Syria: Who is Next?

Syria, Iran, North Korea maybe (they've got weapons). Who knows after that.

Mexico?

Considering the overwhelming might of US seapower, I'd say a return to SE Asia. This time the focus would be on Muslim nations, not because their governments are anti-US or harbouring WMDs, but because of the risk of terrorist movements. Don't expect a Vietnam situation though, think along the lines of Camp X-Ray - the wholesale rounding up of 'undesirables' and relocation to somewhere like the Phillipines.

Also, expect a build-up in news about Cuba. I think it's also a good opportunity to settle a long-standing grudge.

bm

The price tag for Iraq is put conservatively at $100 billion. This does not include the price of reconstruction or the cost of being at threat level orange (I wonder what this is, but I am sure there is a cost associated with this.)

Don't forget that *we* are paying for each technologically advanced, precision guided bomb that falls. Tax break or no, this comes out of our pockets sometime.

I don't think we can afford another "victory".

Mr. Stillwater I feel sure your grandma taught you that holding a grudge is silly and pointless......

American Hawks: Some see victory extending beyond
Why am I not surprised?-----BumbleBeeBoogie
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Some see victory extending beyond
By Barbara Slavin
USA TODAY - 4/10/03

WASHINGTON -- The fall of Baghdad is a victory not only for the U.S. military but also for a group of foreign policy hard-liners who have realized the first step in an audacious a bold plan to reorder the Arab world and global institutions.

The loose-knit group, whose core includes Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, sees the war in Iraq as a model for the world's lone superpower. should act: The group believes that with With or without international consensus, the United States should move with force to pre-empt security threats and spread democracy and free-market economics to remaining pockets of authoritarianism, primarily in the Middle East.

While U.S. officials emphasize the enormousness enormity of the tasks that need to be completed in Iraq, some administration supporters are already proclaiming the birth of a new historical period and suggesting that regime change in Iraq could be followed soon by Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Jim James Woolsey, a member of a Pentagon advisory board and former CIA director who is close to Wolfowitz, told students in Los Angeles last week that the Cold War was World War III and the United States is now engaged in ''World War IV'' against Iran's religious rulers, ''fascists'' in Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists.

Others are not so bellicose.

''We appear to be moving at last from the post-Cold War era . . . to the time of an enduring Pax Americana,'' says Thomas Donnelly, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Borrowing a line from Secretary of State Dean Acheson, an architect of the global realignment that followed World War II, Donnelly says, ''we are present at the creation'' of a truly new world order.

But instead of working through the multilateral institutions Acheson helped shape, the United States -- with the help of like-minded allies -- would determine the international agenda. Organizations such as the United Nations would be relegated to secondary roles as deliverers of humanitarian aid and keepers of the peace.

Even Richard Haass, the relatively dovish director of policy planning at the State Department, concedes that the United States has gone from ''reluctant sheriff'' under President Clinton to a ''robust'' lawman, leading posses ''in a world that has some characteristics of the Wild West.''

This paradigm shift is both exhilarating and anxiety-producing.

''I hope we don't find ourselves doing the same thing in Syria and North Korea,'' former senator Sen. Donald Riegle, a Michigan Democrat, told a dinner at the German Embassy on Wednesday night. ''There are limits to how much we can do to set the world right.''

As difficult as it has been, war in Iraq may have been the easy part. The hard-liners' agenda has many steps, each harder than the last:

* Creating a representative, stable government in Iraq. The Pentagon has set up its own office to administer post-Saddam Iraq, with the intention of gradually handing power to an Iraqi interim government. As early as next week, it will convene its first conference of Iraqi exiles and prominent figures within the country to discuss the way forward.

But the killings Thursday in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf of two rival clerics, who were trying to reconcile, gives an indication of the intense religious and ethnic disagreements that will make Iraq difficult to govern.

* Limiting the role of the international community. The Bush administration wants the United Nations and a variety of countries to contribute humanitarian aid to Iraq. But several European countries see a much broader role for world institutions, suggesting that NATO could contribute peacekeepers for Iraq to re-establish civil order.

''Give it to them (the Europeans) before they change their minds,'' says retired Gen. general William Odom, director of national security studies for the Hudson Institute. ''The task in Iraq will make the Balkans look simple.''

The administration appears to have rejected a formal role for the Europeans or the United Nations in shaping Iraq's postwar government. ''The future of Iraq is going to be made in Iraq by Iraqis,'' a senior State Department official says. ''If they want to help out, great. If not, as my mother used to say, tant pis.'' (French for ''too bad.'')

