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This UPI story is one of those articles that casts a bright but distorted flash of light -- like a strobe -- across the landscape:

U.S. Syria raid killed 80

Depicted by the Pentagon as a mere border skirmish, the June 18 strike into Syria by U.S. military forces was, in fact, based on mistaken intelligence and penetrated more than 25 miles into that country, causing numerous Syrian casualties, several serving and former administration officials said.

Although diplomatic relations between the two sides have been frosty after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the two nations have close intelligence ties, which have become strained as a result, these sources said.

"I think this was a deliberate effort to disrupt cooperation between U.S. and Syrian intelligence agencies," an administration official said.

The key isn't the lead (the number of Syrian dead isn't the story) but rather that third paragraph, which cuts to the heart of what the neocons hope to achieve in the Middle East.

Update 7/20 1:16 PM ET: Sy Hersh has more on this story:

In Washington, there was anger about what many officials saw as the decision of the Bush Administration to choose confrontation with Syria over day-to-day help against Al Qaeda. In a sense, the issue was not so much Syria itself as a competition between ideology and practicality—and between the drive to go to war in Iraq and the need to fight terrorism—which has created a deep rift in the Bush Administration. The collapse of the liaison relationship has left many C.I.A. operatives especially frustrated. “The guys are unbelievably pissed that we’re blowing this away,” a former high-level intelligence official told me. “There was a great channel at Aleppo. The Syrians were a lot more willing to help us, but they”—Rumsfeld and his colleagues—“want to go in there next.”

Road to Damascus

The UPI story goes on to detail the many ways Syrian and U.S. intelligence agencies have cooperated in the war against Al Qaeda -- not withstanding the official hostility, or at least ambivalence, between the two countries:

Former and serving U.S. intelligence officials said ... Syria and the CIA have a joint exploitation center based in Aleppo, plus Syria turned over to the agency all its intelligence networks in Germany as well as all of Syria's cover companies there. As a result, the agency learned that Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta once worked in Germany for a Syrian cover company, these sources said.

"Syria was not the only source, but they were very helpful in this matter," a former senior CIA official said.

The CIA was also grateful to Damascus for giving early warning of a planned al-Qaida attack on U.S. installations in Bahrain, using an explosives-laden glider, which would be invisible to radar, according to these sources.

"The Syrians have been an incredible help in sharing intelligence," one serving U.S. intelligence officer said.

This naturally does not sit well with our Israeli "allies," who would like to see regime change in Damascus as well as Bagdhad. In fact they'd probably like to see it even more in Damascus, since that would mean the end of Syria's informal protectorate in Lebanon, allowing Israel to bring greater pressure to bear on Hezbollah, the Shia militia that now effectively controls most of Southern Lebanon.

A puppet regime in Damascus might also be expected to expel the handful of Palestinian militant groups headquartered there. Since these groups reject both the "peace process" and the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, their removal might bring some marginal improvement in the political position of Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's new negotiating "partner," and an equally marginal reduction in the terrorist threat against Israel proper.

But, just at the point where maximum pressure might have been applied -- immediately after the fall of Baghdad, when Rumsfeld and company began accusing the Syrians of various "unfriendly" acts -- the White House called off the dogs, for reasons which may have partly political and partly diplomatic. Tony Blair didn't want a war with Syria, Colin Powell didn't want a war with Syria, and it appears Karl Rove didn't want one, either. The Syrians themselves obviously didn't. This led them to make various concessions, such as shipping some of the Coalition's most wanted back to Iraq, withdrawing some troops from Lebanon and making some minor moves towards internal democratization.

Result: The neocons' coup de main was foiled, or at least postponed. At some point, however, it must have occurred to the cabel that postponed for now might mean postponed forever, particularly as the security situation in Iraq deteriorated and it because obvious, even to the chowderhead at the top, that America might have bitten off a good deal more than it can chew. Perhaps the raid into Syria was a last, urgent effort to provoke a confrontation that would lead to war.

Or perhaps not -- maybe the objective was simply to break up the fragile diplomatic rapproachment between Powell and the Syrians. In any case, the Syrians didn't rise to the bait.

Service Call

So no harm, no foul? (Aside from those 80 dead Syrians, I mean.) In a strictly geopolitical sense, I suppose the answer is yes. Bassar Assad, the 34-year-old ophthalmologist who succeeded his considerably more formidable father as Syrian dictator, appears to have weathered the experience -- and become even more amenable to American pressure in the process.

