Stan – All fine points. But one problem with your position is the problem all of us who supported the war need to deal with: part of the Iraq gamble didn’t pan out. A major part of the argument for toppling Saddam was that such action would discourage others from following on his path. Making an example of Saddan would send a signal to other rogue states that we weren’t kidding around. Everyone always understood that there was a ironic double-edge to this argument. The reason we went after Saddam’s Iraq instead of North Korea was that Iraq was an easier target because it didn’t — yet — have nuclear weapons. The conclusion states like Iran took from the Iraq invasion, as well as the first Gulf War, was that the best protection against regime change was nuclear weapons. Who can say they were wrong? The tragedy of the war is that no matter how successful Iraq becomes down the road, the war has already demonstrated that the political cost for such adventures is prohibitive. There is no appetite for resolve in the corridors of power. Even Tony Blair has preemptively taken strikes against Iran off the table.

I supported the war and I still support our efforts there. But the deterrence dividend was tapped out with Qaddafy and we ain’t seeing any more returns for a while. As Rich and others have noted, Iran’s effrontery and the crackdowns in Syria are a very good barometer of how Iraq is no longer having a deterrent effect. You can say Bush is focusing too much on Iraq and not enough on the big picture. But until Iraq is perceived as a success not merely here at home, but abroad, the big picture will just get uglier and uglier.