The Syrian Accountability Act And The Triumph Of Hegemony [Part 2]
Relations with Israel
Among the Findings of the resolution is the following:
(13) Even in the face of this United Nations certification that acknowledged Israel's full compliance with Resolution 425, Syria permits attacks by Hizballah and other militant organizations on Israeli outposts at Shebaa Farms, under the false guise that it remains Lebanese land, and is also permitting attacks on civilian targets in Israel.
The Shebaa Farms is on a disputed border region between Lebanon and Syria that Syria (perhaps opportunistically) now acknowledges is part of Lebanon. In any case, it is not part of Israel: the area was seized by Israeli armed forces during its 1967 invasion of Syria's Golan plateau and they have held the territory under military occupation ever since. Armed resistance against foreign occupation forces is considered legal under international law. In any case, there have been no attacks against Israeli forces since January 2003.
Furthermore, while the United Nations has acknowledged Israeli withdrawal of ground troops from Lebanon, the Secretary General's most recent report on the situation in June 2003 denounced Israeli violations of Lebanese air space as "provocative" and "at variance with Israel's otherwise full compliance with Security Council resolution 425."
There have been virtually no border clashes on the Lebanese-Israeli border involving Hizballah since the 2000 Israeli withdrawal, though this past July shells from Hizballah anti-aircraft fire against Israeli planes illegally encroaching onto Lebanese airspace fell into Israeli territory, injuring three Israeli civilians. Furthermore, there are no Syrian forces near Lebanon's border with Israel, thereby making it unclear as to how Syria could "permit" or not permit such attacks other than by entering the territory and attempting to forcibly disarm them, likely provoking a series of armed clashes they would wish to avoid.
Another Finding observes:
(15) The Israeli-Lebanese border and much of southern Lebanon is under the control of Hizballah, which continues to attack Israeli positions, allows Iranian Revolutionary Guards and other militant groups to operate freely in the area, and maintains thousands of rockets along Israel's northern border, destabilizing the entire region.
This clause is misleading on several counts:
With a few very minor incidents, Hizballah attacks against Israeli positions since the withdrawal of Israeli occupation troops from southern Lebanon have been restricted to Israeli occupation forces in the Shebaa Farms region on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Iranian Revolutionary Guards had a visible presence in the area during the early 1980s, but subsequent sightings have been quite rare.
Furthermore, Israel has far more powerful, accurate, and lethal military hardware on its side of the border. Israeli attacks in Lebanon over the years have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, while Hizballah attacks have killed less than two dozen civilians on the Israeli side, none for at least five years. The only apparent increases in armaments on the Lebanese side appear to be the placement of additional anti-aircraft batteries, which are defensive in nature. No part of northern Israel has been subjected to military occupation by Lebanese, though Israel illegally occupied parts of southern Lebanon and beyond for 22 years between 1978 and 2000.
Congress, however, apparently believes that it is this Lebanese militia inside Lebanon--not an Israeli army that has invaded, occupied, and repeatedly bombed its neighbors--that is responsible for "destabilizing the entire region."
The operational clause of the bill states:
(6) the Governments of Lebanon and Syria should enter into serious unconditional bilateral negotiations with the Government of Israel in order to realize a full and permanent peace;
First of all, it is unclear why Congress insists that Lebanon and Syria must enter into bilateral negotiations as opposed to multilateral negotiations as called for by the United Nations in Security Council resolution 338, particularly given the interrelatedness of the concerns of these three nations.
The Syrian and Lebanese governments have offered full diplomatic relations with Israel and strict security guarantees in return for a total Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian territory in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which successive U.S. administration have insisted should be the basis for Arab-Israeli peace. However, the U.S.-backed Israeli government of Ariel Sharon has categorically rejected an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian territory, even in return for full diplomatic relations and strict security guarantees.
