Fundamentalist Muslims that sprung up under the Egyptian Alahwi (now bin Laden's right hand man) fully intend upon destroying as much of Western Civilization as they possibly can. The time line is still quite flexible. There are no clear quid pro quos or political compromises that will deter this religious war. One possible exception would be the destruction of Israel.

To think otherwise would be delusional.

The only thin line this fundamentalist war has yet to cross is the concept of measured reciprocity. You know, blowing up 8 or 9 of our nuke plants on any given Tuesday.

Once that line is crossed there is no retreat from a full scale nuclear response that will ignore all concepts of the innocent and lay waste to much of the Middle east, with strategic exceptions of oil fields.

The sins of US imperialism have of course played a part in the evolution of the radical Muslim jihadists but the culture of religious fundamentalist war has progressed far beyond the issues of American aggression and numerous regime changes.
There is nothing the US can put on the table to assuage any radical jihadist cleric. All we have left is our threat of nuclear annihilation.

This of course does not play well in Iran. Pakistan can dole out their 20 nukes to destroy American port cities should a trigger happy American President decide to show them who is boss.

Do not forget who is downwind of all the Middle East nuclear fallout.

China could simply decide the US has outlived its usefulness.
With our demonstration of how good our NORAD is and how well we respond to emergencies they have a reasonably good chance of taking their best shot and hope our submarines are not successful in achieving total Armageddon.

I'm sorry folks for bringing up the reality of a US nuclear response but it is now continually on a hair trigger.

An animal or a war lord administration is always most dangerous when it is wounded.

When our war lord says everything is on the table, "they" mean everything and everyone. When you have a multi bilion dollar bunker your thinking about such matters gets skewd and is not unthinkable at all.