This area was the death of Rome

On the same day that I listened to a "Great Courses" CD lecture about Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," coordinated bombings in Baghdad killed 95 people. The recorded lecture seemed poignant because Gibbon had attributed the fall of the greatest civilization in the ancient world in part to Rome's problems in the Middle East. Rome had spent untold riches and lives in fighting the Persians (present-day Iranians) on the edge of the empire.

The lecturer also pointed out that, like modern-day Americans, Romans of the second and third centuries could not imagine that their dominant position in the world — militarily, commercially and culturally — would ever end. And yet it did, because of a variety of factors, including the public's loss of confidence in and respect for its elected leaders and its spending on futile wars in a volatile region far from home.

Here's where you insert the Santayana quote about failing to learn from history.

The Iraqi government says it will reinstate security measures it had allowed to lag, but it will not bring American troops back into Baghdad to assist the apparently incompetent Iraqi security forces. Americans want out of Iraq, after spending more than $1 trillion and the lives of more than 4,000 Americans there in an ill-conceived effort to make this volatile and divided country into a model democracy.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, an election is being held today, but the Taliban is warning that it will kill anyone who votes in the election. The election is expected to reassert the authority of President Hamid Karzai, but his central government controls only small areas of the country, which has been called "the graveyard of empires." More U.S. troops are pouring into Afghanistan in hopes of salvaging that country from the warfare it has endured almost nonstop since the Soviet invasion in 1979. New commanders and new strategies are being tried there, but American voters are growing disenchanted with this latest foreign war. The Obama administration wants to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven for al-Qaida, but that effort is showing little progress so far.

Bogged down in two countries of the deadly Middle East, the United States is risking its fortunes in a part of the world that Gibbon tells us was the death of Rome.