Syria has expressed its willingness to resume peace talks with Israel where the discussions left off in 2000. Israel's right-wing government has refused, however, saying the talks must start from scratch. By insisting that Syria must enter new talks "unconditionally" rather than resume them from the two parties' previous negotiating positions--where both sides made major concessions, which took several years to reach and came very close to success--Congress is effectively rejecting the position of the more moderate former Israeli government of Ehud Barak and instead embracing the rejectionist position of current right-wing leader Sharon.
As a result, it is unclear how entering into such negotiations with an occupying power that categorically refuses to withdraw from conquered land would "realize a full and permanent peace" unless the intent of Congress is to force complete Syrian capitulation in accepting Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan region. This would be an unreasonable demand, however, since the UN Charter expressly forbids any nation from expanding its territory by force and UN Security Council resolution 497 declares the Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan is illegal and must be rescinded.
Military Threat
Among the Findings, the resolution includes:
(18) The Government of Syria continues to develop and deploy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
(19) According to the December 2001 unclassified Central Intelligence Agency report entitled 'Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat through 2015', 'Syria maintains a ballistic missile and rocket force of hundreds of FROG rockets, Scuds, and SS-21 SRBMs [and] Syria has developed [chemical weapons] warheads for its Scuds'.
What Congress fails to mention is that Israel has a vastly superior missile capability relative to Syria, fielding short-range Jericho I and medium-range Jericho II missiles, both of which use solid propellant and are nuclear-capable. Israel's missiles are significantly more advanced technologically, are more accurate, have a wider range, and can carry a larger payload than the Syrian missiles.
Meanwhile, Syria's northern neighbor Turkey has at least 120 MGM-140 tactical missiles as well as cruise missiles. Egypt has intermediate-range Badr 2000 missiles, not to mention an array of short-range missiles, including the Harpoon, the Ottomat, the CSS-N-2, and the Project T.
It should not be surprising to Congress that in such a strategic environment Syria would also opt to develop short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Another Finding observes:
(25) Syria is not a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention or the Biological Weapons Convention, which entered into force on April 29, 1997, and on March 26, 1975, respectively.
This is true, yet Israel and Egypt, which are the world's two largest recipients of U.S. military aid, are not parties to these conventions either. Congress apparently believes that while it is legitimate for Israel and Egypt to refuse to ratify these important arms control conventions, Syria's refusal to ratify these same two conventions is grounds for strict economic sanctions.
Similarly, another Finding in the bill notes:
(20) The Government of Syria is pursuing the development and production of biological and chemical weapons and has a nuclear research and development program that is cause for concern.
While it is widely acknowledged that Syria, like several other countries in the region, has a chemical weapons program, there is no evidence that Syria currently has any biological weapons. Furthermore, it is unclear why Syria's civilian nuclear program is of such "concern" for Congress: Syria is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has "accepted the full scope safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency to detect diversions of nuclear materials from peaceful activities to the production of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that they have any kind of nuclear weapons program.
Yet another finding observes:
(22) On May 6, 2002, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, stated: "The United States also knows that Syria has long had a chemical warfare program. It has a stockpile of the nerve agent sarin and is engaged in research and development of the more toxic and persistent nerve agent VX. Syria, which has signed but not ratified the [Biological Weapons Convention], is pursuing the development of biological weapons and is able to produce at least small amounts of biological warfare agents."
The Defense Department has pointed out that while Syria has a biotechnical infrastructure capable of supporting limited agent development, it has not begun a major effort to produce biological agents or to put them into weapons and Syria would need significant foreign assistance to manufacture large amounts of biological weapons.
Finally, it should be noted that Bolton has very little credibility among the intelligence community, which was reportedly "fed up" with his assertions regarding Syria. (During this same testimony, Bolton claimed that Cuba also had a biological weapons program, which was roundly dismissed as pure fantasy.) That Congress would cite Bolton rather than more credible reports from other U.S. government agencies regarding Syria's chemical and biological capabilities is indicative of the continued willingness by both Republicans and Democrats--exhibited most prominently in the buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq--to believe whatever the Bush administration wants to tell them.
