WSJ Scores James Baker for Pro-Syrian Tilt

The Wall Street Journal scorches Baker in the link above, though in tones that display residual respect.

There are only a few blogs which take the Al-Jazeera line on this, and that flawed cable network has a lot of Michel Aoun supporters [pro-Syrian Christians like the Prez Emile Lahoud] avowing that Syria would never do such a thing because it would be too stupid. But stupid is Bashar Assad's favorite playbook. Still, contrarians bleat it's not fair to point fingers at Damascus.

But the reason that everyone suspects the Syrians is because the Syrians have a very long and extensive record of interfering in Lebanon's economy and political affairs, and it is in their PERCEIVED interest [however poorly conceived] to stir the pot in that country, which they regard as irredentist
territory since the French created it in the 19th century.

Some reasons to keep Lebanon boiling:
It takes the Syrian people's mind off their own imbecilic government, it is an attempt to try to keep the Lebanese cabinet from participating in the UN Investigative Inquiry, an attempt to push the Hezbollah agenda in order to continue to receive Iranian support, and because various factions supporting Assad in Lebanon, including its demented Prez Emile L, actually want Syria back in control of Lebanon, or at least an active player. Last, but not least, the Syrians made a
lot of money by interfering in Lebanon before, and think they can do it again.

Therefore, a very deluded Syrian leadership probably thinks it is its own good, and because it believes it can get away with it. Think of it as a mafia syndicate, with Bashar Assad as the capo di tutti capiti. And please don't necessarily regard the present Syrian leadership as rational actors. As an FT columnist said prophetically two years ago, this younger Assad tends to overplay his hand.

And from my years living in Beirut and elsewhere in the Arab world, I'll take the flawed western press version over the ridiculous largely pro-Syrian Arab media nine times out of ten. [BTW, I once dated a Lebanese woman who told me that assassinated ex-Prez-elect Basheer Gemayel had asked her to marry him, she turned him down because the Gemayels were in her words "beneath her socially...."] Lebanon is a revolving door of conspiracies. I can remember that in 1977 the assassins of Druze-chief Walid Jumblatt's father drove away from the scene in a car with Iraqi license plates! Of course, it turned out to be Syria behind the murder, but anything to throw us off the scent!