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You are right on. Things you just wrote must continue to be echoed now and then in postings. Some folks seem to not keep their history in the proper order.
And if the old lion was still alive and kicking, chances are a lot of the cross border exchange of foreign fighters would not be taking place between Iraq and Syria. Nor would al Qaeda terrorist training cells exist in Syria at this point.
Let our readership remember Syria during the first gulf war participated on the US coalition side to kick Saddam's goons out of Kuwait. The young lion is pretty stupid OR as I have mentioned in times past, simply wants to stay in power as a figure head, and in order to do so must allow a lot of people in his secret service and military and otherwise to call a lot of the shots as to how terrorism is sponsored.
The young lion must keep an iron fist over quite a few million Syrians that would love to pluck his eyeballs out. He is no saint in their eyes. The Syrian Baathist party holds on to power with an iron grip on the country, just like was the case with Iraq.
But like in Iran. One can see the seeds of discontent festering ever deeper in the Syrian society. Things can happen from internal sources that waves of bombers and cruise missiles can not achieve.