Remind me again what radical Islamist party Saddam Hussein belonged to?

Well, we’re making progress, at least—you’re now conceding that it’s not simple carelessness or inability that’s stopping the Syrians from interfering with the flow of insurgents and their supplies across the border to Iraq. Rather, it’s a conscious political decision on the part of the Syrian government to allow this activity to continue. The only remaining question is whether Assad would allow it to happen without negotiating its terms. After all, the insurgents and their domestic Syrian allies are not exactly enamored of the Ba’athist/Alawi regime—as you now also seem prepared to admit. Are you seriously suggesting that Assad would allow this kind of armed force to build up on his territory without some sort of explicit assurance that it wouldn’t subsequently be turned against him?

As for whether Syrian complicity in the insurgents’ use of Syria as a sanctuary is “nice and scary”—hey, I’m not the one who seems desperate to deny it, against all logic and evidence. Personally, I view it as a rather obvious observation, and prefer to consider the appropriate international response calmly and rationally, with a minimum of histrionics—and without resorting to reassuring denial.

Posted by Barry

Quiet, Barry. Soru’s trying to use an outlier to prop up a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. It’s a very tricky business.

Shhhhh!
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Threads grow long and people lose track, but if you’ll notice: that was a reductio ad absurdum, so I wasn’t positing anything. You had posited the Oil for Food fraud as a way to establish connections and interests among Baathists, which sounds nice and scary and is the kind of pan-Arabist bullshit boogeyman I recall from the early 1990s, but is too easy to topple with examples like mine, so it establishes nothing.

Syria has a (somewhat restive) Kurdish minority as well, as a matter of fact. Part of the deal in this sort of arrangement is that you require the “nationalist” movement’s nationalism to be somewhat selective. The PKK strictly targeted Turkey, not Syria (its sponsor), nor Iraq (its sponsor’s business partner).

So? The “Kurdistan” that the PKK wanted to carve out would have taken part of Iraq, not Syria. I will continue to draw your attention to this point. I have hope.

But his son’s position today is much more precarious—his economy is a mess, his old Soviet and Iraqi Ba’athist backers are gone, and he appears to be in the process of being ignominiously chased out of Lebanon. Anti-government unrest—including Sunni unrest—is increasing…

Yes, which is precisely why I said that Syria is unlikely to spend domestic political capital by going after said groups when doing so won’t gain them anything from the US. Remember, you had identified their inaction against groups crossing their border as evidence of complicity, which sounds nice and scary but is a complete non sequitur. I was just pointing out that there’s no reason for them to do our bidding.
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It’s obvious a priori that capturing Saddam made the world a safer place, the worsening of conditions in Iraq over the last two years notwithstanding.

m, n thnks. H’s jst nthr shll fr srl, nd thy’r th nvsbl hnd bhnd ths fsc.

Jwsh Wk, ctbr 3, 2003
” ws lttl srprsd bcs ppl wh knw m knw vry wll m strng dfndr f srl,” h sd. “Bt ftr thght bt t fr whl wsn’t srprsd. thnk tht th cnnctn f th Jwsh cmmnty t srl s s strng, nd th flng n srl tht smdy thy my b bndnd s nrms.” . . . “’v bn vry clr, spprt th trgtd ssssntns,” h sd. “Ths r nmy cmbtnts n wr; srl hs vry rght t sht thm bfr thy cn sht srls.”

Nov 2003 was, IIRC, a freaky month for US fatalities. 2 or 3 helicopters carrying troops were shot down.

The insurgency did very much dampen down after saddam’s capture (from 82 US combat fatalities in November 2003 to 12 in February 2004).

Then Bush decided to invade Fallujah, and they shot up to 126. Since then, they have gradually declined again, just not very far.

I’m assuming fatality counts are more or less unfakeable, figures for wounded from the same source are less spiky and follow the same pattern.

soru

Never heard the story, but assuming it’s true, are you claiming that the company in question and Ba’athist Iraq were “enemies”, as you claimed about Ba’athist Iraq and Ba’athist Syria?

