Don’t Forget Syria
While the U.S. focuses on Israel-Palestinian negotiations, Syria has been working to decrease its international isolation. The European community (France, in particular) gave Hafez Assad a warm welcome earlier this year. But Syria is on the U.S. list of terrorism supporting countries for areas on, and Assad showed again this week that he plays his foreign policy cards to the general detriment of peace and security in the region.
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While the U.S. focuses on Israel-Palestinian negotiations, Syria has been working to decrease its international isolation. The European community (France, in particular) gave Hafez Assad a warm welcome earlier this year. But Syria is on the U.S. list of terrorism supporting countries for areas on, and Assad showed again this week that he plays his foreign policy cards to the general detriment of peace and security in the region.
1. As a footnote to other Middle East news, Lebanese “President” Elias Hrawi and Syrian “President” Hafez Assad held a summit meeting in Damascus to select the incoming Lebanese “President.” Never mind whom they chose. The fact that the Syrian dictator anointed him is a reminder for those who need one that Lebanon remains a wholly owned Syrian subsidiary. What Assad cannot accomplish with his 40,000-man uniformed army of occupation or the 1million Syrian “guest workers” in Lebanon, he will accomplish with his handpicked puppet – or is that hand puppet?
Continuing Syrian control of Lebanon provides Iran with a safe haven for training and equipping its Hizballah terrorists. Israel pays a continuing price for this, of course, but Iranian-sponsored terrorists have also been strongly implicated in anti-American and anti-Western activities across the Middle East and Africa.
Earlier this year, Israel tried to implement UN Resolution 425 which provides for the removal of “all foreign forces from Lebanon” – meaning Israeli and Syrian. Israel said it would withdraw if the Lebanese Army deployed to Southern Lebanon and the central government agreed to control its side of the Israel/Lebanon border. Israel’s proposal was well received at the UN by the Secretary General, France, and the U.S., among others including, at first, the Lebanese. But it was quashed by Syrian insistence that Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon be in tandem with Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. The Lebanese quickly fell in line behind the Syrians, ensuring continued Hizballah activity in the south, and more trouble for Israel and the West.
2. Syria has long harbored Kurdish terrorists of the PKK in northern Syria to enable them to carry their fight into Turkey, and has allowed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to live openly in Damascus in violation of multiple promises to Turkey that support for the PKK would cease. Warfare with Kurds based – and supported from – outside Turkey has been devastating, and the Turks finally appear to have had enough. The Turkish Prime Minister mobilized 10,000 troops along the Syrian border and issued a series of strong warnings. Greece announced support for the Syrian position and Egyptian President Mubarak embarked upon a shuttle mission between Ankara and Damascus.
Facing what appeared to be a determined Turkish government, the Syrians announced that Ocalan had “escaped” from Damascus. Excuse our cynicism, but no one “escapes” from Syria; it is one of the most closely controlled dictatorships in the world. If Ocalan is temporarily elsewhere, it is because Assad’s interests lay with having him elsewhere, at least long enough for the Turks to demobilize along the border.
The United States, as a party to Israel-Arab negotiations and as a NATO member with close ties to Turkey, must ensure that Syrian support of terrorism is understood and not rewarded.