Is John Bolton writing WaPo editorials these days?

sure as hell sounds like it...

[N]o attempt to reason with Mr. Assad and the Iranian mullahs will succeed unless they perceive that the United States and its allies wield sticks as well as carrots. As long as the Bush administration is unable to win U.N. Security Council approval for sanctions against Iran -- or impose them through an ad hoc coalition -- Tehran will have no incentive to make concessions. Mr. Assad will demand that the West concede him Lebanon and call off the murder investigations that would likely implicate him -- unless he worries that his failure to cooperate will result in fresh international sanctions against Syria.

Iran and Syria are ruthlessly waging war against Western interests in the Middle East. Offering to talk is only a small part of what it will take to stop them.

if you were to read just those two short paragraphs without any other context, you would be led to make the following assumptions...

• the u.s. has been attempting to talk to both syria and iran without success

• neither syria nor iran are receptive to reasoned discussion

• force will be necessary to bring syria and iran in line

• the u.n. security council is obstructing any progress with iran

• syria is very likely responsible to the recent assassination in lebanon

and those are just the last two paragraphs... the rest of the op-ed is riddled with them as well... whether or not there is the slightest grain of truth in those assumptions is entirely beside the point... so, what IS the point...? simply this... without factual context or even any reference to it, a reader would doubtlessly walk away with certain pre-conceived notions, and, if it so happened that same reader stumbled across john bolton's latest screed, would think that bolton's brand of KITA diplomacy is entirely justified... case in point...

Lebanon's future is at stake in a battle between "democracy and terrorism" following the killing of Christian politician Pierre Gemayel, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Saturday.

[...]

Bolton said it would be a "serious problem" if an investigation into Tuesday's assassination of Gemayel, a critic of Syria, found Damascus was involved.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is seen in this October 16, 2006 file photo in New York. Lebanon's future is at stake in a battle between "democracy and terrorism" following the killing of Christian politician Pierre Gemayel, Bolton said on Saturday. "Then you have a further clear piece of evidence that Syria is not just a supporter of terrorism but is a state actor in a terrorist fashion," he said.

"The United States has to take that into account when it decides whether and to what extent to deal with a country like that," he said, adding that the issue was not whether the United States would talk to Syria.

"The issue is whether Syria is going to listen," he said.

[...]

Damascus had been heartened by mounting calls for U.S. President George W. Bush to talk to Syria and Iran, instead of punishing them, and to seek their help in stabilising Iraq.

[...]

[U.S. President George W. Bush] also stopped just short of accusing Damascus of killing the industry minister, but voiced support for the Lebanese people's "efforts to defend their democracy against attempts by Syria, Iran and allies to foment instability and violence".

i'm not going to break my arm patting bloggers (or myself) on the back, but the above is precisely the kind of context that's missing from our so-called "news..." imho, i find such a vacuum all the more sinister when it comes in the form of an op-ed...

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