The operational clause of the resolution states:
(5) the Government of Syria should halt the development and deployment of medium- and long-range surface-to-surface missiles and cease the development and production of biological and chemical weapons;
Syria's development of its advanced missile programs and WMDs came only after other countries in the region first developed theirs, programs that still exist today and from which the Syrians still feel threatened:
The first country in the Middle East to obtain and use chemical weapons was Egypt (which used phosgene and mustard gas in the mid-1960s during its intervention in Yemen). There is no indication Egypt has ever destroyed any of its chemical agents or weapons and it is believed that the U.S.-backed Mubarak regime is continuing its chemical weapons research and development program. Similarly, it is widely believed that Egypt began a program that produced weaponized biological agents as far back as the early 1960s. As of 1996, U.S. officials publicly acknowledged that Egypt had developed biological warfare agents and there is no evidence that they have since been eliminated. Egypt is considered a major U.S. ally and Congress annually grants over $2 billion worth of military and economic assistance to the Mubarak government.
Israel is widely believed to have produced and stockpiled an extensive range of chemical weapons and is engaged in ongoing research and development of additional chemical weaponry. Israel is also believed to maintain a sophisticated biological weapons program, which is widely thought to include anthrax and more advanced weaponized agents and other toxins. Israel also has a sizable nuclear weapons arsenal with sophisticated delivery systems.
Unlike the case of Iraq, there are no UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Syria cease its development of WMDs or missile programs. The only UN Security Council resolution addressing WMD proliferation in this part of the Middle East is UN Security Council resolution 487, which calls on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the trusteeship of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Israel is still in violation of this resolution, though this does not seem to bother Congress.
Syria has called for a weapons of mass destruction free zone for the entire Middle East, similar to what already exists in Latin America and the South Pacific. By imposing strict sanctions on Syria for failing to disarm unilaterally, however, Congress has roundly rejected this concept or any other kind of regional arms control regime. Instead, Congress has gone on record supporting the idea that the United States has the authority to say which country can have what kind of weapons systems, thereby enforcing a kind of WMD apartheid, which will more likely encourage, rather than discourage, the proliferation of such dangerous weapons.
Support for Iraq
The Findings of the resolution includes the following:
(30) On March 28, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned: '[W]e have information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night-vision goggles ... These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We consider such trafficking as hostile acts, and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments.'
(34) On April 13, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld charged that 'busloads' of Syrian fighters entered Iraq with 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' and leaflets offering rewards for dead American soldiers.
There has been absolutely no independent confirmation of either of these charges.
These clauses and other parts of the resolution imply that the Syrian government has been a major backer of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In reality, despite being ruled by the Baath Party, Syria has historically been a major rival of Iraq's Baath regime. Syria broke diplomatic relations with Baghdad in the 1970s and never renewed them. Damascus was the base of a number of exiled anti-Saddam Iraqi leaders and organizations. Syria was the only Arab country to back Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. It was one of the only non-monarchical Arab states to have backed the United States against Iraq during the first Gulf War, dispatching troops to support Operation Desert Shield. Iraq and Syria backed rival factions in Lebanon's civil war. As a member of the United Nations Security Council, Syria voted this past November in favor of the U.S.-backed resolution 1441 that demanded full cooperation by the Baghdad government with United Nations inspectors, with the threat of severe consequences if it failed to do so. Most recently, Syria voted in favor of the U.S.-backed resolution 1511 on post-war Iraq.
In reality, the problem Congress seems to have with Syria is not that Damascus really has supported Saddam Hussein's regime and its remnants, but that it--like most nations in the world--simply opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In addition, it seems rather extraordinary that Congress would make statements by Donald Rumsfeld part of their findings on this resolution, given the Defense Secretary's history of misinformation on issues related to Iraq:
For example, on March 30, 2003, Rumsfeld confidently stated, in reference to Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, that "We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, north and south somewhat." On March 23, 2003, he said that American intelligence reports indicate that Iraqi forces "have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them, and that they are weaponized, and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established."
Both of these claims have since been shown to be utterly false.
Similarly, on November 14, 2002, Rumsfeld claimed "Two sons-in-law of Saddam Hussein defected, went into Jordan, and the word came out and they told where these inspectors could go look, they went and looked, and they found weapons of mass destruction."
