Friday, December 24, 2004

No Sanctuaries

Our offensive that took Fallujah from the insurgents last month led to some interesting discoveries (and as an aside, they really must have thought they could hold the city for us to have found so much useful stuff). Via Powerline, this article notes we've come up with some interesting stuff:

The senior official said US anger increased substantially after a prolonged incursion into Fallujah last month, which revealed "how much of the insurgency is now being directed through Syria." The US has not publicly detailed the evidence it has regarding the extent to which attacks are being organized from within Syria. But a report in The Times of London on Thursday suggested not only that Syria is becoming a base for Iraqis to operate, but that Syrian officials are themselves involved.

I've been willing to cut a deal with the Syrians if they'd behave since in the long run I don't think they are much of a threat. They are a minority-based government with a crappy economy and a military deteriorating by the day. But they are helping to kill Americans and free Iraqis inside Iraq and that must be stopped one way or the other. Apparently, Damascus doesn't want to save itself by behaving. So, we've apparently decided that something more than talk is needed:

The US is contemplating incursions into Syrian territory in an attempt to kill or capture Iraqi Ba'athists who, it believes, are directing at least part of the attacks against US targets in Iraq, a senior administration official told The Jerusalem Post.

I do believe I mentioned that things might need to start blowing up inside Syria to make them see reason.