear many of us will realize only too late:

In the wake of 9/11, the American people did not care about democratizing the Muslim world. Or, for that matter, about the Muslim world in general. They still don’t. They want Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors crushed. As for the aftermath, they want something stable that no longer threatens our interests; they care not a wit whether Baghdad’s new government looks like Teaneck’s.

To the contrary, Bush-administration officials — notwithstanding goo-gobs of evidence that terrorists have used the freedoms of Western democracies, including our own, the better to plot mass murder — have conned themselves into believing that democracy, not decisive force, is the key to conquering this enemy.

So deeply have they gulped the Kool-Aid that, to this day, they refuse to acknowledge what is plain to see: While only a small number of the world’s billion-plus Muslims (though a far larger number than we’d like to believe) is willing to commit acts of terrorism, a substantial percentage — meaning tens of millions — supports the terrorists’ anti-West, anti-democratic agenda.

Islamic countries, moreover, are not rejecting Western democracy because they haven’t experienced it. They reject it on principle. For them, the president’s euphonious rhetoric about democratic empowerment is offensive. They believe, sincerely, that authority to rule comes not from the people but from Allah; that there is no separation of religion and politics; that free people do not have authority to legislate contrary to Islamic law; that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims, and men to women; and that violent jihad is a duty whenever Muslims deem themselves under attack … no matter how speciously.

These people are not morons. They adhere to a highly developed belief system that is centuries old, wildly successful, and for which many are willing to die. They haven’t refused to democratize because the Federalist Papers are not yet out in Arabic. They decline because their leaders have freely chosen to decline. They see us as the mortal enemy of the life they believe Allah commands. Their demurral is wrong, but it is principled, not ignorant. And we insult them by suggesting otherwise.

Pay close attention to this...very close attention.

Jihadists are confident, intimidating, and rigorously disciplined. They are thus certain to thrive in the chaos of nascent “democracies.” Consequently, it should be unsurprising to anyone with a shred of common sense that terrorist organizations are ascendant in the new governments of Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.

If anyone reading this DOESN'T think Ahmadinejad in Iran and Bassad in Syria, who by the way is the regional Secretary of the Baath Party, are jihadists fully matching the description as layed out by McCarthy in his piece, then you are already lost. As he closes his piece he is nearly begging us to pay attention, and think through where we are headed in this war; not just Iraq, but around the globe against the whole of Radical Islam:

Let’s talk with our enemies, Iran and Syria. Let’s talk with terror abettors as if they were good guys — just like us. As if they were just concerned neighbors trying to stop the bloodshed in Iraq … instead of the dons who’ve been commanding it all along.

Someone, please explain something to me: How does it follow that, because Islamic cultures reject democracy, we somehow need to talk to Iran and Syria?

What earthly logic that supports talking with these Islamic terrorists would not also support negotiating with al Qaeda — a demarche not even a Kennedy School grad would dare propose?

There’s none.

When I grew up in The Bronx, there were street gangs. You mostly stayed away from them, and, if you really had to, you fought with them. But I never remember anyone saying, “Gee, maybe if we just talk with them ...”

Nor do I remember, in two decades as a prosecutor, anyone saying, “Y’know, maybe if we just talk with these Mafia guys, we could achieve some kind of understanding ...”

Sitting down with evil legitimizes evil. As a practical matter, all it accomplishes is to convey weakness. This spring — after trumpeting the Bush Doctrine’s “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” slogan for five years — Secretary of State Rice pathetically sought to bribe Iran out of its nuclear program with a menu of all carrots and no sticks … and certainly no demand that the mullahs stop fomenting terror. The result? They’re still laughing at us, even as they build their bombs, harbor al Qaeda operatives, and arm the militias killing American soldiers in Iraq.

While our rhetoric blathers that we’ll never let them have a nuke, our talk begs them, pretty-please, to stop building one. And our actions all but hand them one. If all that makes you wonder who’s the superpower, what do you suppose they’re thinking?

That’s talking with an enemy that has us pretty well pegged, while we stubbornly resist even thinking about what motivates him. We wouldn’t want to question his ideology. After all, what would CAIR say?

The democracy project tells Islamists that we don’t understand them — or care to try understanding them. The “let’s talk” gambit confirms that we’re not just studiously ignorant; we’re ripe for the taking.

For our own sake, we need to respect the enemy. That means grasping that he’s implacable, that he means us only harm, and that he must be subdued, not appeased. Negotiating with such evil is always a mistake, for any accommodation with evil is, by definition, evil.

Rejecting the democracy project is about respecting the enemy. Declining to talk to the enemy is about respecting ourselves.

The greatest fears I have lie in the laps of those we collectively chose to lead us through these next two years. The Speaker of the House calls the Iraq war a problem that needs a solution. She doesn't see this as a war that needs to find a victor. Her colleagues see our withdrawal BEFORE Iraq can secure itself as the best means to forcing them to pick up the pace in trying to do so. And...wait for it...

Wait for it...

They think we need to build bridges and come together with our friends in the region and have THEM work out the peace amongst themselves so we can....yep-leave them to their spoils in the desert and we can come home and concentrate on more intellectual pursuits. History, DOES have a way of repeating itself. Funny, Liberals and Socialists were running the show back then, too.

I close as I opened:

If you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you.