Comments on: Why Syria? Why now? http://www.yourish.com/2009/03/04/6744 Cutting straight to the point Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:14:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Michael Lonie http://www.yourish.com/2009/03/04/6744/comment-page-1#comment-36157 Michael Lonie Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:27:50 +0000 http://www.yourish.com/?p=6744#comment-36157 It's a pity the civiliized countries of the world did not take the Hariri assassination as an excuse to knock off the Assad dynasty and its consigloieri. The Syrians would put in another dictator, most likely, but he would be one who would know he could be deposed, and would tread much more lightly. I thought at the time (and posted at various places) that a total blockade of Syria, land, sea, and air, enforced by the US and the surrounding countries, could have done the job on a coutnry so economically frgile as Syria. And no one with more than two brain cells to click together doubts that Syria was behind the killing. Lost opportunities like that lead to worse problems and violence later. We ought to have learned that from the saga of Saddam Hussein, if not earlier, but evidently the lesson was lost on Washington's conventional wisdom and similar klutzes around the diplomatic world. There is nothing so naive as a "realist" in international affairs. Look at James Baker. He could not even figure out that, having made an enemy of Saddam over Kuwait, we needed to overthrow him lest he make lots more trouble for us seeking revenge. It’s a pity the civiliized countries of the world did not take the Hariri assassination as an excuse to knock off the Assad dynasty and its consigloieri. The Syrians would put in another dictator, most likely, but he would be one who would know he could be deposed, and would tread much more lightly. I thought at the time (and posted at various places) that a total blockade of Syria, land, sea, and air, enforced by the US and the surrounding countries, could have done the job on a coutnry so economically frgile as Syria. And no one with more than two brain cells to click together doubts that Syria was behind the killing.

Lost opportunities like that lead to worse problems and violence later. We ought to have learned that from the saga of Saddam Hussein, if not earlier, but evidently the lesson was lost on Washington’s conventional wisdom and similar klutzes around the diplomatic world. There is nothing so naive as a “realist” in international affairs. Look at James Baker. He could not even figure out that, having made an enemy of Saddam over Kuwait, we needed to overthrow him lest he make lots more trouble for us seeking revenge.

]]>