What else is there to do? Don sackcloth and ashes, and wander Sproul Plaza with a sign saying, "Woe! Woe! Sometime in the Next Twenty Years the Middle East Will Explode in a War Using Weapons of Mass Destruction That Will Kill Between 3 and 30 Million"?
Deterrence "worked" between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. because (a) neither thought the smell of millions of rotting enemy corpses was a positive good, and (b) both sides believed that they were the Tide of History, and that simply waiting would inevitably strengthen their position markedly. In this case, there are people on both sides--more on the Arab side, I think, however--who love the smell of napalm in the morning. And both sides fear that history is against them.
Come to think of it, where on Telegraph can one get a good sackcloth these days?
Brad DeLong