"I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we like it or not. As soon as we land in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network… It may turn out to be a war to remake the world." - Michael Ledeen, 2003

So said Michael Ledeen on the eve of the Iraqi war. Ledeen, a government insider-outsider connected to past administrations, is often described as the stereotypical "neocon" that has been calling for "total war" all along. He is often miss-quoted, wrongly villianized, and highly caricaturized as a warmongering recluse. But one thing Ledeen's detractors cannot concoct is the fact that he never contended the fight against Middle Eastern fascism would be a cakewalk.

He often said in the prewar period that the United States was having the wrong national debate. The discussion we should have been having, he argued, should have concentrated on the nature of Middle Eastern geopolitics and Arab pathology -- and this neurosis and its relationship with terrorism -- rather than the particular issue of dethroning the Ba'athists in Baghdad.

Since the toppling of Hussein's statue, Ledeen has been insistent that the guerrillas and insurgents we are combating in Iraq are not simply nationalistic heroes fighting to expel the invaders, but proxies and surrogates of neighboring regimes (as well as members of the fallen regime). Besides the al Qaidists, who are almost completely non-Iraqi foreign fighters, and the Ba'athists -- a hated Sunni mafia -- Ledeen is adamant that the true crux of the matter is Iran. Are the Iraqis who lived in Iran, trained in Iran, are armed, equipped, subsidized, and subservient to Iran, really Iraqis at all when they kill Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians?

Since the insurrection in Iraq hit high gear -- around April of 2004 -- it feels as if our entire mindset has been Fortress Iraq. Namely, the Bush administration believes if we succeed in Iraq politically, and we let the pieces fall where they may, the Middle East will drastically reform for the better, beginning with Iran. This may in fact be more likely than previously believed; if you had been told in 1986 that in a few short years the Soviet Union would not exist, you'd probably start building a rather advanced bomb shelter in the belief that neither would the United States.

The problem behind this Iraq-or-nothing strategy, however, is we essentially disregard Iranian, Syrian, and Saudi culpability due to fear of upsetting the status quo, which is violent enough as it is. Iranian emissaries like Muqtada al Sadr -- with his death-squad of warlords and theocrats -- are allowed to control large swaths of Iraqi real estate. A soft-spoken Assad whispers gently to CNN's Christiane Amanpour that neither he nor his thug relatives had anything to do with assassinating Lebanese dissidents, or turning a blind eye -- or aiding -- foreign jihadists entering Iraq through Syria. Saudi windfall petroleum profits somehow end up financing Sunni butchers in Ramadi, as royal cousins and Wahhabi princes in Riyadh react with their proverbial refrain: "Who, me?"

Amongst all this, what a golden opportunity Hezbollah bestowed upon us to seize the strategic initiative yet again. But it seems we, the Europeans, and now the Israelis, have balked. War weariness, a 24-hour news cycle of unabated sensationalism, and a persistent and loud voice of capitulationism has apparently convinced the majority of us that Iraq and Lebanon are calamities worthy of abandoning, and any further entanglements with or for "those people" are by default unjustified and bound to fail.

The Lebanese may have said they would reestablish sovereignty over all their territory, but now they speak of "keeping Hezbollah away from the south," no longer concentrating on disarming or (God forbid) the messy process of dismantling Hezbollah. Suddenly the "politicization" of the theocratic Khomeinist terror group seems to be the preferable course of action, as if the bombers of Argentinean skyscrapers and executioners of hundreds of Americans will abide by democratic principalities and the rule of law. Gone is talk of a U.S.-commanded NATO force with search-and-destroy liberties. Gone is talk of Lebanese soldiers hunting, cave-to-cave, their own jihadist brethren so that the Israelis do not have to. Gone is all talk of achieving something -- anything -- other than an almighty ceasefire. Rather we are speaking of an "enhanced" U.N. force, reminiscent of the previous toothless team that oversaw Hezbollah's Iranian-orchestrated mobilization for years. One anchorwoman actually reported U.N. delegates were "hashing it out" to see if international peacekeepers would be afforded the right to shoot back if Hezbollah were to engage them. I kid you not.

Do we love the very thought of peace so much that we are willing to do anything to obtain it instantaneously -- even if that guarantees continued belligerence and a replay of war in the near future? The answer to that question has sadly and consistently been a resounding "yes." Ignoring the existing power-vacuum in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal guaranteed the triumph of al Qaidism. Hightailing out of Beirut in 1983 encouraged the likes of Hezbollah. Disengaging from Mogadishu in 1993 pleased Mr. bin Laden. Failing to go to Baghdad in 1991 -- and then opting not to support Iraqi resistance fighters -- guaranteed violated ceasefires, an assassination attempt on a former head-of-state, a shaky no-fly zone, a corrupt Oil-for-Food program, thousands more butchered, the housing of the likes of Abdul Yasin, and a second Iraq war.

