Of course we have to remember that the very notion that this is all a "terrible mistake" is just another phony excuse. The ME is all about the oil and it has been for 100 years. We went into the ME because world oil production is peaking. Period.

But we'll never see that printed in the New York Times.

Never is a very long time. I could see such talk at some point in the distant future, when the NYT is looking back at current time period retrospectively.

Interesting. I can see a world without the New York Times at all.

And not in the distant future.