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Syria's Dangerous Game - Editorial
(Boston Globe) The hereditary president of Syria, Bashar Assad, has earned a reputation for reckless behavior, the antithesis of his father Hafez Assad's careful, calculating statecraft. Recent disclosures by officials of Iraq's interim government suggest that Bashar's most flagrant and dangerous blunder is to tolerate, or perhaps even collude with, exiled former officials from Saddam Hussein's regime. It would be better for all concerned if Bashar heeds Baghdad's plea to cease colluding with Iraqi Ba'athists in Syria who are using enormous sums of money stolen from Iraqis to fund a guerrilla war aimed at restoring Ba'athist rule in Iraq. Bashar's Ba'athist order is as much a police state as his father's was, and Syrian security services would hardly overlook the activities of rich Iraqi Ba'athists living in luxury in the poshest neighborhoods of Damascus.