But the original plan, to set up a pro-American state in the region to divide the Arab world and keep Iran in check has not only failed, it now looks like the best we can hope for is an Iranian puppet state!

You're about six months behind the curve on this, but I've found that to be true of a lot of commentary on Iraq.

I find it a bit amusing that during the elections and the enactment of Iraq's first real constitution, the mantra was that policital advancements were worthless, and that it was the security environment that was critical.

All this talk of "failure," of course, presupposes that the status quo was better. An Iraq ruled by Saddam, which had built and used WMDs, attempted a nuclear program twice, and had it wrecked twice by an outside military force (not the useless U.N.), invaded two neighboring countries for conquest (also turned back by military force), supported terrorists in neighboring nations, and used home-grown terrorists for his own goals.

With the rulers of Iran waving vials of uranium around, what the hell do you think Saddam would be doing right now?

If you want to state that the war could have been handled better, I would have no argument. I have yet to see any war in the past century where the combatants didn't have to unlearn the tactics and strategies of earlier wars and learn new ones.

Diplomatically throughout the world our influence diminishes daily and our reputation as a rogue state increases every day.

With who? France? Germany? England? You been reading the news lately?

Got any recent evidence for this? Have you actually heard this from anyone other than Democratic politicians?