The Hindu
Friday, Oct 10, 2003
Damascus faces U.S. sanctions
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
WASHINGTON OCT. 9. The U.S. is getting closer to slapping sanctions against Syria. The Bush administration has apparently told Congress that it would not stand in the way; and the House International Committee by a vote of 33 to 2 has voted to take Damascus to task until it expelled terror outfits and limited its weapons programmes.
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It should be clear to everyone by now that we have a unique problem in Washington. Or, to put it more precisely, we have the same problem we've always had, only now the people who're the source of the danger have lost that sinister adeptness previous generations of aggressors showed.
Consider. The US has engaged in two invasions in as many years. Of course, I'm referring to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Neither of these operations has achieved a satisfactory state, even by the piratical standards of the aggressors. In fact, the full implications of each boggle the imagination. The military is under strain, the financial burden is growing and there are flashes on the American domestic horizon of popular discontent.
And yet, rather than taking stock and pausing for breath, as even Caesar might have done in similar circumstances, the US government begins the reliable pattern of aggression against yet another state - Syria.
Sanctions are the beginning point, the first act of a siege campaign. I cannot say whether or not an invasion is planned. It seems unlikely but these days and with this group of strategic and moral midgets it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility.
By seeking to impose sanctions the US is, essentially, declaring war on yet another Arab nation.
To me, this indicates something beyond the normal sorts of aggression we've seen from the US in decades past. It suggests a mis-understanding of the United State's actual strategic position.
I ask your forgiveness for the Hitlerian reference I am about to use. They are tired I know but this one seems apt.
Operation Barbarossa, the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the USSR, was not merely a strategic blunder of Olympian proportions. It was also a window into the megalomania of the planners - chief amongst them being of course Hitler himself.
A sane person, a hegemon in touch with reality and relatively unburdened with ideological weight, would never have done such a thing, at least not for a long while. By committing the Wermacht to invading and subduing the Soviets, Hitler and his inner circle were broadcasting, loud and clear, their arrogance, their stupidity, their racialist under-estimation of their foe and their deep-seated madness.
This, I believe, is what we're seeing here and now.
Not satisfied with what they've already done, dis-believing that failure is possible, under-estimating the response of their targets and heedless of the possible consequences, the US government is marching us towards some sort of unexampled chaos on a huge scale.
For blowback is indeed coming
If the men responsible actually knew what they were about this would be bad enough. But they have yet to show the savvy of successful hegemons.
Which makes the situation even more dangerous.
DRM
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