It's hard to know which is the bigger and scarier tragedy. Russia's nearly successful effort to annex an even bigger country than Crimea and essentially start a third world war; or ISIS's successful rampage through large swaths of Iraq.
Optimisim seems to be trickling out of Ukraine. Despite Ukraine signing the very pact with the West that apparently encouraged Putin to attack and take over Crimea in the first place, there are no new signs of Russian transgression. Perhaps peace will ultimately prevail.
No such luck in Iraq. After billions of dollars and probably hundreds of thousands of lives squandered, terrorists are once again in control of a large portion of southern Iraq. Airstrikes are likely to be temporary successes and will probably create more jihadis than they destroy.
Those of us who remember watching (with both terror and fascination) the 1983 hit War Games (and for those too young--Matthew Broderick essentially brings the world to the brink of nuclear war by hacking into a government supercomputer designed to do anything to ensure its own survival) will ponder whether the most prophetic line in the film was, in fact, all wrong: "The only winning move...is not to play."
