After deposing the Hussein regime, the US is now pressuring Syria to end their support of the fallen Hussein regime. Syria has been moving military supplies into Iraq despite the UN ban and US forces operating in the area.
If I were President Assad, I would be very wary of doing anything rash when there are 250,000 coalition troops next door. The fall of the Hussein regime means that business as usual in the Middle East (ie funding Hamas and Hizb’Allah) is no longer a very smart course of action.
It’s exactly this kind of hubris that will make the world a more dangerous place. When every nation who disagrees with the US perceives that they’ll be in the crosshairs next, you can bet that they’ll embrace the same “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach that the US always has. Russia unloading some of its surplus nuclear weapons to the black market into the hands of Syria and Iran is increasingly likely in light of American bravado after Iraq.
…or they could do the sensible thing and stop funding terrorist groups. (Nor would Russia ever allow nuclear weapons to fall into terrorist hands. Doing so could very well mean that the Chechens would use them against Moscow, which would be suicidal.)