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All Syria, all the time
October 31, 2008 | Posted by Charlie - 2:03pm | 31 Comments
While AM has been surfing the interwebs keeping track of smart-allecky grad students on the Syrian border, Charlie has been trying to wrap her brain around the attack earlier this week. Two articles are stuck in her craw.
First, Eli Lake (late of the later NY Sun), reports in TNR that the attack into Syria was part of a blanket authorization of cross-border raids for both Iraq and Afghanistan, approved earlier this summer.
In July, according to three administration sources, the Bush administration formally gave the military new power to strike terrorist safe havens outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Before then, a military strike in a country like Syria or Pakistan would have required President Bush's personal approval. Now, those kinds of strikes in the region can occur at the discretion of the incoming commander of Central Command (Centcomm), General David Petraeus. One intelligence source described the order as institutionalizing the "Chicago Way," an allusion to Sean Connery's famous soliloquy about bringing a gun to a knife fight.
So that brings us to the million dollar question: who authorized the attack? The most likely answer is Petraeus. But two things have Charlie second-guessing herself, here. First, this was a special operations raid meaning it could have been authorized through JSOC and not Centcom. (And, though of course she can't find them now, some reports earlier in the week suggested this was an OGA, not Army, endeavor.)
Second, ABC News is reporting that Petraeus proposed opening talks with the Syrians:
ABC News has learned, Petraeus proposed visiting Syria shortly after taking over as the top U.S. commander for the Middle East. The idea was swiftly rejected by Bush administration officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon....Officials familiar with Petraeus' thinking on the subject say he wants to engage Syria in part because he believes that U.S. diplomacy can be used to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran. He plans to continue pushing the idea.
Now it's not inconceivable that Petraeus would want to open talks and then subsequently authorize cross-border raids against a high-value target. But it's not entirely consistent either. If this raid somehow occurred in Centcom's area of operations, but without Petraeus' explicit approval (ie, it went through JSOC), then things are way more fubar than even Charlie realized.
If, on the other hand, King David did authorize the raid, it begs the questions as to how he incorporates this strike into his broader regional strategy. Is it a signal to the Syrians? An effort to further degrade AQI so as to allow for more regional diplomacy? Or is it yet another instance of ops driving strategy? (An issue AM promises to explore in his weekly Monday digest.)
Said differently, wtf is really going on here?
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