How Success begets Success

On Thursday on Hugh Hewitt, TNR editor Peter Beinart (whose work I respect greatly) made a point of arguing that Libya remained the kind of rogue state with an interest in W'sMD that Iraq appeared not to have been. Oops. The very next day we discover Libya is giving up the whole deal. Hewitt argued that Libya's dictator had been humbled by Reagan during a series of encounters a decade and a half ago, and was now much less of a threat than Iraq. Ultimately, I think this kind of thing suggests that the Neocons were on to something when they spoke of changing the dynamic of the region by changing the regime in Iraq (something that Afghanistan wasn't going to do - too peripheral). Austin Bay of Strategy Page wrote about this change in terms of "cascading effects". He also had a few things to say on NPR on the subject.