Do their dreams into the future wind

Here's a "What If?" for you:

What if the United States suffered another terrorist attack? Not a major coordinated Al Qu'ida style massive show of force, but a relatively small bombing of a seemingly unimportant target. Say, a suburban strip mall, or a McDonald's outlet, or a bus of old ladies headed to Vegas.

What if it happened again two weeks later?

And two weeks afer that, and two weeks after that, and so on and so on for ten years?

Here's the "twist" though: What if the perpetrators were Mexican nationals attacking Texas? "Outrageous!" you say. "Preposterous!" you cry. (OK, you guys probably wouldn't ever use the word "preposterous," but for the sake of my scenario, let's pretend you're dropping it like R. Kelly's pants at a Head Start.)

Given this unlikely situation, what would you imagine the US response would be?

1. Remind Presidente Fox that you don't bring Montezuma's Revenge to a gunfight by dropping a couple MOABs on Mexico City.
   
2. Get serious about the colander-like border between our two nations and build a wall patrolled by Lee Van Cleef and his pipe-hittin homeboys.
   
3. Despite the verbal diarrhea of Chappaquiddick Kennedy et al, send in the Marines to effect a regime change.
   
4. Lock our credibility (and testicles) away in grandmother's purse, evicting local American citizens and ceding the state of Texas to Mexico, thereby gaining the approval of the UN and leftists worldwide.

If you're sharp, you've already spotted where I'm going with this, but let's drag it out to the end for the rest of the folks reading along. Option 4 is so far from the realm of possibility that any nation which values its system of governement or its chosen way of life could ever consider it... right? (OK, besides the French.)

I'd like to think so too -- only it's sadly true and happening at this very moment.