Gates says US talks with Taliban conceivable Robert Gates said Washington could “ultimately” contemplate the idea of negotiating with the Taliban to secure a political settlement in Afghanistan

Robert Baer on NPR Radio:

GROSS: Oh, if you’re just joining us, my guest is Robert Baer. He was a CIA agent for 21 years. He resigned in 1997. He worked largely in Middle East. His new book is called “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.” My guest is Robert Baer and he was a CIA agent for 21 years, from 1976 to 1997.

GROSS: So why wouldn’t Iran want an agreement between the U.S. and Iraq?

Mr. BAER: Well, what they don’t want is an open-ended agreement between the United States and Iraq which would leave U.S. bases or U.S. troops or a security arrangement. Iran would like to pry us out Iraq very peacefully without leaving chaos behind or any sort of civil war, of course.

GROSS: So Iran wants the U.S. out completely, no bases, no remaining soldiers?

Mr. BAER: They want us gone. They want us out of the Gulf. If they could arrange it, they want us out of the Gulf. The way they look at it, the Persian Gulf is called that for a reason. It’s an Iranian body of water. 90 percent of the rim of the Gulf is Shia. All those Shia either look to Qom, the Holy City in Iran, or they look to Najaf, the Holy City in Iraq, which is very heavily influenced by Iran.

GROSS: Well, since you’re saying that Iran wants basically to be an empire and to have proxies, including Iraq, would that make it even more dangerous for the United States to do what Iran wants and withdraw completely from Iraq without soldiers or bases?

Mr. BAER: No. I take this as good news. In my book, I take a look at Sunni fundamentalism, and I took a look at Shia fundamentalism, and when I started this book, I had no idea where I was going to go. I spent a lot of time with a Hezbollah group that set off car bombs that fought this 18-year war. In Lebanon, I spent a lot of time in Israeli jails talking to Sunni extremists, suicide bombers.

And what I found, I walked away from all of this – I did this over a course of three years – was that the Shia, because of the nature of their sect, it is much more disciplined, and we are capable of making a deal with them which will hold. We are not capable of making the same deal with the Sunni, who are anarchists. You know, it’s a stretch using that word, but they are anarchists….

They have a reasonable complaint against Saudi Arabia. They do not like it that Saudi Arabia administers Mecca to the exclusion of the Shia. Iran does not like it that Saudi Arabia is repressing, and there’s no other way to put it, the Shia that live in Saudi Arabia in the eastern province. They do not like it that Saudi Arabia has so much influence in Washington. What ultimately the Iranians would like is to become an equal partner of the United States. I know this is a tall order, and we’re going to wait decades for anything like this to come about, but in their hearts, this is what they’d like.

GROSS: An equal partner on what?

Mr. BAER: In the Middle East. They would like to sit down with the United States and Israel and actually come to a solution for the Palestinians. They would like to support and give power in Lebanon to the Shia because the Shia are approaching a majority on Lebanon. They would like to co-administer Mecca with the Saudis. They feel that their sect has been repressed since 680 A.D., since the murder of the prophet’s grandson. They believe that this is the Shia millennium.

GROSS: You know, if Iran becomes the key player with the United States in negotiating a settlement for the Middle East, I mean, we know what President Ahmadinejad of Iran wants. He wants all Palestinians to participate in elections, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and I think also Palestinians in the Palestinian diaspora, and that would effectively eliminate Israel as a Jewish state.

Mr. BAER: This is what Ahmadinejad says. During the last year I’ve sat down, for what it’s worth, with Hezbollah for more than a few meetings. And they’ve told me over and over again that the real policy in Iran, and Hezbollah’s real policy, is to come to a solution that the Palestinians accept, the vast majority of them. And I asked them, would that be on Resolution 242, which gives the West Bank to the Palestinian and East Jerusalem? They said, if the Palestinian accept it, we accept it. We do not want to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians. The Iranians have officially stated this.

Now, there’s a lot of people going to say, well, look at Ahmadinejad. Look at his statements. We can’t trust him. Well, I think we have to sit down with Khamenei and the real leadership and find out if, in fact, they’re serious. By not talking to your enemy, you’re going to miss signals. You’re going to miss opportunities.

GROSS: Do you think, if Iran does successfully complete development of a nuclear weapon, that that weapon would pose an existential threat to Israel?

Mr. BAER: I don’t think – the Israelis have nuclear weapons, and they would obliterate Iran if attacked, and they are capable of doing it. The Iranians understand this. I think what we don’t want is the Iranians to get a nuclear weapon simply because it would start an arms race the Gulf. The Saudis would immediately build one. You know, what’s to stop the Kuwaitis or the Emirates and so forth?….

Iran’s talks with West not in crisis – Larijani, Kuwait News Agency – 12 October, 2008

Speaker of the Iranian parliament Ali Larijani said Saturday Tehran’s talks with the West were not in a crisis phase.

Larijani, in a meeting with a delegation of French parliamentarians here, said Iran and the Western countries could reach a solution over the Iranian nuclear program providing “some Western behaviour change.” The policies and reactions of some Western countries, which were not named, against Iran were “illogical and hasty,” Larijani was quoted by state-run news agency (Irna) as saying. Head of the French delegation MP Jean-Louis Bianco said Europe was calling for dialogue with Iran to iron out all differences over the nuclear program.

Iran, he said, “can help a lot to achieving peace and stability in the region specially in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Bianco, in earlier remarks here, said France has never opposed Iran’s right to to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

3,000 families flee Iraq’s Mosul: Official, Khaleej Times – 12 October, 2008

Hundreds of terrified Christian families have fled Mosul to escape extremist attacks that have increased despite months of U.S. and Iraqi military operations to secure the northern Iraqi city, political and religious officials said Saturday. Some 3,000 Christians have fled the city over the past week alone in a “major displacement,” said Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula, the governor of northern Iraq’s Ninevah province.

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“The Christians were subjected to abduction attempts and paid ransom, but now they are subjected to a killing campaign,” Kashmoula said, adding he believed “al-Qaida” elements were to blame and called for a renewed drive to root them out. …. Mosul police have reported finding the bullet-riddled bodies of seven Christians in separate attacks so far this month….. Iraq’s Christian community has been estimated at 3 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people, or about 800,000, and has a significant presence in the northern Ninevah province…. Joseph Jacob, a professor at Mosul University, said there were nearly 20,000 Christians in the city before the 2003 U.S. invasion. But over half have since left for neighboring towns, or new countries, he said.

Islamic extremists have frequently targeted Christians since the invasion, forcing tens of thousands to flee Iraq. Attacks had tapered off amid a drastic decline in overall violence nationwide, but that appears to be changing with the deaths this month….

Bush’s Crucial Handoffs, (By David Ignatius, The Washington Post)

 One bridge-building opportunity involves Syria, a country that has often confounded U.S. policy in the Middle East. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has asked America to join France and Turkey as a co-sponsor of its indirect peace talks with Israel. The Syrians want to lock in U.S. support for an initiative that has Israeli, Syrian and European backing.

The administration has been cautious here, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met her Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moualem, in New York last month to resume high-level dialogue; her top Middle East deputy, David Welch, held a follow-up meeting. They should take the next step and test Syria’s promise to meet directly with Israel if the United States backs the negotiations. Meanwhile, Washington and Damascus should reopen the channel they created after the Sept. 11 attacks to share intelligence about the common threat from radical jihadist groups.

After relenting on nuclear inspection, North Korea off U.S. terrorism list, The Associated Press

North Korea will allow atomic experts to take samples and conduct forensic tests on its nuclear facilities.

Damascus: Day of the Khans / ??? ???????

This Saturday, 11 October, from 2:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) is proud to co-sponsor the Day of the Khans as part of the 2008 Silk Road Festival.

This event aims to highlight the unique cultural and architectural heritage of Damascus’ khans – large buildings nestled within the covered souks of old Damascus that served as important centers for both trade and the meeting of different cultures.

From Syrian fishing port to naval power base: Russia moves into the Mediterranean
By Hugh Macleod
The Guardian, Wednesday October 8 2008

During balmy evenings in the sleepy Syrian port of Tartous locals promenade along the seafront or suck on hookahs discussing the two great pillars of their society: business and family.

Politics, such as it is in the tightly controlled one-party state, rarely gets a mention, and certainly not in public. But few could fail to wonder about the foreign sailors dockside and the grey warship dominating a harbour that was once a trading hub of the Phoenician empire and is now the centre of a new projection of power, this time by Syria’s old ally Russia.

Tartous is being dredged and renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy, giving Moscow a key military foothold in the Mediterranean at a time when Russia’s invasion of Georgia has led to fears of a new cold war.

The bolstering of military ties between Russia and Syria has also worried Israel, whose prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was in Moscow yesterday seeking to persuade the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to stop Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran. Mr Olmert later said he had received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel’s security to be threatened, but offered no indication he won any concrete promises on Russian arms sales…

Iraq offers free returns for its Syrian refugees
By Albert Aji
The Associated Press, 8 October 2008

The Iraqi embassy in Damascus is organizing free journeys for refugees who want to return from Syria — the second such project in as many years — though two days into the campaign Wednesday, there have been no takers.

A large black banner plastered on the wall of the embassy urged Iraqis to register to return home. Similar posters have been placed on religious centers and offices of Iraqi parties in Damascus.

Adnan al-Shourifi, the commercial secretary at the Iraqi embassy, said that free convoys and plane tickets would be provided for the returnees, along with about US$1,300 in cash to each family from the Iraqi government and US$500 from the U.N.

Last November, the Iraqi embassy organized similar free convoys. Hundreds of refugees went back home at the time as the situation improved amid a U.S. troop increase and Iraqi forces taking more control of tense areas.

On Tuesday, the U.N. opened a registration center in a Damascus suburb for those interested in returning to Iraq but no one showed up, officials at the center said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Rashid Abdo, 36, who came to Syria five years ago from Baghdad, said he wouldn’t return. “There is no confidence in this Iraqi government. I prefer any country in the world over Iraq,” he said.

Al-Shourifi, the diplomat, said no date has been set for the first free trip, but stressed that another incentive for the returnees will be an extra monthly pay of US$120 per family. He did not say for how long those sums would be paid.

The returnees would also get houses and jobs back home, he said.

“We expect a large number of refugees to return,” al-Shourifi said, adding that plans include one free convoy a week once all arrangements are made.

Syria is home to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees who fled the violence in their country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Syria says their influx has strained its education, health and housing systems, pushing the government to tighten visa requirements and to call for international assistance.

Damascus has said the cost of the Iraqi refugees’ stay in Syria is estimated at US$1.6 billion a year.

I just returned from Northwestern University where I debated Syrian foreign policy with Robert Rabil. It was great fun. The students who participate in the Model Arab League at NW organized it. Rabil has just had an article on Hezbollah’s command leadership, structure, modus operandi, and ascent to political preeminence in Lebanon published in the Journal of International Security Affairs.

