Syria: Bush lies, Condoleeza swears to it: Beware the wounded beast

Attack Syria? Invade Iran? By What Constitution?
by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 19, Condoleezza Rice was asked whether the Bush administration was planning military action against Syria. She answered,

I don't think the President ever takes any of his options off the table concerning anything to do with military force.

Last time we read the U.S. Constitution, the grave decision to use military force against another country was a matter for Congress to decide -- not an "option" for a President.
And last time we read the UN Charter, it provided that

all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

We've been here before. President Bush used trumped-up fears (like mushroom clouds over American cities) and frauds (like imaginary "yellowcake" uranium) to fool the American people into attacking Iraq. Now we and the Iraqi people are paying the price.
With the American military bogged down in what Lt. Gen. William Odom, director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, calls

the greatest strategic disaster in United States history,

and with a majority of the American people saying the U.S. made the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq, it may be hard to believe that the Bush administration is really contemplating further adventures.
But regimes facing military embarrassment are notorious for expanding the theater of war - witness Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia. And the same delusions that got us into Iraq - from imaginary threats of illicit weapons to dreams of welcome from cheering crowds - are being repeated about Iran and Syria.

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