Iraq's just the first step; or the "post-Saddam pivot"

"While President Bush has portrayed a U.S. invasion of Iraq as a blow against terrorism," writes Warren P. Strobel, "his most hawkish advisers have a much more ambitious goal in mind: redrawing the political map of the Middle East."

Top Pentagon and White House officials have discussed how the ouster of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and installation of a U.S.-backed democracy in Baghdad could trigger democratic change in neighboring Iran and put pressure on the Saudi monarchy, say U.S. officials and analysts close to the administration.

And they have mulled a "post-Saddam pivot" that would make Syria — also on the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring states and a longtime enemy of Israel — the next focus of U.S. action in the Middle East, said the officials, most of whom requested anonymity.

...They envision Saddam's overthrow and a sustained U.S. military presence in Baghdad triggering political change across the region. Control of Iraqi oil fields would lessen U.S. reliance on oil from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies.

Reminder: John Donnelly and Anthony Shadid of the Boston Globe reported the same thing last month.