Jackson Diehl asks a pertinent question in his column today for the Washington Post: “If we retreat from Iraq, will Iran take over?”

“The larger question is,” Diehl writes, “whether Iraq will be forced by a full U.S. pullout to become an Iranian satellite, a development that would undo a huge and painful investment of American blood and treasure and deal a potentially devastating blow to the larger U.S. position in the Middle East.”