Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Glass Houses


It is painfully obvious that Syrian ruler Bashir al-Assad and his tinpot regime don't take America or its friends seriously. Today's murder by car bomb of anti-Syrian Lebanese politician Walid Eido, Mr. Eido's son -- along with Mr. Eido's bodyguards and a half-dozen other Beirut citizens unlucky enough to be nearby -- looks uncommonly like the Syrian regime thumbing its nose at Uncle Sam. Careful it isn't chopped off.
Syria's only ports are on an American lake, and the country shares a border with at least two American allies, one loaded with enough US troops and munitions to transform Syria and all in it into glowing slag. Why aren't the Syrians good and worried ? They ought to be.
Iran is perhaps beyond our ability to easily intimidate. Boy Assad and his Baath regime should be a different matter. Are we really going to let the Syrian secret police and the Iranian stooges they also enable destroy a friendly government ? Far better to remind Mr. Assad and his minions that they live in a brittle glass house, and they had better stop throwing stones.

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