One of the many ironies of Donald Trump’s war against Iran is that only a year ago, most of the president’s critics assumed that any second-term crisis for the American empire would be caused not by reckless war-making but by appeasement and retreat.
But before the temptation recedes, let me give in to it just once ... The first lesson is that Western democracy under populist conditions is more resilient than a certain kind of anxious analysis suggests ... .