Rabil, Hezbollah: Lebanon’s Power Broker.

….. From its origins as a radical sectarian militia in the 1980s, it has migrated into Lebanon’s political mainstream. In the process, Hezbollah has acquired the institutional trappings of a state and the capabilities of an army.

The Shi’ite group now stands squarely at the center of an Iranian-Syrian regional axis generated no less by Iran’s regional ambitions than by Syria’s regional weakness. …..

Despite the obvious recent setback, the United States still has the necessary leverage to frustrate Hezbollah’s ambitions. The first step is reestablishing its credibility vis-à-vis Lebanon’s democratic government….

Washington, therefore, must demonstrate its willingness to adopt a more active role in stabilizing Lebanon and helping to dilute Hezbollah’s power, even as it presses the March 14 forces to adopt a more robust, independent posture. …

The organization’s myth of resistance has now been debunked in the eyes of many Lebanese and Muslims. Insofar as Hezbollah may attempt to identify itself in that fashion, the March 14 forces should press the issue, insisting that the arms of Hezbollah have been used against Lebanese forces. They should also launch an international effort to bring about an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa Farms and the hills of Kfarshouba, for practical reasons. Hezbollah has predicated the legitimacy of the resistance on tangible results, ….

This should be followed by the development of a long-term strategy designed to weaken the hold of Hezbollah over its main base of support, Lebanon’s Shi’a community. In devising this strategy, Washington will need to address three issues: the development of southern Lebanon, amendment of the electoral law, and a widening of the political debate in Beirut. ….While such a strategy may not compel Hezbollah to disarm in the near future, it will help rob it of its raison d’être and force it to decide whether it is a spearhead for Iran’s national interests or a Lebanese political movement. A great deal will rest on what it chooses.  

Nathan Field writing in The National has also published on Hezbollah, explaining how Al-Qaeda is hoping to chisel away at Hizbullah’s popularity and do much what Rabil recommends the US to do to it.

The Foreign Ministry Notifies the US. Embassy in Damascus about the Illegal Entry of Two American Nationals to Syria, Thursday, October 09, 2008 – 03:00 PM

Damascus, (SANA)- The Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned the Charge d’Affairs of the US. Embassy in Damascus and told him that the Syrian security authorities had detained two American nationals , Holy Robin Shmella , and Taylor Langley Luke for entering Syria this morning through the northern Syrian-Lebanese borders illegally with the help of a smuggler. The Foreign Ministry official source stated that the Syrian specialized security authorities is interrogating them currently to know how they entered Syria without obtaining the required visas and they will be delivered to the US. embassy in Damascus after the conclusion of the necessary procedures. A.N.Idelbi

Very luck for these two that they were not Arabs trying to smuggle their way past Homeland Security into the US. They might have disapeared into Guantanemo for a long time.

How to Move Forward on Syria
by Theodore H. Kattouf, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and the United Arab Emirates; president and CEO, AMIDEAST. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.

[T]here are things that Syria would like. They would like to have their honor restored by regaining all the territory lost in the June 1967 war. They would like to be off the state sponsors of terrorism list … They would like help with their economy in terms of reform and attracting foreign direct investment.

And I think in return, the Syrians would be willing to quit allowing the supply to Hezbollah of Iranian arms through their territory … They would have to insist that Hamas and Islamic Jihad either become normal political parties with no militia wings or expel them altogether from Syria … They would need to support peace in terms of a two-state solution between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. … There’s plenty to talk about but right now Syria is feeling vulnerable and its only reliable ally is Iran. And they are not going to alienate the Iranians until all the t’s have been crossed and i’s dotted in some sort of a Grand Bargain that I referred to. Access the full interview>>

Who is targeting Syria? Bassel Oudat of al-Ahram Weekly joins the host of journalists speculating about who was behind the bombing in Syria’s capital and tries to link it to other recent assassinations and unexplained terrorist attacks on Syrian soil. He doesn’t rule out 1980s type Muslim Brothers or blow back from the US invasion of Iraq, but his last line he asks, “Is Syria under attack because it opened that channel of indirect talks [with Israel]?

The Middle East’s unending political crunch
By James Denselow
The Guardian, 9 October 2008

Coverage of the global financial meltdown in the wake of the credit crunch has tended to obscure reporting of events in the Middle East, a region apparently stuck in a never-ending political crunch….

Despite the incredible thaw in international relations with respect to Syria, including the possible offer of board membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Syria remains nominally in Washington’s bad books. This was made clear in George Bush’s speech at the United Nations last month, in which he said: “A few nations – regimes like Syria and Iran – continue to sponsor terror, yet their numbers are growing fewer and they’re growing more isolated from the world…”

Has the United States Poisoned Democracy?
By Amaney Jamal, Mark Tessler
The Arab Reform Bulletin, October 2008

Has the association of democracy promotion with U.S. foreign policy, and especially with the occupation of Iraq, spawned a backlash and led ordinary Arab citizens to question whether democracy is appropriate for their countries? Certainly the United States’ lack of even-handedness in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been a major Arab complaint, and more recently the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq have given rise to widespread anti-American sentiment in the Arab world. Associated with this is U.S. government insistence that its actions in Iraq are part of an effort to promote democracy in the Arab world.

To examine the relationship between anti-Americanism based on antipathy toward U.S. foreign policy, on the one hand, and views about desirability of democracy on the other, we analyze data from the Arab Barometer project. With scientific and administrative leadership provided by a team that includes prominent scholars from five Arab countries, as well as the present authors, the Arab Barometer carried out in 2006-2007 face-to-face interviews with large and representative national samples of ordinary citizens in seven Arab societies: Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Yemen. A total of 8,555 men and women were interviewed. Information about the organization, methodology and findings of the Arab Barometer may be found at http://www.arabbarometer.org/…

Fair Winds for the Brotherhood
By Shadi Hamid
The Arab Reform Bulletin, October 2008

The fortunes of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood may be shifting after three difficult years that saw the group’s worst electoral result in history, reports of diminished influence, and sustained government repression. After hitting an unprecedented low, the relationship between the Jordanian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition grouping, has improved recently. This is the opposite of what many observers, including this author, expected. Hammam Sa’id, known as a hardliner, was elected General Guide of the organization in May 2008, leading many to predict heightened confrontation between regime and opposition. Analysts Matthew Levitt and David Schenker wrote, for instance, that the leadership change suggested the Brotherhood “can no longer be considered ‘loyal’ to the kingdom.” During Sa’id’s tenure, however, events have moved in an unexpected direction. Since being elected, he has toned down his abrasive rhetoric, emphasized domestic priorities, and made an effort to reach understandings with the government of Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi on key issues of contention.

The question of the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Hamas) is one area where Islamists and the regime have moved closer to each other. After nine years of severed ties, Jordan has opened a dialogue with Hamas, recognizing the group’s growing influence and its strong position in Gaza. With its close ties to Hamas leaders, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), played a critical role in facilitating the resumption of contacts.

Moreover, Jordan’s King Abdullah—known as one of the region’s most pro-Western rulers—has attempted to strengthen ties to other U.S. adversaries, including Iran and Russia. He has met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev three times in the last eight months, and their discussions have increasingly revolved around military assistance and cooperation, including joint production of multi-caliber grenade launchers. Such moves have given Islamists hope that Jordan is beginning to shake off Washington’s tight embrace…

Interview with Ghassan al-Khatib on Leadership and Elections
The Arab Reform Bulletin, October 2008

How would postponing the presidential election for one year, until January 2010, affect the current Palestinian political situation?

First, it hasn’t been confirmed yet that the election will be postponed. There is still a discussion about the legality of doing this. The election law clearly states that presidential and legislative elections should be held together, while the Basic Law limits the president’s term to four years.

After the initial announcement that elections would be postponed until January 2010 met with opposition, President Mahmoud Abbas revised his decision, saying that legal procedures would be examined and that all options were under consideration. In other words, the president left the door open for elections either in January 2009 or 2010…

If elections were held as scheduled in 2009, would there be more than one candidate?

Most likely only one candidate would run on behalf of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), but that is not guaranteed unless President Abbas achieves better organization and coordination within the PLO. In the last election there were a large number of candidates…

What will happen if presidential and legislative elections both are held in 2010, in view of the standoff between Hamas and Fatah?

Hamas is not enthusiastic about holding elections, whether in the West Bank or Gaza, but it is still unclear at the moment whether Hamas would take part. Political bureau leader Khalid Mishal said recently that there should be coordination among Hamas members leading up to elections, which suggests that he wants to clarify certain matters such as who would be on the election commission, which government would run day-to-day affairs until then, which security apparatus would maintain order during polling, etc.

Without Hamas’s involvement in preparations, it would be impossible to hold elections in Gaza, which means that only Palestinians in the West Bank would be able to vote for their president. That would deepen an already serious divide between the West Bank and Gaza…

Interview with Yossi Alpher on Leadership and Elections
The Arab Reform Bulletin, October 2008

Following the victory of Tzipi Livni in the Kadima party primary, what do you expect from her efforts to form a new governing coalition?

Presumably Livni will try to reestablish more or less the same as the outgoing coalition—the Kadima, Labor, and Shas parties. I do not think she will have much difficulty with Labor, other than Ehud Barak’s discomfort with being her defense minister; he said some uncomplimentary things about her during the primary.

Livni’s big problem will be with the conservative Shas Party, which will take this opportunity to squeeze her for more money for religious schools and benefits for large families. This is a national scandal, which continues to this day. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, while he was Minister of Finance a few years ago, finally managed to cut back these payments per child but now Shas is pressing to restore them. The price Shas exacted from former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was his declaration that we would not negotiate with the Palestinians about Jerusalem. Giving in to such demands goes very much against Livni’s instincts, but it is the classic way of putting together a coalition. Livni only entered politics about ten years ago and this will be her first test; she comes to this situation with less experience than Olmert in this kind of political wheeling and dealing. It is also very important to watch what Olmert himself does in the background. If Livni fails to form a coalition, Olmert will remain as caretaker prime minister until elections are held, which could be another 6 months.

Don’t forget Livni can bring in the pro-peace party Meretz instead of Shas and reach some arrangement with the ten members of Knesset who represent Arab parties. That would be a tenuous coalition, but one that would be much more peace-oriented.

If Livni succeeds in forming a new coalition, will she serve out what would have been the rest of Olmert’s term as prime minister?

In theory, yes, she could serve another two years. But judging by the fate of previous coalitions, if she reaches some kind of achievement in negotiations this would precipitate new elections. Let us remember that the Palestinian issue, which she is as dedicated to as Olmert was, has brought down every single Israeli governing coalition for the last twenty years. Olmert’s resignation actually was an exception, a coalition brought down by the prime minister’s corruption rather than by the Palestinian issue. One could hardly say that’s a refreshing change but at least it is different from the pattern we have seen.

What are prospects for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at this point?

