Ledeen on Syria

Michael Ledeen is a man worth listening to. I don’t always agree with his policy positions but his analysis shows the sign of years of study and firsthand experience. He comments on how the Syrian government plays our intel agents like a fiddle. I heard similar reports from experts I viewed as wise and seasoned. Let's consider what Ledeen has to say:

“…the first time I encountered the notion that Syria is really our friend was in the mid-Eighties, when I was working on counterterrorism. The synagogue in Vienna had been savagely attacked by terrorists carrying hand grenades and a machine gun. We had learned that the terrorists had gone to Damascus, and then directly from Damascus to Vienna. They had not stopped between the Vienna airport and the synagogue. …

Syria’s been a major player in international terrorism for a long time, but the Syrians are clever in their malevolent way; every now and then they give the CIA some useful information, and toss the Agency a real terrorist if they need to curry even more favor than is usual. [Say like Saudi Arabia?] So even when, as in the case of Hezbollah, it should be obvious to a blind man that the Syrians and the Iranians are totally in cahoots, it is nonetheless possible for our Syrian “experts” to gainsay the obvious and whisper to the New York Times that we can somehow separate the Syrians from the terror masters in Tehran, and have the son of Assad play a constructive role in “the search for peace.”

Both times, we had the Syrians dead to rights. Both times, it was obvious that Syria was actively involved in the murder of innocents. And both times, people who should have known better insisted on denying the evidence.”

I mentioned several other authors who believe Israel should war with Syria and not merely with Syria’s proxies hiding behind Lebanese human shields. … But one step at a time …