When should the US go it alone?

Is [the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist] crisis an international problem?

"In theory, of course it is, and we should welcome assistance from our traditional allies and enlist indigenous resistance groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the United States must be prepared to act alone, especially as casualties mount and terrorist reprisals increase. Nor should we welcome alliances with past terrorist culprits that will haunt us later and erode the moral high ground. The United Nations is not only as impotent as the old League of Nations, but lacks the former's idealism and has become ever more morally bankrupt. Once the fighting starts, despite initial pledges of support, the Europeans will probably extend words of encouragement but lend no real material or military assistance of any value. We cannot expect the French to remember Normandy Beach or the Germans the Berlin airlift. Indeed, most Europeans have already forgotten American intervention on their doorstep to stop the recent holocaust in the Balkans. We should neither lament nor be angered by their hypocrisy, but rather expect it, and realize what a different country America is and always has been compared to its European allies. We must be ready to be lectured by the Swedes who passed on World War II, ignored by the Swiss who profited from it, and hectored by the French who nearly lost it. America needs and welcomes friends, but the absence of such should not deter our response to avenge our own dead and protect our innocent."

From "War Myths - What not to believe" by Victor Davis Hanson. The author most recently of "Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the
Rise of Western Power."

(Note that this was written right after 9/11)