By Patrick J. Buchanan – November 2, 2001

“The lamps are going out all over Europe. They will not be lit again in our lifetimes,” said Sir Edward Grey, as he watched the lamps being lit in St. James Park, the evening of August 3, 1914. At noon, the foreign minister had persuaded Parliament that the German violation of Belgian neutrality meant they must go to war.

Grey sensed it was the end of an era. Tears in his eyes, he said to U.S. Ambassador Walter Hines Page: “Thus, the efforts of a lifetime go for nothing. I feel that I have wasted my life.”