It's incredible how quickly we're faced with the specter of an American invasion of Syria. The bluster is getting bigger and bigger every day, like some kind of fast-forward replay of the buildup against Iraq.
Today Matthew Yglesias argues/hopes that our threats have to be credible if they're going to be effective, but that a real, live attack is unlikely. Haven't we heard this before? For how many months did we hear that our president hadn't made up his mind yet about whether to attack Iraq? The truth is, they've planned all this since September 12, 2001.
Just one quick point about Syria vs Iraq (don't worry, I'll be coming back to this issue, I expect we all will): there's no weapons of mass destruction issue in Syria. The UN has never passed a resolution banning WMD from Syria, and Syria has never tapped its arsenal. Yes, the Syrian government is a shady bunch, but they have a legitimate security rationale for building up an arsenal. You see, they border Israel - a country which posesses nuclear weapons, hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has no stated policy on the use of its nuclear arsenal. In that neighborhood, the threat of chemical retaliation is small comfort indeed.
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