EDITORIAL
Air strike on Syria risks wider conflict

In President Bush's world of moral absolutes, Israel's air strike against a target in Syria makes perfect sense — self-defense, pure and simple. Never mind that it risks spreading conflict in the Middle East, diminishes prospects for restoring the peace process there and promotes the atrophy of international law.

The strike, of course, borrows a page from Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive attack. Indeed, there's an eerie parallel in the tenuousness of the linkages between the U.S. conquest of Iraq as a response to the terrorist attacks of 9-11, on the one hand, and between the Israeli strike against Syria in response to a suicide bombing by a 29-year-old woman, Hanadi Jaradat, from the West Bank town of Jenin.

There was nothing murky about Jaradat's motivation. In June, she saw the Israeli army kill her brother and cousin, both members of Islamic Jihad. And while Bush describes the motivation of terrorists for attacking the United States as a hatred for our freedoms and affluence, al-Qaida itself is fairly clear that its attacks are provoked by its perception of Washington's pronounced tilt toward Israel in the ongoing Middle East conflict.

In making only the mildest expressions of concern over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, missile attacks on civilians, the building of a "security fence" and now the attack on Syria, Bush confirms al-Qaida's view for millions of Muslims.

To be sure, Americans and Israelis share horror and anguish in the massacre of their innocents, and deep frustration in singling out justifiable targets for retaliation. But lashing out indiscriminately, and condoning it, only speeds the descent into chaos.