WARNING SYRIA

Getting cooperation from Syria, as President Bush said he expected Sunday, may be asking for too much, but the strongly worded warnings from the president and senior Cabinet members were appropriate and suggested just how serious they considered Syria’s behavior. Finding the architects of the tyranny in Iraq is crucial, and even if Syria does not help the administration it should not be allowed to aid Iraq.

The potential for militants or Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to shield Saddam Hussein or his officers has been understood for months and was part of the calculation in going to war. Now the United States is concerned that some Iraqi leaders have found haven there or that suicide bombers are being sent from Syria in to Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Syria yesterday of possible diplomatic or economic measures if its support of the failed Iraqi regime continues. The United States also said Syria had chemical weapons, which heightens concern about the possibility of their use. But without explaining what the potential risk is for their use, the information doesn’t clarify much.

Saying “Syria is indeed a rogue nation,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer yesterday reinforced the idea that Syria had chemical or biological weapons and was allowing Hezbollah, a terrorist group that is a principal foe of Israel, to grow within its borders. The administration has said that there are no plans for a military assault on Syria, that each case of nations judged to be acting against U.S. interests must be handled separately. But it failed to offer a measure of how it would judge Syria – many nations have weapons of mass destruction, many conduct secret activities that oppose U.S. interests.

Certainly, the idea that Hussein has fled to Syria makes its case special, but the remainder of the saber-rattling argument from the White House is unclear. Does it expect Syria to produce barrels of chemicals and drop them with Marines at the border?

With hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the region and countless opportunities for harm, the United States is right to be concerned about Syria and to warn it of possible consequences for misbehavior. But that is far from a clear strategy for reducing the danger in the region. The administration should follow up its warnings with a more comprehensive sense of what it wants the Syrians to do and how it expects this to happen.