Noted for future reference

As Dubya's approval rating plunges, the anti-Syrian rhetoric seems to be heating up on the Right. Monday's Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd):

Meanwhile, yesterday Iraqi Defense Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi accused Syria of "exporting destruction" by allowing safe haven and transit for insurgents across its border with Iraq. "The regions of Al-Qaim, Hussayba, Rutbah and Rommana and others have been held hostage by terrorists coming from all countries and who have found no point of entry to Iraq other than Syria," Mr. Dulaimi said. Those are the same enemies that U.S. and Iraqi troops have been fighting in the terrorist-controlled town of Tal Afar over the past week.

And Syria continues to cast a menacing shadow over what should by now be a free Lebanon.

and David Trimble biographer, Dean Godson, in Saturday's Times of London:

There was a second, connected reason for Assad’s unwillingness to travel [to a UN summit] at this time: fear of a coup. Some Baathist old stagers are desperately unhappy with his ineptitude. First, overplaying his hand in Lebanon and effectively getting caught — in political terms if not in policing terms — and then being forced to overcompensate by agreeing belatedly to admit UN investigators into Syria.

Some regime figures even worry that a single cruise missile attack — say, on the secret police headquarters — could topple the regime by proving its inability to protect Syrian sovereignty ...

Following US pressure, the Turks declined to give Assad and his family permission to holiday there. And Jacques Chirac, who took the killing of his friend Hariri so personally, still behaves, in the words of a senior diplomat, “as though he is desk officer for Lebanon at the Quai d’Orsay”. .

Remember, it was the inability to keep the French and the Turks onside that complicated the Iraq invasion. If they're on the same page as Dubya on Syria, who knows what could happen?