It is not hard to imagine scenarios in which a single 
    match--say a terrible terror attack from Gaza--could 
    ignite a chain reaction. Israel could handle Hamas, 
    Hezbollah and Syria, albeit with painful losses all 
    around, but if Iran intervened rather than see its 
    regional assets eliminated, could the U.S. stay out? 

    With the Bush administration's policies having failed to 
    pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost 
    patience and that the opposition party is hurling 
    brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that
    we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain
    the president's freedom to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons 
    program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission 
    that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq--all
    of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our 
    imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are 
    hastening the advent of the next war.