Fasten your seatbelts for America's next great adventure; the occupation of Syria

It was Albert Einstein who supposedly said "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."

Hmm... lets take a look at the track record of American foreign policy over the last generation. 

Iraq was a gimme. No less an authority than Paul Wolfowitz assured the world that the American invaders would be showered with flower petals and that the war couldn't possibly last more than a few weeks.

Ten years after those assurances Iraq is firmly in the orbit of Iran, and yet Wolfowitz has an office at the American Enterprise Institute instead of a cell at The Hague.

Afghanistan was a no-brainer too. The Western world was assured that the Nations of Virtue were going to clean house there and that the Talibs and their Al Qaeda buddies would be stopped in their tracks. 

More than ten years after our "victory" in Afghanistan the Talibs are poised to take back the government and Al Qaeda is a factor in thirty countries instead of three.

In Libya America chose to "lead from behind."

In the year since the glorious victory of the Libyan rebels, facilitated in its entirety by those same Nations of Virtue, Libya has gone from having the highest standard of living on the African continent to being a cesspool of radical Islamic militancy and an economic basket case begging for World Bank bondage.

That's a track record that, in a sane world, should give the Empire and their cheerleading minions in the "think tank" community pause for thought.

Alas, we're too busy spinning the rationale for the next disaster to even take that pause for thought.

The tone of commentary in the leading American news journals has gradually been shifting away from support for the Syrian National Council over the past six months or so. Hillary Clinton's speech in Zagreb this week is but the latest signal that the Empire is planning to refocus the Syrian Spring.

Goodbye SNC. 

Hello a new umbrella group to be announced at the "Friends of Syria" conflab in Qatar next week.

Per Hillary's comments, one of the main objectives of the new leadership structure will be to ensure that "extremist elements" do not hi-jack the revolution.

It's a little late for that. The so-called extremist elements have totally run away with it over the past year.

Foreign Secretary Clinton's remarks signal the Empire's determination to regain control of the Syrian uprising.

That will not be possible without US "advisers" on the ground, and plenty of them.

Think Viet Nam.

Think quagmire.