Hizballah will also have to be dealt with. Supported by Iran and with a track record that shows hatred toward America, they may be as tough an opponent as anyone.

Hizballah is certainly a menacing terrorist group with a known track record of brutal attacks all over the world. The organization's American victims in Lebanon range from Navy diver Robert Stethem — his murdered body was thrown out the window of a TWA airliner in a 1985 hijacking in Beirut — and CIA station chief William Buckley the same year, to 241 killed in a 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine headquarters that led Ronald Reagan to withdraw U.S. forces from Lebanon. The group was also blamed for lethal 1990s bombings of Jewish targets in Argentina — showing that its deadly reach extends far beyond the Mideast.

I still think that we should not have left Beirut, or for that matter Somalia after suffering mass casualties. bin-Laden saw how we caved in both those places and it emboldened him.