Pat Buchanan Recommend this article  "Whatever happens in Iraq,
retreat from the world is not an option," wrote Financial Times
columnist Philip Stephens last weekend.  Why not? Because a
world map highlighting those regions where the West's vital
resources are located would exactly overlap a map highlighting
those regions where state power is crumbling, disease and
poverty are pandemic and violence rules.  "The implication of
this is obvious," says Stephens.  "We can proudly declare
ourselves isolationists, resolve to eschew 'imperialist
adventures,' decry liberal interventionists such as Britain's
Tony Blair and damn the neoconservatives around U.S. President
George W. Bush. But, one way or another, the West cannot avoid
getting involved. On this, moral impulse and hard-headed
interests are as one."  We are fated to intervene forever. "The
reality of interdependence of a world shrunk by globalization
cannot be wished away."  Put me down as not so sure. For if
America is defeated in Iraq, as we were in South