It is hard to belive that has not be so long since Kissinger wrote a book asking whether the US needs a foreign policy. Now, we hardly have time for domestic policy. But then as everyone knows that(except some staff members of the Senate intelligence committee) when the house burns it is not the time to reorganize the furniture.

Yesterday, George W. Bush did what he should have done a year ago but thought too risky. He told the American people that we are at war to regain our freedom and domestic tranquility. Our strategy is to democratize the Middle East. As Kasparov, the world's best chess player pointed out, Iraq is a difficult battle field since it is a triangle surrounded by three terror abetting states - Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran. Losing is not an option and internationalization is a fantasy. UN will bug out and NATO is not doing a better job in Afghanistan. The faster we pacify Iraq, the less likely it is that the shooting war will have to expand.

To win we need to treat the Sunni triangle as a battlefield, not a courtroom. At the moment we are not doing so and no one knows that better than the Sunni security service members who told French television that it is not their job or intention to fight the pro Saddam forces (yes, this is a line taken directly from the PLO playbook) and that those forces know that. Note the decline in the attacks on American trained Iraqi forces.

In a letter to the NYT Gary Sick argues that victory does not justify"morally hazardous" means. I could not agree more. But there is a difference between actions which are"morally hazardous" at war and actions which are"morally hazardous" at peace. By ignoring that difference during the Cold War, the Carter administration to which Sick belonged, abandoned the Iranian people at their time of need (no, the Ayatolla was not ELECTED) and ushered in decades of military strife in the Middle East and Central Asia. Now that is what I call a REAL"morally hazardous" action!