Faux News: To Win in Baghdad, Strike at Tehran

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242303,00.html

To Win in Baghdad, Strike at Tehran
By Robert Tracinski

This week, President Bush is expected to give a major speech announcing a new strategy in Iraq. This is an excellent opportunity for the administration to announce a big strategic change that could dramatically improve America's prospects in Iraq. Unfortunately, however, no one has been discussing the one option that would actually have this effect.

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But there is another, far more effective option: go wide.

Going wide means recognizing that Iraq is just one front in a regional war against an Islamist Axis centered in Iran -- and we cannot win that war without confronting the enemy directly, outside of Iraq.

Going wide means recognizing that the conflict in Iraq is fueled and magnified by the intervention of Iran and Syria. One of the reasons the Iraq Study Group report flopped was that its key recommendation -- its one unique idea -- was for America to negotiate with Iran and Syria in order to convince these countries to aid in the "stabilization" of Iraq. This proposal wasn't so much argued to death as it was laughed to death, because it is clear that Iran and Syria have done everything they can to de-stabilize Iraq, supporting both sides of the sectarian conflict there.

It is obvious that both regimes have a profound interest in an American failure and retreat in Iraq. After all, if America can successfully use force to replace a hostile dictatorship with a free society, then the Iranian and Syrian regimes are doomed. So as a matter of elementary self-preservation, they have done everything they can to plunge Iraq into chaos, supporting guerrillas and militias on all sides of the sectarian conflict.