Syria: Not the Smartest Move

Yesterday, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding Syrian cooperation with the UN's investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Justin Delabar has a good look/analysis at the resolution over at The Moderate Voice, which you should check out.

To get passage of the resolution, the sponsors (the US, France, and Britain) had to drop an explicit threat of sanctions if Syria didn't comply - due to demands from Russia and China they watered that down to a threat of "further action." Who knows if they'll ever agree to take any "further action" no matter what, but Syria's reaction to the resolution certainly makes that step a little more likely.

The Syrian ambassador, Farouk al-Sharaa, angrily denounced the resolution, rejecting it entirely, and stating that suggesting Syrian troops knew of the assassination plan was like saying the intelligence services here knew of 9/11. British foreign secretary Jack Straw called that statement a "most grotesque and insensitive comparison."

I'd like to think that al-Sharaa's blowup was nothing more than a bit of diplomatic theater, and that the Syrians will cooperate with investigators. If they do not, then I fear we're setting ourselves off down a road we've traversed before, only too recently.