The Weird and Surprising Domino Effect

Totten makes an interesting comment about the Berlin Wall and Beirut. And I tend to agree with him.

I wouldn’t say the Berlin Wall has fallen. I won’t say that until it looks like the Terror War has come to an end. But perhaps this is the end of the beginning. At least it’s the beginning of a new and interesting chapter. The Brett Scowcrofts and Henry Kissingers of the world think it’s a lousy idea to destabilize tyrannical parts of the globe. This week reminds me – in spades – why I just can’t subscribe to their worldview.

Unlike the Berlin Wall falling, which presaged the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire and the Iron Curtain, the things occuring in Iraq and Beirut are symptoms of the end of the beginning.

One specific theater of operations is now nearing the end, Iraq, but the greater theater of the middle east is just starting. Which was what Bush hoped for all along, and it is why so many Democrats supported this President. Bush has certainly melded realism with idealism, as his SOTU said.