Well, for those of us attempting to decipher the Bush adminstration's war of words against both Syria and Iran, and those of us who have been going back and forth in our own minds on whether or not the US will invade Syria and/or Iran in the near future, this article
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050302/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_syria
certainly seems to suggest that an invasion or attack of some kind on Syria is imminent.
(more below the fold)
Certainly this article seems to outline in no uncertain terms where the recent escalation of tensions between the Bush administration and Syria is headed.
From the article:
"WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Tuesday blamed terrorists based in Syria for last week's deadly suicide attack in Israel and called for an immediate end to Syrian military and political domination over neighboring Lebanon.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applied the strongest American pressure on the Syrians to date, saying at an international conference in London that they were "out of step" in the Middle East and there was growing international resolve against them.
In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "We do have firm evidence that the bombing in Tel Aviv was not only authorized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus, but that Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus participated in the planning."
President Bush made a similar point during a White House meeting with congressional leaders, participants said, and so did Rice.
An explosion triggered by a suicide bomber outside a Tel Aviv nightclub Friday night killed five people. It also shook a cease-fire declared by Israeli and Palestinian leaders, in which militant Palestinian group leaders had agreed to a temporary halt to attacks.
As for Lebanon, all key Lebanese political decisions are assumed to have a stamp of approval from the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Huge street demonstrations and Monday's resignation of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government marked the most serious challenge to Syrian authority in Lebanon since the end of the civil war that killed 150,000 and crushed the Lebanese economy in the 1970s and 1980s.
The events also were an opening for the Bush administration to press its wider goal of democracy across the Middle East and to throw a spotlight on what the United States contends is Syrian support for terrorists who are trying to undermine progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace and in Iraq.
"The Syrians are out of step with where the region is going and out of step with the aspirations of the people of the Middle East," Rice told reporters following the conference on Palestinian security and political reform..."
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Also note this line:
"In Washington, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said after the meeting with Bush that there was consensus among Democratic and Republican leaders in the room that "Syria must go." "
Alas, but go where exactly? "Must go" as in "must leave Lebanon," or must go as in "we must invade?"
The prospects are not looking good here.
Mark my words if the Bushies decide to invade Syria they will create even more hatred than their invasion of Iraq has: the longterm backfire will be even worse.