Likewise, if nothing is done to sustain an alteration of the unacceptable status quo, we will see Israeli jets over Qana soon yet again… after, of course, Katyushas over Haifa. Cleansing all of Lebanon of Hezbollah would have required an unattractive all-out invasion -- not a preferable course given the understandable and natural aversion to high casualties. In addition, the Israelis, at our encouragement, were trying to preserve the burgeoning Lebanese government. The nature of counterterrorism within Lebanon should therefore have shifted the onus of responsibility onto the Lebanese themselves, but the odds of this outcome seem to be dwindling. Aiding the parliament of Lebanon against Iranian agents would be a wise move in its own right, but given the tension between Iran and the West it is only that much more desirous.

This is what we will call the first pillar of hedging ourselves off against an expansionist Iranian theocracy. Lebanon as a plural bulwark against Khomeinist theology would require a stabilization force with teeth, capable of hunting down and disbanding Iranian militias on their own, not one disallowed from firing back after having been fired upon. As we see in southern Afghanistan, insurrectionists are quite happy when Americans transfer occupational responsibility over to Europeans, so even a NATO force would have been pushing it. And as we have seen in the Balkans, where French commanders secretly aided the ethnic cleansers of Serbia against Bosnian Muslims, there is little trust placed in multinational forces not commanded by far more responsible CENTCOM overseers.

Rather than have something akin to this, it seems we are placing our trust in yet another U.N. expedition with some 15,000 Lebanese soldiers, most of which are probably sympathetic to Hezbollah in the first place. It took quite a while, around two years, to craft an accountable antiterrorist Iraqi security force with worthy Iraqi warriors that would not simply side with the insurgents or drop their weapons and run away. But it has been done and continues to be done in that particular war theater. Why would we expect similar results in Lebanon without having first overhauled the Lebanese armed forces?

And by maintaining Hezbollah as a political bloc, not only is a foreign movement antithetical to democracy allowed to threaten such democratic governance, but it is esteemed legitimacy it otherwise would not have after having lost on a battlefield. We in the West have failed to frame the issue: Hezbollah is a foreign agent of Iranian intermingling that seeks bigoted theocracy, not a national resistance movement that champions pluralism and political coexistence with their non-theocratic countrymen.

By allowing this terrorist group to not only remain intact, and possibly not even fully disarm, but to also continue to exist as a social-political force, the Iranians are essentially given a second-track toward ideological dominion over Lebanon. If they were to garner control of the state politically, all the work of the jihadist organization would have therefore been accomplished in democratic processes they otherwise oppose but we encouraged them to take (simply to avoid continued hostilities).

It seems we have not learned this lesson and will only do so if and when the Iranian-backed fascists hijack a liberalizing Beirut parliament. Any plan that seeks to incorporate terrorists into constitutional government, simply to defang them, is no different than Colin Powell shamefully suggesting Taliban fighters enter the new Afghan regime, or the sad, sad voices that simply wanted a friendlier Ba'athist -- a Saddam with a nicer mustache -- to rule those crazy sectarian Iraqis. Deeply disturbing and morally ambivalent positions, to say the least.

But the process of rolling back Iranian regional aspirations transcends the shallow Israeli victory (or shall we say, premeditated draw) in Lebanon. While most of our attention in Iraq has been fixated on Sunni combatants -- either Hussein loyalists or al Qaida linchpins -- the long-term threat to Iraqi democratization rests within its otherwise friendly Shi'ite majority. When there are autocratic or theocratic agents, answering to a foreign puppeteer like Iran, which wholeheartedly reject the constitutional process their own country is undertaking -- and they have both a political and armed wing -- that particular country in transition is just asking to be hijacked. We have that in the Shi'ite clerical fascist Muqtada al Sadr -- warlord and murderer of Americans, innocents Sunnis, and Iraqi Shi'ites that decline to obey the mullahs in Tehran.

Has that hijacking already begun? Just a few days ago, American and Iraqi troops raided the office of the Iraqi Ministry of Health and arrested five government workers plotting to kill members of Prime Minister Maliki's family. The head of this particular ministry is one Ali al Shamari, a Shi'a Muslim with close ties to Mr. al Sadr's guerrilla network. Nothing has been claimed as of yet, but nonetheless this is pretty interesting. Did the Mahdi militia attempt to harm Nouri Maliki -- did Iran?

No evidence yet backs up this theory. But the point remains: it is not unlikely. If we are to solidify stability in Iraq, the Iranian-armed militias and warlords in the southern provinces must be disarmed or dissolved. Mr. Maliki, for all intents and purposes, has promised to do just this… although he often chastises military raids carried out against such militias. Not only is this foolhardy, but it is undermining and threatening his own government.

If the Mahdi militia will not hand over its weaponry and cease demanding and receiving expenditures from Tehran peacefully, then this movement ought to be crushed in a joint Iraqi-U.S. military operation. Body bags will increase, people will forecast "civil war" (as they've been doing for three years), the death toll "will rise" (when has it ever lessened?), and Americans at home will think everything's gone to hell in a hand basket, but in reality this will be a wonderfully callous blow to Iranian schemes for Iraq.

