I suppose it was only a matter of time before some armchair warrior - nice and comfy in his warm, beltway thinktank - decided to call for another Operation. This time the target is Syria, and the ranking general in the Chair Force is noted conservative writer William Kristol.

Why Syria? As the piece - which is mostly ganked from a story in the Daily Telegraph - said, Syrian insurgents are stirring up trouble in Iraq, and the government may be turning a blind eye to former Iraqi officers who are helping coordinate the chaos. And as we haven't had much success in sealing the border (probably because we don't have enough people in country to do it) Kristol thinks its time to call in a bomb strike.

"We could bomb Syrian military facilities; we could go across the border in force to stop infiltration; we could occupy the town of Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, a few miles from the border, which seems to be the planning and organizing center for Syrian activities in Iraq; we could covertly help or overtly support the Syrian opposition..." And so on and so forth.

Now, this isn't the first time we've heard about Syria being connected to Iraq. Syria's regime is also Baathist, for as little as that counted during the lead-up and initial stage of the invasion. There may have been some transfer of WMDs across the border, prior to the start of the war, though the question remains as to why we didn't see them going there. And our "intelligence" suggests that, as the story claims, "former Saddam Hussein loyalists have found sanctuary" inside the country.

If the story is true (I have a real hard time believing that someone can fork over $3000 per fighter per month in Syria, even with cash from Iraq's missing coffers) then we have to do something, obviously. If it were up to me, I'd get the Special Forces to slink over the border and do some quiet, lethal mischief to the people who are coordinating these troubles. Hopefully this is already being done, and between that and some hardcore diplomatic pressure, Assad will get the idea and rein his pony in, without having to suffer the casualties an actual invasion would require.

(And let's not forget that Syria does figure into the overall War on Terror, given its relationship to Israel. I stated my ideas on how to handle the War on Terror here, and I still think they're perfectly valid. Problem is that we'll need a real leader to pull it off, and - to echo Rumsfeld - we have to go to war with the President we have...)

But let's look at the last paragraph of Kristol's statement really carefully - especially the bit about "winning in Iraq, and in the broader Middle East." What is Kristol really advocating in this column?

It helps to understand that, besides having been a trained monkey for Dan Quayle and William Bennett, and the editor of the Weekly Standard, William Kristol is the founder of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). A rather sensationalist (and quite liberal) overview of the PNAC, and their connections, can be found at Disinfopedia, but the cliff's notes version is that the PNAC is essentially a "thinktank" for people who think that America's destiny as superpower is a so-called "Pax Americana." Ours not to co-exist in a world of equals, and lead by example, but rather dominate the planet through force of arms.

You can read the PNAC's statement of principles here, (be sure to look at the signatures) and read how they'd like to put it into action here. Note that Donald Rumsfeld's name is on the former, and how much some of his ideas on how to "transform" our armed forces are inside the latter. (Note, also, that Kristol and Rummy don't seem to be great pals, anymore...)

So here's William Kristol, who advocated a fight in Iraq since the Clinton Administration. Can it be any surprise that he's been banging drums for this war ever since 9/11? A close read of the PNAC's report reveals that they realized "the process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."

Funny, that's what we keep comparing 9/11 to... isn't it?

So, basically, Kristol is arguing for another war... and then another... and then another, until we have the promised "American global leadership." Today it's Afghanistan and Iraq, tomorrow Syria and Iraq, then maybe Iran and Syria, and after that, who knows?

Ironically enough, one part of the Telegraph story that Kristol chose not to quote is as follows: "Like many Syrians, (Abdullah) is convinced that his country will be invaded next and that it is only by keeping the US bogged down in Iraq that Syria will be spared." Abdullah then goes on about "Jews," revealing a paranoid and prejudiced state of mind. He also, much like Kristol, seems to be missing the irony of the situation altogether.

So this is Christmas? How do we return the "gift" of the self-fulfilling prophecies of both sides to the wise man nearest us, in favor of Peace on Earth, and Goodwill to Men?