Tom Clancy on U.S. Involvement in Persian Gulf

Someone has said that there’s no one so dangerous as a fanatic misapplying “principles.” Clancy exemplifies in his own person the title of his novel “Clear and Present Danger.” Reviewing U.S. history, he concludes that “more than anything else, America is a set of principles . . . the distillation of 10,000 years of human social evolution.” This, after telling us that “The Mexican-American War was essentially a border dispute; Mexico couldn’t even handle the Texans, much less all of America.” Well, there’s another border dispute in the Persian Gulf that may result in a similarly exaggerated outcome. No great power can cast the first stone against the aggressor. The policeman must be the United Nations.

JOHN H. RANDOLPH, Oxnard