What the US and Israel are apparently doing is attempting to "soften up" both their domestic and international audiences for some kind of pre-emptive strike against Syria.

This may well quickly expand our military misadventures in the Middle East into a larger regional war.

Israel is very keen to kick up the pace of military activity in the region, (courtesy of the US military, doing the fighting, getting maimed, and dying), before the end of Bush and Cheney's catastrophic two terms in office. Watch for Bush to be very heavily pressured on this and other similar issues (such as an attack against Iran) when he visits Israel. - M. R.

One has to wonder how long the Israeli police knew about this situation before making the accusations against Olmert. - M. R.

Unflipping believable. - M. R.

More from http://www.juancole.com

"The alleged reactor is described, because of its dimensions and shape, as a duplicate of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon. The reactor at Yongbyon is a rough copy of an old British design. It is graphite-moderated and cooled with gaseous carbon dioxide. Its core is composed of a large number of highly-purified graphite blocks. For example, each of the first two Magnox reactors at Windscale in the UK used 2,000 tons of graphite. Even if this purported Syrian reactor vessel were half the size of one of the original UK reactors, it would require roughly 1,000 tons of graphite. That's 14,400 cubic feet of highly-purified graphite. Would all official entities fail to notice the production and transfer of that amount of highly-refined graphite to Syria?

"The voice-over on the CIA videotape asserts that the reactor in Syria was "nearly completed." If the plant were "nearly completed," those graphite blocks would have been substantially in place. Bombing and fire would have spread bits of carbon all over the site, or scattered whole blocks of graphite around the site. The "after" photos didn't seem to indicate that this happened.

"If the reactor were substantially complete, neutron-absorbing boron-10 carbide (or possibly cadmium alloy) control rods would have been installed. Had those been burned or exploded in the bombing, those, too, would have left a chemical signature on the hills surrounding the site and in the prevailing winds. As far as I know, this hasn't been discussed.

"Then, too, there is the matter of fuel rods. Syria is reported not to have uranium yellowcake stocks in appreciable quantities. (One particularly large phosphorite field, the Charkiet formation, is known to contain uranium, but the phosphate fertilizer plant built to process that ore was done by a Swedish company which would certainly alert the IAEA if there were non-compliant diversion. Moreover, Syria has cooperated with the IAEA in the past to develop its commercial uranium extraction processes, but those have not progressed, according to SIPRI.) There's no evidence presented that Syria has built fuel processing and fuel rod assembly facilities. That would suggest production elsewhere, and such production can be tracked. So, if it was almost complete, where are the fuel rods?

"The primary weapons benefit of such a reactor is its ability to be refueled on the fly, so to speak (it's necessary to get the fuel rods out of the reactor before the optimum quantity of plutonium-239 is degraded by neutron capture to less suitable isotopes), so, why does U.S. intelligence say they have "low confidence" that the plutonium that might be produced is for nuclear weapons? It must be that Syria does not have the necessary fuel processing, fuel rod assembly and spent fuel reprocessing plants, and there's no evidence of bomb-manufacturing facilities (all this infrastructure should ideally go forward concurrent with fuel production to produce a bomb in the shortest period of time); does this suggest that the purpose of the facility might not be nuclear in nature, or that it was nuclear, but would have had a non-weapons purpose? If there's no evidence for the existence of the rest of a weapons-making complex, how credible is the claim of "near completion" of a reactor which is well-suited for producing plutonium?

"So far, the government's primary evidence seems to be a photo of a North Korean who is reputed to be NK nuclear scientist Chon Chibu, standing next to someone "believed to be his Syrian counterpart" (quote from the London Times). That photo, as well as others, likely was provided by the Mossad, so its provenance is in question. Given that the Israelis bombed the site, one can't evade the reality that they're an interested party in the matter. - M. R.

UN inspectors are still forbidden to inspect the reactor at Dimona. - M. R.

Some, admittedly.

However, for Assad to believe that nothing can come of any Syrian/Israeli talks until Bush is out of office is yet another insane and unintended consequence of the foreign policy (if one can characterize it as such) thinking of this administration. - M. R.

This looks like more demonization of Syria in advance of some not too far distant attack by Israel. - M. R.

BTW the "foreign" source was Israel. - M. R.

Also, the US extended sanctions against certain members of the Syrian government not too long ago.

One has to wander: in advance.....of what??

Israel knows that Syria has a defense pact with Iran, and that an attack against Syria would be a "back-door" attack against Iran. - M. R.

PIFFLES!

