Tarzan, it appears my plan has support <g>
David Warren's take on Syria:
By way of Syria
President George W. Bush of the United States has been encountering hearing problems around the
world, but they are beginning to evaporate. Among the dividends already harvested from the War in Iraq:
sudden changes in attitude from the other two regimes he once listed in his "axis of evil".
Iran publicly declared it would not grant admission through its borders to members of Saddam Hussein's
fallen regime, and that if they tried to enter illegally they would be apprehended and put on trial. (Hence
their general movement westward.) No less than Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the hothead who has led
crowds for a generation in chants of "Death to America", and has publicly boasted that the moment Iran
has a nuclear weapon it will incinerate Israel, went on the record over the weekend proposing a national
referendum to restore diplomatic relations with the U.S.
North Korea, which reduced its own anti-American rhetoric to zero during the short course of the war, has
now announced that it is willing to have the multilateral talks with the U.S. and its neighbours that the U.S.
government was insisting upon. The North Koreans explicitly withdrew several previous demands.
Monitors in the Korean DMZ report a relaxation of the theatrical North Korean high alert.
Similarly elsewhere: even the Saudi regime is now publicly considering democratic reform proposals that
would have been unthinkable a couple of months ago, and say they will allow some kind of national
debate. The Turks have sent a delegation to Israel, offering the Israelis new investment opportunities in
Turkey if they will help them repair recent damage to U.S.-Turkish relations. The new Islamic Turkish
prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, suddenly mentions aloud the triple alliance of the U.S., Israel, and Turkey.
Against this new background, the Syrian Ba'athist regime of Bashir Assad has stood out like a sore
thumb. Not only is U.S. intelligence quite certain that senior members of the Iraqi Ba'athist party were
smuggled into Syria (with Russian help), but so were lethal Iraqi weapons systems, for hiding, both before
and during the war. A great deal of evidence has accumulated on Syria's own sarin nerve gas
programme, which includes actual deployment in missiles. Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese Hizbullah and
other terrorists were meanwhile sent the other way, smuggled into Iraq both before and during the war --
and bodies of terrorists have been found all over Iraq carrying Syrian identity papers.
But topping this off, President Assad himself foolishly seized the moment of the U.S. invasion to play the
demagogue before the pan-Arab media. In waves of anti-American and anti-Semitic rhetoric, he sought to
pick up the torch as it was falling from Saddam's dead hand. While the rhetoric has cooled considerably
in the last week, as this reputedly slow-witted Alawite ophthalmologist has noticed the scene focusing
before his eyes, he has made his position plain. The entire barbershop choir of the U.S. administration --
Messrs. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Mistress Rice -- have taken turns issuing solo threats to
the Syrian dictator. (Old Europe is appalled -- though as we might expect, not by what Assad said in the
first place, but what the Americans said in response.)
The U.S. need to deal with Syria promptly has little to do with the easy availability of the freshly-arrived 4th
Infantry Division next door -- which has been assigned to the delicate job of patrolling Iraq's occupied
north. Though it is worth noting that the division, spared direct action by Turkey' s refusal to allow its
earlier timely passage to that northern front, is America's most advanced ground force, the first in the
world in which every vehicle and every one of its 30,000 soldiers are digitally networked. With customary
air support it alone could pulp the Syrian regime in less than a fortnight, with two more divisions behind it
in Iraq, pointlessly waiting their turn.
This has even less to do with the Bush administration's domestic agenda -- for which Mr. Bush could use
peace, quiet, and a recovering economy, in preparation for next year's presidential election.
The real issue here is instead Israel/Palestine. President Bush has announced that he will attempt to
lance this open wound, that has been festering for more than half a century, as part of the overall scheme
to create a new order and a new atmosphere throughout the Middle East. Syria is not merely in its own
right a rogue state and sponsor of international terrorism, but a key player in the Israel/Palestine question.
Its continued effective occupation of Lebanon, and its hosting both there and in Damascus of a vast,
chiefly Hizbullah terror army aimed against the Israeli state, as well as its own, stands directly in the way
of any practicable permanent peace agreement.
Moreover, Bashir Assad has, in his rhetoric, continued to proclaim that the very existence of Israel is
unacceptable to the Arabs. No peace agreement can possibly work, that simply ignores this Syrian
menace. And this was demonstrated beyond doubt by the Syrian failure to restrict the Hizbullah, as its
side of the bargain that allowed Israel to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon in the peace initiative
of ex-prime minister Ehud Barak. Instead, Syria directly assisted the Hizbullah in moving its positions
forward to the new frontier.
Syria must be dealt with, but how? The Americans do not want a war, but are encouraged by the Turkish
experience with Bashir Assad's late father, a mere five years ago. The issue then was Syrian hosting of
anti-Turkish Kurd terrorists. The Turks moved a mighty army to the Syrian frontier, and triggered a series
of incidents. They made plain to Hafez Assad that they would invade if he didn't evict Abdullah Ocalan and
his Marxist PKK terror organization from their headquarters in Damascus. Lo and behold, they were
evicted.
The U.S. is thus calculating, "like father, like son": that insuperable pressure, short of an invasion, can
make the Assad regime change its entire way of looking at the world. It does not follow this is a bluff,
however. The Bush administration is hardly prepared, after the cost of its mission to Saddam Hussein, to
fritter away its credibility on Bashir Assad. As before, Mr. Bush will take his time, but in the end he will be
prepared to liberate Syria and Lebanon, just as he liberated Iraq, if Assad does not "co-operate fully".
One sees in the background of this, from Bush administration statements and from what one may glean
at large, the true roadmap for the voyage ahead. In effect, President Bush is making a pact with Ariel
Sharon and Israel, that Mr. Sharon has already begun to acknowledge. "We will eliminate Hizbullah, and if
necessary forcibly democratize the Palestinian Authority. In return you will bite the bullet, withdraw your
Settlements from the West Bank, and recognize an independent Palestinian State."
The intention to act on such a large scope is implicit in everything President Bush has said. Diplomats
and foreign governments have tended to respond only to the parts they least like. They would be well
advised to begin looking at the whole, for as they should surely realize by now, Mr. Bush does, indeed,
deliver on his promises.
davidwarrenonline.com
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