31 October 2011 | But I Like to Kill!

Anyone truly surprised by Bashad al-Assad's ugly threat to "set the Middle East on fire" if the West continued to have a problem with his killing his own citizens?

Of course not because he's a killer and apparently enjoys mowing down his own citizens. And unfortunately, his fire threat is merely code words for dragging Israel into the fight. 

It's the preferred method of Arab leaders when things don't go their way: distract attention by invoking Israel. So when al-Assad speaks of setting fire, he means giving the go ahead to Hizbullah to ramp up the firing of rockets into northern Israel that all but assures a response. Maybe Assad will also encourage a border breach from protesters whose legitimate beefs with Israel will provide cheap cover for Assad as he plans on killing more Syrian citizens. 

I certainly don't write this in defense of Israel, but a cynical ploy is a cynical ploy, and understanding what Assad means is an important thing. We've seen several Arab dictators deposed, one of them meeting a violent death, and even that has to weigh on the mind of a man who otherwise orders his army to fire on protesters and funeral mourners. Who knows, maybe those images of Gaddafi spooked him, which by all counts is a bad thing, since a sense of being cornered might be a worse provocation for more violent action. 

But like I said, true to form, when in doubt, drag Israel into the equation and sit back for the predictable response. This is certainly one time that I hope Israel's reactionary government doesn't take the bait, more out of disgust for Assad than anything else. He's all but daring the West to stop him from killing Syrian citizens, something that he's come to enjoy over the past several months.