Blech

I dug into this exchange between Max Boot and Geoffrey Wheatcroft with some mild enthusiasm. Boot, while often wrong, at least tends to be interesting and is well-informed about military affairs. I knew less about Wheatcroft. I gave up, however, when I reached this passage:

But those who take the Odom line should also be candid and admit what cutting and running implies: the whole of the larger Middle East, from Turkey to the Gulf, Israel to Iran, will be abandoned to its fate. Back to fully-fledged isolationism, America First, and the narrowest interpretation of the national interest.

When the guy in the dialogue who isn’t Max Boot writes something like that, you know that you’re wasting your time.