[lbo-talk] Y2K Neocon Report on Invading Syria

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Thu Apr 24 02:10:05 PDT 2003


http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15679

Jim Lobe, Foreign Policy in Focus April 18, 2003

Many of the same people who led the campaign for war against Iraq

signed a report released three years ago that called for using

military force to disarm Syria of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

and to end its military presence in Lebanon.

Among the signers are several senior members of the administration of

President George W. Bush, including the chief Middle East aide on the

National Security Council, Elliott Abrams; Undersecretary of Defense

for Policy Douglas Feith; Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs

Paula Dobriansky; and senior consultants to both the State Department

and the Pentagon on Iraq policy, Michael Rubin and David Wurmser. Also

signing were Richard Perle, the powerful former chairman of the

Defense Policy Board (DPB); Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former United Nations

ambassador; Frank Gaffney, a former Perle aide who heads the Center

for Defense Policy; Michael Ledeen, another close Perle collaborator

at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI); and David Steinmann,

chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs

(JINSA).

The study, Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role, was

co-authored by Daniel Pipes, who has just been nominated by Bush to a

post at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), and Ziad Abdelnour, who

heads a group founded by him called the United States Committee for a

Free Lebanon (USCFL). The study was released by Pipes' group, the

Middle East Forum.

The USCFL, whose 67 "Golden Circle" members include virtually all of

the 31 signatories of the report, has been a major force behind the

Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act that was

just reintroduced in the House of Representatives last Friday by Reps.

Eliot Engel, a USCFL member, and Ileana Ros Lehtinen. The legislation,

which had 150 cosponsors in the House last year, would impose

far-reaching economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria until the

president certified that it has stopped all support to Lebanon's

Hezbollah militia and other groups that Washington considers

"terrorist," the government withdraws its estimated 20,000 troops from

Lebanon, and takes other measures long demanded by Washington.

"Now that Saddam Hussein's regime (in Iraq) is defeated," Engel said

April 11, "it is time for America to get serious about Syria. The

United States must not tolerate (its) continued support of the most

deadly terrorist organizations in the world, its development of

weapons of mass destruction, and its occupation of Lebanon." He said a

companion measure, cosponsored by Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and

Republican Sen. Rick Santorum will soon be introduced in the Senate.

The action comes amid a two-week-old flurry of threats by top

administration officials against Syria over its alleged failure to

cooperate with Washington's military campaign against Baghdad.

Those threats culminated Sunday when Bush himself accused Syria of

having chemical weapons, although he did not specify whether they were

home-grown or received from Iraq for safe-keeping, as alleged by

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon earlier this year and repeated by

senior Pentagon officials. Last week, Defense Secretary Donald

Rumsfeld accused Syria of harboring members of Hussein's regime, and,

asked whether Damascus was "next" after Iraq, replied that "it depends

on people's behavior."

Intelligence officials told reporters last week that Rumsfeld had

ordered the drawing up of contingency plans for a possible invasion of

Syria and that Feith, the Pentagon's number three official, had begun

work on a policy paper about Syria's support of terrorist groups.

"There's got to be a change in Syria," said Deputy Secretary of State

Paul Wolfowitz last Sunday on a TV network news program. "It is a

strange regime, one of extreme ruthlessness." At the same time, former

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, a favorite

of Wolfowitz and Perle who may be tapped to play a top political role

in post-war Iraq, declared that Washington was fighting enemies in a

"World War IV" that includes "fascists of Iraq and Syria," a reference

to Syria's ruling Baath Party.

These statements have contributed to the growing impression that

administration hawks do indeed consider Syria next on the list,

although some have also made clear that if President Bashar Assad --

who CIA sources have said has generally cooperated with U.S. efforts

against the al Qaeda terrorist group of Osama bin Laden -- meets a

number of demands, possibly including turning over Iraqi officials who

may have entered Syria, he is unlikely to face the full force of U.S.

military power, at least for now.

Still, there is no question that the hawks, boosted by the

easier-than-expected victory in Baghdad, are eager to throw their

weight around, particularly in Syria's direction. This is especially

true of the neoconservatives closest to the right-wing Likud Party in

Israel who, 19 years after U.S. Marines completed a humiliating

withdrawal from Beirut in the wake of a series of deadly bombings

committed by Syria-backed Hezbollah, appear to be itching to get

revenge.

Indeed, it was Assad's father Hafez who single-handedly frustrated

U.S. efforts to convert the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon into a

major strategic advance in the region. At the time, Abrams, Perle,

Kirkpatrick, Gaffney, and Ledeen were all serving in the Ronald Reagan

administration. Syria intervened in Lebanon's civil war in 1975 and

has kept tens of thousands of troops there since, although they have

become less conspicuous over the past decade. Except for the 18 months

that followed Israel's 1982 invasion (which was led by Sharon),

Damascus' influence has been decisive in Beirut's foreign and defense

policy.

The 2000 study by Pipes' Middle East Forum stressed that "Syrian rule

in Lebanon stands in direct opposition to American ideals," and it

rued Washington's habit since 1983 of engaging rather than confronting

the regime, the only government on the State Department's "terrorism"

list with which Washington has full diplomatic relations. The "Lebanon

Study Group" urged a policy of confrontation, beginning with tough

economic and diplomatic sanctions that could not be waived by the

president and, if necessary, military force.

"The Vietnam legacy and the sour memories of dead American Marines in

Beirut notwithstanding," the group wrote, "the United States has

entered a new era of undisputed military supremacy coupled with an

appreciable drop in human losses on the battlefield." The group also

warned that, "This opens the door to a similar decision to act for

Lebanon's endangered freedoms and pluralism. But this opportunity may

not wait, for as weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities spread, the

risks of such action will rapidly grow," in an argument eerily similar

to those the hawks deployed prior to the Iraq invasion. "If there is

to be decisive action, it will have to be sooner rather than later."

The USCFL, which lists Amin Gemayel -- who as Lebanon's president

signed an aborted peace treaty with Israel in 1983 -- as the top

figure in the Lebanese opposition on its website, appears to enjoy

strong backing from both the Christian Right and far-right Jewish

neoconservatives, such as Perle, Ledeen, Steinmann, Pipes, and

Gaffney. While a handful of the Lebanese-Americans listed in its

"Golden Circle" are Muslim, most, including Abdelnour, an investment

banker, are Christian.

Editor's Note: This piece was commissioned under the auspices of the

Project Against the Present Danger.

Jim Lobe is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus. He also

writes regularly for Alternet and Inter Press Service.

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.



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