Plenty of nuclear-capable nations are anti-American, yet none of them have bombed us. This is nothing but fear mongering.

Deterence has long been effective primarily because potential aggressors truly did not want to provoke us to retaliate to any attack they might execute. In most rational/sane people the self-survival instinct is pretty strong.

If an individual contemplating shooting an armed police officer is deterred because he also might be killed as a result, that is also deterrence. However, to the unstable person considering an attack upon armed officers with the intent to "commit suicide by cop," dying in a Bonnie-and-Clyd hail of bullets does no deter them, rather panders to their fantasies of a glorious death.

Likewise, a national leadership that embraces a sort of "martyrdom" worldview that glorifies even "national suicide" in a radioactive blaze of glory in order to usher in a promised Messiah will be less deterred and perhaps even perversely excited by the potential that they and their country woudl be reduced to glowing crater in the ground. It merely guarantees their place in Paradise and status before their god.

Hence, for the aforementioned (re: Iran) the "not yet" argument does not put a period at the end of the sentence, rather more of an ellipsis...

We spend more on our military than the next 15 or so nations COMBINED. How much is enough? How much more more should we borrow from China to finance Ollie's fantasy military? How much should we raise taxes to support the next war party adventure? How good is our deterrence if we are bankrupt? Time to ask the hard questions.
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and speaking of questions, Mr. North, this is now your ninth column since the end of "Don't ask, Don't tell". (My, how time flies when you are avoiding a topic...) Still no reports of the sky falling from Ollie and his Fox "News" team? Isn't the fact that the most professional military in the world has taken this change in stride something that you are happy to report? Do you have the courage and personal integrity to admit that your dire predictions concerning the end of "don't ask, don't tell" were simply political theater?

Re: Clucri
It is incredible the amount of ignorance and the amount of naive people that permeates our society. The real scary part is that these same uneducated, uninformed people are allowed to vote.