...I would hate to see this group’s suggestion for Lincoln around July, 1864, or to Churchill about March, 1942, or to Truman in December, 1950: e.g., call in McClellan or the U.K. to negotiate with Jefferson Davis; let the British Royal Family and Stanley Baldwin in concert with Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland find some polite and face-saving accommodation with the Third Reich and Japan; or have three-party talks with Mao and Stalin to stop the southward drive of the Peoples’ Army through North Korea?

Do we really believe that Iran and Syria fear chaos in the region, when chaos alone gives them a reprieve from U.S., U.N., and European scrutiny about serial assassination, terrorist promotion, and nuclear acquisition? For all the Arabist solidarity rhetoric, compared to the frightening specter of a democratic and prosperous Iraq on their borders, a returned Golan Heights, or Israeli-free West Bank means little to Syria or Iran. Did we learn after the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza, or the pre-9/11 American sudden flight from Lebanon and Somalia, that perceptions are far more important in the Middle East than even land?...