Robert Wright, in Slate, on why you should perhaps worry less about the next two weeks, and definitely worry more about the next ten years.

Writes libertarian Gene Healy, also linking to the Wright piece:

I don’t use the annoying phrase “must read” much. But I’ll make an exception here: you MUST READ the Wright piece (here it is again). After our quick victory, and after the “Arab street” fails to rise, you’re going to hear a lot of self-congratulation from the hawks. But the fallout from this war is likely to be long-term, in the form of a protracted and messy occupation, and an enhanced terrorist recruitment base. (The hawks were equally self-congratulatory after Gulf War I. The blowback from that splendid little war came 10 years later on a horrible fall day that none of us will ever forget. Funny, though, it hasn’t given the hawks a moment’s pause.)

Healy also quotes John Quincy Adams, on the subject of America’s fate should she decide to spread the “blessings of liberty” at swordspoint:

…she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

[05:10 PM]