Attacking Syria: Focusing on Iran
Chuck Freilich
Posted 09/18/2007
Two weeks ago, Israeli air force jets apparently conducted a secret raid in Syria. Uncharacteristically, Israel has remained totally mum on the issue, a clear indication of the importance it attaches to it. Speculation in the media has been rampant, covering the entire gamut of possible targets, including an attack on a Syrian or Iranian arms shipment to Hizballah and the destruction of a nuclear facility that North Korea is now reported to have supplied to Syria.
We may never know what exactly happened, but a few points are worth emphasizing. The Middle East is increasingly going nuclear. The Iraqi program has been stopped, at least for the foreseeable future and Libya, having learned from the Iraqi precedent, voluntarily agreed to dismantle its program, in exchange for renewed relations with the US. The Iranian program, however, is rapidly reaching the critical turning point. Israel, long been thought to be a nuclear power as well, views an Iranian nuclear capability as a threat to its very existence. The Sunni regimes, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, even Jordan and others, are petrified at the very thought that their Shiite neighbor may soon be able to use its nuclear capabilities to further advance its hegemonic aspirations and dictate events in the region. In response, they are now giving increasing attention to possible “civil” nuclear programs of their own. “Civil” nuclear programs, as we know, have a pesky tendency to morph into military ones.
The thought that Syria, an unofficial, but de-facto member in nefarious standing in the “axis of evil”, may have an active nuclear program, far more advanced than heretofore known, is particularly worrisome. Rabidly dictatorial, already armed with a massive arsenal of chemical weapons, Syria has long been a regional spoiler. It is today an ally of Iran’s, with an increasingly close “strategic” military relationship. Together with Iran, Syria arms and gives various other types of support to Hizballah, Hamas, the insurgents in Iraq and other highly “savory” groups. Tensions along the border between Syria and Israel have also grown in recent months, increasing the risk of a military clash.
A multi-nuclear Middle East is a nightmare scenario the likes of which the world has yet to face. While it would not pose the threat of an end to humanity, as in the Cold War, in some ways a nuclear Middle East poses even greater dangers, if only because of the far greater prospects that nukes might actually be used. This would certainly be true in the case of a multi-nuclear Middle East. For the US, moreover, the danger of being drawn into a nuclear crisis would rise exponentially.
Iran is of course the greatest worry. A nuclear Iran would place most of the world's oil -- simply the world economy and western way of life -- under the threat of a regime whose extremist ideology is inspired by an aggressive interpretation of the divine word and an implacable opposition to Western values. Vociferously anti-American, despite attempts at rapprochement, Iran is explicitly committed to the destruction of Israel and developing the capabilities to do so.
The US-led diplomatic effort to bring the Iranian nuclear program to an end appears to be rapidly running its course. After months of talks in the Security Council, the US is now making a major push to convince the other members to join it in a third resolution condemning Iran, one which would, hopefully, impose sanctions with would finally have some true “teeth.” Russia and China remain recalcitrant and even if they ultimately agree to adopt some resolution, it is clear that the sanctions they agree to will be the bare minimum they believe they can accede to, without forcing the US to act independently, outside of the restrictive confines of the Security Council. In any event, it is highly unlikely that they will agree to further steps and to cooperate with the US in imposing the kind of overwhelming sanctions that might just be sufficient to actually get the Iranians, who have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the continuing their nuclear program, to acquiesce.
What this means is that sometime in the near future, quite possibly during the upcoming election year, American policymakers will be faced with the decision of how to truly deal with the Iranian threat. Various options still remain before one has to contemplate direct military action, such as US sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard, a primary political and economic force in Iran, which would have a major effect on Russian and Chinese economic interests and possibly encourage greater cooperation on their part in the Security Council, multilateral Western sanctions against Iran, an oil embargo and even a naval blockade. Given the pace of Iranian nuclear development, however, the time for this is limited.
In 1981 Israel destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak and in so doing did the world a great favor. It may have done so again, at a much earlier stage, in Syria. The time for effective action against Iran is rapidly approaching.
