Tuesday, October 28, 2008
This piece at the Wall Street Journal hits all the right notes. The Colin Powell faction that shut down vigorous action the moment the Iraq invasion was over was always dangerously naive, never accounted for the nature of the enemy, and has been as responsible for the dragging out of the conflict as was the poor post-invasion planning. Obama is anxious to show he hasn't learned anything by the country's experience as he proceeds to enshrine this dangerous blindness into policy. We've sat for years watching personnel and equipment coming over the border and done very little to stop it -- beyond speaking very sternly in private meetings. Want a preview of future American action? Remember Nancy Pelosi in a hijab.
Hitting Syria, Five Years Late - Soliciting Assad was one of Bush's biggest war mistakes
After five years and six months during which Syria has been an active accomplice to the insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. has finally struck back. Historians will be left to ponder how the course of the Iraq war might have changed if President Bush had acted sooner.
U.S. military sources are confirming that on Sunday U.S. special forces raided a location in eastern Syria that was being used by a network of Syrian military officials and al Qaeda-connected groups to smuggle foreign jihadists into Iraq. The Syrians, predictably, denounced the raid as "an outrageous crime" and an "unprovoked" attack on a "sovereign country."
The Syrians have an interesting definition of unprovoked and a curious notion of sovereignty. Even before U.S. troops took Baghdad, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explicitly warned that Syria was shipping military equipment to help Saddam Hussein, including night-vision goggles and antitank weapons. Only days after Baghdad fell, Mr. Bush warned Damascus against becoming a safe haven for top Iraqi Baathist officials. "We expect cooperation," he said, "and I'm hopeful we'll receive cooperation." Siding with Secretary of State Colin Powell over Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush dispatched Mr. Powell to Damascus in a show of postinvasion diplomatic goodwill.
President Bashar al Assad did not reciprocate, and Damascus soon became the capital in exile from which the Sunni insurgency was financed, organized and directed...
...There's a lesson in these Bush Administration mistakes for the next President, particularly if he is Barack Obama. The Syrians interpreted diplomatic accommodation in the face of their anti-American acts as a sign of weakness to exploit. Mr. Obama has promised he'll engage Syria diplomatically as part of an overall effort to end the conflict in Iraq. If he really wants to end the war faster, he'll pick up on Syria where the Bush Administration has now ended.
See also, Michael Yon: Syria-Iraq: Bloody Border, Messy Politics - "Syria has played a dangerous game in Iraq with few consequences -- until yesterday's U.S. Special Forces raid."
Update: Putting a name to it: The Cambodia Syndrome.
This may be the start of "living in interesting times" between now and the end of the Bush administration.
Amazing: I once upon a time really thought President Bush would hit Syria after invading Iraq. Sadly, President Bush surrounded himself with wimpy-thinking Liberals like Powell, Rice, and others, who apparently appealed to his inner Country-Club RINO self and caused him to absurdly ignore Syria while it openly served as a pipeline for men, money, and materiel into Iraq. How many LIVES might have been saved by strikes like this FIVE YEARS ago. The only way I can account for this uncharacteristic raid into Syria is that Condi Rice, wife, Laura, and his two daughters must all have been OUT OF TOWN (and perhaps he had a couple of beers while they were out)!
RINO - Republican In Name Only.