http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/wa...in&oref=slogin

for more than two years after Saddam Hussein’s fall, the war in Iraq was about chasing down insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq. Last year it expanded to tamping down sectarian warfare.

Over the past three weeks, in two sets of raids and newly revealed orders issued by President Bush, a third front has opened — against Iran.

Administration officials say the goal is limited to preventing Iranians from aiding in attacks on American and Iraqi forces inside Iraq. But in recent interviews and public statements, senior members of the Bush administration have made it clear that their agenda goes significantly further, toward foiling Iran’s dream of emerging as the greatest power in the Middle East.

In an interview on Friday, before she left on her latest Middle East trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described what she called an “evolving” strategy to confront “destabilizing behavior” by Iran across the region. Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said Sunday on the NBC News program “Meet the Press” that the United States was resisting an Iranian effort “to basically establish hegemony” throughout the region.

Even some of Mr. Bush’s fiercest critics do not question that the administration’s conviction that Iran’s ambitions are large is correct. A few midlevel administration officials wondered even in 2003 whether Iran was a far more potent threat than Mr. Hussein.

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, administration officials argued that deposing Mr. Hussein would send a powerful signal to Iran and North Korea, the two countries that Mr. Bush identified along with Iraq in his 2002 State of the Union address as part of an “axis of evil."

[What next, how many other problems will our failed policies in Iraq uncover
Probably should have considered this three years ago.It's like herding cats.
Screw the critics...onward through the fog.
Well...the message is powerful...too bad it was the wrong message.

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"If you don't know where you are going, you will probably wind up somewhere else."
- Laurence J. Peter

well we could just leave iraq and pretend that our problems wont follow us home

And how exactly are they going to follow us home ? In a rowboat ?

You are smarter than that. The world is getting smaller and smaller. You don't have to have a connecting border to be able to wreak havoc. What you were trying to say may be true, but the rowboat comment (that they are far away) doesn't strengthen any position.

I was mocking his/her idea that the occupation is somehow physically preventing people from reaching America. That's delusional; thousands of people leave Iraq every day, as refugees, and the US has no control over these population flows. Military occupations are not an answer to terrorism, they only exacerbate the problem. We could have occupied the entire Middle East and all of Central Asia prior to 2001, the 9/11 attacks would have occurred nonetheless. Invading and occupying nations does nothing against terrorism--it's a waste of lives and of money, but some people want to believe it works. The FBI, the CIA and a few SF companies are more efficient at battling terrorism than our entire military.

intersting but please you are passing around allote of theory's as fact..... Osama bin laden himself said that they where emboldend to attack in the united states due to Americas retreat from Somalia and inactivity towards there terrorist attacks on our embassy's and the US Cole..........................

Now as far as your theory's..... Can you please tell us what your credentials are so we would be in a better postion to asses your theory's. Have you trained in Anti terrorism tactics. Have you graduated from any combat or military trainng. Have you taken a course in military history. What about your credential and theory's behind fighting an insurgency....... Please let us know. Maybee a corapndance course..........

Terrorist cells are already here in America!!!!!

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AMERICA LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE--BECAUSE OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

Bush needs OBL alive so he furher prosecute the war on terror and occupation in Iraq all in the name War Profiteering and to control the resources in the Middle East.

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AMERICA LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE--BECAUSE OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

And the Democratic/Socialist/Liberal solution is???????????????????????????

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