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Reasons for the war of
words
By Jeffrey Donovan
WASHINGTON - For days now, the administration of
US President George W Bush has lobbed precision-guided
rhetoric straight at the heart of Damascus and the
government of President Bashar Assad, which it accuses
of backing Palestinian terrorist groups.
So the
obvious question becomes, what's behind the American war
of words against Syria? As Washington has slammed
Damascus for allegedly harboring members of Saddam
Hussein's toppled regime and allowing fighters and
military equipment to flow into Iraq, some have
speculated that the war in Iraq will soon turn toward
Syria.
US and British officials say that there
are no such plans, and analysts agree that extending the
war to Syria is unlikely. Still, White House spokesman
Ari Fleischer, calling Syria a "rogue nation", told a
briefing that the US is taking no options off the table.
"Syria needs to seriously ponder the
implications of their actions in terms of harboring
Iraqis who need not and should not be harbored,"
Fleischer said. "They should think seriously about their
program to develop and to have chemical weapons. I think
it is time for them to think through where they want
their place to be in the world," Fleischer said.
Syria has vehemently denied charges that it has
weapons of mass destruction and is sheltering Iraqi
leaders. But it has said nothing of US charges that it
has allowed fighters to flow across its border into
Iraq.
Fleischer's comments followed a barrage of
remarks by US officials over the weekend, including from
Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, the
White House national security adviser.
Analysts
say that the US rhetoric against Syria is unprecedented.
Raymond Tanter, a professor at the University of
Michigan and an expert on rogue regimes, said, "The
president, the vice president, the secretary of state,
the secretary of defense, the national security adviser
and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff have all
issued threats and warnings to Syria over the last week.
This is unheard of with respect to US-Syrian relations.
Never before have those high-level officials made those
kinds of statements."
But their actual intention
has analysts guessing. Asked about the meaning of the
message to Syria, Fleischer referred reporters to a
speech Bush made days before the start of the war. In
it, the president told a gathering of conservative
intellectuals that toppling Saddam could unleash a wave
of democratic reform and peace in the Mideast.
Some analysts say that the US verbal assault on
Syria is actually aimed at furthering that vision by
helping to secure concessions from Damascus on the
Mideast peace process ahead of the upcoming release of
the "roadmap", a new formula for Arab-Israeli peace
drawn up by the US, the United Nations, the European
Union and Russia.
The roadmap is due out as soon
as a new cabinet is confirmed under reformist
Palestinian Prime Minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas.
Syria is seen as a key supporter of Palestinian radical
groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and could jeopardize the new
push for peace.
Addressing that issue, Israeli
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said at the weekend in
Ankara, Turkey, "We know very well what a major role
Syria is taking in [allowing] those terrorist
organizations to increase their activities.
Unfortunately, they are not doing anything in order to
prevent it."
Murhaf Jouejati, a former adviser
to the Syrian government, is a professor at George
Washington University in the US capital. Jouejati said
that Syria is unlikely to back the roadmap, which he
said makes no mention of the Golan Heights, a strategic
area it lost to Israel in 1967.
"What it comes
down to is that the United States does not want to see
any opposition to the roadmap by anyone," Jouejati said.
"And so, Syria has the ability, has the capacity, to
mobilize dissident Palestinian organizations, those who
would be working against [Palestinian leader] Yasser
Arafat, and so I think this is a preemptive move on the
part of Washington."
Likewise, Jouejati said a
recent suggestion by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
that Israel could scale back Jewish settlements in
Palestinian areas in exchange for peace should be seen
in the same context.
Syrian-born Jouejati,
however, does not see Damascus caving in to US pressure,
despite acknowledging that Washington now has more
leverage over Syria with control of Iraq. Prior to the
war, Syria was seen as a major smuggler of Iraqi oil,
but not any more.
He notes that Washington and
Damascus have quietly cooperated in the US-led "war on
terrorism", with Syria helping to track down al-Qaeda
cells. But Jouejati said that the key issue between the
two countries remains their divergent view of the
radical Palestinian groups, which are seen as terrorists
by Washington but legitimate liberation fighters by
Damascus.
"In the absence of solving this
definitional issue, I do not think that the Syrians will
either relinquish their sovereignty over the Golan
Heights nor will they throw out the Palestinian
organizations that are headquartered in Damascus,"
Jouejati said.
Jouejati does not think military
action would then follow, but added that economic and
diplomatic isolation could result. "In that case," he
said, "the United States and Syria would be on a
collision course."
But not everybody sees it
that way. Tanter, who served on former US president
Ronald Reagan's National Security Council, said that
Washington is still very much concerned about the
situation on the ground in Iraq, and genuinely views
Syria's behavior as threatening its position in Iraq.
"I would not be surprised if cruise missiles hit
Syria, not to hit the regime in Damascus but to take out
some weapons caches that have been stashed along the
border or some mobile weapons labs that have gotten
across the border," Tanter said. "What does that have to
do with the roadmap? It has nothing to do with the
roadmap. It has to do with war."
Meanwhile,
efforts are already under way in the US Congress to
punish Syria economically. The Syrian Accountability and
Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which may come up
for debate, could ban US exports and the sale of
dual-use items to Syria. It would also prohibit US
businesses from operating there, restrict Syrian
diplomats and airline flights, reduce diplomatic
contacts, and freeze US-held Syrian assets.
The
legislation failed in 2002 to win majority support in
either the Senate or the House of Representatives,
partly because the Bush administration opposed it as a
distraction from its preparations to attack Iraq. But
one of its sponsors says that the time is now ripe to
pass it. "Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is defeated,
it is time for America to get serious about Syria,"
Representative Eliot Engel (D - NY) said.
Copyright (c) 2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC
20036
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