Shooting first, talking later (Guardian)

[struggle4progress]

Editorial
The Guardian
Tuesday October 28 2008

... Syria's sovereignty is a weak enough concept from whichever border it is viewed - from Israel, whose fighters bombed a nuclear reactor under construction in the desert, or from Iran, whose missiles transit the country bound for Hizbullah in Lebanon. A withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq will depend on securing Iraq's borders, with the assistance of its neighbours. Hence the policy pursued in both France and Britain of encouraging Damascus back into the diplomatic fold, of which yesterday's talks in London between David Miliband and his Syrian counterpart were a part. It has also been the policy of the caretaker Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to pursue Turkish-mediated talks with Syria on the return of the Golan Heights. Unless Washington believed that a raid inside Syria would spur Damascus into taking action against foreign jihadis, or they thought the target was too important to miss, then the attack was another sign of a US administration which shoots first and thinks later.

Not only long-term goals such as withdrawal are damaged. Short-term objectives - among them the need to strike a deal with Baghdad over the legal status of US forces in Iraq by the end of the year - are also affected. For Shia politicians sensitive to the degree of sovereignty their government will exercise as it enters an election year, the US raid into Syria bears a striking resemblance to an operation they carried out recently in Anbar province. A senior member of the main Sunni party was killed in a province which the US had ostensibly handed over to the Iraqi authorities. If America ignores Syria's borders, to what extent will they honour Iraq's sovereignty? ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/syria-usa