A Level Playing Field?

Compare an event to a stone dropped into the still water of human consciousness. Effect is then the ripples produced by it. No man can sort out all events and their consequences to his advantage. You can merely ride with them or get a push that is all. Let me cite an example from the life of Woodrow Wilson.
One characteristic of his character was his certitude that he was right. He was full of idealism and came to the presidency on the belief God put him there.
Wilson fought tooth and nail to keep his country from the World War I. But influx of immigrants from Austria and Hungary and Southern and Eastern Europe were events that had been going on and this had hit the peak when he took office in 1913. He did not wish to upset these ethnic minorities, which had found their home in America. They made it a land of promise.
Then there were other chains of events, which dealt with economy: by 1915 most American banking was tied up with British and French interests. Which course he took is too well known to merit repetition here. Where he wanted to keep neutral he was pitched into the thick of a broil against his will.
Events get in the way and they often spoil the simple or direct link between cause and the effect.
The fact that we haven’t yet sorted out events already in the field makes it a very uneven field. A classic example from modern history we have in the way the US went into Iraq. Who benefited more from that exercise: America or Iran?
benny