Quote of the Day

“We have no interest because we have no ability to assess what is good for us regarding the future regime.”

Tzachi Hanegbi, prominent Israeli legislator, who is close to Netanyahu

Hanegbi was commenting that Israel’s airstrikes in Syria are intended to stop missile shipments from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon and are not intended to influence the ongoing Syrian civil war.

It seems to me that what’s true for Israel is also true for us — we can’t really support either side, given that Assad is a brutal dictator, but the leading rebels are Islamist extremists, some with ties to Al Qaeda.  We’d certainly like Assad to go, but not with the cast of characters who seem poised to replace him.

New Maps for a New Middle East

I have long believed that there should be a Kurdistan.

From “Letter from Syria,” Thomas Friedman, NYT:

“Syria is the keystone of the Middle East.  If and how it cracks apart could recast this entire region.  The borders of Syria have been fixed ever since the British and French colonial powers carved up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.  If Assad is toppled and you have state collapse here, Syria’s civil war could go regional and challenge all the old borders — as the Shiites of Lebanon seek to link up more with the Alawite/Shiites of Syria, the Kurds of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey try to link up with one another and create an independent Kurdistan, and the Sunnis of Iraq, Jordan and Syria draw closer to oppose the Shiites of Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.”  Emphasis added.

Certainly a messy and difficult process, but one that’s worth going through to try to get it right a hundred years later.