Gone East

President Reagan's tough-talk and saber-rattling almost certainly was one of the main factors in the fall of the Soviet Union. Is it possible that the Bush administration has stumbled onto the best way to finally make progress with the age-old problem of the middle east?

Thomas L. Friedman , New York Times:

The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government ? and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen ? got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.