Grim's Hall

On Syria (and Iran):

Amy Taheri has an article in the National Review today which suggests that Iran and Syria are collaborating on ways to make the reconstruction of Iraq difficult for us. The notion she puts forth is that, by making Iraq hard, these two states hope to distract us from dealing with either (or both) of them. Taheri lists several factors that could be brought into play.

On another front, Syria has pledged to rid the Middle East of Weapons of Mass Destruction and has submitted a plan to that effect to the United Nations. The UN has become little more than the venue for delaying tactics by dictatorial states, as this plan demonstrates:

On Wednesday, Damascus asked the U.N. Security Council to help transform the region into a zone free of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Speaking to reporters in Cairo today, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Charaa said: "After this initiative, this Syrian proposal . . . Syria won't allow any inspection. It will only participate with its [Arab] brothers and all of the states of the world in turning the Middle East into an area free of weapons of mass destruction."

It was not clear if his remarks were a departure from Syria's previously stated position that it would only allow weapons inspections if they applied to all regional states, including Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear arms.

So, in short, Syria seeks a nice-sounding resolution behind which to hide, but has no intention of allowing any positive steps to demonstrate compliance. Meanwhile, speculation is rampant that many of Iraq's WMDs passed into Syrian control before the invasion.