The Good Kind of Contrarianism

David Ignatius reports from Jerusalem:

Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs "Man in the Shadows." But now that he's out in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisingly contrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message is that rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, the United States and Israel should be looking for ways to establish a creative dialogue with these adversaries.

This is quite right, and it's very sad that we've reached a point where it's regarded as incredibly "contrarian" to note that drifting to war without undertaking a good-faith effort at a diplomatic settlement would be a bad idea.