Remember the winter of 2001, when the Taliban halted the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance -- a collection of Afghan military groups -- on the road to Kabul and forced the country into a decade-long military standoff with the Afghan government? Recall 2003, when Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard fought off the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and set the stage for extended battles between the American and Iraqi militaries? Me neither. Because, of course, neither of those things happened. Whatever you think of either war, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military proved capable of dislodging enemy forces from the capital and securing a tidy victory. The problems all came afterward.

With America's debt-ceiling crisis resolved, the time is ripe for a brand-new set of financial calamities on the other side of the Atlantic. The "rescue" plan for Greece put forth by European leaders on July 22 is unraveling with surprising speed. The relatively narrow scope of the solution seems to underscore how little political will there is to resolve the underlying issues with the European economy.