Further, what the WaPo article below cited (the one Pat Lang is refering to), is such a bizarre inversion of Reality, only possible by propagandists in the Center of the Empire under the influence of AIPAC. What do sticks mean when you have to beg Iran & Syria to save your bacon??

Here's a more grounded realistic assessment, that also underscores why Israel in the grips of its own radical right wing is so dangerous to America & the ME generally.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - While American commanders have suggested that civil war is possible in Iraq, many leaders, experts and ordinary people in Baghdad and around the Middle East say it is already under way, and that the real worry ahead is that the conflict will destroy the flimsy Iraqi state and draw in surrounding countries.


Whether the U.S. military departs Iraq sooner or later, the United States will be hard-pressed to leave behind a country that does not threaten U.S. interests and regional peace, according to American and Arab analysts and political observers.


""We're not talking about just a full-scale civil war. This would be a failed-state situation with fighting among various groups"" growing into regional conflict, Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group, said by telephone from Amman, Jordan.


""The war will be over Iraq, over its dead body,"" Hiltermann said.

...

As Iraq's neighbors grapple with the various ideas put forward for solving the country's problems, they uniformly shudder at one proposal: dividing Iraq into separate regions for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, and then speeding the withdrawal of U.S. forces.


""To envision that you can divide Iraq into three parts is to envision `ethnic cleansing' on a massive scale, sectarian killing on a massive scale,'' Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, said Oct. 30 at a conference in Washington. ``Since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited.""

``When the ethnic-religious break occurs in one country, it will not fail to occur elsewhere, too,'' Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Germany's Der Spiegel newsweekly recently. ``It would be as it was at the end of the Soviet Union, only much worse. Large wars, small wars -- no one will be able to get a grip on the consequences.''

...

Diplomats and analysts increasingly are urging the Bush administration to reach out to both countries as part of a regional approach to quelling Iraq's troubles. Former Secretary of State James Baker, leader of a panel preparing a set of policy recommendations for the Bush administration, already has endorsed the idea of seeking the help of Iran and Syria.


"The thing is, because Iran and Syria both have spoiling power in Iraq, if you could neutralize them,'' it would ease some of the many pressures within Iraq, Hiltermann said. But he said the two countries may demand a mighty trade-off: for Syria, U.S. help with its biggest stated aim, winning back the Golan Heights from Israel; for Iran, U.S. compromise over its nuclear program.

Sticks...Sticks...Doesn't this paragraph tell us that it is Israel that stands in the way of enlisting help of relevant nations to hammer out a settlement, or am I missing something? Civil war could ripple outward, indeed, Cui bono?

The Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.