Michael Ledeen quotes:

The 'Axis of Evil' was - and is - very real, as the tyrants of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea knew full well.

Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Iranians hate Arabs. They're a fairly well-educated population and they have centuries of experience with self-government.

The Iranians excel at identifying potential recruits for terrorist attacks, and then recruiting and training them.

China is a civilization pretending to be a nation.

So be it. God created profoundly fallible creatures on this earth, and human history is mostly the story of error and accident.

If you're convinced that you face bad options, then by all means take the least bad.