If the Bush administration had been as serious about fighting terrorism as it claimed and not obsessed with settling old scores, the Middle East would be a much safer place today and Syria wouldn’t be at the nuclear threshold.
The Israeli Air Force drove home that lesson earlier this month, although the details are still fuzzy. The Israelis are uncharacteristically tight-lipped about what happened Sept. 6 in northeastern Syria.
Israeli analyst Dan Schueftan would not discuss any details of the operation, saying only, “We did the right thing. Those who need to know, know, and the rest can keep guessing. What’s important is the signal it sends is as important as the action itself.”
A byproduct of the incident, but not the objective, was to eliminate any misconceptions that Israel had lost its deterrence or determination as a result of last summer’s war in Lebanon with Hizbullah, Schueftan said.
There have been a ton of rumors and speculation and mere ounces of facts about what really happened.
According to Britain’s Sunday Times, quoting Israeli sources, the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, had evidence that Damascus was trying to buy a North Korean nuclear weapon to mount on a North Korean-built missile in order to deliver “a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel.”
No one would have known about the Israeli raid had the Syrians not leaked the story in the first place, but Damascus now regrets drawing attention to its possible nuclear weapons cooperation with North Korea.
Rumors abound
Israeli silence contrasts with past boasting of military successes that brought widespread condemnation of the Jewish state for doing what needed to be done.
That’s what happened in 1981 when Prime Minister Menachem Begin phoned Israel Radio to announce the destruction of Iraq’s Osiraq reactor.
While all of Iraq’s neighbors quietly thanked Israel, they publicly denounced it. The Reagan administration collaborated with the Iraqis to draft a U.N. resolution condemning Israel, and it embargoed arms shipments.
This time the Americans were informed in advance, as were the Turks. The American secretaries of defense and state have obliquely lent credence to reports that Israel struck a nuclear facility without confirming anything.
Rumors abound about Israel’s actual target or intent: a convoy of new missiles for Hizbullah, a Syrian missile base, a terrorist camp, a diversion for Israeli commandos to steal nuclear equipment or a dress rehearsal for attacking Iran.
Whatever happened, commented the Boston Herald, “At last, Syria has to pay real penalties for its aid to terrorists.”
That is a critical message that the Bush administration has consistently failed to deliver to Damascus, despite plenty of tough talk.
It has huffed and puffed, and imposed some largely ineffective sanctions at the urging of Congress and pro-Israel activists.
Nevertheless, Syria has paid no real penalty for being a conduit of men and weapons killing Americans in Iraq or for being a facilitator for Hizbullah, Hamas and other anti-Israel terror groups.
In the panoply of terrorists around the globe, Syria represented a more serious danger than Iraq. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been contained and defanged by the time of the American invasion, while Damascus was actively involved with many terror groups and has only gotten worse.
Syria had never faced punishment for its role in bombing the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 killing over 300, mostly Americans.
Making matters more dangerous, an old friend of Syria is getting back in game, raising tensions in the region. Russia, after playing a constructive role in the immediate post-Cold War years, is reprising its old role of spoiler.
It is encouraging the Syrians to become more radical by supplying them with advanced air defense systems and large numbers of sophisticated anti-tank missiles that proved so effective in the hands of Hizbullah.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is “playing a very disruptive role because he wants to show Russia cannot be ignored and can be very disruptive,” Schueftan said. He added that problem is “underestimated significantly” in Washington and Europe.
In 1967, the Soviet Union goaded Syria into believing Israel was about to attack when it wasn’t. There were reports it was doing that again this summer.
Syria keeps threatening to retaliate for the recent mystery raid, a great risk for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad if Israel takes him seriously and doesn’t wait to find out if he is bluffing. The Israeli raid succeeded in that it showed how vulnerable the Syrians are despite their upgraded air defenses.
If North Korea was supplying Syria with nuclear technology, that action violated the six-party agreement in which Pyongyang committed to nuclear disarmament, and that would torpedo the North Korean regime’s hopes of being removed from the U.S. terrorist list.
U.S. threats have had little apparent effect on Syria because of a lack of follow-through. The Israeli message was more persuasive.
Assad saw Israel as weak and vulnerable. The new memo delivered by the Israeli Air Force was that his air defense system is not what he believed and Israel’s deterrent and determination were not blunted by Hizbullah, despite the group’s boasts.
The greatest danger in the Middle East today may be that Assad and his partners in terror aren’t reading their mail.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based syndicated columnist and a former chief lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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