On the contrast, if the Mahdi militia does peacefully disarm, so will the Badr militia. If the Badr militia disarms, there will be less incentive for "rejectionist" Sunnis to partake in acts of sectarian violence against Shi'ites. This entire cycle of insurrection is fueled by sabotage artists supported by the Iranian government. If we wish to secure Iraq, disarming or pacifying Iranian minions in Iraq ought to be priority number one. Everything else from there, in a security sense, will fall into place. Needless to say, very much like Lebanon, these particular initiatives are worthy and beneficial in their own right, but are only enhanced in importance and urgency when faced with the possible nuclearization of an unhinged Ahmadinejad.

Which brings us to the final aspect of this three-pronged Iran strategy: support for dissidents in Tehran's satrapy of Syria and in Iran proper. This is where Ledeen has expressed his most serious bafflement, referring to the current Bush approach as a "non-policy" more than once in his own editorials. It seems we are (understandably but incorrectly) fixated on the sole issue of the Iranian nuclear arsenal, rather than the inherent nature of the Iranian regime itself.

This is where proponents of promoting liberalism and constitutionalism in the Mideast have become frustrated, not to mention the Arab and Persian freedom fighters themselves. Farid Ghadry, the chief Syrian exile and leader of the Reform Party of Syria, has described how legitimate U.S. fears of nuclear proliferation often undermine our long-term objectives of democratization. Libya, for example, disarmed all of its unconventional weaponry -- which, in and of itself, is a good thing -- but such obedience, without a promise to abide by human rights, only ensures the stability and longevity of the dictatorship in question.

We are fooling ourselves if we think Khamenei and Ahmadinejad will forgo their possible nuclear prowess as Colonel Qaddafi did. At best, Iran sees its own nuclearization has the ultimate deterrent against Western aggrandizement -- at worst, as a means to hasten the return of the Hidden Imam and bring about the Apocalypse.

We are likewise fooling ourselves if we are to believe a non-nuclear Iranian theocracy is preferable to a nuclear Iranian democracy. Excluding undemocratic Pakistan, nobody frets over the Indian nuclear arsenal. Excluding undemocratic China, nobody would really sweat over a Japanese or South Korean decision to join the prestigious nuclear club. Although most are less than thrilled with Russia's post-Soviet liberalization, nevertheless we are far less threatened by a quasi-authoritarian Putin than we were by the likes of a Khrushchev. Most democratizing countries opt to relinquish their arsenals -- South Africa, ex-Soviet client states, etc. -- but the point remains: democracies with devastating weaponry are not all that threatening. Case in point, a free Iran with nukes ought to be preferred to an unfree Iran without nukes, and especially an unfree Iran with them.

Therefore the official doctrine ought not to be disarmament or containment, but the encouragement of regime change in Tehran. Ditto that with Damascus. This would constitute a serious detraction from current State Department dogma. Rather than concentrate solely on weaning the Syrians off of Iran, or encouraging a tyrant to behave better, we must instead realize we are dealing with an autocratic kleptocracy full of assassins. Bashar Assad may appear to be a benevolent former ophthalmologist, but in reality he oversees the implementation of an atrocious dictatorial system.

Everywhere we look, Iranian instrumentalities seek to undermine the Middle East militarily, while trying to subvert it ideologically. Whether it is Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Muqtada al Sadr, the Syrian Ba'athists, or even the likes of internationally wanted terrorists such as Imad Mugniyah, the Iranian regime is subsidizing and financing our killers. We must remember, after all, that Mugniyah -- the real general of Hezbollah -- has transcended the Sunni-Shi'a divide before and has cooperated with Wahhabi al Qaida agents in previous operations. Likewise, we mustn't forget that, to this day, Iran is said to be sheltering high-ranking al Qaidists such as Saif al Adel, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, and Saad bin Laden.

This is not necessarily a call for future interventionism and ill-advised adventurism, per se, but rather an acknowledgement that our present quandary rests within the nature of our adversaries, not simply with what they do. All problems are local, and there is nothing decadent in encouraging the Lebanese to deal with their own Iranian proxies or with aiding the Iraqis in crushing their own hooligans. Much as the Senate passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, we ought to present and pass an Iranian equivalent this year: Iranian culture, the Iranian people, the Iranian military, and even parts of the Iranian government are completely compatible with democracy and friendly relations with the West. Simply remove a few hundred old men in robes and most of our regional problems will diminish, if not vanish completely. If we could achieve this in Eastern Europe, under the protective igloo of Soviet domineering, then we can urge and manifest regime change in Damascus and Tehran without firing another shot.

But all signs point to our unwillingness to foster such a radical revolution. Failing to disassemble Hezbollah, militarily and politically, epitomizes specifically what we ought to avoid when challenging the mullahs. Allowing impious warlords to rise to prominence in a fragile Iraqi parliament is as reckless a course as there is when confronting a hegemonic Khomeinist power.