Helprin on winning the War on Terrorism

A reader writes that he suspects that history will prove this Mark Helprin essay to be "prescient beyond belief."

In today's New York Sun, Daniel Pipes summarizes the Helprin piece:

Mr. Helprin, author of such powerful novels as A Soldier of the Great War
and Winter's Tale, writes a despairing analysis in the current issue of the Claremont Review of Books, in which he finds America's failure today to understand the threat it faces "comparable to the deepest sleep that England slept in the decade of the 1930s," when it failed to perceive the Nazi menace.

Mr. Helprin finds that the country, and its elites in particular, remain enamored with the illusion that it can muddle through, "that the stakes are low and the potential damage not intolerable." In other words, September 11 did not serve as a wake-up call. He calls on Americans to make up their collective mind and answer the simple question, "Are we at war, or are we not?" If not, they need not worry and can remain happily asleep in pre-September 11 mode. If they are, "then major revisions and initiatives are needed, soon."

Mr. Helprin sketches out the steps needed for serious war-fighting, both abroad (focusing on Iraq and Iran) and at home. The latter include: Truly secure the borders with a 30,000-strong Border Patrol, summarily deport aliens "with even the slightest record of support for terrorism," closely survey American citizens with suspected terrorist connections, and develop a Manhattan Project-style crash program to protect against all chemical and biological warfare agents.

The means to take these steps exist; what prevents them from taking shape is the left being in a state of "high dudgeon" and the right not even daring to propose such measures. "The result is a paralysis that the terrorists probably did not hope for in their most optimistic projections, an arbitrary and gratuitous failure of will."