For those who still doubt that the invasion of Iraq has anything to do with the wave of democratization sweeping across the Middle East and the thus-far impotence of the dictatorships to stop it, the Commissar at the Politburo Diktat noticed this comment from Bashar Assad in an interview with the Turkish press:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, under pressure to withdraw troops from Lebanon, insisted he should not be compared to Saddam Hussein and that he wanted to cooperate with international demands, according to an interview released Sunday. ...

At the end of the interview, which was conducted last week, Assad said: "Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to cooperate."

Watching Saddam get pulled out of that spider hole by American soldiers has generated an entirely new calculus in the cesspool of tyranny and corruption throughout the Muslim world. When Moammar Gaddafi and Bashar Assad want to assure the West that they aren't anything like Saddam Hussein, their aim isn't to convince their people to love them. They want the US to understand that they've learned the important lesson that George Bush means exactly what he says.

Assad wants the Turkish press to send that message. Assad could send it himself by getting all the way out of Lebanon and ceasing all support of terrorists. We'll see if he has learned the lesson well enough.

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» War never works from Victory Soap
I mean, dang it, how can we say war is a solution to certain problems when it, er, solves those problems:At the end of the interview, which was conducted last week, Assad said: "Please send this message: I am not... [Read More]

Tracked on March 6, 2005 2:03 PM

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Tracked on March 6, 2005 4:29 PM

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Tracked on March 6, 2005 8:44 PM

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