9/11/14

In one of two New Yorker pieces loaded with healthy skepticism about US options in the Middle East, Philip Gourevitch concluded (referring to President Obama's speech yesterday):

"We can only wish that he succeeds—whatever that might mean. On this anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we remember the wound that Al Qaeda dealt us, but we cannot forget the far greater toll of the self-inflicted wounds that America endured in the fever that followed. Obama had hoped to be the President who would bind those self-inflicted wounds and reposition us in the world. His previous caution was not simply a character trait; it was a sober response to the reality of our past interventions, of our wars that have begat more and worse wars."