For Want of a Nail
February 23rd, 2005 - 11:08 am
Just how did things in Lebanon go from oh-so-bad to maybe-someday-really-really good, so quickly?
In no small part because of a car accident eleven years ago.
Just how did things in Lebanon go from oh-so-bad to maybe-someday-really-really good, so quickly?
In no small part because of a car accident eleven years ago.
Pipes writes a nice story that details what a dunderhead Bashar is, but never tells us what Basil was like, or how Basil would have been as a ruler of Syria.
Most likely, he would have been just as bad, which means the car accident was an historical nothing.
So, what was the point of the first 3 paragraphs? You tell me.
Nuke Syria … Faster please.
I don’t think Pipes has said that Basil would be ‘better’. Rather that Basil was trained by his father to be competent at executing his father’s techniques. Hafez knew well enough that dynasties are vulnerable to the squabbles of brother-heirs, so he raised Bashar to not be competent. Where Basil would likely have been a tyrant, Bashar does not seem to have the personality.
I don’t hold that against him. The most I could wish for him is a rewarding career – as an opthamologist. I get the impression that that’s his preference as well.
I think there’s an angle there which we can use to topple Syria when the time comes. Soon.
The Good Son
VODKAPUNDIT WONDERS how the Lebanese people can so suddenly push this near to freedom, and finds an answer from Daniel Pipes.
Planning Ahead
Evil genius Karl Rove no doubt tampered with the brakes inorder to make Bush look good….
Unexpected Consequences
Lebanon’s Liberation Approaches, by Daniel Pipes The fate of Syria was in good measure determined on January 21, 1994. That’s when, driving at a too-high speed to the Damascus airport for a skiing trip abroad, Basil Al-Assad crashed the Mer…
I don’t know that Basil would have done a better job. He was certainly more martial and more reckless, as is shown by the manner of his death. But timidity may have been the best thing for the 21st century so far. Syria is short on resources and friends.
Boldness might have been a disaster for Syria. As it was, they nearly got run over by the Turks in the early 2000s because of their support for the PKK and giving asylum to the terrorist Ocalan. Had they allowed any more activity against Israel than they did, the Israelis would have whacked them too. A Basil Assad dictatorship would have ended in a meeting of Turkish and Israeli generals over baklava and coffee in a smouldering downtown Damascus.