Monzer Vision!

Hurrah! More MSN types are picking up on the story of busted Syrian gunrunner Monzer al-Kassar. Here's MSNBC with a good video, although they don't seem to have an "embed" option for bringing it in here so I'll just give you the link.

I have a lot of questions about this guy, but here's three to start with:

1. What now? MSNBC says there'll be no trouble extraditing him from Spain. I expect a deal like that with Europe would include taking the death penalty off the table as a matter of course.

Iraq, where al-Kassar is a wanted fugitive and terrorist, might see it a little differently. They may even want to throw a little necktie party for Mr. Kassar. A threat of extradition to Iraq is an ace up the prosecution's sleeve.

2. How much time will this guy do? I want to hear that he does very little, and gets some sort of supervised work-release program or witness protection as he turns over every last detail in his rolodex to the FBI and CIA, gins up actionable and useful intelligence on evildoers around the world, and agrees to be a star witness at their trials. This guy knows where the bodies are buried, because he sold the shovels.

3. Why now and why the DEA? This I would love to know, and probably never will. There are international shady business people like Monzer al-Kassar around the world who make themselves useful to governments. Tongsun Park would seem to be one example. But the best was Manuel Noriega. He stayed in power for so long precisely because he was able to cultivate allies in the US government who thought he was a reliable intelligence source on Castro, the Sandinistas, and the Colombian drug lords. The DEA, especially, defended Noriega as an invalauble intelligence source (and dirty as he was himself, he threw them several bones--usually crooks and smugglers who didn't pay him off.)

Menawhile Castro and the Colombian cartels--and who knows who else-- used Noriega as well for information on us. It took a federal indictment on drug trafficking charges filed by a Florida US attorney to turn things against Noriega.

(It's a small world, incidentally. Tongsun Park flew in on a private 727 to conduct some business with Noriega shortly before his fall, and Monzer al-Kassar was linked to the Iran -Contra arms deal which involved Noriega in shady ways I'm not clear on. But they've been around doing shady stuff since the eighties--that gives you an idea of how these guys become institutions.)

I'll bet there is a great book to be written on the story of how the decision was made to drop the hammer on Kassar. This guy didn't stay around as long as he has without allies. It's odd, as Howie noted, that it's the DEA ridding us of this troublesome beast--maybe they had, um, advisors from elsewhere in the government, but I don't say that to take anything away from the DEA who have done the world a service with this long-running, successful investigation.