But of Course, These Weapons are for Peaceful Purposes…

The Jerusalem Post–

 Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane’s Defence Weekly report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

I will admit to a certain satisfaction knowing that their own weapon jumped up and bit them.

That said,   there are serious considerations here.  For one thing, this incident, in combination with the reports we’ve been getting about nuclear weapons showing up from North Korea… (which were then subsequently bombed by Israel, with unknown effectiveness, ) paints a picture of two rogue states collaborating so as to dominate the region.

Syria, particularly, has a fairly long history with this stuff ;

According to globalsecurity.org, Syria is not a signatory of either the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), – an international agreement banning the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons – or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).Syria began developing chemical weapons in 1973, just before the Yom Kipper War. Globalsecurity.org cites the country as having one of the most advanced chemical weapons programs in the Middle East.

 It doesn’t take seven college degrees to understand that Saddam Hussein was busy trying to give everybody the idea that he was armed to the teeth to keep these two at bay.  It seems logical that the intelligence that Syria and Iran were getting, was even worse than what the rest of the world was getting.  All they knew is what Saddam told them.  That doesn’t make Saddam any less of a bad guy, it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have been taken out, particularly given al Quieda, with whom he was already starting to cooperate….but it does explain a few things.   Does anyone think these two wouldn’t have been a cause for a military response, even absent our dealing with Iraq?

 But now the future looms…

Look again, at the weapons being amassed.  Look again at the history of the region, and of Iran and Syria in particular.  Does anyone really think that these two  are going to behave themselves , absent a strong U.S. presence in the region?