Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, a meeting was convened of the Allied Control Council or Authority [Alliierter Kontrollrat]. This was the governing body after the end of World War II in Europe of the Allied Occupation of Germany based in Berlin-Schöneberg. The members were the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. France was later added with a vote but had no duties.

There came a time when a new, young, “bushy-tailed” American general arrived as the U.S. delegate. He wanted to make an impression on the group and initiated a new but controversial proposal. A debate ensued. The British delegate overcame his scruples – in the name of the Special Relationship – tepidly supported the American proposal. The French delegate furiously opposed it. The Soviet delegate maintained his silence. Finally, a vote was taken, and to the consternation of the American, the Russian delegate voted with the Anglo-American position carrying the day. The meeting adjourned with the U.S. general in shock because of the unsolicited and unexpected support of what all regarded as the West’s nemesis on the Council.

The anecdote came to mind reading a piece of nostalgic reporting by a veteran American reporter in one of the major newspapers on the situation in Israel-Palestine, recalling on the 40 anniversary of the Six Days War his earlier reporting in the region. Sympathizing as one must with the suffering of the Palestinians, he rambled on criticizing Israel centered around its role as post-1967 Mideast superpower. What he did not recall was prior to that war, Israeli existence had hung seemingly by a thread — only scant miles through Israel separated what were assumed to be the best army in the Mideast, the Jordanians, and the sea. Israel was under the constant menace not only of defeat but obliteration by the combined Arab powers surrounding it. Nor did he place — admittedly, the heavy hand — of the Israeli occupying forces at checkpoints in the context of the virtually uncontrolled terror suicide bombings preceding them. His “West Bank” nomenclature, a political and geographic term unknown before 1948, did not place its indeterminate position in the context of a Jordanian Ocupation [“West Bank” of the Jordan River, or of the Kingdom of Transjordan until 1946], no more internationally legal [however partially sanctioned by UN agencies] than Israel’s Occupation from 1948 to 1967, its earlier integral part of British Mandated Palestine, etc., etc., etc.

Certainly our French general’s hypothesis about traditional American ahistoricity applies to much of the debate now dominating the Congress and the excrutiatingly long presidential campaign now revving up for 2008. Much of it, at best, is in a 2007 timewarp of 20-20 hindsight bearing no relationship to the then available information of previous decisions.

That bodes ill for future official guesstimates of power of potentital adversaries or problems — much less the far more difficult intelligence estimate of other leadership’s intent — which lie ahead of us in a very dangerous world. The record is already strewn with casualties:

While there may be no specific “lessons” from it, as inscribed on the lintel of the National Archives Building in downtown Washington, history is prologue.