Some Mideast realism, please: the war on terrorism hinges on renewing the peace process. (Below The Beltway).

AS GEORGE KENNAN OBSERVED 50 years ago in American Diplomacy, American foreign policy has been periodically affected by bouts of evangelical idealism, which date from the country's Puritan founding and which have led Americans to seek to transform the world in our image--and to demonize any country or regime that stands in the way.

Since September 11, a group of Washington neoconservatives, some of whom serve under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have attempted to define America's objectives in the Middle East and the war against terrorism in these evangelical terms. Arrayed ...

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