Lord Robertson says that NATO can't be expected to support any US war on the axis of evil unless we can prove that they had something to do with 911. Gee, what happened to the war on terrorism? You know, the one that was supposed to put an end to terrorists with global reach?

Apparently, in NATO's formulation, we're not allowed to preempt attacks on our soil. We can only retaliate after they've occurred. By this logic, we could have done nothing about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan prior to September 11--we had to wait until they actually carried out the attack. Their stated intent to do so, and their previous attacks on our assets (including the first one on the WTC) were insufficient.

Europe had better understand that we are now going to do everything within our power to prevent any future attacks like the ones that occurred in September. In all three cases in the "axis of evil," we are dealing with nations with whom we've either been actively at war (Korea and the Gulf War), or who have engaged in acts of war upon us (Iran, when they took and kept the hostages for over a year) to which we didn't properly respond.

It was our failure to deal with them properly at the time that resulted in what happened in September, by building a reputation of weakness and vacillation on our part. All three countries represent unfinished business, business for which we were previously unwilling to pay the necessary price to see it through to the end.

Now we are more than willing to finish--with or without our NATO "allies."

The reason NATO can't be counted on is that NATO has no "out of area" operational combat capability other than the US and Britain -- and those two are already in the fight.

And French paratroops don't count. They're already fighting some guy named Chad.