Uncommon Commentary #413: Iron Domes and Thick Skulls

Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, which we Yanks helped to create, has proven highly successful at neutralizing the threat of Hamas rockets; Why, then, have we no plans to get something similar?  Why, indeed, haven’t we already had such a thing for a long time?  The Iron Dome was designed to intercept short-range weapons rather than those that carry nuclear warheads, which consequently must be destroyed when outside our atmosphere, but the principle on which it operates (namely, that one can hit a missile in flight with another missile) is exactly the same as that of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was envisioned in the USA three decades ago.  The answer to the questions that I posed earlier in this uncommon commentary is, of course, political partisanship.  The SDI was a project of President Reagan, and US Leftists refuse to admit that their great antagonist was right about anything, even if their recalcitrance prevents us from adopting a technology that could save our civilization from nuclear annihilation.  Since we’ve assisted in the development for Israel of something that we still haven’t developed for our own country, I suggest that we refer to it as the “Irony Dome”.