In another terrific column today, George Will continues his judicious study of the foreign-policy reality created by a profoundly unconservative administration. His last paragraph is a gem:

Foreign policy “realists” considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists’ critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved.

Along the way, Will begins to quibble with the war metaphor that has governed our response to terrorism since 9/11. Though, contra the lefty bumper sticker, war may sometimes be the answer, military action is ill-suited to combating a transnational stateless conspiracy operating, among other places, from within the already-democratic West. Will writes that

better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is central to combating terrorism. F‑16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg (where Mohamed Atta lived before dying in the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and High Wycombe, England.

In the course of making that point, the nation’s premier conservative columnist cites John Kerry–favorably. This could not have been what George W. Bush envisioned when he said he’d govern as “a uniter, not a divider.”