In his televised address Wednesday night to announce plans for a spike in U.S. troops in Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush spoke with a notably less confrontational tone than he's embraced in the past. That's not to say his remarks weren't provocative, specifically his direct pronouncement that Syria and Iran "are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq," with Iran "providing material support for attacks on American troops." Some of us on the other side of the TV screen, however, wished the U.S. President might have pursued this point a little further, recognizing that the divisions that exist among Middle East states over support for Shiites and Sunnis, not only in Iraq but in Lebanon and elsewhere, offers a rare opportunity for American diplomacy (WSJ sub required, sorry). But that's another story.
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