Monday Morning Musing on Syria

By BJ

Following up on a couple of points Cernig noted in his Instahoglets round-up yesterday, I find myself asking why the US would, after more than five years engaged in Iraq, and after the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq has dwindled to a trickle, decide to launch an attack against Syria within a week of a presidential election that promises a new and temporarily vulnerable administration regardless the winner.  You would almost think that they were trying to provoke some kind of international crisis

Of course, one of the presidential candidates has indicated that provoking a crisis is just the kind of thing he’d like to do, and not too surprisingly, it’s the one with close ties to the current White House.  Of course, that’s a large part of the reason many people don’t want such an irresponsible hothead to win next Tuesday.

And the musings don’t stop there, as any international incident with Syria is certain to affect its neighbour Israel.  The two countries have been moving towards peace talks through Turkey, which the current US government has been very much set against, and it just so happens that Israel is soon to go to the polls as well, an election where the hard-right led by Likud is predicted to make significant gains, though it is still slightly short of Kadima in the polls.  As elsewhere, a close-fought election is likely to be nasty, and as with the US, the distraction that the turmoil of electioneering and manoeuvring to form a new government causes is the kind of opportunity a country’s enemies salivate over.  Just the kind of time you’d want an ally to throw matches on the kindling, isn’t it?

I doubt things will grow into some kind of conflagration, since few leaders are as dangerously irresponsible as the US’s appears to be.  Still, it is another in a long list of reasons why everybody will be much better off the sooner those matches are passed to an adult who won’t make reckless plays with America’s and its allies future.

Comments

[Cheryl Rofer]

Is this the deliberate testing that Biden was talking about?

Oh wait...

[zak822]

A cynical man might think that there are those in the administration that do not want an Israeli/Syrian rapproachment.

And that they are willing to act on that desire.

Wonder what's next?