Did Syria Cross the Line?

Here's a potentially momentous development that's slid completely under the public radar:

A top source from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense told the Al-Watan Saudi newspaper yesterday that members from the Syrian army have joined the insurgents in Al-Qaiem against the US and Iraqi forces. [my emphasis]

Al-Qaiem is on the border with Syria which is used as a cross safe heaven point for the Saudi and other Arab insurgents from Syria.

At least 35 among the Syrian army who were arrested during the fighting confessed about their ranks and their Syrian army units. They also confessed about their role in training the insurgents inside Iraq. Part of that training was professional including anti-aircraft missiles. The US army earlier mentioned that the type of training and weapons was different and well organized this time. This now has been confirmed that such professional training needs a well organized state's army behind it.

Anti aircraft missiles and other sophisticated weapons have been found this time.

Now I'm the first one to admit that my professional speciality isn't international law, but doesn't the overt presence of Syrian troops on Iraqi soil engaging in "major combat operations" against Iraqi and American forces mean that a state of war exists between the government of Syria and the governments of Iraq and the United States?

Jed Babbin seems to concur:

The President has too much on his mind, and his advisers are divided. The CIA and the State Department point to the small amount of cooperation we have been getting from Syria, and insist that we can compel them to do more without taking firm action. The Defense Department is less tolerant. It wants to act, but apparently hasn't even been allowed to ask the Iraqis for permission to mount an attack into Syria. Our failure to take decisive action costs too much. The time has come to act.

First, either Vice President Cheney or the President himself needs to knock heads together, because no one else can. CIA, State, and Defense have to be brought into line and resolved to action. Then State should deliver a final ultimatum to Assad. If he fails to end his regime's support for terrorism forthwith - and that means not only the Iraqi insurgents, but Hezbollah and all the others that have operated from Damascus for decades - he must be told we will end it for him. The Iraqi government should be consulted, but its reluctance - if it has any - to a cross-border attack must be dispelled or politely ignored. As soon as it is, special operations forces should cross into Syria covertly, to lead a combined air and ground attack against the terrorists and whatever Syrian assets are supporting them, from Qaim to Damascus. Whatever it takes, that is what we must do.

As Michael Ledeen has argued on occasions too numerous to count, this is a regional conflict, not limited merely to Iraq and Afghanistan. We must intervene wherever our enemies are, ultimately, to wipe them out before they can get us here at home. And it is folly to sit in, as it were, the middle of Babylon and allow the "Assyrians" on one side and the "Medes and Persians" on the other slowly bleed us (and the "Babylonians") to death from Cambodia-like sanctuaries that we ourselves designate as officially out of our reach.

I've been saying this for as long as Ledeen has (just without his eloquence). It is inevitable if the GWOT is to retain its seriousness and also be won. And what better way of turning up the heat on the mullahs to the east than to remove their junior (and final) partner in the region?

The road to Damascus awaits, Mr. President. Time to light that mother up.