Middle East machinations

The things to take away from this story (about hesitation and dawdling by the US state dept over the attack on Syria's nascent nuke site by Israel) are simple--

1) the Arab countries are assumed to always be ready to complain and mobilize troops and so forth whenever Israel breaks out its big guns, and this was Rice's assumption as well. This time they stayed silent. Rice was wrong. The Arabs are clearly more concerned at this point about the rising power of Iran and its puppets, Syria and Hezbollah, than about the intentions of Israel. While they do not say as much, Arab ideas are made clear by their lack of protest to the Israeli attack. They regard Israel as an insult but not as a danger to them; they know the Jews just want to live in peace.

But the Shi'ites want world domination, and the Sunni wing of Islam would be among the dominated.


2) American intelligence was not the least bit informed about this new nuclear site in Syria; it was the Israelis who got the in depth info and shared it with the United States.

Do not trust our intelligence agencies. Too many of their people seem to think Bush is the world's most worrisome threat. The Israelis are a bit more circumspect; their existence hinges on getting these matters right.