The devil and David Wurmser
In Beirut the new year began much as 2003 ended, with rampant speculation on the state of US-Syrian relations, the prospect for direct military confrontation and the consequences of policy action or inaction for Lebanon. A recent article in Jane’s Defense Weekly reported that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was eyeing Hizbullah positions in eastern Lebanon as possible targets, a move deliberately calculated to engage Syrian forces in the area. Such a leak was the policy equivalent of a shot across the bow.
Viewed in isolation, it might appear that the Bush administration is reverting to the bellicose rhetoric of last spring. In Lebanon and Syria some have feared, or hoped, that American wars on multiple fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism in the context of the 2004 elections would delay moves against the Syrian regime. Passage of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, while regrettable, signaled that US President George W. Bush would not back off.
A recent appointment to Vice-President Dick Cheney’s staff was even stronger evidence that the administration was fixing its sights though not necessarily its guns on Damascus. In October 2003, David Wurmser was moved to Cheney’s office from his position as special assistant to Undersecretary of State John Bolton. His portfolio? Syria.
Normally, the National Security Council (NSC) manages foreign policy for the White House, including the assignment of countries to mid-level officers. But Cheney, whose influence on foreign affairs far outstrips that of his predecessors, has a chief of staff cum national security director I. Lewis Libby. Libby and his staff substantively overlap with the NSC and State Department, a situation Cheney may have copied from his mentor Rumsfeld, who created his own intelligence and policy shops at the Pentagon, using them to circumvent and even debunk analyses from the State Department and the CIA.
Who, you may ask, is David Wurmser? He is an ideological soulmate of Richard Perle, the administration’s presumed policy muse. Like Perle, Wurmser was a member of a group of pro-Likud Americans who drafted a foreign policy strategy for former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his election victory in 1996. The document, titled Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, suggests a “break” with Israel’s Oslo commitments, the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the strengthening of Israel’s ties with the US and the weakening of regional enemies including Syria through US alliances with Jordan and Turkey. Netanyahu may not have had time to implement this strategy, but others in Washington and Tel Aviv have done so.
After Sept. 11, 2001, Wurmser was hired as a consultant by the Pentagon to advise Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and an aide, Harold Rhode, two anti-Baath ideologues. He was instrumental in starting up Rumsfeld’s controversial Office of Special Plans, a Pentagon intelligence operation. In other words, Wurmser is the archetypal neoconservative Republican who has no problem flexing military muscle in order to accomplish foreign policy goals seen as critical to securing US national security interests.
Wurmser has long focused on issues other than the Israeli-Palestinian peace process when it comes to the Middle East. In addition to his work on Clean Break, he has written a book and a number of articles that could be neatly summarized as advocating the demise of secular-nationalist nations, the containment of Syrian influence in the Arab world and support for the Hashemites in Jordan and Iraq. He has also sought to undermine the work of so-called “Arabists” in academia and government.
On the latter point in particular, he is an ally of academic Daniel Pipes, whom Bush installed six months ago at the US Institute for Peace. Pipes’s Senate confirmation initially hit a snag when Arab and Muslim organizations launched a vociferous attack against, among other things, his campaign to restrict government funding for Middle East studies centers that did not include courses and instructors whose views were favorable to US foreign policy.
During the Clinton administration, Wurmser ran his own Middle East studies department at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI). One of AEI’s major donors is Los Angeles casino king Irving Moskowitz, a long-time supporter of Israeli settlement building and a close friend of Netanyahu. In the foreword to his 1999 book, Tyranny’s Ally, Wurmser wrote that Moskowitz’s “generous support of AEI allows me to be here.” Wurmser’s wife, Meyrav, is co-founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly a member of Israeli military intelligence. MEMRI scans Arabic dailies, translates the most virulent and anti-Israeli articles and then sends them to inboxes and fax machines all over the US.
Given Wurmser’s background and affiliations, the question in Syria and Lebanon is how his appointment will impact on US-Syrian relations and, by default, US-Lebanese relations. First, do not expect a great deal of hype. As during his move to the White House and his tenure at the State Department, Wurmser stays out of the spotlight. Second, he is likely to be instrumental in calibrating the level of pressure brought to bear against Syrian President Bashar Assad. In the late 1990s, he wrote frequently that the US and Israel should team up to topple Baathist rule in Syria and bring in a new era of “tribal, familial and clan unions under limited governments.”
Third, expect him to work with other senior officials, interested parties and opposition groups in exposing Syria’s presence in Lebanon. Rumsfeld’s veiled threat is just one element of such a strategy. A number of Lebanese-American organizations are already lobbying Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to propose a UN resolution that would call on Syria to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty and disarm all militias. Wurmser would probably support such moves.
Wurmser is constrained by a complex array of economic and political realities, a situation he didn’t quite face previously. Some administration officials are keen to reduce US dependence on Saudi oil, particularly the kingdom’s swing capacity the extra supply that it maintains, at considerable expense, to provide a cushion during oil shortages or crises, such as Sept. 11. By some estimates, northern Iraq contains 4 percent of the world’s oil reserves and most of it has yet to be tapped. Moving that oil through Iraq to the Gulf is highly problematic given the current instability and devastated infrastructure. Many experts see Syria as a viable alternative.
The Oxford Business Group (OBG) reported earlier this month that the Coalition Provisional Authority had approved the restoration of the Mosul-Aleppo rail link to transport northern Iraqi oil to northern Syria, and from there on to the Mediterranean. Ironically, this was one of the means used by the former Iraqi regime to export oil illegally during the UN embargo. OBG also noted that coalition troops were protecting the rail line on the Iraqi side. The Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act had no discernable impact on this project.
Wurmser may well discover that crafting policy in the “real world” is a lot like bargaining in a souq. Sometimes you have to give up a few items that you want in order to afford the ones you really need.
Maggie Mitchell-Salem is director of communications and outreach at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She wrote this article for THE DAILY STAR
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