General Petraeus, yesterday.

"We believe that there have been fewer suicide bombers coming through Syria, and we are cautious about this assessment, but we do think that the Syrians may have been taking more active steps against al Qaeda, which is understandable," Petraeus said. "I mean, if al Qaeda were ever to succeed in Iraq, the next thing they'd do is turn … [to] Damascus. I can assure you."

Lawrence Wright, author of highly acclaimed book on al-Qa`ida The Looming Tower, and The Master Plan, an article written for The New Yorker published on September 11th, 2006, from which this excerpt was taken:

Hussein claims, without offering evidence, that Iran already has thirty thousand intelligence agents in Iraq. “Since the Americans have not succeeded in eliminating the Sunni resistance, how can they deal with the situation if the Shiites join the resistance? Iran plans to incite its proponents in Iraq to join the anti-U.S. resistance in the event that the United States or Israel launches an attack on Iran. Iran plans to open its border to the resistance and provide it with what it needs to achieve a swift and major victory against the Americans.” Al Qaeda, he writes, also expects the Americans to go after Iran’s principal ally in the region, Syria. The removal of the Assad regime—a longtime goal of jihadis—will allow the country to be infiltrated by Al Qaeda, putting the terrorists within reach, at last, of Israel....

Joe Lieberman, August 20, 2007, for the WSJ:

...the Damascus airport is the point of entry into Iraq for most of the suicide bombers who are killing innocent Iraqi citizens and American soldiers, and trying to break America's will in this war. It is therefore time to demand that the Syrian regime stop playing travel agent for al Qaeda in Iraq. When Congress reconvenes next month, we should set aside whatever differences divide us on Iraq and send a clear and unambiguous message to the Syrian regime, as we did last month to the Iranian regime, that the transit of al Qaeda suicide bombers through Syria on their way to Iraq is completely unacceptable, and it must stop.

Shorter Joe Lieberman: "No plan is better than my plan." Adding Lieberman was an afterthought, really, however appropriate.

I was re-introduced to the meaning of the word 'stunned' when ran across Lawrence Wright's article again. Petraeus recognizes al-Qa`ida's enmity and incompatibility with Assad's Syrian regime, something Little Joey seems oblivious to. But, the general disingenuously (I hope) couches it in terms of Iraq. AQ can't

win in Iraq. AQ leadership seemed aware of this from the beginning, despite Zarqawi's attempts to prove otherwise by ruthlessly "putting into action the vision that Abu Musab al-Suri had laid out for them: small, spontaneous groups carrying out individual acts of terror in Europe, and an open struggle for territory in Iraq." Zarqawi brushed aside stern counsel from AQ. He proved they were essentially correct in their views about how his tactics would be detrimental to Jihad and ultimately unsuccessful in its goals.

Cheney, OTOH, seems exactly the type AQ had in mind when formulating scenarios.