If Livni forms a coalition, it is not clear what she wants to do with a government. Does she want to pick up where we left off with the peace process with the Palestinians, for example? She is the chief negotiator. Or does she really want just to stabilize her prime ministerial image in the eyes of the Israeli public in the hopes that this will help her win an election? Maybe she wants to do both of these things and she is going to be playing it by ear. She has a lot of integrity on her side and a very good image in the public eye but not a lot of experience at this kind of political backroom dealing with the likes of Shas.

Another question is Syria. Livni has been rather cool to those talks and much more dedicated to the talks with Palestinians. Olmert also was cool to talks with Syria until he listened to his security community, who told him that peace with Syria is much more doable and could help to push Iran out of the region and reduce support for militant Islamist organizations. It’s very possible that Livni as foreign minister didn’t hear all the briefings that Olmert did. In Israeli political culture, the foreign ministry is a weak partner at best in national security decision-making, which is done by the prime minister and the defense minister, who are sometimes the same person. So, now Livni is going to step into those shoes…

Syria releases two U.S. journalists who entered state illegally
Haartez.com, 10 October 2008

Two American citizens who had been missing for days have been released in Damascus after being detained by Syrian authorities, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.

The Syrian foreign ministry said earlier that authorities were questioning Holli Chmela, 27, and Taylor Luck, 23, for entering the country illegally. The pair had been reported missing by the U.S. embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday.

The Americans were released into the custody of the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Thursday after U.S. charge d’affaires Maura Connelly was summoned to the Syrian foreign ministry, said State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.

“They are now in the U.S. embassy in Damascus and are reportedly in good shape,” Duguid said.

He said he had no details of any charges against the pair or whether they would be allowed to leave Syria. They were making contact with their families, he said.

Russia hints it won’t sell advanced missiles to Iran
The Associated Press, 10 October 2008

A Russian Foreign Ministry official is suggesting Moscow won’t sell advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.

Observers have said sophisticated S-300 missile systems could be used by Iran to defend military targets like the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant.

That would make any military strike more difficult, and Israel, the United States and other nations have pressured Russia not to sell such weapons to Iran, Syria or other nations that have threatened Israel.

Outgoing prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he discussed Russian weapons sales during a visit to Moscow this week.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko was asked by reporters Thursday whether Russia had promised Israel it would not sell weapons such as S-300s.

“We have declared more than once at the very highest political level that we do not intend to supply those types of armaments to countries located in regions that are, to put it mildly, uneasy,” he said. “This is not in the interests of our country’s policy or the interests of preserving stability in one region or another of the world.”

He said Russia would make decisions on selling weapons systems based on both “preserving the balance of power in the given region, and taking into account the need to provide stability and security in the region.”

Iran’s president has vowed that Israel should be wiped off the map – and Israel fears that the nuclear program Iran says is to produce power is actually meant to manufacture weapons.

Siniora dismisses rumors of Syrian military intervention in Lebanon as ‘not possible’
By Hussein Abdallah

….”Some are speaking about Syrian military intervention in Lebanon … this is not possible in my opinion,” he added.

Asked when Beirut and Damascus would exchange ambassadors, Siniora said that Lebanon had taken all the necessary measures in this regard, adding that Syria still had to take some measures for its part…

Posted by Alex

Syria plays hardball with the Saudis
By Sami Moubayed / Asia Times

DAMASCUS – In a further sign of just how low Syrian-Saudi Arabian relations have sunk, Syrian authorities have banned the distribution of al-Hayat, the Saudi-owned mass circulation Arab daily.

The step came nearly two years after al-Sharq al-Awsat, another Saudi daily, was banned from Syria for running articles that were considered critical of the Syrian government during the Israeli war in Lebanon in 2006.

Subsequently, the Syrians hailed Hezbollah in Lebanon as a resistance organization while the Saudis criticized it because of its links to Iran, claiming that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was an “adventurer”.

President Assad Greeted by Saudi guard at the 2007 Arab summit

President Bashar al-Assad snapped back in a speech that those who had conspired against Hezbollah in the Arab world (in clear reference to Saudi Arabia) were “half-men”.

The cold war between Damascus and Riyadh continued between 2006-2008, over a variety of issues related to influence in Lebanon, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Palestine. The Syrians challenged Saudi Arabia by cementing their relationship with Iran, arguing that while the Iranians were supporting Syria’s positions with regard to its standoff with the United States, the Saudis were only adding insult to injury by applying pressure on Washington to keep the heat on Damascus and engaging in dirty intelligence tricks with the aim of destabilizing Syria.

Syria challenged the Saudis in Beirut – and won a military confrontation between Hezbollah and the Saudis’ Hariri bloc last May. Meanwhile, the Saudis started playing the dangerous game of turning a blind eye to jihadis wanting to wage war on Syria. While Saudi Arabia’s official policy remained critical of Syria, a certain branch in the Saudi royal family still harbored ambitions to topple the Syrian government altogether and replace it with pro-Saudi opposition figures like former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam.

Tension was further elevated when terror struck in the heart of Damascus on September 27. A suicide bomber loaded with 200 kilograms of explosives killed 17 Syrians and injured between 15 to 40 civilians. Saudi Arabia was the only country in the Arab world that refused to condemn the attack, although it was harshly criticized by France, Russia and even the US.

The Saudi press continued to write negatively about Syria, explaining why the Syrians decided to ban the distribution of al-Hayat, the only surviving Saudi daily on Syrian newsstands. Coinciding with Syria’s decision came the resignation of Ibrahim Hamidi, the newspaper’s bureau chief and senior correspondent in Syria.

Hamidi, who had served as al-Hayat’s man in Damascus since the early 1990s, was quoted saying, “I couldn’t take it anymore. I terminated my work with al-Hayat because I cannot be a part of a newspaper that is engaged in a systematic campaign against Syria.”

Although it became clear to everybody – France being first on the list – that the Saudis were not getting the upper hand in Beirut politics, Lebanon remained closely allied to Riyadh, due to the personal and financial bond between Saad Hariri, the parliamentary majority leader, and the House of Saud.

One of the first to realize that the Syrians are overpowering the Saudis in Lebanon was Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a strongman of the March 14 Coalition. He realized that the US-imposed isolation of Syria has crumbled, after Bashar Al Assad’s visit to Paris in July 2008. The Turks and the Qataris are firmly behind Syria in its indirect peace talks with Israel, a strong counterbalance to the Saudis, which might result in a peace treaty as of mid-2009. If that happens, the Hariri Tribunal (on which the Saudis had placed high hopes) will be consigned to history.

The US administration, wrapped in controversy in Iraq, is clearly uninterested in regime change in Syria, as was the case several years ago. Their ally, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, has by all accounts ruined himself by betting on the wrong horse in 2005. What’s worse, the Saudi-trained and funded March 14 forces were defeated on the streets of Beirut in May, when they tried to confront Hezbollah.

Within hours, Hezbollah rounded up all militiamen on the payroll of Saudi Arabia and forced the cabinet of Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora to back down on legislation taken earlier against Hezbollah. It was clear: the US and Saudi Arabia lost the war for Beirut, and Syria and Iran won.

When fighting shifted to the Druze villages on Mount Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters encircled Jumblatt’s home – despite all the backing he had from the Saudis – but did not invade it. He got on the telephone with speaker Nabih Berri (who is pro-Syrian and strongly allied to Iran) and said, “Tell Sayed Hassan Nasrallah I lost the battle and he wins. So let’s sit and talk to reach a compromise.”

Last month, Jumblatt went further, accusing Hariri in the Beirut daily al-Akhbar of building a militia and allying himself with Islamic hardliners. Speaking about the arms of the Hariri team, Jumblatt said, “To form a militia today? To face whom? Hezbollah? This is crazy.”

More recently, what worried both the Saudis and Jumblatt was the semi-rapprochement that started developing between Syria and the US. Last month, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at her request, and discussed a variety of issues related to the Middle East.

That was the second meeting between both ministers since May 2007. According to the Syrian minister, Rice showed willingness to support Syrian-Israeli peace, a u-turn in the American position, which until now, has been uninterested in the indirect talks taking place in Turkey.

This week, the Doha-based al-Jazeera news agency quoted American “sources” saying that they were reconsidering their policies towards Syria during what remains of the George W Bush administration. A “senior US official” was quoted repeating exactly that on Israeli radio, adding that this would lead to the lifting of sanctions imposed on Syria by the Bush administration since 2003.

The Syrians believe, although they have not said it bluntly, that the Saudis are furious at Syria’s repeated diplomatic successes. Eager for vengeance, they are now financing Islamic fundamentalism in Lebanon to strike at both Hezbollah and Syria and have not yet digested the outcomes of May 2008.

Assad said that the sectarian violence taking place in northern Lebanon was dangerous to Syria. Many believe that the suicide bomber who detonated a bomb in Damascus was a product of a fanatical group trained and created in Lebanon. That might explain why the Syrians amassed thousands of troops on their border with Lebanon, to prevent the influx of jihadi fighters to Syria.

If Saudi Arabia was not guilty of the September 27 attack, it certainly looked and acted guilty by refusing to say anything about it.

Meanwhile, the Saudis, frantic to save their positions in Lebanon, had already started pumping money to build a Sunni armed movement to confront Hezbollah if matters escalated once again. Earlier in May 2007, veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that they had co-created Fatah al-Islam, a fundamentalist group to fight the Shi’ites in Lebanon.

It grew out of control, just as the case with al-Qaeda (which was created with the aim of fighting the Soviets) and turned its arms against the Lebanese state, resulting in grinding battles in the Naher al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

Earlier last year, the UN prosecutor in the Hariri affair, Serge Brammertz, noted that the suicide bomber who killed Rafik al-Hariri in February 2005 was neither Lebanese, nor Syrian. Rather, he came from a “hot district” which was believed by many to be a clear reference to one of the Gulf countries, possibly Saudi Arabia.

The bomber, according to Brammertz, had spent only about four months of his life in Lebanon and nearly 10 years in a “rural area”, possibly the mountains of Afghanistan. After all, hundreds of Saudis lived there when working with the United States to combat the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. That shed light once more on Saudi jihadis in Lebanon.

The Syrians realize just how dangerous it is for the Saudis to be flirting with radical fundamentalists, because this can set the entire region ablaze. After all, it has already been revealed (by a US source in the Los Angeles Times) that 45% of all foreign fighters in Iraq were coming from Saudi Arabia, 50% of them arriving in Baghdad, “ready-to-explode”.

Sami Askari, a senior advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, confirmed the accusations, saying, “The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on [in Iraq].”

Saudi journalist Faris bin Khuzam, writing for the Saudi daily al-Riyadh, put the number of Saudi jihadis in Lebanon operating from Naher al-Bared at 300. He claims they were “lured” into a battlefield “other than the one they wanted”, saying that they had plans to fight the Americans in Iraq, and ended up in Tripoli.

