I’m not in favor of the missile strikes on Syria but I think people are being premature when they predict this will lead to signifigant attacks by Hezbollah against the US.
For starters, so long as strikes by Hezbollah would be blamed on Iran, the Iranians are going to keep them on a leash.
Beyond that Israel has bombed Syria at least twice in recent times IIRC without Syria engaging in reprisals.
Assad is brutal but he’s not stupid nor are the Iranians. They’re perfectly willing to take an ineffective slap from the US to let their enemy save face and walk away rather than trying to escalate things against a country that has proven willing to knock the crap out of other countries.
Assad is perfectly willing to “lose” a battle to win a war.
99% chance you’re right, but Hezbollah’s been able to attack us before without serious retaliation. Wars have been started over lesser miscalculations.
As for Syria being hit by Israel twice with no retaliation, no military retaliation is correct, but Hezbollah is always doing things to Israel.
The fact is, we’ve never bombed Syria or Iran, so we can’t predict for sure that Hezbollah will not react. Before, we’ve only bombed Sunni-led governments.
There you go…suuper-doooooper secret-intel that mere mortals are not allowed to see – but make the ‘punitive’ attack a “slam-dunk” for those who have. :rolleyes:
I don’t care what double-secret intel they have. Unless it’s info about Assad attacking the US, then we should stay out. We don’t need to use the military to solve every problem.
Is there nothing nonmilitary that the “International Community” can do to sanction Assad further, if need be? Maybe the Euros should threaten to drag him to The Hague and give him the Milosovic treatment.
I wonder if he has any personal power to begin with? It was his father who really knew how to play the ruthless tyrant game, and his elder brother was being groomed to succeed, but died. A lot of us earthlings, especially those from more primitive environments, are swayed by personal charisma, real or imagined. He has the personal charisma of cottage cheese past its date.
What I find myself wondering is why hasn’t he used them again? Assuming he has no compunctions, internal or external, why not? I wouldn’t think the reaction of the international community has much sway with him, so what else does? Is it the glowering threat of Obama? Does he think that a repeat performance will change things drastically?
Its easy enough to figure why bad people do bad things, they are bad people. How do we interpret *not *doing bad things?
Is it blackmail? Did the NSA find some juicy secrets when it was reading her email? Or is it just a “psychic paper” con, and we’re supposed to imagine whatever proof we would require to justify the attack and just assume she’s holding it?
I don’t know. He killed 100,000 people. Why didn’t he kill 200,000?
Maybe he was testing the waters or figured 1 horrible act would be enough to scare enough people for his purposes.
Are you questioning whether Assas was the guy who deployed the CWs? Could have been someone else. I hope we can trust Obama not to lie to us, but mayby I ahouldn’t…
Most of the PNAC guys were gone during Bush’s second term. Not Cheney, of course, but he was VP. That crowd, I think, was mostly shamed into quiet retirement although Cheney pops out of his lair from time to time to smirk about something.
Gotta wonder why, of course. By most accounts I have seen, Assad is not winning but neither he is losing. It not as if he were hunkered in the bunkered and desperately lashing out. Worse, he killed mostly civilians, a perfect failure of tactic, it enrages your enemy without costing him any soldiers or ammunition. Indeed, the recruiting centers are likely to be briskly busy.
Maybe if we assume he figured it wasn’t that much of a gamble? Maybe he knew Obama couldn’t bring America along to retaliate, and if America doesn’t lead, it wouldn’t happen. But even that is something of a gamble, I don’t think anybody would be likely to bet their very ass upon that. So why?
Kind of puts him all in, doesn’t it? What occurs to me is that he has established a point, that if there were any doubt, he will do anything…anything!..not to lose this war. Or at least, somebody will.
So, I’m guessing his direct personal decisions aren’t so weighty. After all, its possible that an agreement could be reached for him to go into exile with his family and whatever he can steal. No such agreement is likely to include his entire upper echelon of military commanders and their families. No such agreement could possibly include the entire Alawite sect in Syria.
All of this bodes ill. Signs of fanaticism, the absence of reason. The Assad regime has crossed over, they’ve made that clear. Scant hope of negotiations, since there is no way to guarantee no reprisals. They are situational fanatics, their ideology and religion is of no consequence, they win or they die.
I am assured that there are moderate and trustworthy people in the opposition, I’ve no doubt that is true. I also don’t doubt that moderates who engage in desperate struggle with fanatics become fanatics.
You mean to say that you haven’t figured out the good solution to this problem yet?
I was reading today, in a deju vu kind of way, of how Kerry was spouting e-mails he got about a high level Syrian defecting because of our threat to use force. Turns out it wasn’t an e-mail, it was a news article by some opposition group and there isn’t any independent verification that the guy actually defected.
Would Colin Powell please slap some sense into John Kerry? Let’s not do this again!!
A “good” solution? No, there isn’t one, short of a smiting by the Almighty. That would do nicely. But I was probing for some grasp of how it came to be, and what that might mean. To me, it says that this is less a civil war than a Steel Cage Death Match, and any hope for a negotiated political settlement has passed.
“Should the full Senate vote to approve an attack on Syria — as still appears somewhat likely — the battle would shift to the House. “An attempt would be made to let the whole thing go away.”
Anyone have an idea exactly how it would be “made to go away”?
Considering that Alawites know if they lose the civil war, they will be massacred en masse, I don’t think his supporters need to be told any more than they already know.
I wouldn’t mind betting HRC is just a little pleased to be out of this one, and chuckling about it too - a hard line Democrat President in a second term … picture perfect for her so far.
