Syria’s Assad says foreign intervention will "burn region"

The fall of Gadaffi seems to be making Assad nervous. According to Assad the demonstrations and the defections from his army are purely the result of 'foreign intervention'. Like Gadaffi, Assad and his Iranian backers will never understand that the opposition to their rule is lead by their own people, not 'foreign intervention'.

Not that Assad had any problem with 'foreign intervention' when he was the one behind it. Syria has meddled in Lebanon constantly and is generally believed to have been behind the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.

Despite Assad's fears, US intervention is currently unlikely. US intervention in Libya was driven by the UK and French governments. Both had scores to settle with Gadaffi. In the case of the UK, the murder of Yvonne Fletcher, the Lockerbie bombing and supplying the IRA with tons of semtex explosives. Bush and Blair had made their peace with Gadaffi, the primary promoter of state sponsored terrorism in return for their attack on Saddam. Neither Cameron nor Sarkozy were a party to that agreement.

The biggest risk in intervening in Libya was that the effectiveness of the NATO operation would bring calls for more. Intervening in Syria might bring down Assad, but would reinforce the regime in Iran. Attempting to intervene in Iran would be even more catastrophic than Bush's misadventure in Iraq.

Bush invaded Iraq in the hope of demonstrating the supreme power of the US. He threw the full weight of the US military against Iraq's people and ended up only demonstrating the impotence of US power. Obama let the Libyan people do the bulk of the fighting, used only a fraction of the power of the military power available and has gone a long way to re-establish US prestige. The best way to maintain the illusion is to avoid engagement in another conflict.