The reason, he explained, is tight security on the Syrian border (in addition to the Saudi border) preventing them from making a breakthrough into war-torn Iraq. Instead, they found their way into Lebanon and stayed for what initially seemed to be a temporary transit period. “Gradually the pendulum shifted,” Khuzam wrote, adding that “they were told that the road to Jerusalem runs through here [Naher al-Bared]”. He concluded, “They chose the Saudi dream that Osama bin Laden could not fulfill.”

When the battle of Naher al-Bared ended in 2007, it was revealed that 43 Saudi jihadis had been rounded up from Fatah al-Islam in Tripoli, while others could be found in the Ain al-Hilweh camp near Sidon. According to Hersh, “The idea [is] that the Saudis promised they could control the jihadis, so we [US] spent a lot of money and time … using and supporting the jihadis to help us beat the Russians in Afghanistan, and they turned on us. And we have the same pattern, not as if there’s any lessons learned. The same pattern, using the Saudis again to support jihadis.”

The Saudis, Hersh said, were telling the Americans, “It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs, it’s who they throw them at – Hezbollah, [Iraqi Shi’ite cleric] Muqtada al-Sadr and the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” In a famous CNN interview, Hersh added, “The enemy of our enemy is our friend, just as the jihadi groups in Lebanon were also there to go after [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah. We’re in the business of creating in some places, Lebanon in particular, sectarian violence.”

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online

———-

Lebanese Qifa Nabki masses 10,000 troops at Moubayed’s Syrian border!

Our own Qifa Nabki wrote a new blog post to express his disappointment in what he perceived as a departure from Sami’s usually moderate and balanced opinion pieces.

Here is it:

Sami Moubayed has a piece in Asia Times this week (“Syria plays hardball with the Saudis”), in which he compares the litany of victories registered by Syria to the string of Saudi defeats.

I usually like Sami Moubayed’s analyses, and I found much of what he said in this article to be true, apart from his account of the events of May 2008. He says:

…the Saudi-trained and funded March 14 forces were defeated on the streets of Beirut in May, when they tried to confront Hezbollah. Within hours, Hezbollah rounded up all militiamen on the payroll of Saudi Arabia and forced the cabinet of Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora to back down on legislation taken earlier against Hezbollah. It was clear: the US and Saudi Arabia lost the war for Beirut, and Syria and Iran won.

I find it dismaying that someone who is generally good about dispensing with jingoism and delivering nuanced analysis is so incapable of doing so when it comes to the issue of Syria and Saudi Arabia’s struggle over Lebanon.

What happened in May 2008 was nothing so neat and tidy as a “war for Beirut”, fought between two sides, with a winner and a loser. Bandar may have had some wacko salafists on the payroll in Tripoli but this does not mean that March 14th was building up a huge militia with the goal of confronting Hizbullah in the streets of Beirut in a fight to the death. This is what propagandists would like people to believe. Journalists should be far more skeptical of such outlandish notions.

The propagandists want to be able to say: “March 14th wanted a war, but Hizbullah didn’t. However, when we couldn’t hold them off anymore, we gave it to them. We gave it to them, and we were victorious. But we were magnanimous in victory. We didn’t storm the Serail and assassinate Saniora. Others might have done that, you know.”

(Cue feelings of gratitude.)

It is not clear to me how historians will explain the events of May 7, 2008. However, they will certainly describe the backdrop: a country brought to an eighteen-month halt, economic paralysis, no president, a string of political assassinations, and immense social and sectarian tensions. They will talk about the labor strikes co-opted by Hizbullah in order to force the government into revoking its ill-fated decisions to dismantle the Hizb’s telephone network and to fire Wafiq Shouqeir. They will describe how the “peaceful demonstration” quickly got out of hand — as everyone knew it would – thereby providing an ideal pretext to take Beirut in a show of force and all but necessitate an international invention that would bring about the Doha Accord.

Did al-Mustaqbal have gun-wielding shabab on its payroll? Undoubtedly. Did they fight in the streets of Beirut? Yes. But was this a scene of Saudi-funded and Jordanian-trained commandoes leaping out from behind overturned cars to surprise the Hizbullah fighters who had so stupidly walked into their ambush? Hardly. More like a scene of glorified security guards with fancy toys being caught off guard by a disciplined, highly-coordinated, Iranian-trained, elite corps of battle-hardened soldiers who knew exactly what they were doing.

Syria “won” in Lebanon because it was willing to push the envelope as far as necessary. It was willing to play dirtier than the Saudis, the Americans, the French, and March 14th.  Now, according to Moubayed, the Saudis are playing dirty with Syria. As usual, he doesn’t explain why this is ok in Syria’s case but not in Saudi Arabia’s. Furthermore, why is it acceptable for one radical fundamentalist regime (Iran) to sponsor a militia on Lebanese soil but it’s not acceptable for another radical fundamentalist regime (KSA) to do so, even though al-Mustaqbal’s shabab hardly constituted a full-blown militia, much less an army? Why is it that Moubayed protests when the Saudis inflame Sunni-Shiite tensions through their support for takfiri salafists, but it’s acceptable for Syria and Iran to build up a Shiite militia whose leader has on several occasions ridiculed various companions of the Prophet, thereby inflaming the Sunni street?

I am of the school who wants to forget about May 2008 as quickly as possible, and leave it to the historians to decide “what really happened.” In the meantime, however, let’s at least try to put the propagandists out of business.

A woman walks in front of the Mozart Hotel where two allegedly missing Americans stayed in the commercial Hamra district, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008. The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon says two American nationals are missing in Lebanon and is appealing for information on their possible whereabouts. A statement issued by the embassy Wednesday says Holli Chmela, 27, and Taylor Luck, 23, have not been heard from since Oct. 1 when they reportedly left Beirut en route to the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli.

World War II, The French Revolution, and “A historical vision of ‘Arab companionship’ with the western world”: Goetz Nordbruch explores the intellectual challenge of Nazism in the Levant Mediterranean Historical Review, Vol. 21, No. 2, December 2006, pp. 219–238

“In April 1942, on the eve of the decisive battles of World War II in El Alamein and Stalingrad, the Lebanese intellectual and political activist Raif Khoury (1913–67) contemplated the ongoing war and its consequences for the future of society. Writing in an editorial for the cultural magazine al-Tariq, Khoury did not limit his reflections to the immediate repercussions of the war on the territorial order in the Middle East; for him, the war of the Allies against German Nazism and Italian Fascism was not only a struggle for territories, but for the survival of society and culture as such…”

Syria, Lebanon abuzz over report about militant’s arrest
By Borzou Daragahi
The Los Angeles Times, 6 October 2008

An intriguing item about the mysterious leader of a ferocious militant group floated around the Lebanese and Syrian media over the weekend.

According to a report in the Arab-language Syrian newspaper Al Liwaa, the leader of the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Fatah al Islam was captured two months ago in Syria.

The report says that Shaker Abbsi, a former Libyan air force pilot turned Islamist, was caught in the poor Meliha district of south Damascus and hauled off to prison.

Abbsi, 53, who is of Palestinian descent, has led a storied life. He piloted MIGs for the Libyan air force in a war against Chad and on a trip to Latin America in the early 1980s, he helped Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinistas.

But as the years went by, he drifted toward Islamist groups and beliefs. Jordanian officials accused him of playing a role in the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan. Syria imprisoned him the same year, accusing him of plotting against the Damascus government, but released him in 2005.

He popped up in Lebanon as leader of Fatah al Islam, a group of well-armed Islamic insurgents who fought the Lebanese army for months last year in a battle around the seaside Nahr el Bared refugee camp that left more than 400 civilians, soldiers and militants dead.

Abbsi vanished after the battle. He issued statements this year vowing to take revenge against the Lebanese army, which has been the apparent target of two bombing attacks in the last two months.

But according to Al Liwaa’s report Saturday, Abbsi was captured when Syrian intelligence operatives carried out a “major house raid” two months ago in Damascus, the capital. The item was quickly picked up by media and websites in Lebanon and Syria.

The report says Abbsi’s loyalists were planning to carry out a suicide bombing at a Damascus soccer stadium during a game a month ago to avenge him, but were thwarted by Syrian security.

The website of the Lebanese newspaper An Nahar reported last month that Syrian authorities had told French President Nicolas Sarkozy that they had arrested Abbsi.

Moscow makes no promises on arms sales to Syria, Iran
By Yossi Melman
Haaretz.com, 8 October 2008

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday he received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel’s security to be threatened, but offered no indication he won the concrete promises he sought on Russian arms sales or sanctions on Iran.

After meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Olmert also said Israel was not prepared to tolerate a situation in which Iran possesses nuclear weapons, but will not take the lead in preventing it from gaining nuclear capability.

Olmert did not receive a clear commitment that Russia would refrain from supplying Syria with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles or sell advanced weapons to Iran. However, he said he succeeded in getting Medvedev to understand his fears that Russian-made missiles and other technology could fall into the hands of anti-Israeli militants in the region.

“My feeling is the Russian government understands well the Israeli position and is aware of the possible influence such supplying could have on stability in the region,” Olmert told reporters traveling with him…

David Schenker argues that if there is a formalized arrangement b/t Hizballah and the LAF, or if there is a March 8 Government come the spring, the US will revise its policy toward the LAF to deny it attach helicopters and other equipment. PolicyWatch #1407: The Future of U.S. Military Aid to Lebanon

Russia-Syria cooperation no threat to Mideast stability – Lavrov
RIA Novosti, 29 September 2008

The military and technical ties between Russia and Syria do not pose a threat to the balance of power in the Middle East, Russia’s foreign minister said Monday.

Sergei Lavrov said the cooperation between the countries was “in line with the international law” and “in the interests of strengthening stability and maintaining security” in regions close to Russia’s borders.

“We are not doing anything that could upset the balance of power in this or that region,” Lavrov told reporters.

During last month’s talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow, Lavrov confirmed that Russia was ready to supply Syria with defensive weapons. Media reports said earlier Moscow and Damascus had agreed on deliveries of the latest Russian MiG-29SMT fighter.

Syria, a major importer of Russian weapons, also bought 36 Pantsir S1E air-defense systems from Russia, and hopes to receive Strelets short-range air defense systems, Iskander tactical missile systems, Yak-130 aircraft and two Amur-1650 submarines.

Media has also reported Russian plans to rebuild the Soviet-era Navy maintenance site in the northern Syrian port of Tartus, the only Russian foothold in the Mediterranean, and turn it into a permanent naval base.

The reports say about 10 Russian warships and three floating piers are deployed there while Russia expands the port and builds a dock in nearby El-Latakia. There has been no official confirmation of the reports.

Israel and the United States are sensitive about Russian-Syrian military and technical cooperation, fearing not only a reinforcement of Syria’s armed forces, but also the possibility that modern weapons could fall into the hands of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon or be passed on to Iran, in violation of the existing international embargo.

