Is Iraq actually a Bush masterstroke?

Strange as may sound, Middle East expert Edward N. Luttwak makes the case that the war in Iraq- and precisely the sectarian divisions which have ensued- may have vastly strengthened the American hand in the Gulf.

Regionally, the Sunnis have nowhere else to go in their ongoing struggle with our common enemy, Iranian Shi'ite mischief-making. And by taking out Saddam and liberating Iraq's Shi'ites from decades of Sunni oppression, Bush may actually have strengthened America's hand somewhat and weakened that of Iran's extremists among the region's Shi'ites.

Lutwak's conclusion:

When the Bush administration came into office, only Egypt and Jordan were functioning allies of the U.S. Iran and Iraq were already declared enemies, Syria was hostile, and even its supposed friends in the Arabian peninsula were so disinclined to help that none did anything to oppose al Qaeda. Some actively helped it, while others knowingly allowed private funds to reach the terrorists whose declared aim was to kill Americans.

The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a New Middle East, in which Arab Sunnis can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shiite supremacy, while in Iraq at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the U.S. What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same.

Regardless of the outcome in Iraq, it may be a generation before historians finally decide whether, on balance, the war has actually been the disaster the Democrats and the MSM have managed to convince the American people that it is.