The first is immediate and practical : was all this chaos man-made-an immense and costly overreaction by regulators to a spectacle that posed only a minor and manageable risk ?
The purported american victory against fundamentalism has been a pyrrhic one not only because of its financial , moral and diplomatic cost , but in its overreaction , in the waste of energy that could have been used far better in afghanistan than in iraq .
Rising sectarian tension , the government 's overreaction to the protests and the blatant harassment of opposition parties , particularly the main shia-dominated one , are all tarnishing bahrain 's reputation as a fledgling if limited democracy .