Hezbollah went thataway... -->

While Iran's role in prompting precipitive action by Hezbollah to provoke Israel is acknowledged and its goals understood to some degree, Syria's role in the affair, while evident, is less motivated by some obvious gain. In fact, Syria may well be facing implosion if the conflict is not quickly brought under control.

Syria simply cannot stand toe-to-toe with Israel and the other Arab governments in the region understand this all to well. What they fear is that current conflict will spill over into Syrian territory and lead to the destabilization of an already shaky Syrian government.

No one is really keen on the Assad regime, but the alternative is even less pleasant--imagine Iraq without American forces to moderate the violence in that country. Such messes don't stay neatly contained, and the after effects will spill over into the rest of the region, creating problems for everybody.

Recently, Egypt sought to prevent a U.S. military campaign against Syria, following Washington's accusations that Damascus was behind all of the terrorist attacks against American soldiers in Iraq and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The countries of the region have interceded on many occasions to protect Syria from all possible attacks.

The question is: Can an angry Israel be kept away from Syria this time, especially since no one knows if Washington will look the other way?

Now there are signs that Israel might repeat its the invasion scenario that it undertook in Lebanon in 1982, but this time in Syria, taking advantage of its overwhelming military superiority. This possibility doesn’t escape Damascus, which is aware of the gravity of the situation.

According an Arab official familiar with the details of this situation, Iran is trying to drag its feet by using Syria to escalate the situation and avoid its own direct involvement. Iran is using Damascus like a chess piece to manipulate a regional conflict. Tehran is in a state of conflict with the West over its growing political influence in the region and its nuclear program, and is now prepared to move the crisis to the level of direct confrontation.

If such an open confrontation does take place, Iran knows that it has little to lose, being a large country with a strong military, and with an established political system and lots of oil in high demand.

Syria's situation is different, situated as it is between the hammer of American and anvil of Israeli, with a broken-down economy and unable to cope with Israeli power on its own.

Like the person afraid of seeing a demon, the Arab official said that there has always been a fear that such a war was likely to happen, and now it looks like the present war might spin out of control.

The Saudi view, as expressed here, is widely shared throughout the region and explains the rather frantic calls for a ceasefire.

I find the Saudi position refreshingly sober, but will it be taken into account by the Bush administraton? I suspect it will. While Syria is a pain-in-the-neck, a bad regime into control of its territory is better than a good regime that isn't, particularly in light of what we're trying to accomplish in Iraq and Lebanon. The considerable trick here is going to be to threaten Syria enough that they will cooperate without actually having to effect "the price" that so many conservative commentators seem to be calling for. If it works, the forces of democracy will have made considerable progress in the region and effected greater security for the Israelis to boot.

Its a very interesting situation--a large risk with commenserate rewards if successful. The irony here is that the a "cowboy" president maybe just the ticket to win this. While Democrats and the left generally like to blame Bush for the current belligerency of Iran and North Korea, they might consider some blame for the Clinton administration as well in being too willing to compromise. When you know the other party is going to cave, you plan your negotiating position on it. Similarly, if you know your adversary is "crazy", you'll tend to avoid confrontation. Assad has to be wondering how crazy George W. Bush is, particularly if he reads the New York Times. If he believes that Bush will simply stand by and let the Israelis chew on his ankles, Assad will have to consider making some important concessions.

Lots of things could go wrong of course, and maybe they will. Its not really known to what extent Assad has control within his own country--is it even possible for him to rein in the conga line to the Sunni triangle? That may also factor into the calculus of this situation. If Assad has already lost control, then pushing him over may be what's required. I bet a lot that there are a lot of calls being made into Syria to get the lay of the land and kick the tires on a coup.