Which of these scenarios makes more sense to you? Two classicists, two very different perspectives:

If you want a preview of what might occur if the United States were to invade Iraq, Elaine Fantham suggests looking at what happened in 53 B.C. when the Romans marched into the territory that is now Iraq. Ms. Fantham, 69, is National Public Radio's mischievous, fruity-voiced classics commentator on "Weekend Edition," and her specialty is drawing parallels between the ancient world and us.

As she explained to listeners of her occasional broadcasts, the territory was ruled by the Parthians, who are related to modern-day Iranians. The power-hungry Roman general Crassus set out for the Parthian territory with seven legions. He marched his army into the middle of the desert where, parched, hungry and unused to the terrain, he was roundly defeated by the entrenched Parthians. Crassus' and his son's heads were cut off and used as props by a Greek acting troupe to entertain the Parthian and Armenian kings at a dinner party.

...."You, George Bush!" said Ms. Fantham in her English accent with a slight speech impediment that turns all her "r's" into "w's." "You, Donald Rumsfeld and your advisers, you don't know what you are letting yourself in for!"

Just as there was no act of aggression against Rome to prompt an attack against the Parthians, Ms. Fantham argued, there has been no act of aggression by Iraq against the United States. [NY Times]

Or this:

So what does the past tell us? First, we should not listen to hysteria. Noam Chomsky spent an autumn warning of "millions" of dead to come in Afghanistan. Wrong. More respected and often reasonable commentators such as William Pfaff ("The utility of the bombing is hard to defend. It was believed able to bring down the Taliban government, but that is not happening.") and R. W. Apple ("Afghanistan as Vietnam" / "Signs of progress are sparse") assured us that after a few days of fighting in Afghanistan we were in a quagmire. Wrong again.

....If we ponder the recent past, I would think that all of Iraq outside Baghdad will be overrun in a matter of days - to the cheers of most of his citizenry. The capitol will fall later, but the timing of its liberation will be calibrated on mostly humanitarian rather than military considerations - American caution over walking into a possibly booby-trapped city and the need to avoid killing captives of Saddam Hussein. So if it comes to war, we will win and most likely win quickly. We will be safer - and Iraq immediately a better place - for our efforts. And we can at least say that we did not leave a madman with frightening weapons in an age of mass murder for our children to deal with.

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