1. The Middle East is a hopeless cauldron of hatred. We should focus on homeland security, stay out of the Middle East, and have as little interaction with the Muslim world as possible; or
2. A major war is inevitable, so that we need to get ready for it. Nothing else will stop Iranian aggression, and nothing else will stifle the funding, sponsoring, and glorification of terrorists.
No. 1, the "head in the sand" policy, was the policy during the Clinton years. Meanwhile, terrorists took over Afghanistan and established numerous training camps turning out tens of thousands of trained jihadis, Pakistan got the nuclear bomb, the Qadeer Khan nuclear proliferation ring got underway, Saddam had his WMD programs back in high gear, jihadi bombers killed hundreds of US employees in embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (why do liberals only count the US citizens and not the US employees?), etc etc.
A similar "head in the sand" policy was followed during the Carter years with respect to international communism, with disastrous results.
Just because we don't want to interact with muslims doesn't mean muslims don't want to "interact" with us.
Throughout history most Western societies have stuck their heads in the sand and after this doesn't work they have to go with option number 2.
I agree with you, however, I think most people understand that homeland security and offensive action overseas are not mutually exclusive propositions. The elites would have us believe that we can't close the border, nay that we have no reason to close the border. I think we all know that's bull.