Ledeen...you idiot... Michael Ledeen says exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. When people are trying hard enough to convince the public to attack Iraq alone, it's stupid to mention other places as future targets. But Ledeen has done exactly that in his idiotic piece in the Journal, which is sure to get a lot of attention as the "real reason" that the neocons want to go to war:

By all indications, the discussion will be about using our irresistible military might against a single country in order to bring down its leader. We should instead be talking about using all our political, moral and military genius to support a vast democratic revolution to liberate all the peoples of the Middle East from tyranny. That is our real mission, the essence of the war in which we are engaged, and the proper subject of our national debate.

I am not unsympathetic to the idea of crushing terrorist regimes before they become our problem. But the public hates Hussein and (to a lesser extent) Saudi Arabia. Iran and Syria aren't on the average Joe's radar, and it will be difficult to muster public support in the absence of a terrorist attack. Now, if we manage to defeat Iraq with less than 100 casualties, then we might consider taking on some of the others. It won't be difficult to defeat them militarily, especially with Israel on our side. The hard part will be reforming the societies afterwards. Colonialism is a difficult game to play when the world's watching you, and you can't play it by the rules of civilized nations. The question is: will we need to invade the other countries after we take Iraq? I think one object lesson will be enough to cause a good deal of change, such as a possible regime change in Iran. In any case, that's a decision we need to make after we take Iraq - not now. All this talk of "democracy" is part of the selective idealism of the extreme right, which mirrors the Stalinist left in only calling for democracy in states that don't pass ideological muster. You'll never hear Ledeen criticize Pinochet for being insufficiently democratic...