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A clever feature on today's LA Times op-ed page: Four historians, each of whom has written a book about a great war leader, discuss how their subjects would have handled Iraq. According to the experts, Genghis Khan would have let proxies do most of the dirty work inside the large cities and executed the entire army. While Genghis Khan would have "announced that Allah willed the Mongol victory as divine punishment; to resist the Mongols was to defy the will of God," Lincoln would "abandon the notion of divine will to justify war." And Lincoln would fight "one war at a time," while Caesar would likely attack Syria and Iran.

The entry on Washington, which casts him as an insurgent-sympathizer who would condemn the whole enterprise (and throw in with James Baker!), is by far the least interesting. But the other three take the exercise seriously and are worth reading.

topics:
Iraq, Iran