And now: Syria

[Occhidiangela]

Look at the detail.

Afghanistan and the Taliban had a direct linkage to Bin Laden: indeed, even President Clinton had shot some Tomahawks at Afghanistan in 98 over the Kenya and Tanzania Embassy bombings, at Terrorist Training Camps. OK, 9/11 payback, that one was almost to simple a case.

Iraq: a sustained problem since the Kuwait aggression. An abysmal track record, a demonstrated aggressive policy maker, and a variety of other issues.

It was a much harder case to make, in Congress, and of course as we saw, at the UN. Considering that strategically Afghanistan and Iraq are two completely different animals, no cookie cutter approach could be expected to work, because in each case, the US will, as a matter of policy, not go into it alone. One need not be UN sponsored to be multilateral. US security policy recognizes and dictates that we will do any armed, or even 'short of armed' operation, like peacekeeping or embargo, as part of a coalition. That is policy.

Syria: long track record, like Saddam's, of UN issues? Not really.
An oppressive regime. Yes. But that is not the sole criterion.
Supports terrorists? Absolutely.

Now, that last piece is where anyone who understands how far reaching President Bush's speech can be construed could be concerned. His statement of policy was that Terrorism, not just Al Qaeda, was the enemy. That is an incredibly open ended approach to global security.

Now, is it necessary to 'go after Syria?'

That depends on the quality of President Hassad, the younger, his linkages to a variety of terrorist groups, and his allies. The lines are rather amorphous.

Should a desire to 'go after Syria' come about in Washington, there is still the problem of raising support from credible allies: Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, UK, NEtherlands, Germany, etc. There is also the problelm of raising support amongh reasonably friendly Arab nations.

In the case of Iraq, he'd been a pain in the arse for some time. Easy not to like the guy.
In the case of Afghanistan, they aren't Arabs. 'Over the horizon' to some, if not all, Arab governments.

Syria? Arabs. Syria provided a couple of divisions in 1991, to protect The Holy Land (Mecca and Medina) and as I recall never crossed the Iraqi border. Politically, they are in a completely different situation than Iraq. Therefore, any work with Syria will, and must, start via all other means. Embargo has not been tried, other than the Iraqi oil pipeline haveing been just shut off the other day.

Appeals to the UN have not yet been tried, though I wonder if that is worth the bother, since Syria hardly has the probleml that Iraq had in re NBC, aggression, etc. However, in this case, the only premise from which to enter an attempt at UN level action in re Syria is in the explicit case of Terrorism. Not only that, but Hassad, while the heir to his father, has not really had the time to establish a track record as abysmal as Saddam's, though like any leader of any nation, he has ample opportunity to do great things, or to cock it all up. :)

Syria is also a far different kettle of fish in regards to Israel. Anything we try to work out with Syria will be linked to -- it sort of has to be -- the future shape of Israel's relationships in the Middle East, since Israel, an unfriendly neighbor of Syria, needs to be secure and stable to keep Syria, who has bled at Israeli hands more than once, to be content that Israel will not lash out at them again. The US, and the UN for that matter, can be facilitators in that process, which has been on going, with various ups and downs, since 1973.

There is no cookie cutter. Those who want to see one are guilty, in the extreme, of reductionist thinking, and lack of understanding. And in Syria's case, a great deal has not yet been tried short of armed intervention.

This crap really is NOT that simple.

EDIT: I sort of forgot about Syria's 'annexation' of Lebanon back in the 80's. The Reagan administration's inability to sort out who to support, who to shoot, what to do, and how to keep it from creating a mess with the Russians/Soviets basically took us our of Lebanon in about 1984. So, maybe Syria got away with one in 1980s' that Saddam could not get away with when the Eagle and the Bear backed off from their apocalyptic positions.