Brzezinski and Mead discuss whether the U.S. is going to war with Iran and Syria.

On PBS, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Advisor, told anchor Jim Lehrer that he is growing increasingly worried that the Bush administration may be seriously contemplating a military action against Iran or Syria.

He said that while the Bush administration could "use the failure of the Iraqis to meet the benchmarks [Bush set out in his speech] and, in effect, adopt a policy of blame and run, not cut and run, but blame and run," he thought that because the administration has created what he characterized as an "exaggerated horror scenario" with "all the dominos falling in the Middle East if we leave," he wondered whether the administration really could leave "because [of] all of these horrible things [they have said] will happen if we [do]."

"There are a lot of people still around here," he went on to say, "particularly the neocons, who would like us to have a crack at Iran."

Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, indicated that he too thought the U.S. was "trying to tighten a noose around [Iran] or at least [was stepping up] the pressure."

As Mead pointed out, "We're substantially increasing our naval forces in the region. The diplomatic pressure is continuing. I understand an Iranian bank has just been sort of sanctioned by the U.S. The Europeans are working with the U.S. to go even beyond the latest U.N. sanctions. And let's not forget the bombing raids in Somalia as an indication, an indication that the Americans have teeth."

But, as Mead went on to say, he's not certain that these recent actions really do mean that the U.S. is really preparing to escalate or whether they are meant to simply create, as he put it, "a situation where negotiations and a real regional approach [can] become more feasible."

Brzezinski said he was ultimately pessimistic about the potential for victory in Iraq: "The fact is, the American effort in Iraq is essentially a colonial effort. We're waging a colonial war. We live in the post-colonial era. This war cannot be won because it is simply out of sync with historical times."

Mead, on the other hand, seemed to be cautiously optimistic: "One of the reasons is that I see today that the Ayatollah Sistani has issued a statement in which he says that the disarming of private militias is the right thing to do, the states should have a monopoly on force, and he encourages the disarming of militias, and not only of one sect.

"So there is more legitimacy in Shia opinion in Iraq for some of these measures. Now, that doesn't means this going to be a cakewalk or that there won't be a lot of resistance within the government or within the community to it, but that's something we did not have before, and I think it's pretty positive."