PIFFLES, I say again! - M. R.

Syria and Iran have a mutual defense pact.

Could Israel be contemplating an attack against Syria which would carry forward into an attack on Iran? - M. R.

Is this part of the preparation for an Israeli military assault against Syria? - M. R.

Any such "suspicion" must be evaluated very skeptically at this point. - M. R.

Neither Abbas nor Olmert really have the strength of position, nor the support of their people, to achieve anything meaningful, if this even if this event goes forward. - M. R.

Back at the start of Desert Storm, US Intelligence provided photos of Iraq's army massing on the Saudi border to the government of Saudi Arabia in order to win their permission to attack Iraq from Saudi territory. Then a Florida newspaper spent their own money top purchase photos of the same region from a commercial satellite image company... and found there were no Iraqi tanks anywhere to be found. - M. R.

The Israeli government has already characterized this as "not a peace conference", which means that nothing substantive - like the return of the Golan Heights - will be anywhere on the agenda. - M. R.

Absent such evidence, you are just another Israeli war-whore. - M. R.

So now it's a US Airstrike...on a Syrian nuclear facility?!? - M. R.

And trust me, the warning has nothing to do with "...threats of Islamic insurgency attack". - M. R.

It looks like, having failed to muster support for a direct attack on Iran, Bush will try to kick off the war by going through Syria. This is not unlike how Franklin Delano Roosevelt was able to get the US into the war against Germany by provoking Japan into the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan and Germany had a mutual defense pact that dragged Germany into the war between the US and Japan, and likewise Iran and Syria have a mutual defense pact that will drag Iran into a US attack on Syria. - M. R.

They weren't: so there was nothing nuclear there which got bombed.

This appears to be yet another "bash Syria" move to make it more acceptable to the US public for Israel to launch another war of aggression against Syria, when they think the timing is right. - M. R.

It appears that, just as with the charge that Saddam had nuclear weapons before the invasion of Iraq, Israel is accusing Syria of having something it doesn't have as the pretext for attempting to turn world opinion against it, and initiating a military attack. - M. R.

I have to imagine that reasonably sane people would say no.

However, reasonably sane people are the exception - rather than the rule - in this administration. - M. R.

Right now Iran will come to the aid of Syria if Israel attacks. If Israel can trick Syria into severing relations with Iran, then Israel can attack with impunity.

I mean, once Israel succeeded in tricking Syria out of Lebanon, look what happened to the place! - M. R.

You misunderstood what Israel said.

When they said they did not want to go to war with Syria what they meant is that they want the UNITED STATES to go to war with Syria.

Please adjust your perceptions accordingly. - M. R.

Notice the magnificent dance of language here; "....coverage has suggested....informed opinion suggests... may be linked.....may in fact be a client...."

What this JP op ed is doing is setting forth a case - and attempting to build some kind of international consensus -in favor of Israel slamming Syria militarily ASAP.

There is, however, one accurate statement, and that's the headline of this article:"Why might Syria wish to sow chaos in Lebanon now?"

And the honest answer is, Syria's leadership doesn't want to do this..< p>Assad and the people around him may be many things, but stupid is not one of them. - M. R.

It in fact would be one of the most logical processes in which Israel and Syria could engage.

Of course, we know where this administration stands in terms of logic: it doesn't particularly like or understand the concept much at all. - M. R.

But what appears to be happening is that at least some portions of the US Government have finally realized that we are losing in Iraq, and lack the resources to take on Iran and Syria. The plan that seems to be showing itself is an attempt to find a diplomatic way out of the quagmire while retaining control of the oil resources already under US control.

Of course, the Neocon/PNAC/AIPAC crowd that is following the "Securing the Realm" plan will still try to kick off a wider regional war, even if there is a good chance the US will lose it, because they view ANY damage to Israel's enemies as a victory and care not what it costs their "host". - M. R.

And Bush gets his war in Iran. - M. R.

It would seem that actions like that should be opening doors for negotiation, not slamming them shut with new sanctions.

Of course, intelligent, even-handed long-range foreign policy is something the members of this administration couldn't find with a flashlight and both hands. - M. R.

And notice how closely the US is dancing to Israel's tune. - M. R.

And what will Israel do now if Assad doesn't back down on this, invade Syria on the grounds of "self-defense"? - M. R.

And desperate men take desperate chances. - M. R.

Just doing a reality check. - M. R.

Syria has said repeatedly that it wants to be a part of a solution to the situation in the Middle East, but neither the US nor the UK is listening to any country in that area except Israel. - M. R.