Would It Have Been Smart?

I remember the day of purple fingers a couple years ago when the world realized regular joe Iraqis were going to the polls to vote despite the warnings from terrorists and insurgents that killing would take place. There was a brief moment when Bill Mahar was saying, "Holy shit - was Bush right? Is this guy going to be remembered like Lincoln?"

Well, that moment has obviously past and a lot of people are talking about the big failures of the Bush administration to stop the chaos from growing in Iraq.

But maybe a better criticism would be - why did we not use that moment to tackle Iran and Syria in one fell swoop?

What if we openly called for democratic revolution in both countries and started to overtly fund the dissident groups - particularly in Iran - and just said look: there are two options for the future - democracy or theocracy. You're going to have to fight to get democracy, but we'll stand with anyone whose willing to do so.

Why didn't we try to parlay our winnings at that point? By striking at the source of Iraqi trouble - Iran - we would've maybe set the table for the reform we intended the whole time, a big change of thinking across the entire Middle East.

This too, would've seemed radical in the moment, but maybe it would've been a brilliant move. A fast and furious checkmate.