Syria could be next, warns Washington

Syria could be next, warns Washington

Ed Vulliamy in Washington
Sunday April 13, 2003
The Observer

The United States has pledged to tackle the Syrian-backed Hizbollah
group in
the next phase of its 'war on terror' in a move which could threaten
military action against President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus.
The move is part of Washington's efforts to persuade Israel to support
a new
peace settlement with the Palestinians. Washington has promised Israel
that
it will take 'all effective action' to cut off Syria's support for
Hizbollah - implying a military strike if necessary, sources in the
Bush
administration have told The Observer .

Hizbollah is a Shia Muslim organisation based in Lebanon, whose
fighters
have attacked northern Israeli settlements and harassed occupying
Israeli
troops to the point of forcing an Israeli withdrawal from southern
Lebanon
three years ago.

The new US undertaking to Israel to deal with Hizbollah via its Syrian
sponsors has been made over recent days during meetings between
administration officials and Israeli diplomats in Washington, and
Americans
talking to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. It would
be
part of a deal designed to entice Israel into the so-called road map to
peace package that would involve the Jewish state pulling out of the
Palestinian West Bank, occupied since 1967.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has so far rejected the road map initiative
-
charted by the US with its ally, Britain - which also calls for mutual
recognition between Israel and a new Palestinian state, structured
according
to US-backed reforms. The American guarantee would be to take armed
action
if necessary to cut off Syrian support for Hizbollah, and stop further
sponsorship for the group by Iran.

'If you control Iraq, you can affect the Syrian and Iranian sponsorship
of
Hizbollah, both geographically and politically,' says Ivo Daalder of
the
Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington.

'The United States will make it very clear, quietly and publicly, that
Baathist Syria may come to an end if it does not stop its support of
Hizbollah.'

The undertaking dovetails conveniently into 'phase three' of what
President
George Bush calls the 'war on terror' and his pledge to go after all
countries accused of harbouring terrorists.

It also fits into calls by hawks inside and aligned to the
administration
who believe that war in Iraq was first stage in a wider war for
American
control of the region. Threats against Syria come daily out of
Washington.

Hawks in and close to the Bush White House have prepared the ground for
an
attack on Syria, raising the spectre of Hizbollah, of alleged Syrian
plans
to wel come refugees from Saddam Hussein's fallen regime, and of what
the
administration insists is Syrian support for Iraq during the war.

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - regarded as the real
architect of
the Iraqi war and its aftermath - said on Thursday that 'the Syrians
have
been shipping killers into Iraq to try and kill Americans', adding: 'We
need
to think about what our policy is towards a country that harbours
terrorists
or harbours war criminals.

'There will have to be change in Syria, plainly,' said Wolfowitz.

Washingtom intelligence sources claim that weapons of mass destruction
that
Saddam was alleged to have possessed were shipped to Syria after
inspectors
were sent by the United Nations to find them.

One of the chief ideologists behind the war, Richard Perle, yesterday
warned
that the US would be compelled to act against Syria if it emerged that
weapons of mass destruction had been moved there by Saddam's fallen
Iraqi
regime.

[Infrared]

Christ, here we go again.....

woohoooo, protect our freedom! kill the foreign people!

[KiloWatts]

Yeah, it's plainly obvious that we are in horrible danger of being attacked by a third world country - even though in Iraq we encountered little to no resistance at all, and managed to take over the entire country in a matter of less than 3 months.

Scary bastards, those arabs.