Lebanon Hold-Em and the Poker Skills of George Bush

Or George could play the Richard Nixon card and just start taking out his frustrations on the Syrians. I hear they're developing a target-rich environment in the Bekaa Valley. After all, war IS a contest of wills.

"If anything goes wrong, your fault, my fault, anybody's fault, I'm gonna blow your head off." --John Wayne in BIG JAKE

Posted by slimedog at March 10, 2005 10:01 AM

slimedog,

I love that line; it's one of my all-time favorite Wayne lines. I was thinking about it yesterday and couldn't remember the movie. I thought it was McClintock. I loved the look on Richard Boone's face at that point.

thanks.

Posted by nobody important at March 10, 2005 10:45 AM

I think that America's best shot is to tell the Syrians (quietly)that if they play by "Hama Rules", then we play by "Chicago Rules." And then we see who plays best.

Posted by Final Historian at March 10, 2005 11:15 AM

france has aligned with us (and the feckless U.N.) to demand Syria's withdrawl.

I second Final's comment. If we are serious about supporting democracy we will find no profit in fighting a war of fronts in Lebanon.

We tell Assad and his happy band of otherwise unemployable thugs that they go. And we avoid Lebanon entirely in the process - seems we've got a substantial presence on their border already.

An interesting what-if to me is just what france may do if it comes to that. Will they send troops?

If they measure the rising sentiment for democracy across the mideast as the true face of the future, it would definitely be in their interest to be "on the ground" with a liberation of Lebanon (the obvious Arab economic powerhouse to arise in a democratic, peaceful, mideast).

It wouldn't cost them anything. They could send a liasion team of officers and mess stewards to work off one of our carriers or 'phibs, and a battalion of legionnaires for photo ops on the ground, and they'd get full credit as allies from us.

The other side of the coin is easy; they might well think that the Cowboy will take Assad out regardless of who is on his bench, and then they are left with no contacts to exploit at all.

The french are easy to figure out if you can just find out what you have to do to let their politicians look good and make a buck or two.

Posted by TmjUtah at March 10, 2005 11:58 AM