Why Syria matters to Israel
By Osama Al Sharif
Arab News, 8 October 2008

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has returned from his Washington meeting with President George W. Bush empty-handed and frustrated. His already shaky peace negotiations with Israel have hit a brick wall and, as more often than not, Washington was siding with his opposite side. Meanwhile, his Hamas rivals in Gaza Strip have failed to find takers of their offer of a lengthy truce with Israel. On the eve of the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakbah and the creation of Israel, Palestinian losses appear to have been compounded on all fronts.

But the peace game continues elsewhere. All eyes are suddenly glued on Syria, whose president revealed that Turkey was mediating to revive abandoned negotiations with Israel. The Israelis confirmed the existence of a Turkish initiative and announced that Washington had not objected to a resumption of talks with Damascus.

But then there was the surprise accusation by the Bush administration that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear facility in the eastern desert, which President Bashar Assad said was a nonnuclear military site. The timing of the release of intelligence material on the alleged reactor, nearly seven months after Israel is believed to have destroyed it in an airstrike last September, has baffled Republicans and Democrats in Washington…

Quite a Few Nations Interested in Russia’s Iskander-E Missiles
Kommersant, 7 Octbober 2008

Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and other states are interested in buying Russia’s Iskander-E tactical missile systems, Rosoboronexport Director at Large Nikolay Dimidyuk said, Interfax reported.
“The demand has been noted in Syria. The Emirates takes much interest in it. Malaysia, India are interested in it very much,” Dimidyuk told reporters Wednesday. Other states are eyeing it as well, but off-the-record, the official added.

Iskander-E has great export potential, Dimidyuk said. “This is truly a high-precision weapon. Missile defense systems can’t hit the Iskander missile,” the official specified, explaining that the missiles have a perplexed flying trajectory and are able to make anti-missile maneuvers, which prevents their hitting.

Iskander can fire horizontally, which doesn’t unmask it, and has a number of other vital combat characteristics, Dimidyuk pointed out.

Iskander is produced in two variants – Iskander-M for Russia’s Armed Forces and Iskander-E for the export to other countries. The export variant slightly differs from the systems made by order of the RF Defense Ministry.

Iskander-E can hit targets at the range of up to 280km, striking two different targets at a minute interval. Its trajectory isn’t of ballistic nature and forecasting it would be very difficult for an enemy, the more so that the missile is controlled during all flight.

Israel will strike before Iran gets bomb – French FM
RIA Novosti, 5 October 2008

Israel is preparing a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and will act before Tehran creates a nuclear bomb, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told an Israeli newspaper.

In an interview with Haaretz published on Sunday, Kouchner, who is on a visit to Israel, said he agreed with expert estimates that Iran needed from two to four years to create a nuclear bomb.

“I think that you are well informed, and so are the Americans and so are we. It has always been the case between two and four years. But to make what? One bomb,” Haaretz quoted Kouchner as saying.

Kouchner said that even one bomb would not make Iran immune to attack.

“I honestly don’t believe that it will give any immunity to Iran. First, because you will eat them before. And this is the danger. Because Israel has always said that it will not wait for the bomb to be ready,” he said.

Kouchner also urged to give international diplomacy more time to solve the Iranian nuclear issue.

“Iran with an atomic bomb is unacceptable at all…But how can it be prevented? Talking, talking, talking, and offering dialogue, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions,” he said.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on September 27, reiterating demands for Iran to halt uranium enrichment. The resolution did not however impose any new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Iran says its nuclear program is aimed purely at electricity production, and has pledged to continue uranium enrichment regardless of international sanctions.

‘Syria Banking on Obama Victory, Invites Advisors’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Israel National News, 7 October 2008

Syria is banking on an Obama victory and is trying to reach out to his advisors, according to a Forbes article by the editor-in-chief of the Damascus-based All4Syria website.

Ayman Abdel Nour also revealed in the widely respected financial publication that Syria covered up a terrorist attack on its intelligence agency last week.

He said that Syria wants Senator Obama to win the presidential election to help Syrian President Bashar Assad bring back prosperity to Syria, which is under American sanctions. “The government wants desperately for things to look under control” in the wake of growing dissent, according to Nour. Syria wants Sen. Obama to win the presidential election to help Syrian President Bashar Assad bring back prosperity to Syria.

He said that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime “will bank on Barack Obama becoming president of the United States” and is trying to reach out to his advisors. Nour named Robert Malley, from whom Obama quickly himself disassociated earlier this year after it was revealed that he had direct contact with Hamas and Syrian leaders. Malley “has no formal role in the campaign and will not play one in the future,” the Obama camp has stated…

Olmert unlikely to persuade Russia not to arm Iran, Syria
By Yossi Melman
Haaretz.com, 7 October 2008

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will seek Tuesday to persuade Russian President Dmitry Medvedev not to sell weapons to Iran and Syria, but with little chance of success, diplomatic sources said.

Jerusalem is particularly concerned that sales of Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft missile system could threaten Israel’s air superiority over both states. And if Iran received these missiles, it would be able to protect its nuclear sites more effectively, making an aerial strike on these sites more difficult.

However, Russia’s arms export monopoly denied that it plans to deliver the S-300 missiles to either Iran or Syria, the Interfax news agency reported Monday.

“We have no information of this kind,” a spokesman for Rosoboronexport said when asked about potential sales of the sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons to Tehran or Damascus…

Olmert and Medvedev will also discuss the situation in Georgia following its war with Russia in August. However, Israeli sources said, Russia commended Israel for having stopped its arms sales to Georgia completely even before the war and restricted its sales to defensive systems before then. Consequently, this issue is no longer a strain on bilateral relations, the sources said.

Olmert reiterated that Israel would have to give up most of the West Bank and agree to territorial exchanges in any peace agreement with the Palestinians. Asked whether his statement reflected the views of prime minister-designate Tzipi Livni, he said: “My statement reflected my opinion, but this is what the negotiations were based on. She [Livni] was a party to everything, but she does not necessarily agree with every one of my positions.”

Asked whether his statements would not bind Livni and the next government, Olmert replied: “I’m not holding Livni to everything I’ve said, but I believe what I said reflects the negotiations and they will continue in this spirit.”

‘Russia committed to preventing Iran from attaining nuclear arms’
The Jerusalem Post, 6 October 2008

Russia is committed to stopping Iranian nuclearization for military purposes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Moscow on Monday night.

Lavrov also told Olmert that Russia would continue to act to secure the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit and that Moscow was committed to steering clear of having contacts with Hamas so long as the group failed to abide by the Quartet conditions.

During his meeting with Lavrov, Olmert also urged Russia to support Israeli-Syrian peace talks and “prevent weapons from Syria from reaching extremist elements in Lebanon, such as Hizbullah,” an official from Olmert’s office said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting’s content was not officially made public…

Is Damascus planning a return to Lebanon?
By Michael Bluhm
The Daily Star, 7 October 2008

While Lebanon probably need not fear an impending incursion by the almost 10,000 Syrian troops on Lebanon’s northern border, the recent Syrian deployment has nothing to do with the stated aim of deterring smuggling and instead puts the international community on notice that Syria considers restive North Lebanon a threat to Syrian security, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Monday.

While the troop movement about two weeks ago could represent the first step toward renewing the presence of Syrian soldiers on Lebanese territory, Damascus’ immediate priority was to protect itself from the unceasing unrest in North Lebanon, said Oussama Safa, executive director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. “The nature of the deployment is not offensive,” he said. “The way they are deployed does not indicate an invasion is imminent.”

“The Syrians are there because Tripoli is fast becoming a proxy land for regional and international score-settling. Tripoli has become a regional mailbox to exchange messages. The nature of the deployment is to make sure you are sealing yourself off from what is becoming a volatile border…”

For now, the unchallenged deployment underscores the interregnum in the region as the US waits for its presidential election on November 4 and Israel could face early elections if Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni cannot cobble together a new cabinet, Hanna said. “This is the vacuum in the international system today,” Hanna added.

“The Syrians are trying to create and shape a certain environment favorable to impose [a return to Lebanon] on the new administrations” in the US and Israel, Hanna said, adding that these designs stood behind Assad’s recent statement that the deployment fell in line with UN Resolution 1701, which ended the summer 2006 war with Israel.

Syria’s decision to move its soldiers to Lebanon’s frontier also symbolizes the failure of US policies in the region to weaken Assad or his partners, Hanna said. The deployment builds on the successes of Syria’s Lebanese allies in the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance, who gained a blocking minority in a new national unity Cabinet in Doha following street violence in early May, Hanna added.

The Syrians “have got the momentum,” he said. “They are recovering Lebanon as a seat of influence. They have leverage in Lebanon.”

Although Syria will probably not take definitive action with its troops for several months, Assad’s desire to return his soldiers to Lebanon and restore Syria’s regional clout appears clear, Khashan said.

“The Syrians want to market themselves by re-entering Lebanon as a regional power,” he said. “Syria wants to reclaim its regional status.”

“The Syrians will not re-enter Lebanon now,” he added. “The Syrians are patient. They never lose sight of their objective. The Syrians are simply positioning themselves, but they will not re-enter Lebanon until there is a new administration in the US.”

“This is just a message telling the world, ‘There is a problem coming from North Lebanon, and we want the world to know about it until further developments occur.'”

The stories on the US being on the verge of lifting sanctions on Syria, seem too good to be true. I doubt any action will be taken to improve relations with Syria so long as President Bush sits in the White House. Of course, the various US agencies that have to deal with Syria, such as Defense, State, Intelligence, etc. have all been urging the White House to reassess its policy toward Syria for some time.

‘US considers lifting Syrian sanctions’
By JPOST.COM AND Herb Keinon
Oct 5, 2008

Washington is considering a possible change of policy towards Syria in the near future, which would entail lifting sanctions against the country but would not include returning the US ambassador to Damascus, Israel Radio quoted senior US officials as saying on Sunday.

The officials reportedly said that discussions were being held over the best way for the US to influence Syria, in light of the improved relations with France and the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the country in September.

A US official said there were several encouraging signals on the Syrians’ part, including the decision to renew diplomatic ties with Lebanon. On October 2, a senior Israeli diplomatic official said Jerusalem had no problem with the US engaging in dialogue with Damascus. …

….. Welch, according to the CNN report, also said Syria should play a more positive role in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and stop supporting Palestinian terrorist groups. He also raised the issue of Syria’s strategic relationship with Iran.

It is precisely here, according to Israeli officials, that a US dialogue with Syria could be productive.

According the Israeli official, Israel realizes that if the West wants to move Syria out of Iran’s orbit, the US will have to play a more active role in Israel’s negotiations with Syria in general, as well as increase its own dialogue with Damascus.

Here is the al-Jazeera article in Arabic about America’s reassessment of its Syria strategy

Syria’s Deployment to the north of Lebanon

Syria’s next step to reform
By Andrew England
Financial Times, Published: October 1 2008

Still, once it is up and running it will be a symbolic success for those promoting liberalisation in Syria, an issue that has become more pressing as the country’s limited oil reserves decline.

