The fallout continues: another diplomat - Ann Wright, deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia - has resigned in protest over the war in Iraq. I'm glad to see at least that America's diplomatic corp has the strength of its convictions to say and do what they know to be right. If only our spineless elected representatives of the House and Senate could do the same.

You know, the more I watch events in Iraq unfold, the more and more this situation is looking like Athens' ill-fated Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War, a war which cost her the support of many allies and signalled the beginning of the end of her imperial reign. The Athenians had been lulled into thinking that Sicily was ripe for the picking (grain was to the ancient world what oil is to the modern, making Sicily the Middle East of the Mediterranean) and would be no match for their naval power (the pre-industrial version air power, naturally); and so on a thinly-veiled pretext (the plea of the Segestans to liberate them from the tyranny of Syracuse, which at least was more plausible than our "ticking bomb" preventive war doctrine against countries that allegedly have weapons of mass destruction in their putative arsenals), the Athenians set out with a fleet of over 100 warships and 20,000 infantry to conquer the entire island, over many objections both abroad and at home (including that of Nicias, the statesman who ironically was ultimately chosen to lead the expedition, think Colin Powell and his recent 180-degree turn on the doctrine of force protection and the importance of diplomacy). Never mind that the experts had warned that most Sicilians would resist an invasion (despite the fact that Syracuse was the local heavy, it was still a Sicilian heavy, and not some imperial outpost of a foreign power - the same reason that is being offered for the unexpected Iraqi support of Saddam Hussein, of all people), and that Syracuse, even if taken, would be next to impossible to hold (just like many are claiming about Baghdad now, given that the Republican Guard and the fedayeen have demonstrated their willingness to use guerilla tactics and urban warfare to oppose American and British forces) - the most important objection to the Sicilian Expedition is that such a naked act of aggression would set the entire Greek world against Athens, and tip the balance of Greek geopolitics in favor of Athens' arch-rival Sparta (although some would say that the French are our new nemesis on the world stage, I think the analogy here is the growing anti-American coalition of nations that are dismayed at the United States' refusal to consider them as equals in matter of diplomacy and absolutely horrified at our unilateral warmongering. No hegemon exists without a counterbalance naturally coalescing to oppose it; and the harder that hegemon pushes, the stronger the counterforce will in the end push back). But the Athenian demos was not swayed by such realistic assessments, and chose instead the counsel of Alcibiades, the infamous opportunist who saw the conquest of Sicily as the springboard for an extended campaign against the Italian peninsula and thus assuring for all the time the supremacy of Athens over the Spartans and her Dorian kinsmen (cf. Richard Perle and the neoconservative agenda for the Middle East - first Iraq, then Iran, Syria, et al., until it's all either in our hands or remade into U.S.-friendly puppet regimes that will ensure our dominance and our empire). Hampered by unfaithful allies, a lack of cities revolting to their side, and poor supply lines (sound familiar?), the Athenian invasion ended in disaster, and set into motion a chain of events that lead to her comeuppance at the hands of Sparta and myriad other aggrieved Greek peoples...

God damn it, doesn't anyone study the Classics anymore? I guess our diplomats do.