Security for whom?

Syria is a charter member of President Shrub's Axis of Evil. Syria was home to various organizations that sponsored guerilla violence in Israel, such as Hamas, Hezb'ollah and others that you may have never heard of. Syria exercised an inordinate amount of control in Lebanon, an otherwise progressive and liberal state in the Middle East. Lebanon was the most progressive of the Arab states until Israel and Syria waged a proxy war in the small Mediterranean republic. Israel may have won militarily (taking control of the Golan Heights, forcing the offshore banking industry to up and leave for Bahrain, further dispersing Palestinian refugees, etc.), but Syria clearly has taken control of things politically, and of course the Lebanese have lost economically.  It was your standard proxy war.

Both Syria and Iraq have been thorns in Israel's side for decades. During the eighties, Iraq was tied up in mortal combat with Iran, while Syria was occupied in Lebanon (no pun intended).

Sidenote: Here's the geopolitical dichotomy in the Middle East after 1979. You have Israel making peace with Jordan and Egypt , thereby securing its' eastern and western borders. It's only credible threat by land were Lebanon and Syria. Whichever of those controlled the Golan Heights (essentially a geographical feature that walls Israel off from Syria), held a significant military advantage over the other two; if you go by the principle's of Sun-Tzu's "Art of War". The Islamic Revolution in Iran sent shockwaves through the Oil Monarchies of the Arabian Gulf, many of whom have significant Shi'a populations that were inspired by the Ayatollah's seize of power from the decadent Shah.

To keep themselves in power, to check Iran's fervor, to keep cheap oil pumping to the west and of course to keep Iraq, the most powerful Arab military from marching towards the Mediterranean, the United States and the Gulf Emirates waged a proxy war along the Iraq-Iran border. Kept things moving along in the region.

The war dragged for nearly a decade, and in 1990, Saddam gave the west a gift by invading Kuwait. Soon, he was expelled and buried in economic sanctions. So for nearly twenty years no one had to worry about him. Now he's in prison and the United States is fighting an uphill battle to keep the Republic from falling apart, and of course to re-orient it's geo-political stances. And Libya had been exceptionally well-behaved during all of this.

Which leaves us with Syria. A sizable American military presence in Saudi Arabia doesn't scare Damascus and Tehran as much as a sizable American military presence in Iraq. I am sure that Damascus is watching events closely and of course playing to both endgames of whether the US stays in Iraq or not. So on one hand, it vacates itself of Hamas and the like, but on the other hand, slips them into Iraq to bother the US military.

So now the pressure steps up on Damascus.

Granted, we'd like to eliminate Syria's stash of WMD and it would be nice to open up the economies of the Levant. Yet I still maintain that no matter what happens, any developments will most likely come at the expense of the Arab people. Just like how Iraqis suffered under sanctions and the common Arab is left without opportunities to educate himself or start a business, they will have to wait until the powers that be get things right. I'm still waiting on that train.