Delivery for President Bashar Asad! Mr Asad!
Posted on 09/27/2004 6:43:33 PM PDT by Mike Fieschko
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2004 -- If Syria doesn't reverse its counterproductive policy in Iraq, then the United States and Syria will have a "major deterioration" in relations, said a senior U.S. government official today.
This is directly opposite what Syrian officials have been saying following a U.S.-Syrian meeting in Damascus two weeks ago. Syria has touted the fact that its government will participate in talks with Iraq and U.S. Central Command on problems related to the country's porous border with Iraq. This set of talks is scheduled to begin this week.
Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the situation with Syria during a CNN interview Sept. 26. "The conversations I had with the Syrians this week did not clear up all of the outstanding issues that we have with the Syrians, but I found it to be more positive than the earlier conversations I'd had," Powell said.
The U.S. delegation to Damascus meeting gave the government of President Bashar Asad a very blunt warning about Syria's actions undercutting what the United States is trying to accomplish in Iraq. "It's not just a question of border control," said the senior government official on background. "Institutions within Syria are actively colluding with our enemies in Iraq."
The official said this is a Syrian political decision. The charge is that Syria is actively trying to destabilize the interim government in Iraq. "What we said in Damascus is that this has to stop," the official said. "Our message to Syria was a warning that this is very serious. Because this means Syria shares responsibility for the killing of Americans and Iraqis, and it has to stop."
This week's talks among Iraq, Syria and CENTCOM are a chance for the Syrians to prove they got the message and they are going to stop their behavior, said the official. The Syrians are portraying having these talks "as a great success and proof that the problems are solved. The Americans view these border talks as one way to test whether Syria got the message," he said.
The official said that pressure on Syria is growing over this situation. "If Americans are dying in Iraq because of Syrian policies, then this is something we are not going to tolerate," he said.
"An Iraq that is successful from our point of view may not be what they want," he continued. "Our job is to convince them that the risk of undermining us is much greater than the opposite."
First Iraq, then Syria?
Good cop, bad cop.
Im telling you Syria is too externally focused, we need to change that focus to a more internal focus. We do this by just making it hard to exist in syria, remove 25% of their infrastructure, Water, Electricity,trade. That should get them to transfer some of their resources.
We can leave that stuff alone, as long as we get 100% of the Muslims.
Damascus in December! RAH!
Sounds very Syrious!
Syria: is either FOR us or AGAINST us.
Making a list and checkin' it twice...Gonna find out who's naughty and nice.
Uncle Sam's comin' to town
Hmm... You mean we're going to have a real foreign policy? I like it...
"You screw with us... We stop being nice."
We ought to start a betting pool. Assuming Bush is elected, who is going to get hit first...Syria or Iran. Im not necessarily talking major military operation, could be spec ops targeted strikes.
I think we ought to be more "sensitive" about Syria. Let's wait for them to attack us and only then we'll send the LAPD to investigate.
Neither.... I'm betting that after Bush is reelected, both of them will back off of Iraq, and the militia terrorists will be left to their own devices, or they'll have to turn to an organization like Al Qaeda for funding and supplies.
The people assisting the enemy are not fighting to win in Iraq, as much as they are fighting to affect American foreign policy for the next 4 years. I only wish more Americans would realize that.
I think that the offing of that Hamas leader in Lebanon is part of this chess game (i.e., your border can be porous in both directions).
Delivery for President Bashar Asad! Mr Asad!
I forecast this scenario about 4 months ago:
US puts out the word that we are increasingly angry at Syria for continued infiltration of insurgents into Iraq. Then, in a lightning raid ostensibly to counter a buildup of insurgents intending to sneak into Iraq, Special Forces uncovers a motherlode of WMD's.
The US then states that this is sufficient justification to maintain presence at the site - and rapidly moves in ground forces to occupy the area while covering them with massive air power. The UN and MSM idiots are invited in to look at the WMD's with their own shifty little eyes, while we whack away on their dumb asses with a rolled-up copy of the Sunday New York Times. Liberals stammer and stagger under the weight of the goalposts they attempt to drag to a new location.
We are halfway there already.....
Iran. First week in December or somewhere close to that...
Nuke plant(s) go down. We may embargo first.
THIS IS NEWLAND AND I APPROVE OF THIS PREDICTION.
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