Warrant is Italian, plus PLO Training Camp found in Iraq is new offence (unless you, Thomas know for sure that Abbas was not involved with Terrorist Camp...<gg>
slate.msn.com
Could Bush seriously be contemplating such a move? It's doubtful. Some of his house neocons see Iraq as the first in a series of Middle Eastern dominos to fall, but even they tend to theorize that Saddam's swift toppling will have a "demonstration effect" on his erstwhile allies, forcing them to "wake up" to the new geopolitical realities. It is also less than clear that Bush's soaring popularity could sustain a second round of war; certainly, he has not yet prepared the public for an invasion of Syria, as he set the stage over the course of a year for an assault on Iraq.
Still, if you're Bashar Assad, you've got to be noticing that, just as the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are preparing to go back home, the 4th Infantry and 1st Armor Divisions are starting to arrive. And while most of these troops will be tasked with establishing security in the new Iraq, might some of them—you've got to be asking—be sent on a little mission to the west?
But quite apart from the numerous political, economic, diplomatic, and humanitarian reasons for not plunging into a war on Syria, there is one military caveat as well—Syria really does have weapons of mass destruction, probably more than Iraq ever had, and its whole military strategy is geared to using them if necessary.
After the Israelis stripped bare the myth of Syrian defenses in 1982, Hafez Assad abandoned his goal of achieving "strategic parity" with Israel and instead aimed for "strategic deterrence." |
