Investors Business Daily publishes an editorial supplying ample information justifying a future Israeli attack on Syria, should that come to pass:

The order given to Hamas to kidnap the first Israeli soldier came from Khaleed Meshal, exiled Hamas warlord, from his perch in Damascus. The missile that struck the Israeli warship was made in Iran, but at least some of the missiles that have rained down on Haifa were made in Syria.

"The Israelis did forensics and found several were Syrian—made," says David Schenker, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Everybody recognizes that Syria has played an important role in facilitating transshipment — but not supplying their own missiles to Hezbollah."

They are now. Maj. Gadi Eisenkot, head of the IDF Operations Branch, said in a Tuesday briefing that the Israeli Air Force had intercepted a number of trucks transporting rockets from Syria to Hezbollah. Included were trucks laden with the 220mm rockets with warheads like the one that hit a Haifa train station last Sunday.

"These are rockets that belong to the Syrian army," Eisenkot said as he showed footage of one of the trucks being taken out by an Israeli F—16. "You can't find them in the Damascus market, and the Syrian government is responsible for the smuggling."

It may be time for regime change in Syria and time to work with Syrian opposition groups to help bring it about. On June 5, key Syrian opposition figures in exile urged their countrymen to work to oust Assad by using acts of civil disobedience reminiscent of movements inside the former Soviet empire.

Ed Lasky   7 20 06