But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was persuaded to acquiesce in a less ambitious plan — to "do Iraq" and remove the "evil dictator" in Baghdad first.

As the invaders/occupiers got bogged down in Iraq, it seemed more sensible to "do Syria" next. With the help of "friendly services," the neocons mounted a false-flag chemical attack outside Damascus in late August 2013, blaming it on President Bashar al-Assad, whom U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier said, "had to go."

Obama had called such a chemical attack a red line but, mirabile dictu, chose to honor the U.S. Constitution by asking Congress first. Worse still for the neocons, during the first days of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled Obama's chestnuts out of the fire by persuading Syria to destroy its chemical weapons under U.N. supervision.

Obama later admitted that virtually all of his advisers had wanted him to order Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria.

Morose at CNN

I was lucky enough to observe, up-close and personal, the angry reaction of some of Israel's top American supporters on Sept. 9, 2013, when the Russian-brokered deal for Syria to destroy its chemical weapons was announced.

After doing an interview in Washington on CNN International, I opened the studio door and almost knocked over a small fellow named Paul Wolfowitz, President George W. Bush's former under-secretary of defense who in 2002-2003 had helped craft the fraudulent case for invading Iraq.

And there standing next to him was former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut neocon who was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and pretty much every other potential war in the Middle East.