Choose your own adventure...

We’re gonna play a little hypothetical game now… You’ve just been elected the leader of a country; let’s call it “Capitalistia” Now, Capitalistia is a nice country filled with good people who mind their own business and, for the most part, just want to be left alone. As a country, Capitalistiacs tend to think that their way of doing things is the best way, and strive to teach other countries the Capitalistiac ways.

After some threats from a much smaller country of religious fanatics; let’s call it “Terroristia”, a group of Terroristiacs blow up some big buildings in Capitalistia, killing thousands.

What do you do?

A. Immediately declare war on all Terroristiacs, whether or not they participated in the bombing. After all, it’s their fault for allowing Terroristiacs to flourish in their country.
B. Immediately call for an international peace conference, at which the Terroristiacs control the agenda by threatening other countries with similar violence, all the while trying to build more bombs to blow up more Capitalistiac buildings and people.
C. Immediately target ONE loudmouthed Terroristiac leader, who may or may not have had any prior knowledge of the bombing plans. After all, it’ll show the Terroristiacs that we mean business when we depose the biggest bully on the block, especially if he’s the same bully who threatened your dad.
D. Immediately call for an international military action, ignoring the fact that the Terroristiacs will scare the other countries by threatening them with similar violence, and it won’t stop the Terroristiacs from doing it again to you.
E. Immediately target the PRECISE Terroristiac leader who ordered the bombing and warn other Terroristiacs that they’ll be targeted if they don’t help.

If there are other options, I’m not sure what they are. If you chose A, C, and D, congratulations, you’re George W. Bush and you’re stuck in a no-win, military quagmire in a remote land and no allies. If you chose B and D, congratulations, you’re John Kerry and the international coalition you hoped to build never materialized due to the spinelessness of most of Europe, Israel is basically blown to oblivion, and Iraq/Iran have nuclear weapons.

If you said E, congratulations, you’re a reasonably logical person with 20/20 hindsight, and we have NFI whether that would have been the best solution. All we know is that Bush made the wrong choice, Kerry advocated the wrong choice, and Congress/Europe is too partisan and pissy to help.

In other words, what would you have done? Bonus points for using the terms “bomb them back to the Stone Age” and/or “middle eastern nuclear winter”