War (of Words) with Syria
View current page...more recent posts
Thursday, Apr 17, 2003
Daily KOS -- April 17
Syria countermoves, scores against US
The US continues its bizarre on-again, off-again war of words against Syria. Seriously, do a Google News search for "Syria" and "US", and get headlines like:
No Plans for war on Syria: US
US renews its attack on Syria
US 'would enter Syria for Saddam'
US will not cross Syrian border to hunt Saddam
So who the hell knows who will come out ahead what is obviously a power-struggle at the top of the Bush Administration.
[From this past Sunday.]
Meet the Press -- April 13
Russert and Rumsfeld, Russert and Moustapha
MR. RUSSERT: What happens if Syria doesn’t change their behavior?
SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Oh, that’s above my pay grade. Those are the kinds of things that countries and presidents decide. That’s broad national policy. I’m a participant, but I’m certainly not a decider.
-----
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe there’s a potential of war between the United States and Syria?
AMB. MOUSTAPHA: No, I do not believe this. I’ll tell you why. Because we believe that the
American values and we believe in American fairness. We don’t think that extremist people will further push the agenda. It does not serve the long-term interests of the United States to be seen as attacking one country after another. This is not good. We believe in lots of good American values and we would love to see those American values applied in the West Bank and Gaza.
Boston Globe -- April 15
New Syrian diplomat has a voice, and he tries mightily to be heard
By John Donnelly
WASHINGTON -- Imad Moustapha arrived in Washington on Feb. 16, in the midst of one of the most powerful snowstorms in years. More than 2 feet fell in some areas.
Perhaps Mother Nature was giving him a heads up.
Moustapha was moving here to be the deputy ambassador at the Syrian Embassy, and his first task was to head up public diplomacy. Since he arrived, he has been caught in another storm, this one political, and it is swirling all around him.
''He seems Americanized; he's persuasive,'' said Edward S. Walker Jr., a career diplomat who was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs in the early months of the Bush administration.
''The problem is,'' Walker said, ''he will have to show he can deliver. The Syrians have not taken seriously the threats from the administration until now. I don't think they are reading the situation correctly. Imad is concerned about this. If you look at where the neoconservatives are coming from, Syria is next, and I think he understands this.''
Slate -- April 16
Bashar Assad
The evil moron who's running Syria.
By Chris Suellentrop
In the real world, most evil men aren't geniuses. Instead, the real danger, more often than not, comes from evil morons.
United States Department of State -- May 2002 via NPS
Patterns of Global Terrorism
Hizballah (Party of God)
Known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-US terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombings of the US Embassy in Beirut April 1983 and US Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 and the US Embassy annex in Beirut in September 1984. Three members of Hizballah, ‘Imad Mughniyah, Hasan Izz-al-Din, and Ali Atwa, are on the FBI’s list of 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for the hijacking in 1985 of TWA Flight 847 during which a US Navy diver was murdered. Elements of the group were responsible for the kidnapping and detention of US and other Western hostages in Lebanon. The group also attacked the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and is a suspect in the 1994 bombing of the Israeli cultural center in Buenos Aires. In fall 2000, it captured three Israeli soldiers in the Shabaa Farms and kidnapped an Israeli noncombatant whom it may have lured to Lebanon under false pretenses
Summary and Conjecture
This page is as much about educating myself as anything else. I read everything I post here, and at least as much that doesn't make the cut -- either because it's redundant or tangential to the narrow focus.
I've been trying to estimate the most likely course of events. Early this year I had residual hope that the confrontation with Iraq was an elaborate game of good cop/bad cop --that the impression of "I'm crazy, don't mess with me" given by the US would be strong enough to get Iraq to acquiesce to a very invasive inspection regime. But that wasn't the plan at all. I guess I understood that, but it didn't really sink in until great flocks of tomahawks descended on Iraq.
This time around I'm trying to read more deeply, to better understand the historical background, and to look into the personal beliefs and motivations of the players.
So here's my take today. Bush, ever the MBA, is looking over the costs of war. The first two invasions have been a political success, but the bills are starting to stack up. And perhaps someone on his staff has raised the issue of Arab nationalism. Perhaps he's noticed that his last few major allies (UK, Spain, Australia) and the Gulf Cooperation Council are much less enthusiastic about military intervention in Syria. His instincts tell him that he needs a few buddies who live outside the US. This set of factors has caused him to lean in the direction of using the State Dept. to tackle Syria.
I'm not sure how the road map dynamics will affect this. Tel Aviv and Washington are engaged in the some serious horse trading. A few billion dollars are at stake. US relations with Arab nations are at stake. And there are domestic political agendas in both Israel and the US. Oh, and the fate of the Palestinians, the pawns of an entire region.
