Saturday, March 29, 2003



Something I hadn't considered

Rumsfeld's warning to Syria about supplying weapons to Iraq has led to some intriguing comments (scroll down) on The Agonist:

Let me clarify. I think that if we knew that Syria had WMD there would be no warning and a quicker push on Damascus than there is on Baghdad

and

The US should and probably would be much more concerned with WMD in the hands of Syria then in Iraq'a hands. The ties between Syria and Hezbollah would be reason enough for the US and Israel to treat any such information very very seriously, and with good reason. Hezbollah is a known terrorist group with and extensive infrastructure.

Both these posters show an appaling ignorance of the situation in the Middle East. Half the countries have some form of WMD, most have delivery systems, and Syria is the biggest manufacturer of chemical weapons in the region. But I guess those facts aren't widely reported in the US.

The second poster however has provided us with a stunning counter to the US's "Iraq may give WMDs to terrorists" justification for the war. If they're really worried about WMDs being supplied to terrorists, shouldn't they go after Syria instead, rather than beating up a country which has been substantially (if not completely) disarmed and whose links to al-Qaeda are pure speculation?

But I guess its too late for that now.

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