* Resuming work on an Arab-Israeli peace agreement. Brokering peace, or at least trying to, is crucial, because the failure to resolve this conflict is the chief indictment of the United States in the Arab world -- and could undercut everything else U.S. policymakers are trying to achieve. The administration has promised to publish soon a ''road map'' for creation of a Palestinian state that was prepared last year by U.S., European, Russian and U.N. diplomats. But the Israeli government objects to a number of its provisions, and it remains unclear how hard the White House will push such a difficult issue as the United States enters a presidential election period.

Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president who has helped end numerous conflicts, including the 1999 Kosovo war, says reaching a ''fair deal'' for Israelis and Palestinians is the most important thing the Bush administration could do beyond stabilizing Iraq. It would help heal the diplomatic wounds caused by opposition to the war, Ahtisaari says, and underpin future democratic expansion.

* Targeting other ''rogue'' states. Even as war continues in Iraq, Bush administration officials have made threatening statements about other countries the White House considers threats.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have suggested that Syria could be the next target if it does not end its support for the remnants of Saddam's regime and for anti-Israel terrorist groups.

U.S. forces bombed Iraqi positions near Syria on Thursday, and special operations forces monitored the border to try to prevent Saddam supporters from escaping or new fighters from entering Iraq, U.S. officials said. ''The Syrians are behaving badly, they need to be reminded of that, and if they continue . . . we need to think about what our policy is,'' Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Asked if there were plans to send U.S. forces into Syria, Wolfowitz repliedsaid,: ''None I know of,'' but said that it would be ''a decision for the president and the Congress.''

Administration supporters also hope Saddam's fall will weaken Syria's economy. An influential lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has been arguing that future Iraqi oil shipments should no longer be exported through Syria but through Turkey and Jordan instead.

The Bush administration is also stepping up efforts to undermine the government of Iran, which along with Iraq and North Korea forms President Bush's ''axis of evil.'' The U.S. United States has a new Web site website in Iran's Farsi language and is increasing anti-regime broadcasts on radio and T.V.

John Bolton, the hawkish undersecretary of State, told an AIPAC convention last week, that ''in the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program.''

STRATFOR: Bush keep US-Syrian crisis warm
Bush Keeps U.S.-Syrian Crisis Warm
April 14, 2003 STRATFOR

President George W. Bush on April 13 signaled that the confrontation with Syria will neither go away nor be brought to a boil just yet. At the moment, the United States has the luxury of time in dealing with Syria, but not a great deal of time. The options include moving to full confrontation, the Syrians could capitulate or Washington could walk away. We find the last improbable, the second possible but difficult to envision -- at least when it comes to satisfying the United States. Therefore, the first -- a confrontation between the two countries -- remains the most likely outcome.

That's how it starts, the ol' 'Weapons of Mass Destruction".

US-British split over 'next target' Syria
US-British split over 'next target' Syria
By Marie Woolf and Andrew Grice
15 April 2003 - UK.The Independent

A marked difference in emphasis has emerged between Britain and America over the possible extension of war in Iraq to military action against Syria.

Tony Blair insisted that Britain had no intention of making a military strike against Syria and said he wanted to pursue "dialogue and partnership" with the country.

Today, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also refused to back Washington's description of Syria as a "rogue state".

While the White House called Syrian President Bashar Assad an "untested leader", Mr Straw said Syria's rulers were "intelligent people who have the future interest and welfare of their country at heart".

Mr Straw, speaking at Allied Central Command in Qatar, appeared to put clear water between the US and UK descriptions of Syria.

Asked if it was a rogue state, as the US says, he said: "We use different descriptions - Syria has an opportunity to prove that it's not in that category.

"We look forward to them understanding this new reality and moving forward."

The Prime yesterday was markedly conciliatory compared with Washington, which has threatened diplomatic and military sanctions. The US says Damascus is harbouring former members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, has also accused Syria of conducting tests involving chemical weapons over the past 12 to 15 months.

But a fresh conflict is a non-starter in Britain, prompting Mr Blair's attempts to calm fears that Syria might be developing weapons with the help of Iraqi scientists or that it has been allowing supporters of Saddam to cross the border.

"I have spoken to President Assad and he has assured me that that is not happening, and I have said to him that it is important that he makes sure that that assurance is valid," he said.

Mr Blair insisted that reports of a US strike on Syria were "simply not correct." He told Labour backbenchers: "I have the advantage of talking to the President on a regular basis, and I can assure you that there are no plans to invade Syria."
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Also in Politics:
US-British split over 'next target' Syria
The last stand is a fantasy, the ugly peace all too real
The Syria Question: Blair rejects an invasion
US casts an ever-darkening shadow on Syria question
War in Iraq

This is how it goes with bullies.

At some point -- they don't even have to act like bullies -- but they are perceived that way nonetheless.

Bush and handlers have caused damage that almost boggles the mind.