| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:07 am Post subject: Next Stop: Syria |
| September 14, 2005
Next Stop: Syria
The neocons aren't through with us – not by a long-shot…
by Justin Raimondo
The pressure on Syria is being increased, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a "border incident" involving a shoot-out between Syrian and American troops. We may be in for a new TonkinGulf, leading to an extension of our "liberatory" efforts in the Middle East.
We already have U.S. Ambassador (i.e., Imperial Viceroy) Zalmay Khalilzad making threats, and this, coupled with the ongoingframe-up of Syria over the assassination of Rafik Hariri, will soon put Damascus in the spotlight. Readers of the "Clean Break" scenario co-authored by Richard Perle and his gang in Washington will be familiar with the strategic rationale advanced by theLikudniks now in positions of power in the Bush administration: the road to Damascus, always considered by Israel the front line in their battle against the Arab world, runs through Baghdad, and this latest propaganda campaign is similar to the one preceding the invasion of Iraq. Israeli pressure on the U.S. to restore their lost hegemony in Lebanon, disarm Hezbollah, and overthrow Syrian strongman Bashar Assad has been unrelenting, and the Amen Corner in the U.S. – yes, that's Michael Young of Reason magazine, among others – is barking and yelping with its usual lack of restraint. Speaking of Young, you have only to peruse his most recent screed for Tech Central Station – a favored watering hole of liberventionists – to get a sense of just how murky and unconvincing the case targeting Syria as Hariri's assassin is. Speculating on the contents of a secret preliminary report issued by the UN investigator on the death of Hariri, Young avers:
"The preliminary report did not address the substance of what [UN chief investigator Detlev] Mehlis and his team had found, though it did offer details allowing for some educated guesses."
The anti-libertarian Young is "educated" by his enthusiasm for U.S. military power as a "liberating" force in the world, and his "guesses" have consistently served his own agenda: one commenter on Jim Henley's blog trenchantly described Young as "a kinder gentler Aounist."
Ignoring the repeatedstatements by Mehlis that no Syrian is on his list of suspects, Young speculates that Assad himself is implicated – again, based on nothing but vague "rumors" and "press reports" (from the notoriously unreliable government-controlled Kuwaiti media).
Young's piece is filled with brazen rumor-mongering and embarrassing phrases – or, at least, they would be embarrassing if Young bothered to hide his propagandistic take on events in Lebanon, which he doesn't.
"While one must await the final report, the latest rumors in Beirut suggest…"
"Yet another rumor difficult to corroborate, published without attribution in Internet and press reports…"
Another "rumor" (i.e., lie) pushed by Young, and subsequently abandoned, was the assertion that the bomb that killed Hariri was planted in the middle of the road, and that this (somehow) proved that Syrian intelligence was behind the plot, because, you see, Syria had absolute hegemony over the streets of Beirut, and, in any case, no assassination could have taken place without Syria's assent. When this "why don't we do it in the road?" theory was debunked, Young never acknowledged that the evidence had destroyed his neat little theory – and that his sources were somewhat dubious. He merely moved on to another talking point. A typical neocon, he; that Young has found a home at Reason magazine, once a libertarian periodical and now the plaything of heedless hedonists, is just more evidence that we have entered a Bizarro World universe, where "libertarians" act like they're employed by the Office of Strategic Influence, frolic with a "former" Trotskyite in Vegas while playing the slot machines, and hope for yet another big windfall from some neocon foundation.
I might add that the equally clueless Hooman Majd, over at the Huffington Post, doesn't believe the threats from the U.S. represent anything more substantial than hot air. Like so many at Huffpuff, his heart is in the right place, but his head isn't screwed on right. In response to Khalilzad's ominous remark to the effect that "all options are on the table" with regard to dealing with Syria, Mr. Majd has this to say:
"Sorry Mr. Ambassador, I don't think the line works anymore. There may have been a time when U.S. threats were meaningful, but they sure aren't now. The Iranian response to the same threat issued by President Bush some months ago was to laugh it off, or more recently in the wake of 'not all options are on the table' Katrina, to threaten right back. Perhaps the administration may want to start engaging in some diplomacy (what one assumes is an ambassador's actual job). If we want Syria's help (or even Iran's help) in pacifying Iraq, then berating them in public and issuing threats is hardly the way to bring them around, particularly since most of the world, if not most Americans, have seen that the emperor (along with many of his subjects on the Gulf Coast) has no clothes."
