What is most striking about the attack against a Syrian farm across the border from Iraq is that the US has waited so long to do this.
Cross border attacks from Afghanistan into the Pakistani tribal areas have been routine business for a long time. These are meant to hit Al Qaeda and Taliban elements seeking refuge on the Pakistani side of the border, who themselves launch attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan. These operations have been remarkably successful in neutralizing terrorist leadership on the Pakistani-Afghan border.
The situation on the Syrian-Iraqi border has been similar: Terrorist fighters and weapons have been entering into Iraq from Syria, causing countless deaths among the Iraqi civilians, and coalition forces. The difference is that the US and its coalition partners have not done much about this, taking blows without responding.
This raises the obvious question: Why now?
Several theories present themselves:
1. The Bush administration is trying to detract attention from the current economic crisis and is somehow trying to get the McCain-Palin ticket elected. This is a fairly weak theory since the incident is of a small impact and won't make much ink flow, at least not in the US. If the US wanted to start an international incident, they would have sought a naval incident with Iran, sunk a couple of Iranian warships, for example.
2. This is business as usual, and an escalation of security operations in Northern Iraq, in the Mosul area. Mosul is the last significant Al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, and is supplied in men and weapons from Syria. The US might have decided to put an end to that lifeline once and for all.
3. This is a warning message to Syria. It is unclear what the message is about, but it might be related to the situation in Iraq, pressuring the Syrians to maintain a tighter control on the border. Or the warning could be related to Lebanon. The Syrians have been massing their forces on the Lebanese border and making ominous threats. Some in Lebanon have been quite anxious of a Syrian invasion. The generally well informed Debka site posted this map of the Syrian deployments on the Lebanese border.
Whatever the reason might be, this raid is a clear indication that the Bush administration will maintain its no nonsense policy towards terrorists and their supporters.
