I might even go along with the black ops idea, if I thought it would work. But unfortunately, black ops isn't an approach that can be relied on.

During several of the recent wars or situations we've been involved in, I often wondered why we couldn't simply use some of our special forces, SEALS or other black ops assets to eliminate the foreign leader who seemed to be behind the problem. Why couldn't we eliminate people like Slobodan Milošević or Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden and now KIim Jong Il?

I'm convinced that we didn't because we couldn't--not because we didn't want to. Remember how we screwed up Operation Eagleclaw, the attempt to rescue the hostages from Iran in 1980? Or the screwed up attempt to invade Panama and capture Manuel Noriega in 1989? That operation is known as the worst day in the history of the Navy SEALS when 24 of them were killed. Even now, we don't have a clue where Osama bin Laden is--and we certainly don't have a plan for how to capture or eliminate him.

We just may be stuck with diplomacy instead of black ops, only because it's unlikely that black ops can be relied upon to work.