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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: JohnM who wrote (93308)4/13/2003 11:53:23 PM
From: slacker711  Read Replies (2) of 281500
 
My guess is that it's before.

My guess is that it is never.

There is no doubt that the rhetoric towards Syria (and Iran) will be dialed up considerably in the coming months but I think we will see a dramatic change in the behaviour of the regimes in that part of the world.

If you look at it from the point of view of the rulers of these various regimes over the last thirty years, what has been the price of condoning/performing various anti-American activities? With the exception of Quadaffi the answer has been that hasnt been much of a price.

That calculation has now changed.

What exactly does Assad gain from harboring Iraqi fugitives or funding terrorists? There might be a small domestic gain in that he can be shown as being strong against the Americans/Israelis. This was fine as long as there wasnt much of a chance of a negative blowback. Now that there is a >0 chance of the US performing another "regime change", I think Assad will think twice about his actions.

This is not to say that we arent going to see a considerable negative reaction from the populaces of these countries. Perhaps we will have ended up creating more terrorists....but I think, as with Quadaffi, we are going to see it get very quiet in the capitals of some of these countries.

A sense of ones own mortality can serve as a pretty dramatic wake up call....

Slacker
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