Et tu, Dean?

As the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rises to nearly $300 billion, and a report says there are more terrorists today than ever before, Howard Dean comes out in support of keeping troops in Iraq.

From Democracy Now!

"The chair of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean has come out in support of President Bush"s current Iraq policy. In a speech earlier this week in Minnesota, Dean said, 'The president has created an enormous security problem for the United States where none existed before. But I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now that he's there.' Dean said a US pullout could endanger the United States in three ways: By leaving a Shiite theocracy worse than that in Iran; by creating an independent Kurdistan in the north, with destabilizing effects on neighboring Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran and Syria, and by making the so-called Sunni Triangle a magnet for what Dean called Islamic terrorists similar to the former Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Dean was portrayed as an antiwar candidate in the media during the 2004 presidential race."

Alright, so he's not for the war, but he's not calling for a timetable for withdrawal.

Dean's fears of a Shiite theocracy are shared by Noam Chomsky:

"The first thing they'll do is reestablish relations with Iran...The next thing that might happen is that a Shiite-controlled, more or less democratic Iraq might stir up feelings in the Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia, which happen to be right nearby and which happen to be where all the oil is. So you might find what in Washington must be the ultimate nightmare-a Shiite region which controls most of the world's oil and is independent."

So what's the solution? Before the elections in January, Ted Kennedy weighed the options:

"President Bush has left us with few good choices. There are costs to staying, and costs to leaving. There may well be violence as we disengage militarily from Iraq and Iraq disengages politically from us, but there will be much more violence if we continue our present dangerous and destabilizing course. It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin."

UPDATE: Dennis Kucinich writes an open letter to Dean for The Nation:

"We can draw no clearer distinction with the President than over this war. He cannot right a wrong (unjustified war) by perpetuating a military occupation. Military victory there is not possible. General Tommy Franks concedes that. The war will end when we say it's over. The Democratic leadership should be pressing for quick withdrawal of all troops from Iraq."