Is democracy breaking out all over? It sure is trying and with some success.  Currently headlines focus on the tiny nation of Lebanon and her Syrian “occupiers.”  Let’s look more closely at Syria.

The radical terror groups Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, under the encouraging eye of Syria’s Bashir Assad, have an interest in triggering Israeli military reactions against Syria. This seems beyond belief to be sure.

Walid Phares is an Islamic analyst with America’s and Israel’s best interests in mind. He works with many organizations, including Brigitte Gabriel’s “The American Congress for Truth.” Brigitte is a frequent radio guest of mine. Walid states, “By striking Israel (as they did in the Tel Aviv bombing a week ago), Syria aims to force Israel to retaliate in a limited way. They hope it will bring an entire breakdown of the Middle East peace process and new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Don’t they know Israel will respond in anything but a limited way?  Their belief is that the international community won’t allow an Israeli invasion in the midst of an Iraq war.”

They just might be wrong–dead wrong, and Syria might actually be engaged in some fatal speculation.

Would Syria ever use her massive chemical and biological weapons against Israel? What about the weapons of mass destruction moved there by Iraq just before the war?  Who else would be the target of Syria’s weaponry? The world clearly won’t let Lebanon be the target.

Syria should have been named as an original member of President Bush’s “axis of evil.” It’s another Baathist regime, formerly led by Hafez el Assad and now led by the son, Bashir Assad. It is one of the world’s worst human rights violators. In the 1980’s Hafez el Assad thought nothing of wiping out cities in Syria with political opponents in a manner similar to Saddam Hussein.  Syria has no intention of leaving Lebanon in spite of world pressure. She was told to pull out in the 1980’s, ignored the warnings, and got away with them.

One should not take lightly these new tensions, for Isaiah 17 speaks of “The burden of Damascus.” At some point in the future (because it hasn’t happened in the past) Damascus is going to get her just due for her evil. She will cease being a city.  Will it be because she taunted Israel to retaliate against her far greater than Bashir Assad ever thought?  With Europe and even the Arab world telling Syria to get out of Lebanon, will those allies even ignore such an attack on Damascus?  Is Syria becoming the goat of the Middle East, certainly not on the level Israel is, but a great embarrassment to the Arab world?

We are not privileged to know the timetable of many future events but we can watch various signs that are markers. It is no accident that in this very late hour of history as we know it, the nation of Syria is now gaining international attention and even scorn.  Some day she will cease being a city.  She is playing with matches to be taunting Israel and it is likely that even our own State Department would not stand in Israel’s way if a show of brute, retaliatory force were necessary. Bashir Assad has few friends other than Iran now that Saddam Hussein is off the scene. Her strategy of being the wrecking ball of Mahmoud Abbas could be a fatal flaw.

(Jan Markell is founder/director of Olive Tree Ministries. To learn more, visit her Web site, www.olivetreeviews.org.)

Delusions abound today. One of them is that Saudi Arabia is our “good Middle East ally and friend.” But reality reveals that they are not pro-West, they are not pro-American, and they are not “moderates” in the region. So why have American presidents and diplomats wined and dined them for years and consulted them when shaping American foreign policy? They are another evil empire, and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists hailed from Saudi Arabia because they had been brainwashed by violent Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalism.

This week the Justice Department accused a 23-year old Virginianative, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, of plotting to assassinate President Bush. He had been sent to a Saudi jail months ago even though he and his family are U.S. citizens. The media’s reaction was typical: It centered on Ali’s claims of torture by the Saudis, and lauded the fact that he was valedictorian of his jihad high school outside of Washington, D.C.

What few are talking about is that his U.S. high school operates under the authority of the Saudi government. The school teaches an extremist form of the Wahhabi faith, and has direct ties to at least three others terrorists–two of them former students. The obvious question everyone should be asking is, does this high school create an environment in which terrorism can thrive in our homeland? The Saudis opened the school in 1984 to instruct children of Saudi diplomats in the religion of their homeland.

The mother of the young man, herself enjoying all the luxuries and comforts of America, stated that Ahmed was tortured on orders of the American government because we are “monsters.” The father also derided America. Though they are wealthy people, I am still willing to take a collection to send them all back to their burka-wearing, women-abusing, religiously-intolerant gulag called Saudi Arabia. Deportation should be on everyone’s mind but you can bet it hasn’t entered the thoughts of any U.S. official.

How about shutting down this school? It’s clearly a training ground for terrorists. Look, we’re at war! The Saudis are a part of the problem, not the solution. Recently the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh called President Bush a Nazi and suggested Bush’s grandfather helped bring Hitler to power. Let’s have a few less Texas barbecues for the Saudi royals with the red carpet laid out.

The world’s biggest con artists are the Saudis and America is the willing target. The U.S. media, other than some alternative sources, pay little attention to what the mullahs in both American and Saudi mosques say about our nation. And what they say in English doesn’t square with what they say in Arabic! As I reported on my radio program last weekend, “Freedom House,” run by former CIA Director James Woolsey, revealed some literature now being passed out in American mosques, financed by Saudi Arabia, as reported in “The Washington Times.” The propaganda tells Saudis in America to “behave as if you were on a mission behind enemy lines.” More than 200 similar publications were found in U.S. mosques, and all are pro-Wahhabi, anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-Semitic.

Our government needs to declare Saudi Arabia our “hate-monger ally,” not one of America’s “best allies.” Once again, we are standing in the way of our own self-preservation.