Why Not Syria?

Many of us have wondered aloud why President Obama decided so quickly to go into Libya and start bombing Gadaffi and his army.  Of course Obama said this before we started bombing Libya:

"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

So now with more than 1500 innocent Syrians dead and probably 10 times that many tortured and beaten...why does the Obama doctrine NOT apply to Syria?  Why haven't we started bombing them?

One answer might be; Israel.

Israel does not share a border with Libya, but it does share one with Syria, and there are fears in the IDF that in the event of foreign military intervention there, Israel would feel the brunt of Bashar Assad’s retaliation.


While Assad is already believed to be trying to divert attention from his lethal crackdown on protesters by encouraging Palestinians to raid the Israeli border, as occurred this past Sunday, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what Syria can do.


One intelligence assessment speaks of the possibility that, under extreme pressure – caused politically or militarily – Assad might decide to attack Israel with more than just angry Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus.

Instead, he would have available the thousands of ballistic missiles Syria has manufactured over the years, as well as an extensive chemical arsenal, bolstered as a replacement for the nuclear reactor Israel destroyed in 2007.


For this reason, Jerusalem is quietly warning about the potential consequences of Western military action aimed at toppling Assad. This does not mean, of course, that Israel wants Assad to remain in power; in reality, the opposite is true. But the concern cannot be ignored; what will happen the day after Assad falls, and into whose hands will the ballistic missiles and chemical weapons fall?

See it here; http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=224377

The article goes on to say that Iran had CEASED its nuclear activity after Bush invaded Iraq (back in 2003)...because they feared they would be next in line.  But now that fear of retaliation from the USA or any other Western nation is gone...so why shouldn't they keep refining plutonium and cooking a bomb?  What do they have to lose?

Hat tip to Julie E.