One step forward, two steps back?

Yes, there are reasons not to do things like this:

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syria threatened Wednesday to cut off security cooperation along the Iraqi border if there are more American raids on Syrian territory, and the U.S. Embassy announced it would close Thursday because of a mass rally called to protest a deadly weekend commando attack.

Assuming this raid into Syria was our last, it might not be a problem, but what happens if the Syrians respond by ceasing all cooperation in policing their border with Iraq? We take the gloves off altogether, and strike with abandon? Escalation doesn’t redound to our benefit here.

Chances are we’d end up with a situation not unlike that along the Pakistani border, where we face an increasing number of terrorists, and keep inadvertently killing civilians in air strikes that don’t take out their intended targets — which provides an enormously powerful incentive for further terrorist recruitment. Oddly enough, when you kill people’s families and friends, they hold a grudge.

In other words, our strike might well result in more terrorists operating along the Syrian-Iraqi border, in which case it would have cost American lives, not saved them.