To the editor:

Trudy Rubin is a generally competent reporter on the Middle East. What she does not seem to understand is that the United States has no business overthrowing foreign governments. Syria, like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Jordan and Lebanon, are lines on a map drawn up after World War I to divide up the Ottoman Empire, as well as reward the friends of T.E. Lawrence.

Syria is an authoritarian state controlled by the Baath Party. To an extent, like Iraq under Saddam Hussein, it has fairly secular policies. The “rebels” who are mostly Sunni and, to a great extent, foreign would install a “democracy” under their terms. Those terms sound like the terms in Libya, which now flies the al-Qaida flag. This is bad news for Christian, Shia, Alawite and Druse residents. We’re talking Sunni theocracy.

The “rebels” have rejected proposals that would include Assad in negotiations. They want recognition without question.  And we are currently arming through Qatar.

Bad ideas are bad ideas are bad ideas.