“The creation of a stock market sends a strong signal we are moving towards our objective of a social market economy.”

Bassel Hamwi, general manager of Bank Audi and deputy chairman of the exchange, says the real significance of the opening of the stock exchange lies not just in attracting foreign investment but in the signal it sends to the Syrian bureaucracy.

“I think with the stock market, Syria will be very much on its way to becoming an emerging market and an important indication that we are open for investment,” he says.

“This signalling effect could also have an important internal impact. Today, if you were to talk to government, you would probably hear divergent views on the need and speed to open up and reform the market, and it may even convince those sitting on the sidelines.”

Saatchi backs angry art of Middle East
The Britart patron is finding new talent amid the troubles of Iran and Iraq
bY Richard Brooks, The Sunday Times, October 5, 2008

The art impresario Charles Saatchi has picked his latest new wave of talent – painters who have sprung from the wreckage of Iraq and the religious strictures of Iran.

Saatchi, famous for spotting and promoting Britart in the 1990s, is to stage an exhibition of work by some 15 young artists from the Middle East at his new gallery in Chelsea, London.

Their work ranges from graphic depictions of the carnage in Iraq to nudes that defy the edicts of the Iranian ayatollahs. All the artists were born in these countries or in Syria or Lebanon, although some now live in exile.

Saatchi, who since his patronage of the Young British Artists has spread his wings with exhibitions of new European and American artists, is staging a show of Chinese work to open his gallery this week.

Over the past few months, however, he has been quietly accumulating works by the Middle Eastern artists. Some he first spotted online, others he picked up at galleries in New York or Dubai.

The show represents a return to his roots for Saatchi, born to an Iraqi Jewish family in Baghdad before moving with his parents to Britain at the age of four. “Some of this Middle East art is witty, some of it is hair-raising, and the best works are as sharp as a scalpel,” said Saatchi.

His new gallery, which will be free for all exhibitions, opens on Thursday at the Duke of York’s headquarters, a former barracks off the King’s Road.

“The work of these artists from the Middle East looks very different to the art we are used to seeing from America, Europe and now China,” …. Click here to view the artists’ works

Sharon during the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon

Landis Analysis:

I usually like Robert Baer’s analysis. This time, however, both his psychology and history fail him. Writing in Time Magazine (copied below), Baer argues that Syria will continue to provoke Israel because of “the Alawites’ dark insecurity.” [They have a complex, he argues, because Salafists don’t think they are Muslims]. What is more, he argues that the only way Alawites can prove their Arab-Islamic credentials is by periodically going to war with Israel. He writes: ” they will risk war with Israel if they believe their survival requires it.”

This is pop psychology. The Alawites smashed the Muslim Brothers in Hama, January 1982, well before Israel invaded Lebanon and forced Syria into a war it did not want and sought to avoid. Israel over-ran Syria’s anti-aircraft batteries in the Baqqa valley and cut off its troops excape route to Damascus, forcing Syria to respond.

The vast majority of Sunni Muslims in Syria denounced the radical wing of the Muslim Brotherhood for risking civil war and killing Alawites indiscriminately. Damascene Sunnis, led by Ratib Shallah and others, stood by Hafiz al-Assad and were duly rewarded for their loyalty and wisdom in saving their country from Iraqi type slaughter.

Hafiz did everything in his power to avoid war with Israel. He did not seek it in order to cleanse his “dark insecurity,” as Baer argues. I was living in Damascus at the time of both Hama and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Palestinians at the University of Damascus were besides themselves with anxiety that Syria would not resist Israel’s incursion. Syria withdrew its forces to the Beirut-Damascus road in an effort to avoid confrontation with Israel. Israel sought out the Syrians, exceeding the red lines they said they would stay behind. They cut off Syria’s ability to withdraw its soldiers from Lebanon by taking the Beirut-Damascus road, the site of Syria’s anti-Aircraft missiles, and forced a confrontation with Syria that Hafiz was trying to avoid.

The reason Syria did not want to join battle with Israel is obvious. Israel shot down almost 100 Syrian MiG 23s without losing one of its own American made planes. Israel had AWACS and advance radar, which the Syrians lacked. Syrian pilots needed to make eye contact with Israel’s F15s and F16s in order to fire their missiles. I spoke to a number of Syrian pilots after the event. They never did succeed in making eye contact with the enemy. The US planes could fire their sidewinder missiles from well over the horizon, using their radar to guide them to their targets. The Syrian pilots knew they were being sent to their deaths, but they did it anyway. Those I spoke to were bitter and cynical. Hafiz called for a truce after a day. Syria’s defeat in 1982 shook the regime to its core. It did not strengthen it as Baer suggests.

Syria has scrupulously avoided direct war with Israel, because it would undermine its hold on power. That is why it must work through militias and non-state actors, which don’t have a return address. If Alawites have dark insecurities, it is because they fear getting into a war with Israel — not because they welcome it. That is why Syria wants peace with Israel and the return of the Golan. There is no upside to war with Israel – particularly not for Alawites. Syria has shown admirable restraint in the face of recurrent Israeli provocations, bombings, and assassinations. This is because the regime is secure. Its legitimacy derives from Bashar al-Assad’s ability to avoid war — both external and internal civil war — not in his desire to provoke it.

Why Syria Will Keep Provoking Israel
By Robert Baer
Time, 3 October 2008

Oddly enough, Saturday’s car bombing in Damascus will serve Iran’s interests. Tehran thrives on chaos, which presents it an opportunity to come to the aid of friendly regimes and causes in the Middle East that need backing. More than likely, Iranian leaders were on the phone with counterparts in Damascus all Saturday, telling the Syrians not to lose heart. The Iranian message to Damascus is simple: If Israel and the United States see any weakness in the Assad regime, they will drive a truck through it and bring it down. And, if history is anything to go by, that’s a message Damascus will listen to.

What we tend to ignore is why Syria has had an uninterrupted record of attaching itself to radical causes and countries like Iran. For starters, Syria is ruled by a besieged and insecure minority, the Alawites, a heterodox-Shi’ite ethnic minority. About 12% of Syria’s population, the Alawites are looked at by extremist Sunni Muslims as heretics, fallen-away Muslims, usurpers who should be put to the sword. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, the Sunni extremists came close to getting their way. During a February 1982 Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in Hama, Syria’s third largest city, Hafez al-Assad felt compelled to flatten it in order to stay in power…

To Americans, it may appear reckless for the Syrians to provoke Israel by beefing up Hizballah —especially with Israel now constrained in how it can respond to Iran’s nuclear program. (The U.S. has made clear to the Israelis that getting into a war with Iran is the proverbial bridge too far, and that Washington therefore won’t support or enable an Israeli military strike on the Islamic Republic.) But, again, Americans don’t understand the Alawites’ dark insecurity — and the fact that they will risk war with Israel if they believe their survival requires it.

Qifa Nabki has written up what he has been told by Lebanon’s Cabbies on the Syria-Israel Negotiations

UN seeks aid for drought affected people in Syria
Chinaview.cn, 4 October 2008

The United Nations launched an appeal Friday for 20 million U.S. dollars to help up to 1 million drought affected people in Syria for a period of six months.

A vast majority of the funding is required for livelihoods and food, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Syria is currently experiencing a drought that is by far the worst over the past four decades, according to OCHA.

The Syrian government estimated that up to 1 million people — predominantly herders and subsistence farmers — are at risk of losing their livelihoods and of increased malnutrition.

Up to 59,000 small herders lost almost all their herds and 47,000 herders lost 50 percent to 60 percent of their livestock.

Food prices have risen at a rate that has outstripped household incomes and the purchasing power of the general population, especially in the drought-affected areas, Byrs said.

Anemia, malnutrition and diarrhea are on the rise in the country, especially among children under the age of five, as well as among pregnant women.

Availability of drinking water also decreased in the rural areas of north-eastern Syria, particularly in those villages depending on protected wells as their only water source.

The situation is not expected to improve until the spring 2009,if the rains do not fail for a second year in a row.

Danger lies in ties with Kurdish opposition
03 October 2008
By Michael Howie

AN EXPERT on Syrian politics believes any links Jojo Yakob has with Kurdish opposition parties could land him in bigger trouble than his homosexuality if he is returned to his home country. He claims Mr Yakob could be arrested for any ties he might have with Kurdish groups.

Joshua Landis, the co-director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said: “They will be watching him like a hawk.”

About 200,000 Kurds in Syria have no passport and are on society’s margins.

Offering Mr Yakob a small glimmer of hope, he said gay people could avoid state aggression “if they keep their heads down”.

But he admitted: “I don’t know what the secret police would do to him.”

A spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in London said: “Homosexuality is illegal, but there are no special units to deal with this problem.

“People are not prosecuted – society looks at this as a disease for which they can be treated – it is a similar position to that taken by the Vatican. I cannot give a clearer answer. But we are not Switzerland.”

Syria rebuffs nuclear inspectors
BBC, 3 October 2008

The head of Syria’s nuclear programme has said that the country’s military sites will remain off-limits to international nuclear inspectors.

Damascus said it would co-operate with an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inquiry only if it did not threaten its national security……

Afghanistan wins spot on IAEA board after Syria withdraws
The Daily Star, 4 October 2008

Afghanistan won a place on the 35-member board of the UN atomic watchdog on Friday, after Syria pulled out of the race for the seat. Syria had been competing with Afghanistan for a spot in the body that oversees the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that had become vacant for the so-called Middle East and South Asia (MESA) group after Pakistan’s one-year term expired.

…. “For the sake of unity within the MESA group, Syria has decided to drop its candidacy,” said Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, and added: “There will be only one candidate for the MESA group.”

Had MESA nations been unable to decide on a consensus candidate, the matter would have had to go to a vote by all of the IAEA’s 145 member states.

Syria’s bid for a greater say in the IAEA had run into fierce opposition by the US, which alleges that Damascus was building a covert nuclear facility at a remote desert site called Al-Kibar until it was destroyed by an Israeli strike in September 2007….

Afghanistan, which is a US ally, had announced its candidacy on Wednesday. …

Judge orders Syria to pay families of hostages
By Kate Brumback
AP, 3 October 2008

An attorney acknowledged Friday that it will be difficult to force Syria to pay more than $400 million to the families of two American men kidnapped and decapitated while working as civilian contractors in Iraq…..

U.S. High School Joins Forces With Syria to Tackle Iraqi Refugee Crisis
The Wall Street Journal, 3 October 2008

Using drawings from Iraqi children who fled to Syria to escape the war in Iraq, American Conserve School and Syrian Al Enawi Secondary School have published a book in hopes of raising awareness of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. A U.S. high school worked with a secondary school in Syria to publish a book that hopes to raise awareness of the Iraqi refugee crisis. The book contains drawings by Iraqi children who fled to Syria to escape the Iraq war.
The book, entitled Through the Eyes of Children: The Iraqi Refugee Crisis 2008,…..

