On: Deadline for US Congress on war in Iran

April 23, 1899

The papers are full of it today - the President, they say, is considering a new set of military strike options against the Persians. The plan, I read, is for a series of “short and powerful” strikes. It put me in mind of a fellow I knew out West who proposed to cure his mule’s stubbornness with a series of “short and powerful” kicks. He was most persuasive on the theory of it, explaining how the brevity would spare the mule undue suffering while the power would convey the necessary message. He administered the first kick with great precision. The mule, absorbing this diplomatic communiqué, promptly kicked him through the wall of the livery stable. The fellow was puzzled by this, as the plan had looked so elegant on paper.

I have always wondered why it is that the drafting of these plans is left to the same gentlemen who will be farthest from the consequences, while the execution is left to the young men who will be closest to them. It is a marvelous division of labor. The former work in quiet rooms with maps that show no blood, and the latter work in loud places the maps never mentioned. The former call it policy; the latter, if they come back, seldom call it anything at all.

They say these strikes would be aimed. One supposes that is a comfort. Everything is aimed until it isn’t, in the same way that every stone you throw into a river is aimed, but it’s the ripples that do the visiting on distant shores you never intended to call upon. But no matter. The Commission will draft the plan, and the Congress will have a deadline to consider it, which lends the whole affair a satisfying air of orderly deliberation. It is always a noble thing to see a great nation proceed with haste toward a precipice it has carefully agreed not to look over.