BEGIN THE NEOCON DRUMBEAT:

Toss Bashar Assad Out of Both Lebanon and Syria: The assassination of Rafik Hariri is the final straw. The world should help the two nations oust this tyrant. (Danielle Pletka, February 25, 2005, LA Times)

If Syria is responsible for the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri — as many observers believe — it is only the most recent in a long line of that country's transgressions. And it must not go unanswered.

It marks a moment when much of the world is united against the regime of Bashar Assad, Syria's tyrannical dictator. It is clear that quashing Assad in Lebanon would strike a blow for liberty there. As important, it could strike a blow for a free Syria, and wider liberty in the Arab world. [...]

But liberty for Lebanon should not be the endgame for the United States, France or the United Nations. Syria itself must be freed from the Assad dictatorship, with its legacy of poverty, corruption and death, including the 1982 murder of up to 20,000 opponents of the regime in the city of Hama.

The costs of standing up to Syria in Beirut and in Damascus should not be insurmountable. Assad is feeling the world's censure now, claiming that he will begin to remove troops from Lebanon. A small increase in pressure might move him out altogether.

And Sunni Arab governments in the region may well be amenable to challenging the Alawite status quo. Even the Shiite-dominated government in Iraq has taken a stand against Assad, closing its border with Syria several times. If Syria continues on its current path it could find itself an island in its own region, denied trade, tourism, hard currency. A free Lebanon could even exclude Syrian guest workers — now exported to Lebanon's free market to relieve high unemployment at home.

How about a book for correctly picking when Baby Assad steps down or calls an election to choose his own replacement?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2005 12:36 PM