Senior Salafi cleric issues stark warning to Damascus
By Nicholas Kimbrell
The Daily Star, 3 October 2008

Lebanon’s leading Salafi cleric, Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal, has warned Syria to stay out of North Lebanon or risk opening “the gates of hell.” In an interview to be published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anbaa, Shahhal made clear that Syrian intervention in Lebanon would be met with stiff opposition.

A military incursion would open “the gates of hell and lead to what is similar to Iraq and its misery,” he said, according to excerpts received by the Lebanese news outlet Naharnet.

“The Syrian command and its allies in Lebanon,” Shahhal added, “are keen on driving a wedge between the Salafi movement and the Lebanese military establishment in order to drag the whole Sunni community into conflict….”

Major powers warn against any Syrian move into Lebanon
By Hussein Abdallah
The Daily Star, 4 October 2008

….. An-Naharnewspaper quoted an official US source Friday as saying that US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch had told Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem that the United States totally rejected any Syrian military intervention in Lebanon.

The source said Welch made it clear to Moallem that recent bombings in Damascus and Tripoli should not be used to justify any kind of military intervention in Lebanon…

BEEN THERE, GOT THE SNAPSHOT – Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman (left) returned from his visit to the United States with little more than this snapshot and some promises after his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush (right) in Washington. (Sipa Press via Newscom)

Syria Talks Spur Speculation: Jim Lobe
By Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com (October , 2008)

Meanwhile, however, Washington’s efforts to isolate Syria have eroded significantly in recent months. Hezbollah’s victory over pro-Western forces in Beirut last spring followed by the Doha Accord that gave pro-Syrian forces there a virtual veto over major policy decisions marked a major political defeat for Washington’s Lebanon policy…

…. According to Landis, the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, pressed the White House last December to go there himself but was rebuffed. Now head of U.S. Central Command and a White House favorite, Petraeus could decide to renew his request which, if granted, would likely be seen as evidence of serious shift.

Saturday’s car-bombing that killed some 17 people in Damascus itself could bolster the Pentagon’s long-standing case that greater intelligence cooperation with Syria could serve the interests of both countries. Most analysts have pointed to Sunni extremists, possibly tied to al-Qaeda, as the most likely perpetrators.

“With its Lebanon policy a shambles and its efforts to isolate Syria defied by France, Turkey, and Israel itself, it really doesn’t make sense for the White House to continue stiffing the Syrians,” said Landis. “It’s really just pure stubbornness at this point.” [Read the whole article]

Jim Lobe, Washington bureau chief for Inter Press Service, is one of the keenest observers of Washngton’s Mid East policy. Read his other articles at Lobelog. For example, he informs us that …

The New York Sun published its last issue Tuesday, ending a six-year run that offered a strong and consistently neo-conservative or Likudist voice for Gotham’s print media consumers. I have to confess that I will miss the often-outstanding, if sometimes credulous, reporting of Eli Lake, although I’m sure he’ll land at a publication (hopefully less ideological than ‘Commentary’ or its blog) that appreciates his professional talents. Of course, a major backer of the ‘Sun’ was Bruce Kovner, the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Or that:

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Joshua Muravchik [is certain] that “if McCain is president, there will be an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

OLmert: Israel should give the Golan Heights back to Syria in order to achieve peace

Olmert, who resigned about 10 days ago but remains as a caretaker until a new government forms, has been on a self-reflection and atonement kick lately.  In the process he has issued harsh critiques of Israeli political psychology and confessed to the wrongness of some of the policies he held dear during a 35-year political career.

 

 

In calling it “a decision we have been refusing for 40 years to look at open-eyed,” Olmert all but apologized for his long-standing opposition to any division of Jerusalem. “For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at the reality in all its depth.”He went on to state that Israel should give the Golan Heights back to Syria in order to achieve peace there and spoke out harshly against any local sentiment to preemptively attack Iranian nuclear sites. Read on »

an interview published Monday in the Yediot Aharanoth newspaper, Olmert flatly stated that Israel  would have to give up the vast majority of the occupied West Bank and accept the division of Jerusalem in order to achieve peace with the Palestinians.

ISRAEL MAY BUY LOCKHEED F-35 FIGHTER JETS VALUED AT $15.2 BLN

Nasrallah to Lebanese Army: When All Else Fails, Turn East!
By NICHOLAS NOE, September 30, 2008

BEIRUT — Wasting little time in capitalizing on the continued unwillingness of the U.S. George W. Bush administration to provide the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) with the advanced equipment it says it needs, Hezbollah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah suggested late Friday that the government of Fouad Siniora should simply go to the international arms market and procure the desired equipment.

His proposal, of course will not be an easy one to execute, even if the government agrees to it. The national budget devotes precious little to procurement (estimated at less than $10 million per year), while the United States has banked (but not delivered) hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for U.S.-made equipment, training and spare parts purchases – an attractive incentive for hewing to the constraints of what U.S. officials euphemistically call “what we can do” for LAF.

Still, the recent fiasco this month surrounding the transfer (now apparently delayed, downgraded or denied, no one seems certain) of Cobra attack helicopters has nevertheless provided Nasrallah ….. Indeed, a quick review of the Cobra controversy shows exactly why this is, and apparently will remain, the case……

…both Russia and Iran offered large amounts of hardware (albeit without training and support) during the Nahr al-Barid battle – offers which the Siniora government successfully refused.

Should the opposition in fact gain the majority, however, we might very well see the LAF turning not toward the black market, as headlines suggested after Nasrallah’s speech, but East, toward the rising foes of U.S. influence in the Middle East.

To stave off this scenario, U.S. officials must break the logjam over supplying Lebanon by moving quickly to articulate a comprehensive vision for Congress and the Israelis as to how a strong LAF (linked to an ending of the Shebaa Farms and overflights issues) would be a risk worth taking, especially in light of the alternative where only Hezbollah is seeing its military power grow exponentially…..

Strategic analysis from the experts of the Polish Institute of International Affairs
Polish Institute of International Affairs, September 2008 #5
Syria-Israel Talks: High Stakes and Low Expectations
by Patrycja Sasnal

WaPo, here (Via FLC)

“..Across Baghdad, leaders of the groups speak about the transition in similarly apocalyptic terms. Some have left Baghdad, saying they fear that the Iraqi government will conduct mass arrests after the handover. Others are obtaining passports and say they will flee to Syria…”

Damascus car bomb kills 17
By Mitchell Prothero in Beirut and Peter Beaumont
The Observer, September 28, 2008

A powerful car bomb ripped through a suburb of the Syrian capital, …..The bombing comes as senior Lebanese military sources told The Observer that jihadis – some based in the Lebanese city of Tripoli – had launched a series of attacks against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

According to Syrian television and news agencies, the car, packed with about 200kg of explosives, was detonated at 8.45am close to the Shia Saydah Zeinab shrine, which is visited by pilgrims from Iran and Iraq. One witness reported Iranian pilgrims were among the casualties.

Syrian officials yesterday suggested they believed the attack was the responsibility of Islamist militants. Unusually for Syria, whose media is closely policed, details of the attack were reported immediately, with rolling updates on the casualties and investigation. The bombing – the third major attack this year – was similar to terrorist attacks launched by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Eighties before Assad’s father, Hafez, launched a bloody crackdown…

Obama’s Man on the Middle East
By BENNY AVNI
The New York Sun, September 29, 2008

Senator Obama’s leading voice on Middle East policy, Dennis Ross, is one of America’s most talented, creative, and clear-eyed diplomats, tirelessly seeking paradigm-shifting ideas, breakthroughs, and new openings to achieve his goals. And as he told a small group of pro-Israeli Obama donors, activists, and reporters at the United Nations, the goal is peace.

Mr. Ross, who climbed the ladder at Foggy Bottom from the days of President Reagan until the end of the Clinton administration and is most identified with President Clinton’s unsuccessful push for an Arab-Israeli peace agreement, said he believes that America should be in the lead wherever international diplomacy is being conducted. Right now, he said, Turkey, France, and Qatar are involved in indirect mediation between Israel and Syria, while America is sitting it out: So “who is thinking of Israel’s interests?”

But he may be miscast in the Obama campaign. To a team dominated by American exceptionalists, as Mr. McCain’s is, Mr. Ross would have added a calming presence, offered creative alternatives to military force, and injected realism when idealism got too far ahead of the possible. Instead, he is arguably the toughest diplomat in a would-be multilateralist administration stressing “tough diplomacy,” which seems to be Mr. Obama’s only policy tool.

European leaders are discovering how ineffective organizations such as the United Nations can be when their goals stray too far from America’s interests. “This is not the best period for people who are addicted, like I am, to multilateralism and the U.N.,” the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, told reporters last week.

A number of Europeans have told me over the last several days that since the presidential election here is so crucial for the world, they too should have a vote…

 Al Sadr supports quotas for minorities, Khaleej Times

Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr strongly supports demands by Iraqi Christians and other minorities for guaranteed seats on regional governing councils, his chief spokesman said Tuesday….

… Iraq’s parliament approved a new law last week that paves the way for the first provincial elections in four years, a move widely praised as a sign of progress in the U.S.-backed government’s efforts to promote national unity.

But the law removed a measure that reserved a few provincial council seats for Christians and other religious minorities – sparking outrage among the Christians and Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect, who argued they should have a voice in the mostly Muslim country.

Global Bankers Anxiously Watch U.S.
By Craig Whitlock and Mary Jordan
The Washington Post, October 1, 2008

Central bankers and elected leaders around the world acknowledged Tuesday that they lacked a comprehensive strategy to protect their countries from the global financial crisis and were as dependent as ever on Washington to come up with a solution.

In Europe, France and Belgium propped up another failing bank Tuesday, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy invited his counterparts from Britain, Germany and Italy to an emergency summit. But officials, exasperated by the defeat of the $700 billion rescue plan in Washington, said they were quickly realizing how little power they had to act on their own to confront a rising threat to their economies and financial markets.

“The Americans have no choice,” Christian Noyer, head of the French central bank and a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, told Germany’s RTL radio network. “We must have a comprehensive solution…”

Many European leaders said they were horrified at the political infighting that has marked the U.S. Congress’s handling of the rescue plan. “I feel they’ve taken leave of their senses,” said Peter Mandelson, the E.U. trade commissioner. “I hope that in Europe, we will not see politicians and parliamentarians replicating the sort of irresponsibility and political partisanship that we have seen in Washington.”….

…Steffen Kampeter, a parliamentary leader on budget issues for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, said German lawmakers might be receptive to such an approach if Congress is unable to act in the next few days. “This was and is a global problem that requires international solutions,” he said. “We expect a signal from the Americans for what type of strategy to follow…” 

Tension grows between Syria and Lebanon after bombings
By Ian Black
The Guardian, October 1, 2008

Syrian and Lebanese political leaders have traded angry accusations after terrorist bombings in both countries fuelled fears of a new crisis between them.

