Middle East Forecast

Events in the Middle East are like the Weather in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains - it changes minute by minute, with cloud banks forming and dissolving as you watch.

Syria is now making apparent moves to withdraw from Lebanon - or at least from Beirut. Most interesting indeed. It leaves me a little bit puzzled as to what Syria's president is thinking. Clearly, he's not doing the 'thumb you nose' routine that Saddam Hussein did in the months leading up to the American invasion of Iraq. One can only imagine that he is trying to set things up so that when the US decides to invade that the political footing for BushCo. is as flimsy as possible. (On the world stage)

I suspect that President Bashar al-Assad is being relatively compliant where Lebanon is concerned - or at least making the appearance of being compliant - in a gambit to force the American hand with respect to Iraq. The United States has accused Syria of funding/supporting/assisting the Iraq "Insurgency" repeatedly. The Syrian occupation of Lebanon (which has gone more or less ignored for the last decade or more) is about the only card that BushCo. can play that will appear valid on the world stage. The consequences of taking it away are obvious - it further isolates the Americans, setting the stage for a galvanization of the Arab world in the face of an increasingly belligerent BushCo.

Given the current situation (as of this morning), my suspicion is that Syria has deferred an American invasion of his country by a few months by starting to withdraw from Lebanon. No matter what else you say, Syria is just not a big player on the world stage. However, its geographical location with respect to Israel makes it very significant to the 'Rapturists' in Washington. (Far more so than Iraq - although Iraq has served an important strategic purpose) I expect over the coming months that things will unfold more or less along these lines:

1. The US will continue to paint Iran as some kind of Nuclear-Capable Bogeyman. Iran is prominent enough on the world stage to create the kind of indistinct threat that BushCo. needs to continue justifying his so-called "War on Terror" (more aptly named "Pope Bush's New Crusade" (tm))
2. Syria will be invaded sometime around late summer. Likely after a particularly gruesome attack in Iraq by the "insurgents". Evidence will come to the surface shortly thereafter liking the insurgents to parties in Syria.
3. The justification used for invading Syria will be something along the lines of "ensuring the freedom of the Iraqi people, and liberation of the Syrian people from a despotic regime that supports terrorists".
4. The timing of any invasion of Syria will correspond directly with some kind of ugly legislation being pushed through the US Congress. At the moment it seems likely that would either be a bill re-enabling the Draft, or Bush's vaunted "Social Security Reforms" (You know - the ones that punish the poor for being poor)