Members of the UN Security Council are talking about what kind of statement they want to make to Iran regarding their nuclear program. As I expected, the Russians are resisting anything really firm, or any measures that would have any bite. The Chinese appear willing to go along with the Russians. Meanwhile, on a separate matter, the European Union is talking tough with regards to Hamas. What I find interesting about both stories is how different things are now than they were in 2003. It seems as if the diplomatic rift between the US/UK on the one hand and France/Germany on the other is gone. Britain, France and Germany, with only minor semantic differences in their speech-making, are standing together with the United States in resisting the Iranian regime's drive to obtain nuclear weapons, and in their insistence that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist. While this is certainly due in part to the fact that the Bush Administration has moved much closer to the European view on diplomacy regarding Iran, it also may be due to the fact that the Europeans are staring into the abyss of Islamist fanaticism on their own continent. They have seen social disorder in France, terrorist bombings in Spain and Great Britain, the murder of a filmmaker in the Netherlands, European embassies and consulates attacked and burned over some cartoons, and the existence of terrorist cells throughout the continent. They are on the front lines in this 'long war', and they know it. While they no doubt still believe the Iraq invasion was a mistake, they also know that they cannot afford to stand idly by while the Islamists grow in boldness and power. Can they overcome 50 years of military dependency on the United States and begin to build, intellectually as well as physically, a force that can be a major partner in the defeat of the Islamofascists? Time will tell.

Inside the Muslim world, a Syrian-American psychiatrist has sparked some much needed debate about the role of Islam in the violence that has roiled the region and the world. Dr. Wafa Sultan's story made it to the front-page of the New York Times this morning, after she spoke out against the barbarism practiced by so many in the name of Islam in a pair of TV interviews on Al Jazeera. This, of course, has led to her condemnation as a heretic by some, and death threats. I previously wrote about her on Saturday, March 4th after reading David Warren's column about those interviews. We can only win this 'long war' with the help of Muslims who take their religion back from those who have used it as justification for barbarity and violence.

A Harris poll shows that Americans have more confidence in the military than any other institution in American life. Which institutions do they have the least confidence in? Congress and law firms.

Read this Max Boot (reporting from Iraq) piece in the Weekly Standard and you'll get an idea about why Americans hold the men and women in our military in such high regard.