Buried in Eli Lake’s NY Sun story on Israeli jets buzzing the home of Syrian president Bashar al‐​Assad is this quote from former Syrian vice president Farid Ghadry, now part of the exile group Reform Party of Syria:

“This is indicative that not only Israel is running out of patience with the terrorism that is planned in Damascus, but we believe the United States may not at all dislike what happened.… The message to Assad is, ‘Clear your plate of terrorism or we will come after you.’ This is very encouraging to the Syrian opposition.”

Lake goes on to report:

Mr. Ghadry met with Vice President Cheney on June 17 at the American Enterprise Institute’s annual retreat in Beaver Creek, Colo.

It’s remarkable that after the disastrous decision to start a war with Iraq — based in good part on false intelligence provided by exiles — the vice president is still finding new and creative ways to link up with exile groups. Mr. Ghadry once said of Ahmed Chalabi that “Ahmed paved the way in Iraq for what we want to do in Syria.”


God help us. There’s always room for more heroes in error, I guess.