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Posted on 02/28/2005 8:41:52 AM PST by dead
WITH anti-Syrian protesters massed in the heart of Beirut last night and the US redoubling its insistence that Syrian troops pull out of Lebanon, the regime in Damascus - which handed over Saddam Hussein's half-brother to authorities in Iraq at the weekend - has begun making extraordinary concessions under pressure.
As Israeli Government officials provided comprehensive briefings to foreign diplomats yesterday, linking Syria to Friday's suicide bomb attack at a crowded Tel Aviv nightclub that disrupted almost three months of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the picture of Syrian discomfort was complete.
A military regime long used to coercing and threatening its enemies is now in the frame, internationally condemned as a terror state, and under orders to withdraw its soldiers from a key deployment in a neighbouring country.
Syria's critics have been most vocal in their response to the assassination two weeks ago of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, an act tied to Syrian intelligence but publicly lamented by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
For the past year, the US and France, as co-sponsors of a UN Security Council resolution, have been leading the international drive to force Syria's 14,000 troops from Lebanon. The Syrian regime has repeatedly, if vaguely, promised that it will comply.
US President George W.Bush singled out Syria in his State of the Union address early this year and insisted that free elections in Lebanon, scheduled for May, should be allowed to unfold without Syrian troops present.
Syria's covert involvement in acts of spectacular violence against two of its neighbours, Lebanon and Israel, has become the new centre of contention.
Against this backdrop, the Syrian bid to relieve US pressure by trading in one of the former Iraqi dictator's key relations, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti, marks both the mounting anxiety in Damascus and the regime's lack of options.
US hostility to Syria has been fuelled by the regime's well-cloaked backing for the Iraqi insurgency; signs that this dam of anger was about to break have come fast in recent days, as US warnings have paced intelligence revelations.
Last week, several Syrian intelligence officers were paraded on Iraqi television, confirming they had been involved in financing the rebellion against the US-led occupation of the country.
Yet the decision to release Saddam's half-brother seems a staggeringly maladroit bargaining move, since it instantly confirms that senior Iraqi Baath regime officials have been under Syrian control for the past two years, and that the insurgency is in part a Syrian-sponsored venture.
Designed to show a willingness to deal, the gesture will be regarded by US officials as a token both of weakness and of complicity.
With the war on terror moving to a new front, Syria is now the front-line state. Elections have been held or are due in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon -- the three areas where Syria is accused of cryptic political violence.
Abruptly, the future and even the survival of the Assad regime in Damascus, long considered the most stable of the Arab dictatorships, looks in grave doubt. Mr Assad's denials of involvement in acts ordered by his intelligence chiefs suggest either duplicity or irrelevance.
Either way, after handing over one Iraqi insurgency chief, and so meeting one key US demand, all the rest will have to follow to end the pressure campaign.
As the protesters chant in Beirut and the Israelis prepare their dossiers showing Syrian involvement in Palestinian terror, the mood has shifted.
The Syrians have placed a gun at their own head and will now be incessantly urged to dismantle their terror apparatus, reform their state and pull their armies off Lebanese soil.
War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing.
—George W. Bush, Speech at National Cathedral, September 14, 2001
Victory against terrorism will not take place in a single battle, but in a series of decisive actions against terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them.
—George W. Bush, Radio address to the nation, September 15, 2001
If only Chris Rock were paying attention...
He's too busy running off at the mouth to notice W is the new sheriff in town.
The Bush Effect
It's all Bush's fault!
Bushwhacked !
However wishing that surrendering Saddam half brother to the Iraqis will ease the US pressure on them to withdraw from Lebanon is a terribly fatal wish.
The financing and backing of agents to murder Iraqi, Isreali, and United States civilians, police officers and soldiers by Syria constitute Acts of War by Syria against Iraq, Isreal and the United States.
What would happen if the Iraqi government decides to respond militarily to these attacks?
What would happen if the Iraqi government decides to respond militarily to these attacks?
With their current military situation, they’d get their ass kicked.
(Of course, Iraq does have “a friend named Harvey” nearby.)
The upheavaling of this regime will surely upset our State Department, who worship the Great God Stability.
We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest.George W. Bush, Address to Congress, September 20, 2001.And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
Better look again at whats going on over there
Syria's army isn't terribly formidable...and it isn't trained by Americans.
But Iraq's army hardly even exists at this point.
This is a common pattern in upstart tyrannical regimes: the father establishes a brutal but stable regime and then the son lacks the skill to keep it going: compare the Duvalier regime in Haiti. In the post-Solomonic kingdom of Israel, you find cases of a man starting a new dynasty, followed by a son who is ousted after a short reign: Nadab, son of Jeroboam, for example, who reigned "two years" (which could mean one year and a fraction of a second year) (I Kings 15:25). Earlier, Saul's son Ishbosheth (or Ishbaal) hadn't lasted long (II Samuel 2.10) after Saul's demise.
President Bush Great Middle East project to spread freedom and democracy is working very well.
"How soon before we can dig up Saddam's WMDs conveniently buried in the Bekka Valley."
As soon as the Israelis locate them.
so does this mean Pakistan moves up the list here, after all it is harbouring the biggest terrorist of all is it not?
oh if the WMD are in the Bekka Valley, we are in trouble because that means it is in the hands of Hezbollah
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