Syrian President Bashar Assad is a loudmouthed punk. For the past few months, NATO and the UN and Barack Obama and everybody have pretty much minded their own business and let Assad get on with the business of slaughtering everybody in Syria who doesn’t like him, which is
He Really Doesn't Have Many Friends
apparently a considerable percentage of the populace.
Now, he says “Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground, you will cause an earthquake. Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?”
Certainly, Syria is a more complex case than Libya. First of all, it’s much more mountainous. Which makes it more difficult to fly over and bomb with any precision. Secondly, it’s more heavily populated. But still.
The hub? Not really. The Lebanese hate them. The Turks are above them. The Israeli’s are a thorn in their side and a sword over their head. Their border with Iraq doesn’t do them any good, what with all the brouhaha over there. Assad may be tight with the Iranians but he doesn’t share a border with them. If NATO were to invade Syria, there’s little Iran could do to help without risking it’s own existence. So, not really a hub at all.
And “tens of Afghanistans?” Hah. Syria is no Libya, but it’s no Afghanistan, either. Afghanistan has fought off the Americans, the Russians and the British. Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, as they say. Syria, in it’s long history, has been conquered by Canaanites, Arameans, Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Persians, Greeks, Armenians, Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Mongols, Mamluks, Tamerlane of Samarkand who slaughtered the citizens of Damascus, with the exception of the skilled artisans, who he took as slaves, Ottomans and then, after WWI, the French up until their independence in 1946, from which point forward they have been ruled by a series of military dictatorships.
I’m not necessarily saying that a Libyan style NATO intervention would be a good idea for Syria. I’m no expert on the region, or on military technology. And war is, more often than not, a bad idea.
I’m just pointing out that Bashar Assad may be writing a check with his mouth that his ass can’t cash, as the saying goes. He should take note of two very important facts: 1) the people of Syria obviously don’t like him very much, and 2) nobody hangs onto Syria for very long.
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