Alas for Alas, Babylon

I was reading one of my “daily read” blogs today and happened upon a reference to Pat Frank’s nuclear-freeze-apologetic that was all the rage back when I was in high school, viz., Alas, Babylon.
I don’t remember (if I ever knew) whose English class had it as required reading, but since in those days I read anything that had the least dusting of science fiction, I bought a copy in the student council bookstore and read it on my own. I was immediately sorry I bothered.
I haven’t even looked at the book in 25 years, but I remember thinking all the way through it that it was the most contrived piece of fiction I had ever read. There were good guys and bad guys, and that was about it. Maybe one or two grey characters trotted out for effect, like the chick who always worked at cross purposes to the protagonist and ended up either buying or being given a piece of looted radioactive jewelry (hmm, “hot” in more than one way) for her trouble. Every time the protagonists looked like they were in a box with no way out, some sort of deus ex machina always occurred.
And here was one of my favorite blog reads mentioning that whenever she thought of Iran and its potential nuclear threat, she thought back on Alas, Babylon. (I hope I have paraphrased that correctly. If not, mea maxima culpa, but this is all leading up to a possibly unrelated point anyway.)
The thing about Iran is that nobody is going to start a world-wide nuclear shootout over it. If the mullahs have the cojones to actually heave a nuke at the United States, I have no doubt that we will wipe their shitty little country right off the map. The same goes for North Korea, which is probably more dangerous at the moment because it’s run by a deranged lunatic.
My guess is also that, should a container nuke go off in Los Angeles or Baltimore harbor, neither of those countries would be long for the world.
The United States simply isn’t going to stand for nukes-a-poppin’ all over the place without doing something very forceful about it. Countries like Iran and North Korea should be on notice.
And we really should put Pat Franks’ screed where it belongs — on the rubbish heap of history. Heinlein is so much better.