IT'S NOT THE BALLISTICS, IT'S THE BA'ATHISTS:

Pre-emptive caution: The case of Syria (David E. Sanger, October 15, 2007, NY Times)

This time it was the Israelis who invoked Bush's doctrine, determining that what they believed was a nascent Syrian effort to build a nuclear reactor could not be tolerated.

In a curious role reversal, some of Bush's own top advisers were urging restraint before Israel bombed the site on Sept. 6, raising questions about whether the threat was too murky and too distant to warrant military action. Those are precisely the kinds of questions Bush's critics say should have been raised about Iraq.

It may be months or years before all the mysteries surrounding the attack on Syria become clear. The silence of the Middle Eastern countries that would normally condemn an Israeli attack suggested that they, too, were worried about what was happening in the Syrian desert. Then there is the question of whether, and how, North Korea may have been involved, since the reactor project seemed similar to the one Kim Jong-il's government had designed to generate plutonium for a small but potent nuclear arsenal.

What has become clear is that the risks of taking pre-emptive action now look a lot greater to Bush than they did in 2003, when he declared that Iraq's efforts to build weapons of mass destruction — weapons that famously turned out not to exist — justified military action. In the Syrian case he has steadfastly refused to say anything. In the case of Iran, which has defied the United Nations for a year while it builds a nuclear infrastructure that Washington believes is designed to give it the ability to make bomb fuel, Bush publicly insists there is still plenty of time for diplomacy.

Michael Green, a former director for Asia at the National Security Council and now a professor at Georgetown University, suggested that Bush was acutely conscious that he had 15 months left, little time for accomplishments that could counterbalance Iraq. Israel's pre-emptive strike, he said, "could get in the way of his two biggest projects — getting on a path to stabilizing the Middle East, and getting North Korea to give up its weapons."

By contrast, Green said, the Israelis are thinking five or 10 years ahead. They saw a chance to thwart the Syrians and to fire a warning shot that the Iranians could not fail to notice.

"If you are Israel and you are looking at this, the value of striking Syria is that it sends a signal, including to the Iranians," Green said. "This follows the Chinese proverb that sometimes you have to kill the chicken to scare the monkey."

The case the President made for war with Iraq was actually more legalistic and had quite little to do with its nuclear ambitions, but Syria must be regime changed for many of the same reasons, even if it isn't violating as many UN resolutions.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 15, 2007 12:00 AM