Saturday July 28, 2012

I've Been Thinking:

Yesterday the unimaginable happened. We are lucky that the tinderbox that is now the entire Middle East region did not ignite and burst into war.

As a family of refugees was fleeing Syria and crossing into Jordan, a group of Syrian soldiers opened fire. One of the children was killed.

The Jordanian army, on the other side, opened fire and shot at the Syrian forces with the intention of defending the refugees. It appears that the Jordanians were not in the direct line of fire.

It was direct combat between neighbors.

The entire episode only took a few minutes, but it was a skirmish. Official Jordanian media described it as a mini combat. Not a battle and not a war.

This incident could have easily lit the fuse and drawn Syria to respond to Jordan's response to Syria shooting the refugees.

This is a classic illustration of a tinderbox.

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