CIRCLE LOGIC:

Arabs Warn U.S. Not to Use Iraq to Pick New Fights (Sami Aboudi, Apr 02, 2003, Yahoo! News)

Arab commentators and officials warned the United States on Wednesday that its war on Iraq was widening its circle of enemies in the Middle East and urged Washington to refrain from picking new fights.

The comments came in the wake of recent threats by senior members of President Bush's administration against Syria and Iran, and later Israeli warnings to Damascus, that they would be held to account if they gave support to Iraq.

Samir Ragab, editor of mainstream Egyptian daily al-Gomhuria, said threats issued by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell were hurting Washington's standing in the area at a time when it was making few gains on the ground in Iraq.

"It will not be in U.S. interests to hurl threats at certain countries and create the impression that they are next on the list of U.S. targets," Ragab wrote in a comment column.

"It is expected that the U.S. would keep silent, otherwise it will widen the circle of its enemies," Ragab said.

They aren't new fights, just new battles in a big war and the enemies aren't circling us, we're circling them. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 2, 2003 12:43 PM