Rice silent on Syria strike plan

[cal04]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused to confirm a report that she had opposed military strikes inside Syria's border at a recent meeting of senior government officials. "I am not going to comment on internal deliberations in the administration," Ms Rice said in Ireland as she headed for Central Asia on a four-nation tour.
"Don't believe everything that you read."

This week's edition of the US magazine Newsweek reports that the US had debated launching military strikes inside Syria against camps used by insurgents operating in neighbouring Iraq. Citing unnamed government sources, the magazine reported that Ms Rice successfully opposed the idea at a meeting of senior American officials held on October 1. Ms Rice reportedly argued that diplomatic isolation of Syria was a more effective approach than military action.

Today Ms Rice repeated US accusations that Damascus was allowing insurgents to move arms and fighters across the Syrian border into Iraq and supporting militants in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. "We've been very clear about what we need from Syria," Ms Rice said. She cited UN resolution 1559, which requires militia organisations in Lebanon to disarm, including a pro-Syrian Palestinian group.

"We need the Syrians to stop the flow of insurgents into Iraq. We need the Syrians to live up to their obligations under resolution 1559 on Lebanon," Ms Rice said. She also called on Syria to "co-operate fully" with the UN investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The United Nations probe is expected to deliver its findings soon amid speculation Syria may have been behind Hariri's murder. Ms Rice also said Syria must "make certain that in terms of 1559 they are not encouraging Palestinian rejectionists, some of them in Lebanon, trying to harm the process that is going on in the Palestinian territories".

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16882510%255E1702,00.html

[Why Syzygy]

1. They want the UN to work for them

but ignore it when it doesn't fit in with their "strategy"?

[Old and In the Way]

2. Syria is Viet Nam's Cambodia....

Where does this end? Every adjacent country will have insurgents flowing into the conflict. How many more countries does this administration want to go to war with? Why? This is a recipe for a real disaster in the making.

[Supersedeas]

3. diplomatic isolation is a more effective approach??? since when?