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US Orders Syria To Do the Impossible
By Paul Craig Roberts
01/26/06 -- -- Is there a person anywhere in the world who still
thinks there is an ounce of sanity in the Bush administration?
If so, let that person read John Bolton’s orders to Syria
in the January 24 online edition of the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz.
Bolton is Bush’s unconfirmed ambassador to the United Nations.
Bolton, a neoconservative warmonger, has managed to get the UN
Security Council on January 23 to instruct Syria to disband and
disarm the Lebanese militias. Bolton says, "I hope in Damascus
they read it very carefully and then comply."
How is Syria to meet this demand?
Last year Syria complied with US demands to withdraw its troops
from Lebanon. As Syria has no military presence in Lebanon, it
could not disarm a local police force, much less the Shia
militias that defeated the Israeli army and drove it out of
Lebanon and that have representatives in the Lebanese
parliament.
After three years and unimaginable expense, the superpower
American military has proved that it cannot disarm the recently
formed Iraqi militias. Yet, the idiot Bolton thinks puny Syria
can disarm the Lebanese militias that defeated the brutal
Israeli army!
Syria was never in Lebanon as a conqueror or invader, as the US
is in Iraq and Israel is in the West Bank and Golan Heights.
Syria was invited into Lebanon by the Lebanese government for
peace-keeping purposes, adding the weight of its military to
indigenous militias in order to create stability where US,
Palestinian and Israeli bungling had brought disorder and
massive bloodshed.
Until they were withdrawn, the Syrian troops were a
counterweight to the Shia militias. Now that the Shia crescent
is spreading from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon, the stupid
neoconservatives are confronted with the error of their ways.
The Bush administration was trying to set Syria up for US attack
by demanding that they withdraw from Lebanon. The neocons
thought Syria would refuse and thereby become a target for
demonization and invasion.
Alas, the Syrians departed. And now the problem is how to turn
back the Shia advance, which is increasing in power inside
Lebanon as well through the Hizbullah and Amal movements.
Bolton’s solution is a ridiculous attempt to turn Syria into a
neocon proxy and to set it at war with the militias. Otherwise,
Bolton intends to damn Syria for "noncompliance" and again
threaten Syria with US invasion.
It will be interesting to see who Syria fears most, the militias
that triumphed over Israeli military might or the US forces that
have been defeated in Iraq.
January 25, 2006
Dr. Roberts [send
him mail]
is Chairman of the
Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the
Independent Institute.
He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street
Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a
former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the
co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Copyright © 2006 Creators Syndicate
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