This is also untrue. When the two men defected to Jordan in 1995 they told UNSCOM inspectors, among other things, that "All weapons--biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed." The information they provided UNSCOM was obviously useful, but it did not lead inspectors to find any weapons since they no longer existed.
Membership in the UN Security Council
From the Findings of the resolution:
(31) According to Article 23(1) of the United Nations Charter, members of the United Nations are elected as nonpermanent members of the United Nations Security Council with 'due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to other purposes of the Organization'.
(32) Despite Article 23(1) of the United Nations Charter, Syria was elected on October 8, 2001, to a 2-year term as a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council beginning January 1, 2002, and served as President of the Security Council during June 2002 and August 2003.
In the operational clause of the resolution, it declares that:
(8) as a violator of several key United Nations Security Council resolutions and as a nation that pursues policies which undermine international peace and security, Syria should not have been permitted to join the United Nations Security Council or serve as the Security Council's President, and should be removed from the Security Council.
It is interesting that Congress raised no objection when the Suharto regime of Indonesia served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 1995-96. At that time, Indonesia was engaged in an illegal military occupation of the island nation of East Timor in direct violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions demanding its immediate withdrawal and recognition of the right of the people of East Timor to self-determination. In the course of Indonesia's 26-year occupation, more than 200,000 people--one-third of the country's population--died as a result of massacres, forced relocation, and related atrocities.
Similarly, there was no objection raised in Congress to Morocco serving as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 1992-93. At that time and to this day, Morocco has been engaged in an illegal occupation of the nation of Western Sahara, placing the kingdom in direct violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions demanding its immediate withdrawal and recognition of the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination. Morocco has even refused to move forward with a UN-sponsored resolution on the fate of the territory despite a series of UN Security Council resolutions calling for their cooperation.
In other words, Congress believes that if a regime is allied to the United States, it is okay to serve as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, even if that government is "a violator of several key United Nations Security Council resolutions" and "pursues policies which undermine international peace and security." However, in the case of Syria--even though its violations of UN Security Council resolutions and its threats to international peace and security are significantly less substantial than those of Morocco or Indonesia--Congress believes they must be removed from that body.
Finally, it should be noted that this resolution is from the same Congress that in October 2002 authorized President George W. Bush to invade and occupy a sovereign country despite it being a clear violation of the United Nations Charter and a threat to international peace and security. Needless to say, there are no suggestions from Congress that the United States should be denied its seat on the UN Security Council.
Conclusion
The purpose of this critical overview is not to defend Assad's regime in Damascus. Given the nature of the Syrian government and its policies, a case could be made that strict sanctions such as those enacted in this legislation might be appropriate under certain conditions.
What is so disturbing about this bill and its near-unanimous support, however, is that the language of the resolution is emblematic of the new bipartisan consensus in Washington in favor of a hegemonic world order led by the Bush administration. In the near-unanimous passage of this bill, Republicans and Democrats alike are on record in their conviction that the United States has the right to punish particular nations for certain policies while providing military, economic, and diplomatic support for allied nations that engage in those very policies. Both Republicans and Democrats alike are on record trusting unsubstantiated claims by neoconservative ideologues who have lied repeatedly about so-called "rogue states" in order to justify increased U.S. militarism and foreign wars. Both Republicans and Democrats alike are on record rejecting multilateral arms control treaties in favor of forcing unilateral disarmament by some governments while sending billions of dollars worth of sophisticated weaponry to neighboring states. Both Republicans and Democrats alike are manipulating popular concern regarding international terrorism to justify policies that actually weaken the United States' ability to counter this very real threat.
The Syrian Accountability Act is not a reflection of popular concern for the Lebanese people, for non-proliferation, for preventing terrorism, or for defending the United Nations. It is a reflection of an imperial world view. Those politicians who support such a role for the United States through such legislation--whether they are Republicans or Democrats--must be held accountable.
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Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, and serves as the Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (online at www.fpif.org). He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage, 2002) |
