Charles Krauthammer, writing in Time Magazine characterizes the threat poses by nuclear jihad in terms identical to those so alarming Cicero at Winds of Change:

We're now at the dawn of an era in which an extreme and fanatical religious ideology, undeterred by the usual calculations of prudence and self-preservation, is wielding state power and will soon be wielding nuclear power.

Krauthammer covers the same ground as Cicero, and comes to much the same conclusion:

That will present the world with two futures. The first is [Manhattan Project Physicist Richard] Feynman’s vision of human destruction on a scale never seen. The second, perhaps after one or two cities are lost with millions killed in a single day, is a radical abolition of liberal democracy as the species tries to maintain itself by reverting to strict authoritarianism--a self-imposed expulsion from the Eden of post-Enlightenment freedom.

Just as grim in his assessment, Krauthammer at least holds out hope for a “third future,’ which involves holding proliferation at bay. This begins most urgently in the case of the Iranian Regime and its mad mullahs, but it won’t stop there if we let them achieve their Caliphatic dreams:

If we fail to prevent an Iranian regime run by apocalyptic fanatics from going nuclear, we will have reached a point of no return. It is not just that Iran might be the source of a great conflagration but that we will have demonstrated to the world that for those similarly inclined there is no serious impediment.

If we try to isolate the threat to the perceived and detected acts of nation states, we revert to a way of thinking about potential threats that blinded us to the possibility of 9/11. We can’t afford misconceptions of who are real enemies are, and all the myriad ways in which they or their proxies can wage war against us.

We are at war, as much against an ideology, a philosophy of hate, as we are against those who hold power at the reins of the rogue nation states. For the ruler may fail, the nation may crumble, but the ideology may continue to inflame, and there will always be those villains, who by nature or by calculation, will fan those flames for gain.

(Via Real Clear Politics)