Sorry, Mr. Majd, but you just don't get it, do you? This administration will stop at nothing – nothing! – to advance its Middle Eastern agenda, and that agenda consists of a single simple word: conquest [.pdf]. Anyone who really believes that Hurricane Katrina will divert this administration and the neocon cabal that has seized control of our foreign policy from pursuing their dreams of Empire is a fool. A new conflict will divert attention away from the incompetence surrounding the response to Katrina: the devastation and Bush's clueless efforts to ameliorate it will only encourage the White House to leave us with a lasting legacy of fresh horrors in the Middle East.
Why are we in Iraq? All the better to go after Syria, then Iran. Saudi Arabia, too, is "on the table" – and the feast has just begun.
–Justin Raimondo
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7249
Last edited by Alpha on Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:59 am; edited 1 time in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 6:38 pm Post subject: Syria: A New Iraq in the Making |
| September 17, 2005
Syria: A New Iraq in the Making
by Ferry Biedermann
DAMASCUS - Syria is almost visibly wilting under a double American onslaught.
The Bush administration made it clearer than ever this week that it regards Syria as an important source of unrest in Iraq. At the same time President George Bush made hardly any attempt to hide his conviction that Syria was involved in the murder last February of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
The United Nations team investigating the assassination of Hariri will start questioning Syrian officials next week.
Detlev Mehlis who heads the inquiry held talks in Damascus Monday to work out the details of interrogations. He had said earlier that there were "problems" over Syria's cooperation with the investigation.
People in Damascus are apprehensive about the effects of the UN investigation on the country. Several talk of an "Iraq scenario" where the country would come under heavy sanctions. Syrians are worried they will not be able to get foreign goods and spare parts, and fear an embargo on international flights.
Marwan Kabalan from the Center for Strategic Studies at Damascus University says many people are worried about sanctions. "Everybody knows they will be aimed at the big guys, but it will be the regular people who get hit," he told IPS.
Joshua Landis, an American professor living in Damascus said sanctions were on everybody's mind. People also feared that reforms would be halted because the leadership would be too busy defending itself, he said.
Remarks from U.S. officials this week did nothing to alleviate such fears. U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad bluntly accused the Syrians of aiding the insurgents in Iraq.
But the real danger may come form the Mehlis investigation that has already netted some of Syria's top allies in Lebanon.
The four most important chiefs of security services in that country when Syrian troops were still present were charged last month with complicity in the Hariri murder. Many in Damascus believe these generals could not have acted without Syrian prompting.
The state-controlled Al Thawra newspaper repeated the government's worries that Syria's enemies will exploit the investigation. It voiced a "fear that the Mehlis mission could become politicized...to achieve political objectives that threaten the security of the region and its future." It went on to point the finger specifically at Israel.
The Lebanese newspaper AsSafir reported Monday that "the United States and France have agreed to raise the pressure on Syria."
The feeling of being under attack was reinforced when President Bashar Assad cancelled plans to attend the UN General Assembly session in New York. This was ostensibly to be in Damascus for the UN inquiry, but the decision came amid expectations that he would be snubbed by many world leaders.
Landis said government officials were shocked by the cancellation. They fear the investigation and its aftermath may "box in" the Syrian leadership the way Saddam Hussein was.
Lebanon's pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud is attending the meeting in New York despite being heavily criticized for it at home. Lahoud's close personal aide Mustafa Hamdan who commanded the presidential guards is one of the four people charged with the murder.
The official SANA news agency said that "Syria will fully cooperate with the international investigation committee and offer it all possible facilitations, especially that Syria is very concerned in exposing the truth about the crime of the assassination of Hariri, since this will be in its interest."
But a Western diplomat in Damascus said the government may not yet have grasped the importance of fully cooperating with the UN probe. Kabalan says the government is aware of the importance of cooperation but the extent to which it will actually go will depend on Mehlis's requests.
A Syrian political analyst said a "new guard" is now running foreign policy in Syria "and they don't understand the first thing about foreign policy." He said they had not learned from their mistakes and they may well "mess up the cooperation with the UN team."
The Western diplomat said Syria may try to "get off the Mehlis hook" by doing more to prevent aid for insurgents in Iraq crossing the border, and by getting rid of the militant Palestinian factions in Damascus. But he said this was likely to be "too little too late" and that "they are reaping what they sowed."
The political analyst said the government may want to make a deal with the Americans "like Gadhafi in Libya" in which they give up some of the people who were involved in Hariri's assassination in return for the U.S. not pushing regime change in Syria.
(Inter Press Service)
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