Syria in the Gunsights

The argument for taking out the government of Syria is growing by the day. The only things holding back the Marines from seizing downtown Damascus and imprisoning Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as a war criminal are (a) the lack of manpower to prevent the place from collapsing into anarchic chaos before a transitional government can be set up, and (b) the literally hysterical objections of the State Department. Consider these justifications, any one of which would be reason alone to rid Syria of the al-Assad pestilence:

Syria has a 600-mile border with Iraq. Al-Assad is orchestrating the insertion of thousands of Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, and other Jihadi terrorists into Iraq, arming them, and letting them come back to Syria and resupply. It is these foreign terrorists that are primarily responsible for the atrocities in Fallujah and elsewhere, killing US and Coalition soldiers as well as innocent Iraqis.

As arms inspector David Kay has noted, Saddam’s “missing WMD” were shipped to Syria before the war began. Starting in January 2004, Al-Assad began flying shipments of WMD components to Sudan to hide them in warehouses in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Afraid of the US response, Sudan’s leader Omar Bashir is now having second thoughts, and is ordering that Syria take back its Scud-C and Scud-D ballistic missiles and chemical weapons components.

On April 17, Jordanian police seized an amount of WMD chemicals being carried into Jordan from Syria by Al Qaeda terrorists. Three booby-trapped pickups were loaded with explosives and VX poison gas containers. Jordan’s King Abdullah and his intelligence chief General Kheir publicly announced that if the terrorists had succeeded in their confessed plan to detonate the VX in Amman near the American Embassy, over 20,000 people would have been massacred.

The evidence is becoming overwhelming that the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad provided the hiding place for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, that it has begun providing them to Al Qaeda terrorists, and that it is waging a proxy guerrilla war upon the U.S. and the Coalition military in Iraq.

Sanctions, such as those authorized by Congress last December in the Syrian Accountability Act, and other forms of political and economic pressure, are very rapidly becoming far-too-little-far-too-late solutions, and very dangerously so.

Twenty thousand human beings were almost slaughtered in Jordan this month. Whatever anarchic chaos occurs in Syria after a B2 strike obliterates the Presidential Palace in Damascus, it is preferable to al-Assad-backed terrorists succeeding in their next VX attempt.

Syria is leaving President Bush with little else than the military option. The sooner he exercises that option, the more lives will be saved, American, Jordanian, and Iraqi.

Jack Wheeler is the Publisher and Editor of To The Point at www.tothepointnews.com.

The policy of containment continues with Syria --- we have agreed with Egypt that Syria is "hands off unless Syria engages in overt acts." We wait, therefore, for Syria to "shoot first."

Iranians would rather settle their own differences. I'm not sure, but I am under the impression that Iranians make up the largest mid-East represenation of descendants within the United States. Those that wish for more freedom "back home," generally like the soft approach. So, again, without an overt act by Iran, we wait for them to "shoot first."

Yet, I must say, that as I look back on certain events of Year 2000, I wondered then, about the sudden rise in arrogance that could be found, here, among the students at university who were allegedly from Lebanon.

They were definitely overt, so to speak, and they were arrogant, and they were then, already acting like conquerors. I wondered what was up.

I was given to understand that President Clinton had ordered U.S. Marine officers to train certain parties under the auspices of the government of Syria, done to demonstrate an act of faith by him, that he was "neutral" in regard to the Arab/Israeli conflict. Sounds like one of his "military agreements," such as that whereby we were also training Red Chinese military "operatives." Something that Anthony Lake & Co. probably approved/promoted.

Which reminds me of the aid given to the same Red Chinese by Israel.

Not to mention the other cockeyed schemes of Morton Halperin.

You might say, that the lawyers have the thing so entangled, that the lawyers still have the thing entangled, because un-entangling is not their nature.

Because President Bush is determined to do things upon the advice of lawyers at each step, well, there's your answer.

You might have wondered why we did not invade Lebanon, so that our forces would be on the west and on the east of Syria, just in case, when we went into Iraq?

Yet the planners looked upon Lebanon as being, what indeed, Iraq has become, and so they demurred.

Lack of resources, yes, but the problem is, that combat power is not patrol power, and the Defense Department is a much tougher nut to crack than apparently any of the countries in the gunsights --- DoD, as we have seen, has not figured out the manpower requirements for patrol power.

The efficiency experts have entangled so much of what "the Pentagon does." At the core, the problem is that in peacetime, in order to procure, you must have a doctrine upon which to justify expenditures.

In wartime, a lot of that doctrine is discovered to be ineffective, wasteful, and sometimes harmful, as the training that accompanied the doctrine, is "all washed up." Suddenly you have equipment that must meet demands outside the peacetime doctrine; and many other plans that are "scrapped."

Mr. Rumsfeld, to his credit, is trying to resolve that nightmare come to life, yet again; but his Robert McNamara-ish tendencies are selling wartime expectations very, very, very short.

Lack of resources, yes; and, a lack of giving the arts of deception and surprise, not to mention other capabilities of the enemy, enough credit, such that, we find ourselves wrapped up in the "new paradigm" zeitgeist at the expense of several lessons learned the hard way, that are thrown out because they are errantly confused with "being part of the past" and "being part of the old ways" simply because on a sheet of paper, on a memo, the lessons learned are from the "old eras."

We continue to fail to plan for heavy losses of material, something that Pearl Harbor taught us the hard way, and the modern leaders have chosen to ignore.

All of the below:

2. Impose more economic sanctions on Syria and Iran to get them to abandon terrorism and WMDs.

3. Use covert operations to topple the regimes in Syria and Iran. Hope that democracies arise from the aftermath.

4. Launch a surgical air strike against sites in Syria and Iran that are believed to contain terrorist assets and WMDs.

5. Launch a surgical air strike against the heads of state and their loyalists in Syria and Iran. Also, launch a surgical air strike against sites that are believed to contain terrorist assets and WMDs.

First, what is our goal in the Middle East? We need a strong pro-American regional power. We had Iran, until Jimmah Cartah abandoned the Shah. Then, we had troops and bases in Saudi Arabia. Now, we are attempting to set up a unified, peaceful, prosperous and democratic Iraq. The Sunnis don't want that and the Shiites aren't supporting us enough to ensure success. So, what now?

I would send Powell to Syria, Iran and to the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. I would give all parties an ultimatum. To Syria and Iran stop supporting the insurgents in Iraq and give up all WMD's.

Here's what the or else is:

!. We will bomb the leadership, intelligence, terrorist and WMD sites.

2. The US will back the Kurds and take slices of territory out of Iran and Syria to create a Kurdish State with 50 million Kurds.

This Kurdish State will be under American protection. The remainders of Syria, Iran and Iraq will be attacked at will, if the continue to harbor terrorists. We'll move our Turkish, Iraqi and Saudi bases into Kurdistan.

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