I’ve been re-reading C.L. Sonnichsen’s “I’ll Die Before I’ll Run,” about the thirty years of bloody feuding that disfigured Texas in the wake of the Civil War. The parallels with post-invasion Iraq are striking. Eventually the surviving combatants themselves had to decide to bury the hatchet, but in case after case it was the Texas Rangers who helped them get to that point — not settling the the feuds, but providing an environment in which they could be settled.