Maggie's Farm

From VDH at NRO (h/t, reader). A quote:

The old postwar order is tottering on the brink of Islamism, oil-price hikes, energy shortages, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, Russian belligerency, global-warming concern and hysteria, and war.

Europe is at the edge of the chasm, despite its strong euro and strengthening economy. Once convinced that they would serve as a kinder, gentler Western answer to the United States, Europeans would offer humanity a sort of soft-power colossus that would check George Bush�s �dead-or-alive,� �smoke-�em-out� America. They would fix through good works what we had botched. That welcomed alternative seemed attractive to many as we slogged it out in Iraq, and the �I told you so� Europeans felt justified that military power really does cause far more problems than it solves.

Read the whole thing.