Europe Is in Great Danger. It Has Itself to Blame.

Mr. Jäger is a contributing Opinion writer and a lecturer in politics at Oxford University. He wrote from Brussels.

“It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.” Thus was the response of a prominent French politician to the news that Napoleon had executed an enemy duke in 1804.

An adage of 19th-century power politics, it has regained painful relevance today. Neither the United States nor Israel can proffer a coherent plan for their war on Iran. Something like the Syrian scenario is the best planners can come up with: disintegration of the polity from the skies, without the presence of foreign troops, domestic propaganda campaigns or long-term security planning.........

© The New York Times