Sorry, I forgot the sneer quotes. The “realists.” I agree with everyone that the notion that talking to Syria and Iran is going to improve our position in Iraq is a fantasy. I address it in this column. But before we heap too much scorn on the realists, let’s remember that in their warnings that implanting democracy in Iraq would be more difficult than the neos imagined, that cultures are stubborn, enduring things difficult to change, that the problem in trying to force radical change is that it can spin out of control and create all sorts of unintended consequences–in all of that, they were right. It doesn’t mean that the war was a mistake or that the realists are right in everything they say, but it shows how a sensible conservative foreign policy will always need a good dose of realism.