On the 40th anniversary of the Beirut Barracks bombings, President Biden had to cut a press conference short

because jihadis attacked a US military base in Syria.

I apologize, I have to go to the situation with another issue I have to do with.

But thank you, thank you.

The U.S. currently has about 900 troops in Syria and almost three times that number in Iraq where Islamic militants have also

targeted American troops since the war in the Holy Land broke out a couple weeks ago.

Fortunately the Americans have thus far made it out relatively unscathed, but the war is clearly

expanding and threatening to pull the U.S. once again into all-out war in the Middle East.

With the GOP in disarray, many Republican leaders have made a habit of asking in terms of crisis

what President Reagan might do.

Usually the question defies the easy answer because Reagan's been dead for almost 20 years and he hasn't been in office in 34 years and political circumstances change over time.

But in this case we actually do have an answer because Ronald Reagan dealt with a far more devastating version of this exact

problem almost at the exact same spot 40 years ago.

40 years and one day ago two trucks hit a building housing American troops in Lebanon

and those trucks were rigged with bombs and they blew up.

The attack killed 241 American servicemen,

along with 58 French military personnel

and six civilians.

And what did President Reagan do?

That old cowboy invoked by so many reflexive warhocks.

Ronald Reagan declined to retaliate in any serious way, and then he quickly withdrew American forces

from the country. This is not the answer that the Gipper's most

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