Source: humanevents
Syria, NKorea deny nuclear cooperation
By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press
Syria and North Korea denied Tuesday they are cooperating on a Syrian nuclear program, and they accused U.S. officials of spreading the allegations for political reasons — either to back Israel or to block progress on a deal between Washington and Pyongyang.
A front-page editorial in the government newspaper Tishrin also criticized the United States for failing to condemn a Sept. 6 Israeli air incursion, which it called a violation of international law.
Details of the incursion remain unclear. Israel clamped a news blackout on the raid, while Syria said only that warplanes entered its airspace, came under fire from anti-aircraft defenses and dropped munitions and fuel tanks to lighten their loads while they fled.
U.S. officials have said Israeli warplanes struck a target. A military officer said Israel targeted weapons being shipped to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, but another official's comments raised speculation the Israelis targeted a nuclear installation.
Andrew Semmel, acting U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, said Syria may have had contacts with "secret suppliers" to obtain nuclear equipment. He did not identify the suppliers, but said that North Koreans were in Syria and that he could not exclude involvement by the network run by the disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.
North Korea strongly denied it secretly helped Syria develop a nuclear program, maintaining the charge was fabricated by U.S. hard-liners to block progress in the North's relations with the United States.
A Syrian Cabinet minister ridiculed the speculation about any cooperation with North Korea.
"All this rubbish is not true. I don't know how their imagination has reached such creativity," Bouthaina Shaaban said.
"Regretfully, the international press is busy justifying an aggression on a sovereign state and the world should be busy condemning it instead of inventing reasons and aims of this aggression," he told Lebanon's Hezbollah TV station Al-Manar.
Syria's nuclear program has long been considered minimal, and the country is known to have only a small research reactor.
In Vienna, Austria, officials for the International Atomic Energy Agency declined comment. But a diplomat associated with the agency said the IAEA "didn't know anything about any nuclear facility in Syria, and if there is something there, we should know."
Syria was the subject of an IAEA investigation in 2004 on suspicions it could have been a customer of the nuclear black market run by the Khan network — the same operation that supplied Iran and Libya for their clandestine atomic projects. The diplomat in Vienna, who insisted on anonymity, said the IAEA found no concrete evidence of such activity.
Israeli incursions into Syrian airspace are uncommon, unlike in neighboring Lebanon where Israeli warplanes have regularly made reconnaissance flights since last year's war with Hezbollah. Such flights were reported late Tuesday over southern Lebanon.
W. Patrick Lang, former head of Mideast intelligence at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, said Israel's incursion over Syria may have been staged to convince the Syrians that its forces are still formidable despite the inconclusive war with Hezbollah. Syria may have tempered its response for fear of escalation, he added.
"The Syrians are really worried because of the hostility of the Bush administration," said Lang. "If things degenerate, they could end up on the receiving end of a strike from Israel, with the go-ahead from the U.S."
The editorial in Tishrin, which reflects Syrian government thinking in a country where the media is tightly controlled, said the U.S. accusations show Washington's pro-Israel bias and have no credibility.
It said Washington was "busy on behalf of Israel circulating claims" that the incursion involved "possible nuclear facilities supplied by (North) Korea."
"The strange thing is that the Americans are talking on behalf of Israel and are providing excuses and concocting new false spins such as talking about presumed Syrian nuclear activity and completely turning a blind eye about the Israeli nuclear danger," the Syrian editorial said.
Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but has never acknowledged it.
The Syrian newspaper said the accusations "recall those false claims that the Americans and the British circulated about Iraq's nuclear programs."
Tishrin was referring to Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, one reasons cited by the U.S. for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. No such weapons were found.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, meanwhile, sought to calm tensions with Syria.
The nervousness in relations between Syria and ourselves is over," Peres told foreign reporters in Jerusalem. "We are clearly ready to negotiate directly with Syria for peace."
Peres' comment followed similar remarks Monday by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who said he has "a lot of respect for the Syrian leader (President Bashar Assad) and for Syrian behavior."
Olmert said he is prepared for peace negotiations with Syria if the conditions are right. He made the offer of peace talks before, but it was the first time he had mentioned Syria since the reported airstrike. In 2000, Israel-Syria talks neared agreement but broke down over final border and peace arrangements.
Source: Yahoo
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