The Domino Quagmire

Haven't we heard all this before.

The Iraq adventure may have been a strategic mistake, our intelligence and tactical calculations may have been faulty, the cost in money and blood may have exceeded estimates, the expectations for success may have been inflated, but we can't reverse course now.

"There will be no retreat,"

Our military, said the president, was fighting "terrorism" in Iraq so Americans wouldn't have to face terrorists in New York, St. Louis or Los Angeles.

Delaware's Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a strong supporter of the Mideast intervention, echoed the Bush rationale and even expanded on it. If we didn't succeed in Iraq, warned Biden, a regional catastrophe would take place: terrorism would rise, and friendly Arab governments would fall, domino-like, in sequential order.