A history lesson—with up-to-the-minute repercussions—from Professor Juan Cole.

All those who deify Ronald Reagan should remember it is a straight line from funding the Afghani mujahadeen in Pakistan in the 1980s, via death squads, drugs and illegal arms sales*, to September 11, 2001. Are we finally ready to learn from our mistakes?

*The same methodology, as Cole points out, that Reagan used against Those Scary Terrorists in Nicaragua. Remember them? Fortunately, the repercussions from that little adventure don’t seem to have lingered so long.