By Jed Babbin on 4.15.03 @ 12:14AM
Syria is, well, a nation we will have to deal with one way or the other. Better to do it now while we have the forces there to do it.
The EU is holding another summit, and Tony Blair will meet with
Jacques Chirac for the first time since the war in Iraq began. It's
being billed as a "kiss and make up" summit. I can't wait to see
this. Maybe we'll see the reappearance of "Baghdad Bob" -- former
"Information Minister" Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf -- as Chirac's new
public affairs man. He's no Ari Fleischer, but as mouthpieces go,
al-Sahhaf had quite a pedigree.
After surviving a tour as Saddam's foreign minister, al-Sahhaf
reappeared on international television as the darling of everyone
who wasn't watching Fox. He told more lies on television than
anyone since Lil' Billy. By the second week of the war, his daily
pronouncements of thousands of dead coalition troops strewn across
Iraq -- and the firm hold the Saddamites had on the airport --
should have been played for laughs. Wars teach the most horrible
and important of lessons. The lesson for the Arab nations is
learned only by studying the number of coalition soldiers killed to
the number of Iraqis and imported "fedayeen" killed. The kill ratio
is so lopsided -- maybe two or three hundred to one -- that it
should sink in even for the Syrians and their ilk.
Syria -- member in good standing of the U.N. Security Council --
is nose-deep in terrorism. Hezbollah -- the terrorists who killed
241 Americans in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing -- are a
wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ba'athist Syrian government. Every
time Oliver North calls in to his radio show (which I'm privileged
to host while he's in Iraq) I hear again about the "Saddam
Fedayeen." These falsely-labeled "Saddam loyalists" are thousands
of imported terrorists fighting to prevent Iraq from becoming free
and democratic. Hundreds of them -- or more -- are Syrians. Many
more are armed with Syrian-provided weapons. And among them are
many Hezbollah members.
Since 1983 we have done little more than remonstrate with one
Assad after the other. The younger -- Bashar, the current
"president" -- is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he is
as ruthless and bloody-handed as his old man was. Terrorism is the
only game in Syria, and it has to be stopped one way or the
other.
Israeli intelligence said early last week that many of the
missing top-ranking Saddamites have fled to Syria, taking the
millions they stole to Syrian banks. There is a thousand-to-one
chance that Assad will look at the pictures of Saddam's statue
being toppled, and learn. It is a shame there are no pictures of
the trail of dead Iraqis our ground and air forces have left from
Basra to Tikrit. They would tell a tale even Assad couldn't
misunderstand. There is a lesson in the destruction of the Iraqi
"elite" Republican Guard for Assad, Khameni, OBL, and the rest of
those whose power relies on the fighting ability and courage of the
Arab armies.
The Iraqi army proved smarter than its leaders. Most of the
regular soldiers either surrendered or fled. Those who chose to
fight were killed. Think about it. In any well-matched tough fight,
one side might kill two or three of the enemy for every soldier it
lost. So far, slightly more than one hundred Americans have died in
this conflict, and about thirty Brits. (I mean no insult to any
others of our allies who fight -- the Aussies, the Poles, and
others -- but I am unaware that they have suffered fatalities in
this war. If they have, I should welcome a correction.) But though
we have paid a price in blood it is so disproportionate to the
losses we have inflicted on the Iraqis that those who want to
continue their terrorist war against us should think very hard. We
probably have killed two or three hundred Iraqis for each soldier
we lost. No Arab armies -- individually or in combination -- have
any serious chance to beat us in any standup fight.
Only Mohammed al-Sahhaf (or his CNN vassals) could say
otherwise. It matters not whether we are liked or loved on the
"Arab street," wherever that is. It is essential, as Ralph Peters
said, that we be feared. But what can we do to get the point across
other than what we have already done? The sad fact is that those
such as Bashar Assad and those like him cannot admit the
fecklessness of the Arab armies any more than they can admit the
corruption and despotism of their own governments.
A faithful reader asks whether Saddam's WMD have been spirited
off to Syria, if the Turks' cooperation would have prevented this,
and if Syria should be our next campaign rather than North Korea. I
think it's very possible that some of Saddam's WMD are in Syria,
and more than possible that many of the WMD scientists and
engineers are as well. Some may have gone to Russia, but Syria is
the most likely place. I think this would have happened with or
without the Turks' double-cross. The Turks would not have been able
to seal the border any more than we could. And if Saddam's WMD went
to Syria, it would have happened before the war kicked off.
Syria is, well, a nation we will have to deal with one way or
the other. Better to do it now while we have the forces there to do
it. Never mind that two of the five carrier battle groups are
rotating home, or that the B-2s and F-117s are also being moved
back. Syria is not Iraq. It took us three weeks to deal with the
substance of the Iraqi army. If the president chose, Syria could be
resolved in a third of that time.
Syria should be presented with an ultimatum: turn over the
members of Saddam's regime, their papers and their stolen money by
the end of the week, or face the consequences. Syria's response to
the ultimatum would be a good measure of the learning capacity of
the terrorist governments. If Syria can learn, there is hope for
them all. But Syria won't, because to do so would require it to
admit what it cannot, that its power in the world is an illusion.
With that realization -- forced or learned -- governments will
fall, and the world evolve.
topics:
Television, Iraq, Russia, Israel, North Korea
