Bullets, Not Ballots

Over the past week or two Ed Morrissey has been enthusiastically talking up the possibilities for bringing about regime change in Syria via the Franco-American-UN-multilateralist-diplomatic route.

Most recently, last Saturday:

As more pressure gets applied to the Bashar Assad regime to answer for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, it looks like the impulse to run has become irresistable for some members of the autocracy. The New York Times reports that Assad's wealthy and powerful cousin, Rami Makhluf, has fled Syria for the UAE as the country becomes more dangerous for those who prop up the erstwhile opthalmologist on his creaky throne....

The only analysis of Rami's apparent flight is that the Assad regime has come to an end, for all practical purposes. If the Security Council puts a squeeze on Syria, it will utterly collapse. The Americans and the French should work quickly to ensure that the UN takes some sort of decisive action and that supporters of democratization stand ready to apply the coup de grace that will end the tyranny of the Assads for good - and replace it with a democratic republic that will further isolate Iran in Southwest Asia.

The hope in the Cap'n's words is infectious. Last spring's Cedar Revolution in Lebanon was a jaw-dropping sight to see, brought about by the same "people power" that prevented the theft of the Ukrainian election. And Syria did (at least kinda-sorta) withdraw from Lebanon after a thirty-year occupation. But though a retreat, that was far from the toppling of the Assad regime itself. And as I have long pointed out, dictatorships meet their ends by either external invasion or "lateral coups" (i.e. one set of bad guys overthrowing another) far more often than by popular uprising. As a practical matter, the vast majority of popular uprisings get crushed, which is why dictatorships are called dictatorships. Even with outside assistance it's an exceedingly difficult thing to do, and there's no particular reason to suppose that if Boy Assad were overthrown, his regime would be replaced by a "democratic republic" like the one behing painstakingly constructed next door.

Still, Mr. Morrissey was optimistic that globalist chicken crap would somehow transform itself into chicken salad:

The New York Times [Noticing a patttern here...?]....reports today that the Bush Administration's alliance with France against the Assad regime will get the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that will impose tough economic sanctions if Syria refuses to fully cooperate with the investigation into the Rafik Hariri assassination. The Russians and the Chinese, who both had made noises about vetoing any such resolution, have been convinced to sideline themselves....

If the Bush Administration can get this through the UNSC, we may see radical changes in Syria in the next few weeks. The West should be prepared for it.

So what ended up transpiring? Not what the Cap'n was hoping for, unfortunately:

Yesterday, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a watered-down resolution demanding full cooperation from Syria and its dictator, Bashar Assad, in the investigation into the assassination of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri. The resolution gained Russian and Chinese support only when the sponsoring nations of the US, UK, and France removed the specific threat of economic sanctions

And Assad's reaction?

Syria has angrily rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution that demands Damascus cooperate fully in the investigation into the killing of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri or face "further measures."...

Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said the U.N. report convicted Syria before it faced trial, and he wondered why the United Nations had assumed its forces were guilty just because they were in Lebanon at the time of the bombing.

And Mr. Morrissey's reaction to Assad's reaction?

The UNSC must enforce this resolution immediately. If the Russians and the Chinese veto any meaningful consequences for Syria's intransigence, then they will not mind if later we just skip the entire UNSC pas de deux when it comes to Iran. If the two expect us to consult them on issues like this in the future, they'd better start coming up with better answers than they have for the past three years on the UNSC. In the meantime, the sponsoring nations can put a big dent in the Syrian economy, perhaps big enough to push Bashar Assad out of Syria altogether.

Anybody who believes that, stand on your head.

Maybe I'm just cynical and curmudgeonly beyond my years, and I mean no slight to the estimable Cap'n, but how many times do we have to go through the same UN circle-jerk before we finally admit, to ourselves as well as the "world," that it is a pointless, futile, counterproductive exercise? Syria is a client state of Russia, for heaven's sake. Ditto Iran and its nuclear program. They're never going to go along with any measure, even so innocuous a one as economic sanctions (twelve years of which never "made a dent" in Saddam Hussein's rule, don't forget, thanks in large measure to rampant UN corruption) against either terror regime any more than they were willing to acquiesce to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Ditto Red China, which approaches this dispute from the far more strategic perch of its global, and therefore anti-American by defintion, ambitions.

There is one way to liberate Syria (and Iran), and one way only: American invasion. If the Bush Administration is serious about winning the GWOT, they will belatedly begin making the case for new military action that should have been forthcoming before Saddam's statute had hit the central Baghdad pavement. And the UN will be studiously, conspicuously, and completely ignored.

Anything less is just more wasted time, and brings the next 9/11-sized (or larger) terrorist attack that much closer to fruition.

Forget the UN. Forget the French, who are little more than the "good cop" to the Sino-Russian bad cops. Invade. Get it over with.

And not "faster, please"; NOW.