War talk sweeps city

UPI ^ | Feb. 12, 2003 | By Richard Sale and Nicholas M. Horrock

[Megalomaniac]

War talk sweeps city By Richard Sale and Nicholas M. Horrock UPI Correspondents From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk Published 2/12/2003 1:07 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- In this city obsessed with the Iraq confrontation, you can a hear a plan de jour, from the United States destruction of Syria to the dismemberment of the Saudi Arabia kingdom, to a plan where President George W. Bush will end up taking Jewish votes from the Democrats.

At the dinner tables and watering holes of this capital, the idea that Bush wants to invade Iraq solely to disarm Saddam Hussein, what the White House says, has given way to rumors of all sorts of plans to rewrite the map of Middle East to better ensure Israel's security.

Take Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of counter-terrorism operations of the CIA. He sees Bush heading for bigger game than just disarming Saddam Hussein. "Clearly Iraq is not the last phase of what the administration tends to do in the Middle East." According to the neo-con theory, he said, "Syria is to be the next target." He concurred with another view in Washington that holds that part of the Bush plan was to "wean the Jewish lobby away from the Democrats" and that "it's already pretty much happened." For decades, the Democratic Party had strong support in the American Jewish community, but Bush has been a strong supporter and close friend of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the past two years and unwilling to have a meeting with Yasser Arafat.

Or Joe Klein writing in Time Magazine's Feb. 5 edition that "Israel is very much embedded in the rationale for war with Iraq. It is part of the argument that dare not speak its name, a fantasy quietly cherished by the neo-conservative faction in the Bush and by many leaders of the American Jewish Community."

Klein's article says this "fantasy" will "send a message to Syria and Iran about the perils of support for Islamic terrorists" and bring the Palestinians into line, shake what he calls the "wobbly Hashemite monarchy in Jordan." Klein said, "no one in the government ever actually says these things publicly."

The White House bristles that all these rumored plots, particularly one that suggests getting part of the Jewish vote, are in the words of deputy press secretary Scott McClellan "ridiculous." The president, he said, is concentrating on removing deadly weapons of mass destruction from the hands of Saddam Hussein and preventing them from falling into the hands of terrorists. The administration briefings turn aside questions on all these other plots, but they persist.

Former State Department and CIA counter-terrorism expert Larry Johnson told United Press International the next Bush target could very well be Syria. "The administration may be working on the theory that by taking care of a secondary target like Syria, you bring tremendous pressure on primary targets" such as Iran and may force changes in policy and behavior "without resorting to force."

"By rights," Iran "should be the next target since it's the largest state sponsor of terrorism," Johnson said.

Former CIA official Robert Baer, when asked about the master plan for the Middle East, told UPI last fall that Bush's team allegedly wanted "to divide up Syria, give part of Iraq to Turkey, overthrow the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, restore the Hashemites to the Hijaz," a very center of Saudi Arabian culture.

"The underlying motivation" for this, Baer said, "is Israel. They think the demographics are going badly for Israel, for the U.S." Israeli officials have long feared that the birth rate in Arab states would change the demographics of the Middle East in Arab favor, he said.

A State Department official and Middle East expert told UPI that she "first heard of the plan from ultra-conservative think tanks. They talked about how the Turks are our friend -- let's have Turks invade northern Iraq. Turkey has an alliance with Israel and has difficult relations with Arab states and wants to maintain good relations with Tel Aviv, but it doesn't want to take part in dismemberment of an Arab state. That's a step too far."

But this foreign policy expert, who asked that she not be identified by name, told UPI, "There have been discussions to that effect in the administration. We go back to Hopkirk and the Great Game," referring to Peter Hopkirk, a British historian who wrote about the fight to control Central Asia by Russia and Britain in 19th century. She doesn't report solid plans inside the Bush team, but something worried her, she said.

"Are we recreating the Ottoman Empire?" she wondered. "If we gave Turkey Mosul and Kirkuk, the Iranians would move into the Shiite areas, and it would be a signal that regional powers have a green light to expand.

"It's very romantic, very silly. It's madness I think that they (Douglas Feith, a Defense Department planner and Vice President Richard Cheney) are living in some sort of 19rth century imperial phase where Britain did these things. It was before CNN too."

She added: "If we try to do these kinds of things we won't be able to travel anywhere in the world. I have heard a lot of horrifyingly scary things from people in the administration who just want to do things for the sake of pure power, as if as if there is not price to pay for it, in taking over the world."

Ken Pollack, an expert on Iraq and former CIA analyst at the Brookings Institution, described a little different version of the plan in December: "It's a truly bizarre strategic picture, a lot of truly weird ideas being discussed. All sorts of groups are advocating all sorts of things."

On the dismemberment of Iraq: "The United States has said officially no dismemberment, but there were big fights over it. The argument is that Iraq and Syria are not really states but artificial entities set up by the British after World War I. Well, setting up artificial entities didn't work for the British or the French, why would we want to try it?"

"In any case, the proposal to dismember Iraq was finally shouted down."

