CRANKING THE TORQUE:

U.S. Withdraws Envoy From Syria After Hariri Killing in Lebanon (Bloomberg, 2/15/05)

The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Syria to protest the car bomb attack yesterday in Beirut that killed Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon, the U.S. State Department said.

The ambassador, Margaret Scobey, is being recalled to Washington for ``urgent consultations'' following the ``murder'' of Hariri, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Boucher said the U.S. was acting to demonstrate ``deep concern and outrage'' over the killing of Hariri and linked the withdrawal to Syria's continued deployment of military forces in Lebanon in the face of previous promises to remove them.

``Yesterday's bombing calls into question the stated reason behind the presence'' of Syrian security forces in Lebanon, Boucher said.

Hard to believe the Islamicists could do something stupider than 9-11, which cost them liberal democracy in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq and elections in Saudi Arabia, but this bombing--which will bring a free Lebanon and the end of the Assad regime, while completing the Shi'a Crescent--is even more disastrous for them. The only bombing that hasn't backfired on them was the one in Spain, where European cravenness worked in their favor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 15, 2005 1:31 PM