A History of Violence

My old Beirut friend Lee Smith writes about Syria’s history of violence in the Weekly Standard:

[W]ill the wise men who counsel we sit down and talk with Damascus–the Brzezinskis, the Powells, the Obamas, the Bakers, and Djerejians–will they have the decency at last to recognize what their high-minded posturing can no longer obscure? This is how Syria negotiates, with its knife on the table and dripping with blood.