The China hawk crowd loves to push the notiont that Iraq is a one-off, that the Middle East is a blip, and that the Long War can be outsourced completely to Special Operations Command.

None of that is looking so good right now in Southwest Asia.

Of course, back in 1982 (a great summer for me, as I met my wife that summer) we had much the same tumult with Israel invading Lebanon to evict the PLO that time, and Iran and Iraq both seething with violence--just directed against one another. None of this was considered "World War III" or the "end times" by anyone other than Jack Van Impe on his late-night cable show (boy, does he have some competition nowadays!). America was too busy enduring the first Reagan term recession.

Like in 1982, a lot of brave talk about an international peacekeeping presence. Back then the U.S. went into Lebanon basically on its own, leading to Reagan's darkest day: the Beirut Marine barracks bombing in 1983. We pulled out then, declaring it a one-off and vowing not to return.

That was two wars and one counter-insurgency ago.

And it's that sort of understanding and frustration with history that pushes this administration to go farther and deeper than any previous one in trying to shake things up.

Recently there was a WSJ story (sorry, summer, and my citation skills are slipping) about how the Old Core was debating who should go into Lebanon and how many troops should be involved. A Euro diplomat said something to the effect, "There is no set formula here," insinuating that anyone who proposed such a thing must be some doctrinaire nimrod.

But ask yourself: why aren't there any formulas for this? Everyone is talking about the need to regularize such efforts, and yet, whenever such an opportunity arises, the same people act like having anything close to doctrine would be constricting.

Yes, yes, keep your options open. That's a great way to explain your inaction, your muddled responses, and the general inefficacy of the subsequent intervention and reconstruction program. Make it all sound so idiosyncratic to the culture and the region and the religion. Trot out the regional experts who can tell you 1,000 ways why nothing you try will succeed. Treat everything as a one-off.

I mean, why change a winning hand?