This is not a prescription for a soggy policy that denies the demands of the real world. But reliance on realpolitik as the guiding light of foreign policy has a pretty shabby track record.

One sultry, sticky morning, I woke up to find a long column, about 20 feet long, of tiny black ants trooping through a crack under the front door, up through the entry hall, and into the kitchen. The line of ants climbed up onto the counter, where they were painstakingly carting bread crumbs and grains of soggy cooked rice and white sugar back outside.