Even in Syria, the idea of a bigger U.S. war plan has taken hold, according to a report from a UPI correspondent in Damascus on Feb. 5: "Syria is making an intense diplomatic effort among its Middle Eastern neighbors and further abroad to prevent an apparently inevitable U.S.-led war on Iraq. Damascus suspects that Washington's plan to reshape the Middle East region after the removal of Iraq's Saddam Hussein includes Israeli hegemony over the region.

"Syria fears Washington would restructure the region in line with its new vision," a Western diplomat told United Press International. This vision, the diplomat said, sees Israeli hegemony as possible after the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and the acceptance of Israel continuing to occupy Syria's Golan Heights and the Shabaa farms. The latter is territory on the Israeli border that Syria says belongs to Lebanon but Israel insists is part of Syria."

Another worry is an influx of Iraqi war refugees and chaos on its border with Iraq should civil war break out there. Equally troubling to Damascus is a dread it shares with Ankara: the appearance on its border of an Iraqi Kurdish state that would be a lure for its own Kurds. These number 1.5 million or so in Syria and about 12 million in Turkey.

All this is a cause of genuine terror to Syria, the diplomat said.

[walden]

I thought UPI was a news service? Since when does a farrago of nonsense, a bunch of hyperventilating rumors become news?

[omega4412]

There's something to be said for making Syria our next taget in the Middle East and letting the Iranians take care of their own tyrants.

[CedarDave]

Liberals and media types: They don't take Bush at his word and ascribe all sorts of sub-plots because they can't believe that the President is not power hungry like their former leader and his bitch wife. What part of made-in-Iraq weapons of mass destruction don't you understand? Grrrr.

[astounded]

I think a lot of the "Washington types" have been lurking here at FR. Many of these ideas have been discussed previously and, I think, have some merit.

[CedarDave]

You know, this says more about liberal fantasies and the mind set of Foggy Bottom employees that have too much time on their hands, than it does about George W. Bush.

[My2Cents]

Right. Why go after Iran when the people of Iran may tip the balance in a counter-revolution?

I corresponded with a guy yesterday who said that No. Korea is much of a threat to the US that Iran, so why weren't we placing our focus on No. Korea? I asked him if he was seriously suggesting that we pull all of our troops out of the Persian Gulf, concentrate them in So. Korea, and declare war on No. Korea? At that point, he backed off. I trust the Administration to prosecute the war on terror as they see fit. So far, I support Bush's strategy.

[JmyBryan]

Why this administration is so cool - They know that solving the Israeli/Palestinian crisis is the key to cutting the heart out of Islamic terrorism. The key to solving the crisis is destabilizing the Arab regimes who refuse to help and only use the Palestinian conflict to perpetuate their own questionable regimes. Iraq is just number one on the list.

[Stentor]

Iraq is just number one on the list.

A lot of rotten apples will be falling from the trees.

[Greybird]

What "hyperventilating rumors"? You can read aspects of all of these plans, debated with feverish breath, in The Weekly Standard.

[ARCADIA]

I think there is some truth to the viewpoints in this article. I think the Republicans want the Jews to migrate from the Democrats, much like the South and the evangelical Christians did.

I also think that the war in Iraq has a lot to do with Israel's security. And, all the countries in the Middle East are artificial entities, created by the British after WWI with no thought to their ethnic composition. So redrawing the map is not a big deal, either to the people actually on the ground or in a historical sense.

But the unspoken reason for attacking Iraq is not in this article. The reason is this --

Eliminating Saddam frees up Iraq's oil for sale in the world markets. This vastly reduces Saudi and Iranian power and allows the US to better protect itself from the murderous religious fundamentalists that run both countries. Right now if the US starts pressuring them, they can destroy our economy in months simply by cutting off the oil supply. With Iraqi oil in US hands, their power will be much less.

BTW, I think that Saudi Arabia is next.

[Argus]

Your points are all well taken, but I think the real reason for attacking Iraq is 9/11/01, and the fact that Saddam is the single most high-profile and bellicose leading figure on the Arab side. You take down the biggest loudmouth first and that gets the others' attention.

[Pagey]

"Syria fears Washington would restructure the region in line with its new vision," a Western diplomat told United Press International.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought about Syria, but they are a country that sponsors Terrorism aren't they.Our Defense people have some really interesting ideas and I bet this article isn't even the tip of the (possible) iceberg.

[kabar]

Pure nonsense. I wonder about the origin of this stuff and what the agenda is. If it is to create the impression that the United States is an imperial power more interested in real politic than its stated objectives, I smell a rat.

[Mr_Magoo]

Another reason to go after Iraq . . .

Location, Location, Location.

Iraq is more or less centered in the Mid-East. Using Iraq as a Base of Operations, Bush can go in any direction he needs to counter Al K-Duh idiots.

[RightWhale]

"Israel is very much embedded in the rationale for war with Iraq. It is part of the argument that dare not speak its name, a fantasy quietly cherished by the neo-conservative faction in the Bush

People up here in the Bush are ready. Duct tape, drop cloth, spam, been ready for some time. Good luck to Israel, they are in a tough spot.