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Monday, December 23, 2013

With Us and Against Us

Syria seems to be trying to pull off a triple somersault in foreign affairs. From pariah Axis of Evil wannabe to America's peace partner and aspiring member of the Coalition of the Willing to fight al Qaeda.

I thought it was pretty impressive when Syria morphed from chemical weapons-using tyrant who killed his own people, Iraqis, and our troops in the service of Iran and who played footsie with North Korean nuclear efforts into Kerry's peace partner to get rid of chemical weapons (for long enough to defeat rebels).

But now Assad aspires to full ally status:

[Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal] Muqdad urged the world to press Saudi Arabia to halt its support for the rebels, to prevent what he said was "another 11 September incident".

"I think that if the world wants to avoid another 11 September incident, they must start telling Saudi Arabia 'enough is enough'," he said, referring to Al-Qaeda's 2001 attacks on the US.

Wow! The backer of Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda in Iraq during the Iraq War actually applied for membership in the Coalition of the Willing to fight jihadi terrorists!

Ponder that.

Syria refused all efforts we made to flip them prior to the Iraq War, preferring their status as loyal lap dog of the Persians.

But after slaughtering their own people and actually using chemical weapons on their own people, the Assad regime is leveraging the promise to stop killing their own people after they've beaten down the rebels (who Assad says are all al Qaeda) and getting rid of chemicals weapons stocks into becoming our ally in the war on terror!

Yeah, stupid, simplistic, cowboy George W. Bush. With us or against us, indeed.

And John Kerry will call this a triumph of nuance. And proudly accept a Nobel Peace Prize for this whole stupid, exercise.

All I want for Christmas is a foreign policy that doesn't suck quite as bad as it does. I've been good. Pretty much. Is this too much to ask?