That’s nice. But I can’t imagine the sheltering of a Kurdish terrorist group went over particularly well in Baghdad, considering their stated goal of an independent Kurdistan.

Syria has a (somewhat restive) Kurdish minority as well, as a matter of fact. Part of the deal in this sort of arrangement is that you require the “nationalist” movement’s nationalism to be somewhat selective. The PKK strictly targeted Turkey, not Syria (its sponsor), nor Iraq (its sponsor’s business partner).

The political calculus has certainly changed since 1982.

Actually, the current relationship between Syria’s government and its Sunni majority is closer to that of 1982 than to any time since. The crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 pretty much put paid to any Sunni hopes of resisting the elder Assad’s rule. But his son’s position today is much more precarious—his economy is a mess, his old Soviet and Iraqi Ba’athist backers are gone, and he appears to be in the process of being ignominiously chased out of Lebanon. Anti-government unrest—including Sunni unrest—is increasing, and Assad can ill afford to ignore a terrorist group operating on his soil with ample funding, international connections, a natural congeniality with Syria’s Sunni majority, and an ideological, historical and religious bone to pick with the Assads. He must already have made a sweet deal with them, or he’d be busy desperately trying to expunge them right now.

“The Battle of Algiers” suggests a different model: hierarchical structure of small cells with a clear chain of command, but I find it less convincing.

No. A Texas company was on the take in the Oil for Food fraud and they were protected by an American senator. So actually … yes, in a way.

You mean the Iraqis weren’t happy with the Syrians because they were sheltering the PKK, or because they stopped? Frankly, neither one makes the slightest sense to me.

That’s nice. But I can’t imagine the sheltering of a Kurdish terrorist group went over particularly well in Baghdad, considering their stated goal of an independent Kurdistan.

The presence of a large, organized force of radical Sunni terrorists on Syrian soil would, ceteris paribus, be an enormous threat to the secular, Alawi-dominated government of Syria.

Why now? The political calculus has certainly changed since 1982. Syria doesn’t need to spend domestic political capital doing anything meaningful against them, and Syria isn’t likely to gain any international capital by doing so, either. So your characterization of their passive aggressiveness as “something quite a bit less innocent” is an utter non sequitur.
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Really? The government of Texas was smuggling oil out of Iraq, selling it as Texan, and splitting the proceeds with Saddam Hussein? I had no idea….

One more reason the Iraqis weren’t happy with the Syrians, yes.

You mean the Iraqis weren’t happy with the Syrians because they were sheltering the PKK, or because they stopped? Frankly, neither one makes the slightest sense to me.

Or the lack of any reason to divert resources to address what are actually American concerns.

The presence of a large, organized force of radical Sunni terrorists on Syrian soil would, ceteris paribus, be an enormous threat to the secular, Alawi-dominated government of Syria. (Whom do you think Assad pere massacred in Hama in 1982?) Assad fils might decide to make a deal with them, letting them operate in return for their help in pacifying the Syrian Sunni majority. Or he might decide to crush them. But he certainly can’t afford to consider them “American concerns” and ignore them.

Well, if that’s how we draw our circle of contacts, you’ll have to throw Texas into the mix, too.

And the Syrians had no trouble ending their shelter of PKK terrorists, once the Turkish government threatened them with severe enough consequences if they didn’t.

One more reason the Iraqis weren’t happy with the Syrians, yes.

Currently, the ease with which insurgents pour across the border from Syria into Iraq bespeaks something quite a bit less innocent than mere overstretched resources.

Or the lack of any reason to divert resources to address what are actually American concerns.
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The Syrian and Iraqi Ba’athists may have been enemies at one time, but they certainly had a solid business partnership during the nineties, evading the sanctions regime by selling Iraqi oil under Syrian cover. (Syrian “domestic” oil production suddenly plummeted drastically after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.) And the Syrians had no trouble ending their shelter of PKK terrorists, once the Turkish government threatened them with severe enough consequences if they didn’t. Currently, the ease with which insurgents pour across the border from Syria into Iraq bespeaks something quite a bit less innocent than mere overstretched resources.