Anyone – such as teachers or others – engaged in a
profession where disputes arise from time to time, and the teachers are called
upon to resolve the conflict between students, will tell you that most disputes
start small and, if not resolved, can escalate to become a major incident. But
they will also say that not every conflict escalates to become a major
incident, even if it is not resolved by a third party.
The above is something we should bear in mind when reading,
in the Wall Street Journal, the editorial that came under the title: “The Iraq
Diversion,” and the Bret Stephens column that came under the title: “Everything
Is Awesome, Mideast Edition,” both published on May 19, 2015 in the Journal.
Whereas the editorial came also under the subtitle: “Liberals want to talk
about anything but the current world disorder,” the Stephens column came under
the subtitle: “It takes a special innocence to imagine that the chaos unfolding
in the Middle East can be put right.”
The key to understanding what has shaped the thinking of
these people can be found near the end of the Stephens column. It reads as
follows: “The Middle East , along with our
position in it, is unraveling at an astonishing pace. Reckless drivers often don't
see how fast they're going until they're about to crash.” The problem with this
analogy, however, is that it does not fully match the reality on the ground.
But if we must stay with it, the thing to do is acknowledge
that America – which used to
be in the driver's seat in the Middle East
under a different administration – bears full responsibility for speeding the
car. And now that a new administration has taken charge, the nation of America is
being steadily taken out of the car. Still, because this picture is incomplete,
a more fitting analogy will have to be invented.
To this end, imagine several groups of skiers working the
slopes of the mountain, causing small avalanches that do little harm most of
the time and serious harm once in a while. This resembles a world where small
conflicts abound, and a big flare-up erupts once in a while. On that mountain,
one group of skiers is called Middle East, and it happens to be taking
instructions from one named W. America .
After a while, W. America
is replaced by O. America who immediately senses that a big avalanche is now
gathering, and may have been for a while. He tells his team to get out of there
… and do so in and orderly fashion, setting the good example himself. Because
the mountain has been disturbed for some time now, the small avalanches
continue to happen, but the pace at which they do, begins to diminish. Seeing
this, O. tells his people there is hope that the situation will stabilize.
Not so, says Bret Stephens who points to incidents that
happened from April 2, 2015 to May 17, 2015 as proof that the situation is
dire. Instead of seeing those occurrences as being small avalanches that will
die out before causing a major damage – such as, for example, Dresden
or the Battle of Britain or Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima – he sees them as being the
gathering storm that will culminate in a mushroom cloud ... to borrow a phrase
from W's lexicon.
And this brings us to the editorial of the Journal. Unlike
the Stephens column which avoided the politics that usually come with the
territory, the editors' piece is entirely about politics. More precisely, it is
an expression of the ongoing jockeying playing itself out between the two
Parties in preparation for the upcoming presidential primaries and subsequent
general election.
Being very much a part of that jockeying, the editors do all
sorts of fancy trotting (if not horsing around) to say that they were correct
in approving the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as were all the Republicans who had
the chance to vote on it; even those that missed the chance.
But when it comes to the Democrats, the one that counts the
most is the current frontrunner for the Presidency, Hillary Clinton, who voted
for the resolution to invade Iraq
… and she was wrong, say the editors of the Journal.