Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran'

In reality, Bush is turning down the heat on Iran and its client Hezbollah.

Europe and the U.S. just agreed on a joint carrot-and-stick approach to Iran. As the NYTimes reports:

After years of campaigning against Hezbollah, the radical Shiite Muslim party in Lebanon, as a terrorist pariah, the Bush administration is grudgingly going along with efforts by France and the United Nations to steer the party into the Lebanese political mainstream, administration officials say.

The administration's shift was described by American, European and United Nations officials as a reluctant recognition that Hezbollah, besides having a militia and sponsoring attacks on Israelis, is an enormous political force in Lebanon that could block Western efforts to get Syria to withdraw its troops.

The shift coincides with Syria presenting a timetable for the complete withdrawal of its troops and intelligence services from Lebanon.

JEDEIDET YABOUS, Syria (AP) -- President Bashar Assad reiterated his commitment to withdrawing all Syrian troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon, a U.N. envoy said Saturday, indicating that he had received a timetable for the pullout. Meanwhile, a convoy of Syrian troops returned home to a rousing welcome.

The long convoy of vehicles carrying Syrian soldiers returned home amid a heavy snowfall early Saturday to the cheers of Syrian well-wishers, who chanted "Syria! Syria!" handed out flowers and threw rice.

U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen did not give any details about timing after meeting with Assad in the northern city of Aleppo but said he would discuss the matter at the United Nations next week.