Even the dreamers in the State Department and the intelligence community could no longer shrug off the active involvement of the mullahs in the most recent terrorist attacks, their frantic race to develop an atomic bomb, and their commitment of thousands of men and millions of dollars to sabotage our efforts to bring a free society to Iraq.

The operation in Riyadh was planned in Iran by al-Qaida leaders, notably Said bin Laden (Osama's son) and Mohammed Shoghi. Three days before the Riyadh attacks, 17 al-Qaida members were quietly moved to the Pakistan border to conceal the Iranian connection, but it was uncovered anyway.

Inside Iraq, there are thousands of Iranian agents at work: radical Iraqi mullahs who were trained in Iranian mosques since the early 1980s, top officers of the Revolutionary Guards, and even the head of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, Ali Panahi. The new American in charge of Iraq, Jerry Bremer, was so alarmed at what he saw in Iraq that he has been peppering the intelligence community for more information on Iranian operations ever since he arrived.

On the nuclear front, there are many alarming signs. Just a few months ago, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze held a press conference in which he announced that his country's leading nuclear experts were in Iran, working on the mullahs' bomb. Some well-informed people now believe the regime is hoping to be able to test a device by the end of the summer.

Despite all this, the State Department had eagerly sought to establish a "dialogue" with the butchers of Tehran. Over the past year and a half, as many as a million people have flooded the streets in open protest, and a general strike has been called for July 9. The mullahs used the fact of the talks to discourage the opposition. "You see," they said, "the Americans deal with us, they recognize our legitimacy. They will never support you."

The president has been exceptionally clear about Iran, but some of his top underlings have openly contradicted him. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, for example, recently called Iran a "democracy."

That sort of dangerous confusion has to stop.

It is also long past time for us to support the many independent Farsi-language radio and television stations that broadcast to Iran from the United States. There is an "official" American station, radio Farda, but it cannot speak to the Iranians with the same authenticity as the Iranian-Americans.

Moreover, we need to use Iraqi Shiism against Tehran. The Shiite tradition long insisted on separation of mosque and state, but this tradition was abandoned under Ayatollah Khomeini. The most important Iraqi Shiite clerics are opposed to the Khomeinei doctrine, and we should support them. The Islamic Republic has been a catastrophe for the Iranian people, ruining the economy, murdering or torturing those secular and religious leaders who call for greater freedom, shamefully enriching a handful of mullahs while prostitution, drug addiction and beggary spread like epidemics and spending tens of millions of dollars to create and support the most vicious terrorist organizations, from al-Qaida to Hezbollah.

Lastly, we need to get tangible support to the brave people who have called for a general strike. Once upon a time, they could have counted on receiving money, communications equipment, and moral support from Western trade unions, private philanthropies, and their own diaspora. None of these has been willing to join the cause, to their great shame. But if the issue were clearly defined by all the administration's leaders, miracles might be accomplished.

This is not a call for further military action. Indeed, it is a prerequisite for limiting further fighting and safeguarding the lives of our soldiers now exposed to Iranian terrorism in Iraq. It would reinforce the president's basic insight that the war against terrorism is fundamentally a struggle against tyranny, and that we have entered the Middle East as liberators, not conquerors.

The war against terrorism was never limited to a single country or strategy.

We have defeated Saddam, now we must spread freedom to the heartland of the terror masters in Iran.

Now, please. Time's up.

Michael Ledeen is a contributing editor to National Review Online and resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book is "The War Against the Terror Masters."