DAMASCUS - Senior Syrian officials have
expressed fears that the United States could target
Syria next if it attacks Iraq. "There is serious cause
for concern," says an official. "A strong lobby within
the US has been campaigning for action against Syria."
Syria is on the US list of state sponsors of
terrorism for its support for the Lebanese resistance
group Hizbollah and radical Palestinian factions. Those
groups are listed prominently in the Syria
Accountability Act before the US Congress. The act
proposes punishing Syria for backing Hamas, the Islamic
Jihad and Hizbollah. The US believes that Hizbollah was
behind the bombing of the barracks in Beirut in 1983
that killed 241 US marines.
Syria is now looking
for international moves to check an attack on Iraq. "The
whole international community, especially Europe, must
play an active role on the international arena to
restore balance into international relations," Syria's
Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa told visiting Swiss
deputy Foreign Minister France Van Dienkin earlier this
week.
Concern for itself is backed by anger over
Iraq. There are few signs of any love for Saddam Hussein
in Syria. But there is anger that an Arab nation is in
the firing line of US President George W Bush.
"We are not afraid of the aggression," Iraq's
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said on Wednesday at
the end of a two-day conference in Damascus, urging the
lifting of United Nations sanctions on Iraq. "No Arab
country is free of the threat, even if it takes part
alongside America in the aggression against Iraq," he
said. The meeting drew hundreds of participants from
Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and North Africa. British Labour
MP George Galloway also attended.
Syrian
officials say that Bush's strategy is a "glaring
example" of US double standards. The burning issue for
most Arabs is the shedding of Palestinian blood. "It was
distressing that in his speech Bush failed to mention
Israel's latest deadly raid into the Palestinian
territories that killed at least 15 people and wounded
about 100 others," an official said.
Syria
believes that the crisis over Saddam Hussein's suspected
weapons of mass destruction should be resolved through
the UN. Syria also says that it wants Iraq preserved as
a nation, with no further suffering for the Iraqi
people.
Syrian officials say that the US is
motivated by Iraqi oil, not by fear of Saddam's weapons.
Even under the sanctions, Iraq provides the US with 9
percent of its oil supply. Until spring this year
Americans were buying half of all Iraq's oil exports.
"America's obstruction of the international arms
inspectors' return to Iraq and its attempt to issue a
new Security Council resolution that includes a threat
of military force against Iraq are intended for the
appropriation of its oil and wealth under one pretext or
another," the state-owned al-Thawra newspaper said in a
recent editorial. Views in the paper usually reflect the
thinking of the Syrian government.
Syria is also
threatened by loss of trade if Iraq is attacked. Iraq is
its biggest trading partner. Trade between the two
countries exceeded US$2 billion last year. Britain has
alleged that these ties extend to illicit trade in
below-market prices in Iraqi crude in violation of the
UN oil-for-food program.
Britain alleges that
this allows Syria to meet domestic petroleum needs while
exporting its own oil at higher prices. Syria says that
all oil dealings comply with the sanctions regime, which
will govern the use of a new pipeline that it plans to
build.
