Syria the New Cambodia

[yltlatl]

From the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/politics/15syria.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=614527a8ce0afd9f&hp&ex=1129435200&partner=homepage

Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was in the Vietnam War: a sanctuary for fighters, money and supplies to flow over the border and, ultimately, a place for a shadow struggle.

<--snip-->

In a meeting at the White House on Oct. 1, senior aides to Mr. Bush considered a variety of options for further actions against Syria, apparently including special operations along with other methods for putting pressure on Mr. Assad in coming weeks."

American officials say Mr. Bush has not yet signed off on a specific strategy and has no current plan to try to oust Mr. Assad, partly for fear of who might take over. The United States is not planning large-scale military operations inside Syria and the president has not authorized any covert action programs to topple the Assad government, several officials said.

Some current and former United States military and intelligence officials who said they believed that Americans were already secretly penetrating Syrian territory question what they see as the Bush administration's excessive focus on the threat posed by foreign Arab fighters going through Syria. They say the vast majority of insurgents battling American forces are Iraqis, not foreign jihadis.

According to a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, intelligence analysis and the pattern of detentions in Iraq show that the number of foreign fighters represents "well below 10 percent, and may well be closer to 4 percent to 6 percent" of the total makeup of the insurgency.

One former United States official with access to recent intelligence on the insurgency added that American intelligence reports had concluded that 95 percent of the insurgents were Iraqi.

Welcome to planet Bush, where we won Vietnam, and where toppling the Syrian government will prevent Iraqis from fighting to rid their country of invaders.

On edit: added link and fixed my unruly italics.

[unhappycamper]

1. Link please. n/t

[LynnTheDem]

2. 95 percent of the insurgents are IRAQI.

But hey, let's GO GET CAMBODIA!!!

Oops...heh...I mean Syria.