In one session that I went to with a group of foreign policy experts, we faced a litany of criticism for not doing more in the Middle East. After I patiently explained our approach, one of the participants—who’d been silent up to that point—interjected with an edge in his voice, “You have to bomb something.” “What?” I asked, taken aback. “It doesn’t matter. You have to use military force somewhere to show that you will bomb something.”
