The Taliban did not attack us, Al Qeda did. How would that be any different then the Iranians using Hezbullah to attack us?
There is plenty of provocation to go after Syria, Iran, North Korea, Congress.... Any one else want a piece of the USA?!
If you recall, we demanded that the Taliban hand over UBL and AQ. When they did not respond to our ultimatum, we attacked and took them down as well as most of AQ. If the Iranians use AQ (more likely) or Hezbullah against us, we would have to first prove that they did. With all of the current squawking about Iraq being a "war of choice" and the failure to link Saddam directly to the WTC bombing, I don't know if we would have the political will to attack Iran without having conclusive evidence that they were the culprits.
It is also worth noting that AQ was physcially located in Afghanistan. Hezbullah is mostly in Lebanon and Syria. What would we do to those countries?
As kabar says in #577, the most direct analogous situation to our attacking the Taliban for sheltering Al Qaeda is probably Israel attacking Lebanon and then Syria for sheltering Hezbullah (how are we supposed to spell that, by the way?). Israel is doing to Lebanon very much what we did in Afghanistan, with the difference that they view the Lebanese government largely as a victim of Syria and Hezbullah, not a primary sponsor or protector (at least not yet).
I think President Bush is emphasizing Syria in his private and public statements based on precisely this logic. I think he's setting the ground work for an Israeli and/or US attack on significant assets in Syria. That would be a very powerful signal to Iran without immediately requiring an all out response from Iran (e.g. trying to stop the flow of oil form the Gulf). I just heard former CIA head James Woolsey on Big Story on Fox saying that we, not Israel, should be striking at Syrian infrastructure for precisely this reason, to knock Syria down a peg and knock back Iran's position in the area by showing them to be basically running a bluff at this point.
Particularly with the rest of the Arab League basically lining up against Hezbullah it might be a tactic to consider. I do believe that the President and Rummy just might have a bit more info about the situation that I do, so I'll leave that decision to them... <g>