'On to Damascus!'

In the early days of the Iraq war, when it looked as if it would be wrapped up quickly, some of the war's more ardent supporters suggested that as long as we were in the neighborhood, why stop at Baghdad?

After all, just across Iraq's western border is Syria. And although Syria didn't make the cut for President Bush's original Axis of Evil, the Baathist government of President Bashar al-Assad had long had ties to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, to say nothing of Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.

Syria's government reasoned that the more trouble the United States had in Iraq, the less likely it was to visit ruin on Damascus. Syria began allowing Islamist terrorists free access to its borders with Iraq.

And even though Syria is dominated by Sunni Muslims, it also repaired its ties to the Shiite religious authorities in Iran. Syria, through Turkish intermediaries, even conducted back-door diplomacy with Israel, all in the interests of its own survival.

On Sunday, nearly six years into the war in Iraq, U.S. boots finally stepped onto Syrian soil. U.S. Special Forces troops staged a helicopter assault on Sukkariyeh, a terrorist staging area across the Iraq border. The target, a suspected terrorist smuggler named Abu Ghadiyah, was reported to have been killed.

As Syria reacted with outrage, U.S. officials suggested that from now on, U.S. troops would operate under a broad new definition of self-defense: If a sovereign government is unable or unwilling to halt a terrorist threat on its own, the United States reserves the right to conduct conventional strikes of its own.

Technically speaking, the policy isn't new.

U.S. Special Forces have been conducting missions into Pakistan for several years without the official permission of the Pakistani government. But since August, when Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was forced to step down, U.S. military operations have become increasingly controversial within Pakistan.

Indeed, on Wednesday, Parkistan's new government formally protested U.S. missile strikes, carried out by Predator drone aircraft, in the country's South Wazirstan tribal areas. The region is a hotbed of al-Qaida support.

What's remarkable about this new muscle-flexing by U.S. forces is how little it has been remarked upon within the United States. With the presidential election dominating the news, the raid into Syria and the missile strikes in Pakistan have been relegated to back pages of newspapers.

Back in ancient times — that would be, oh, eight years ago — the notion that the United States not only would assert the unilateral right to conduct military operations on foreign soil, but also conduct them, would have been shocking. Moreover, whomever is elected president next Tuesday probably will not stop the practice.

Both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have said that they reserve the right to pursue terrorists across borders, with or without the permission of the country where they are hiding. This is the new reality that terrorists have forced upon the world. Countries such as Syria and Pakistan will have to get used to the idea. So will the people of the United States.

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