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We continue our conversation with Andrew Bacevich, president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is a retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran and author of, most recently, of “The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory.” Bacevich says the crisis with Iran, sparked by President Trump’s assassination of top general Qassem Soleimani, is just the latest in a long series of ill-advised American actions in the Middle East. “The only conceivable way for us to begin to extricate ourselves from this terrible mess in the region … is to abandon this militarized approach and to take a more balanced position with regard to the rivalries in the region,” Bacevich says.