It has often been said when dealing with Middle Eastern politics that each time there is a conflict the cycle of violence continues for another generation. I have heard this stated over and over again and yet that is not true in all cases.

In fact, there have been many wars where the two nations become friends in the next generation and make amends. In fact in the Machiavellian world of Middle Eastern politics over the last 2000 years it is often repeated that; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

For someone to willy-nilly throw out the statement that when the United States goes in to a country to quell the violence that the United States becomes hated and we are breeding the next generation and future terrorists or enemies; I would say that is not necessarily true. And hindsight it is generally not true and there are numerous historical examples in the Middle East and other places throughout the world where this has not been the case.

Indeed, that simple statement should not be a reason to pass by an opportunity to do the right thing in the present period and defeat international terrorism. International terrorism and the killing of innocent life is not OK. It is also not OK to run and hide from a festering problem, which will continue to grow into a bigger problem in the future.

For instance if we look at the Hezbollah-Israeli war we see that Israel should have prevented Hezbollah from growing so strong in the region and taking over the power base of Lebanon and its political structure. By doing nothing and appeasing the situation at the time the problem only grew bigger. That in itself is not a solution either.

So, in hindsight it would've been better to take care of the Lebanese problem and Hezbollah in its entirety back then instead of letting people talk us out of it and Israel out of it at the time.

The logic was the same offspring of previous wars turn into future enemies. Actually sometimes that may be true but it is irrelevant to the task and mission at hand to defeat international terrorism in the present period.