How soon we forget the lesson of the peace benefits that accrued to us by virtue of Reagan’s Pershing missile deployment in Europe over the objections of leftists at home and abroad. In a single stroke, Reagan rendered the Soviet Fulda Gap conventional tank invasion scenario untenable, leaving them with no alternatives but nuclear armageddon and a slow economic crumbling into dissolution.

A defensive missile deployment is much less than this, and in addition, isn’t even aimed at Russia, but at Iran, from whom we have much to fear (but Europe and Israel even more), considering that the fanatical Hojetiyyists there are not the self-preservation-minded rational actors that the Soviets were, and messianically consider nuclear holocaust to be a religious incentive hastening the Return of the 12th Iman Mahdi (the Shia version of the Second Coming).

We dare not wait until Iran has nuclear-tipped ICBMs before we deploy such a system. The time to engage in the pre-emptive self-protection of Europe, Israel, and our assets there is NOW.

OTOH, if Obama backtracks on such a deployment, that may be precisely the decision that pushes Israel over the tipping point into a pre-emptive air bombardment of Iran’s nuclear assets. Is this a GOOD thing? Maybe not. In its absence, there is every chance that the present demographically superior anti-clerical unrest there might gain ascendancy and depose the mullahcracy before they cross the nuclear attack Rubicon. But after such an Israeli bombardment, all of Iran will be united in adamantine and inflexible animus against the West.