I don't believe Israel will allow a partition of the West Bank and Gaza so long as it feels threatened on the Lebanese border. It's close to political suicide for Sharon to give up settlements in the territories. He won't do it without huge gains on security issues. The US doesn't want to do a full scale invasion of Syria to assure Israeli security, so the US and Israel must find other security solutions.
Perhaps "young" Assad is susceptible to coercion by a combination of offers of aid and threats of sanctions.
By stepping back to allow the US to deal with Lebanon, Syria could satisfy Israel's demand without suffering the wrath of the tomahawk. Could Assad do a Musharraf, and sell his radical friends down the river?
But if we are to go into Lebanon, we need pretext. The US public is pumped up about Syria, but Lebanon?
On the other hand, if Assad won't make a deal to let the US liberate Lebanon, neither Bush nor Sharon need peace to win re-election. Strong stances in a cold war stalemate would satisfy their base constituencies; it's their political opponents who are looking for peace.
[Sharon interview again.]
Toronto Star -- April 16
Israeli leader adds his voice to new Mideast war of words
Sharon demands Syria curb terror Calls for 'pressure,'
but not invasion
by OLIVIA WARD
JERUSALEM—As Washington turned up the volume against Syria, the voice of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reverberated most loudly throughout the Middle East.
Syrian President Bashar Assad "is dangerous. His judgment is impaired," Sharon was quoted as saying in yesterday's Yedioth Aharonoth, a popular Hebrew newspaper.
"In the Iraq war, he proved he was incapable of drawing conclusions from very obvious facts. Anyone with eyes in his head would have known that Iraq was going to be on the losing side. But Assad thought the United States was going to fail," Sharon said.
The prime minister's interview was the latest of a number of government statements in the escalating battle of words between the neighbouring countries, which have technically been at war since 1948.
Israel has accused Syria of harbouring chemical weapons, aiding and abetting Saddam Hussein, and encouraging terrorism against the Jewish state. Syria, meanwhile, has made it clear that if a new conflict began, Israel would not escape unscathed.
In the Arab world, Washington's growing hostility toward Syria has been blamed on Israeli goading, and there is widespread belief that Sharon is hoping to use the presence of hundreds of thousands of American troops in the region as a handy means of settling scores with Israel's old enemy.
"Before even proving that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, (the Americans) are levelling accusations against Syria," Arab League spokesperson Hesham Youssef said yesterday.
"What is even more worrying is that Israel has entered the situation. This is like throwing oil on a fire, and makes the situation even more tense and precarious."
[Round of statements from Sharon, Mofaz, others from earlier today. The interviews were carried by Hebrew language papers. I haven't found English transcripts. My impression is that the Israeli government appears to be looking for a non-military solution to Syria. But they still want the US to do something about Syria, as part of the road map negotiation.]
Washington Post -- April 16
Sharon Asks U.S. to Pressure Syria on Militants
By Molly Moore
JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has urged the United States to exert "very heavy" pressure on neighboring Syria to dislodge militant organizations supported by Damascus, but stopped short of advocating military action that analysts warn could put Israel in far more imminent danger from missile attacks than ever posed by Iraq.
Sharon and his defense minister, in parallel interviews published today in Israel's two most influential Hebrew daily newspapers, outlined "precise and specific" demands they suggested the United States impose on Syria.
Maariv
Yedioth Aharonoth
[More detail on Syria's proposal to the UN.]
UPI via Washington Times -- April 16
Syria backs anti-WMD resolution in U.N.
By William M. Reilly
UNITED NATIONS -- Syria on Wednesday introduced in the U.N. Security Council a draft resolution calling for a ban on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, in the wake of the toppling of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime and U.S. accusations Damascus is producing chemical weapons.
It was seen by many diplomats as a move principally aimed at nuclear weapons believed held by Israel.
[State triumphed over Defense in Syria question?]
AP via Herald Sun (Australia) -- April 17
Powell to meet Syria's Assad
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the US had launched a "very vigorous diplomatic exchange" with Syria and he intends to go to Damascus to meet with President Bashar Assad.
Powell again insisted that Syria expel officials of the fallen Iraqi government who crossed the border.
"Syria does not want to be a safe haven in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom," he said.
But rather than distancing itself from the Arab government that was Saddam Hussein's only close ally in the war, Powell said "lots of messages have been passed back and forth" between Washington and Damascus through US Ambassador Theodore Kattouf, and via Britain, France and Spain.
In fact, Powell told Associated Press Television News, he spoke earlier in the day to Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, who will go to Damascus this weekend "about a message she might deliver".
Beyond that, Powell said, "I would expect to travel to Syria to have very candid and straightforward discussions with my foreign minister colleague (Farouk al-Shara) and with President Bashar Assad".