But the episode of the Syrian incursion still raises a question -- one that needs to be asked, but which, in the current U.S. political climate cannot be asked by any reputable mainstream politician: Who's security interests is the Pentagon trying to serve here? America's? Or Israel's? Because provoking a war with a major Arab county that is providing vital cooperation in the fight against Al Quada certainly doesn't seem likely to advance the former.

This same question also has interesting implications for the future course of U.S. policy in Iraq. Having lost the battle (Syria) the neocons are now in danger of losing the war. Not the war against Saddam -- although that, too, obviously hasn't been the decisive victory they expected -- but rather their bid to turn "liberated" Iraq into a reliable, and pliable, ally not just of the United States, but of Israel as well.

For the neocons, the need to seek UN support for our floundering occupation in Iraq is more than just a political embarrassment (see the previous post). It's a mortal threat -- not just to their strategy in Iraq, but to their strategy for the entire Middle East.

Why? Because an essential premise of that strategy is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq should be an American-led, American-run exercise -- making the neocons answerable only to domestic U.S. constituencies, such as the Republican Congress, where they and their Likud partners in Israel can bring maximum political leverage to bear.

This shouldn't surprise anyone: It's been a key element in Israeli diplomacy since at least the late '70s, if not earlier. Under no circumstances are the Europeans -- or even worse, the United Nations -- to be allowed any significant role in any negotiations or security arrangements. This has allowed the Israelis to repeatedly define the preconditions for any diplomatic initiative, knowing full well that an American mediator would be unwilling or unable (for domestic political reasons) to challenge those preconditions. The Iraq War simply moves that same strategy from the diplomatic to the military realm.

Whether that was the plan all along, or whether the neocons saw -- and seized -- their opportunity after the UN Security Council failed to endorse the invasion, isn't clear to me. Most likely, Powell's diplomatic failure gave them even greater latitude to do what they would have tried to do anyway, even if the UNSC had voted for war. By making sure the administration of the occupation remained under the Pentagon's roof, they clearly hoped to keep the rest of the world on the sidelines.

Buy American

The need to go back to the UN for support in Iraq, however, threatens to undo the America Only strategy -- potentially leaving the neocons and the Likudniks in a worse diplomatic position than they were before the war.

It all depends on what terms the Bush administration is able to negotiate. These will have to be broad enough to satisify the countries (India in particular) the administration is looking to for serious troop support. But that almost certainly would mean putting the occupation under the UN flag, even if overall military authority remains firmly in American hands.

For the neocons, such an outcome would threaten the diplomatic gains they hoped to achieve from the creation of a friendly Iraqi government, dominated by, if not completely controlled by, their exile friends. Recognition of Israel, the sigining of an Iraq-Israel Peace Treaty, the prospect of American troops being given permanent basing rights in Iraq -- all these might go out the window, since a UN-led authority presumably would have no interest in imposing them, and an provisional Iraqi government enjoying the legitimacy of UN sponsorship would feel less need to grant them.

Even worse, a UN authority in Iraq -- particularly one accompanied by the presence of European and/or Russian troops operating under their own national commands -- potentially could change the equilibrium of the Israeli-Palestine "road map" process. It almost would certainly make it more difficult for Israel and the United States to ignore and exclude the other three members of the "Quad" -- the EU, the UN and Russia. This, in turn, might make the Palestinians less willing to settle for the miserable Bantustan mini-state planned for them.

But for the White House, the military and political need to get some kind of international help in Iraq is dire, and is only going to grow more dire as the 2004 election approaches.

An excruciating dilemma. How can it be escaped?

Finding an Exit Strategy

This is where things could get interesting. The neocons, I suspect, will do everything they can to sabotage Powell and Rice's negotiations with the UN -- just as they have done everything they can to sabotage the CIA's covert relationship with Syria. But, as with Syria, they may not be able to overcome the White House's well-honed political survival instincts.

So it makes me wonder: Will the time come when the neocons decide the price of staying the course in Iraq (with UN help) is simply too high, particularly since it threatens core interests that are even more important to them, i.e. preserving as much of Greater Israel as can be salvaged from the "road map" process? Or will they redouble their efforts to sabotage the road map itself -- in effect, playing for a draw in a game they've decided they cannot win?

Perhaps they can persuade Bush to ignore the voice of God and abandon the Palestinians to their fate. Or, maybe they'll take their chances with the UN in Iraq, and hope they can keep the Security Council behind some kind of diplomatic firewall when it comes to the road map negotiations. I don't know. But I don't think it's too crazy to imagine the day might come when the American Enterprise Institute holds a seminar on the need to get our boys out of the quagmire in Iraq.

As I said earlier, it all depends on whose interests are being served.