Serious about Syria [Jamie]

Over at contentions, "Rudyard Kipling-lite" Max Boot offers a spirited response to Greg's post below on "Syria Hysteria."

Greg, as Max notes, elides the fact that the NIE report stated that Syria had cracked down on "some" Sunni extremists, certainly not all. Saying that Syria's half-hearted and hardly systematic attempts to arrest Islamic militants on their way to Iraq should relieve us of worry, as Greg seems to state, is a rather selective interpretation of Syria's selective cracking down on extremism. Greg then notes that Syria is providing aid to "non al-Qaeda groups." But since when was supporting non al-Qaeda terrorist groups mutually exclusive from supporting al-Qaeda? Syria has had no problems providing aid to both Hamas (Sunni) and Hizbollah (Shi'a). And, more importantly, if Syria is supporting groups undermining American efforts in Iraq, why should it matter if those groups are formally al-Qaeda affiliated?

Max is right on the crucial point, which is that Syria and Iran have effectively declared war on us. Make of that what you will. But it's not "warmongering" to simply state the fact that two rogue states are themselves complicit in unwarranted acts of warmongering against the United States and a nascent democracy in the Middle East.