Escalate or Lose in Iraq?

Mohammed, from Iraq The Model, doesn't think that "democracy in one country" can work in the mideast. (Like "socialism in one country" during the early days of the late USSR.) He suggests that unless we are willing to "up the ante" for the regimes in Syria and Iran that are actively undermining Iraq's attempts at democratic self-governance, we will fail.

I hope he's wrong, because thanks to our friends in the Democratic party, the US no longer has the stomach to consider a wider campaign for democracy in the mideast. Of course, this may be subject to change if and when a dirty bomb or crude fission or chemical weapon were to explode in mid-town Manhattan.