Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [MLUG][Politics] State of the Union

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 2/1/06, Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
>
> An interesting hypothesis, but I doubt you are correct.
>
> The vice-president of Syria who recently defected to France (I forget
> his name) stated that President Assad of Syria made a similar error in
> judging Bush.  He thought that Bush's support for Lebanon's freedom was
> purely a tactic on Bush's part to put pressure upon Syria.  The
> vice-president claimed that Assad badly miscalculated when he had Hariri
> assasinated, because he thought that Bush wouldn't actually care.

The problem with your hypothesis is that you underestimate how epic
was the miscalculation here: not only did Syria assume Bush wouldn't
care (or be able to do much), they didn't realize that EVERYBODY was
going to go ballistic over this.  All of the European countries, all
of the voting members of the Security Council, everybody.  The real
reason that Syria ended up having to leave Lebanon is that they had,
quite probably almost without precedent, managed to anger not just the
US (lots of regimes do that and live to tell the tale) but everybody
else.

Your suggestion that Kerry would have reacted any differently in this
case probably has to remain hypothetical also, but I see it as
extremely unlikely.  State-sponsored assassinations draw pretty much
universal condemnation, and I know of no comments by any serious US
politicians that were not supportive of the US and UN positions
against Syria.

OK, so I've got to finish packing for my trip to Cambridge tomorrow,
so if I don't reply immediately to any rejoinder here, you'll know the
reason why. :-)

jking

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