...And Michael Ledeen, writing on in "Syrious Threat," in the current for National Review Online, reminds us of who has helped create the "insurgency" in Iraq, and makes the urgent case that things can still go bad.

Ledeen's critical identification of the threat:

The close Iranian/Syrian/Iraqi cooperation in 2002 and 2003 was abundantly documented in the newspapers, and in convincingly authoritative form. Bashar Assad laid it out in a published interview, and the Iranians said as much — although, having honed their deceptive skills over many millennia, they were not so foolish as to say it explicitly. It has duly come to pass. The deus ex machina of the "insurgency," Zarqawi, operated from Iran, recruited in Europe, and organized the training of terrorists in Syria. The Iranians and the Syrians have worked like Siamese twins in a desperate effort to drive us out of Iraq, and the terror war will continue until somebody wins, and somebody loses. Either we defeat them, and drive them from power, or they will defeat us, and drive us out of Iraq, with all the terrible global consequences that would follow.

And then a warning:

The president has committed himself and his administration to the liberation of Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. This cannot remain a merely rhetorical commitment. If his fine words are not followed by effective action, we may yet again be branded "paper tigers." The revolutionary changes in the Middle East are the ripple effects of the serious action we took in Afghanistan and Iraq, and people are now risking their lives for freedom in the believe that the United States will stand beside them. We must show them we are serious. It isn't very hard, and there are plenty of people in the government and in the armed forces who know how to do it. They are awaiting their orders.

Faster, please. This can still go bad.