Saad Hariri, leader of the western-backed Sunni Future Movement, lashed out at Bashar al-Assad after the Syrian president warned that northern Lebanon had become “a base for extremism and constitutes a danger for Syria”.

Hariri retorted that it was Syria that was “a clear and direct threat” to Lebanon, bluntly accusing Damascus of “infiltrating extremists to north Lebanon to carry out terrorist attacks targeting the Lebanese army and civilians”. Last week thousands of Syrian troops reportedly gathered on Lebanon’s northern border, sparking concerns of a large-scale incursion.

Seven Lebanese, including four soldiers, died on Monday in a bus bomb attack in Tripoli, the country’s second-largest city. Similar to a bombing in August, it was widely blamed on Fatah al-Islam, an extremist Sunni group the Lebanese military fought last year in a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Nahr el-Bared. Lebanese sources insisted it has, or had, links to Syrian intelligence.

On Saturday, 17 people died in a suicide car bombing near Damascus – Syria’s worst terrorist incident in more than 20 years. Officials said it had been carried out by a “Takfiri” group – standard terminology for al-Qaida – and hinted that the perpetrators came from Iraq, where the US military “surge” has put al-Qaida under pressure.

Analysts suggested the Damascus attack may have been an act of retaliation, after the Syrian government, anxious to improve its image in the west, tightened control of its long border with Iraq. The apparent target was a Syrian intelligence office near the Shia shrine of Sayyida Zeynab, where many Iraqi refugees live.

Syrian opposition sources have claimed that one of the victims was an intelligence officer, fuelling speculation about whether the bombing was linked to some internal squabble.

“It is possible that there is no connection between the incidents in Tripoli and Damascus,” said Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert at Chatham House in London. “But the perception in Lebanon is that terrorists who cross the border and blow themselves up are sent from Damascus. And in Syria, they are keen to show that Lebanon cannot function without them and that when they were in charge there they managed to keep a lid on all these terrorist groups.”

Assad’s comments have heightened concerns that Syria could have designs on its smaller neighbour.

In Beirut, Hariri denounced the deployment of Syrian troops along Lebanon’s northern borders. He urged the international community not to allow Syria to intervene in Lebanese affairs under the guise of fighting extremism.

Brief History Of The Golan Heights, By Alyssa Fetini. Time, September 30, 2008

Caught in between four countries and sixty years of conflict, the disputed territory of the Golan Heights seems closer than ever to a permanent resolution, after decades of tug-of-war between Israel and Syria over its rightful ownership. Israel’s new Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, has expressed a commitment to resolving the Golan issue once and for all, while outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert mentioned the impossibility of ever hoping for peace with the Syrians without giving up the Golan Heights in a recent interview…..

Easier Business
Oxford Business Group, September 30, 2008

Syria climbed eight places in the latest comparative report released by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), indicating strong progress in certain key areas to facilitate conducting business.

Syria moved from 145th to 137th in the overall rankings of the “Doing Business 2009” report, issued in mid-September. The report assessed a total of 181 national economies, studying the status of business regulations and their enforcement over ten separate categories, with the stated aim of “measuring the regulation and red tape relevant to the life cycle of a domestic small to medium size firm”

Much of the credit for Syria’s rise in the rankings comes from its improvement in ease of starting up a new business. In the past year, the government has put in place a series of reforms aimed at cutting through the red tape required to register and open a new company.

These measures included reducing the number of processes that have to be completed; making many of the forms available from the Ministry of Economy and Trade, rather than from multiple agencies; and reducing approval times. In total, in Syria there are eight steps required to open a business, which can be completed in 17 days, well below the regional average of 23.5

Additionally, Syria has introduced a new commercial code that has simplified business start-up by taking lawyers and the court out of the registration process, and has enacted reforms at the tax directorate by simplifying tax registration for new businesses.

These reforms saw Syria jump 47 places in the rankings for ease of starting a business, coming in 124th overall and 11th among the 19 countries assessed in the Middle East and North Africa region….

Book ban ends rare Arab-Israeli cultural exchange, By Joseph Nasr. Reuters, October 1, 2008

For 15 years Israeli Saleh Abbasi has traded books between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbours, fostering a rare cultural link. But in August Israeli authorities suddenly refused to renew his trading licence because he was trading with “enemy” states Lebanon and Syria, …..

“How can the People of the Book be against books?” Abbasi asked, …… Abbasi’s original aim was to cater for Israel’s 1.2 million minority Arab citizens, ….. But he branched out, and over the past 10 years has sold over half a million copies of some 16 Hebrew titles to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab countries, where the translated books reach Arab readers mainly through public libraries and universities.

Syrian bombing: A jihadi attack?
By Nicholas Blanford
Christian Science Monitor, September 29, 2008

As the Syrian authorities begin investigating a bomb attack that killed 17 people in Damascus Saturday, initial suspicion points to Islamist militants, either home-grown or foreign….there are plenty of potential perpetrators.

“As usual in the Middle East, there are three or four credible culprits and this is what is so frustrating. The region is chronically and increasingly violent,” says Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Center for Lebanon, a think tank. “Who knows who did it, but in a way it’s surprising that no one has tried to do this stuff before because so many people are angry with Syria.”….

Signs of trouble seen before Syria bombing
By Borzou Daragahi
The Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2008

When Syria deployed thousands of soldiers along its frontier with northern Lebanon this month, some here feared that the Syrians were preparing to retake a country their military had dominated until it was pushed out in 2005.

But now, after a bombing Saturday that was the deadliest in Syria since 1986, analysts are wondering whether the troops were defensive, meant to stop an imminent attack from Lebanon-based Sunni Muslim militants inspired by Al Qaeda and sometimes trained in Iraq.

“The handwriting has been on the wall for a while,” Sami Moubayed, a political analyst in Damascus, the Syrian capital, said Sunday. “There have been signs of trouble coming in from Iraq or Lebanon.”…. It came as Syria performs delicate balancing acts in navigating the region’s sectarian and political fault lines…

Going for Broke
By Ian Munroe
Trends Magazine, September 2008

The town of Quneitra is on hiatus. Once a prosperous center in the fertile Golan Heights region, for the last 35 years it has lain destroyed. Israel won the town from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967. When the two countries fought again in 1973 it was returned to Damascus, only this time patrolled by UN forces as part of a ceasefire agreement. By then Quneitra had been reduced to rubble. And instead of helping residents rebuild, Damascus left it in ruins, hoping it would become a symbol of Israeli brutality.

Now, however, there’s a glimmer of hope that Quneitra will return to life. Since May, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad endorsed the Doha agreement to fix Lebanon’s 18-month political standoff, he’s been busy jet-setting from the Gulf to the Asian subcontinent to Europe trying to win allies. When he visited the UAE this summer, he appealed for Arab solidarity.When he was invited to India – on the first state visit by a Syrian leader in three decades – he asked the emerging giant to encourage Middle East stability. After a quiet eight years, al-Assad’s government has also restarted indirect peace talks with Israel.

Damascus could gain a lot from its diplomatic putsch. With the Bush administration preparing to pack it in, al-Assad may be able to wriggle out from under a four-year-old American embargo. Plus, getting back into the international community’sgood graces would help Syria implement crucial free market reforms.

“There are two trends. One’s a slow liberalization of the economy,” says Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the creator of Syria Comment, a popular website that covers current events there. “Number two is a Western attempt to isolate Syria, and to strangle it economically…”

A BBC survey shows that citizens in 22 out of 23 countries polled see futility in the American-led “war on terrorism”.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in remarks published on Monday that all issues related to the Lebanese-Israeli track must be resolved before any direct talks can be held between Lebanon and the Jewish state.

Syria’s Foreign Minister and David Welsh, the State Department’s point man on Syria, met today in New York to talk about regional security needs. This is important. In late July, the Syrians tried to arrange for a meeting between Welsh and Riad Daoudi, Syria’s lead negotiator with Israel. Washington would not meet with him. This counter-productive policy of isolation is beginning to thaw. Secretary of State Rice spoke with Muallem on Friday for 10 minutes. Jay Solomon of the Wall Street Journal writes that the meetings are “a sign of a potential thaw between the U.S. and a country that President George W. Bush has alleged is a principal sponsor of international terrorism.” He adds:

A State Department official said the U.S. used the talks as an opportunity to list its grievances with Syria. But the diplomats also discussed Washington’s support for peace talks between Syria and Israel over the future of the disputed Golan Heights region, participants in the talks said. The two sides also talked about Damascus’s role in the security situations in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The Bush administration has not agreed to an official thaw with Syria, however. U.S. officials stressed the talks with Muallem were used to raise concerns about Syrian human-rights abuses and support for terrorism, as well as its strategic ties with Iran and other issues. “The international community still awaits a credible demonstration of Syria’s willingness to renounce their sponsorship of terrorism,” a State Department official said.  “The Syrians had approached us and said that they wished to
talk,” Rice said.

Viola Giengerof Bloomberg writes:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. may engage Syria more since the Arab nation slowed the flow of fighters into Iraq, began indirect talks with Israel and helped and a political stalemate in neighboring Lebanon.  “Nothing is a breakthrough, and I’m not sure that there will be,” Rice said today in an interview on Bloomberg TV’s “Night Talk with Mike Schneider” to be broadcast tomorrow night. “But it’s time to talk about some of the changes that are taking place in the Middle East.”

U.S. relations with Syria still have “a long way to go,” Rice said. She cited Syria’s human rights record, its involvement in spreading nuclear weapons and its support for groups the U.S. considers terrorist organizations such as Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. “I don’t think it’s going to happen certainly in any short order,” Rice said. “But there are some trends to follow up.”….

She rejected rumors of indirect talks with Iran.

Bob Woodward

Ehsani, who has finished reading Bob Woodward’s new book on the Bush administration, has copied for us (below) the parts of the book that cover Rice’s policy toward Syria as she responded to the Iraq Study Group report put out by Baker and Hamilton just prior to the 2006 congressional elections. Ehsani writes:

Note how Rice totally flips in today’s WSJ article by Jay Solomon. In 2006, according to Woodward, She defied Baker, Clinton, and Blair who were urging her to begin a dialogue with Syria. Today, it is Rice who has flipped and not Syria.

Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008. Excerpts about Syria

Rice sat down with the Iraq study group. Overall, Rice said, there was a realignment taking place in the Middle East. “There are extremists within the Arab world, and then there are moderate Arabs. Many of the Arabs see Iran now as a more dangerous problem than Israel.” Syria is widely viewed as destabilizing, she said.

“Can we flip Syria?” asked Perry (of ISG), meaning get it to help with Iraq.

“The Saudis don’t talk to them,” Rice replied. “So why would we go around our allies, the Saudis, who after all are much more important to the peace process?”

That response agitated James Baker. “These Arab governments fight each other all the time” he said. “The real question is who is going to lead?”

The former secretary of state and the current one quarreled for a moment, with Rice acknowledging that diplomatic outreach to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem might be worthwhile. But she had reservations about establishing relations with Syria and Iran.

“I am concerned that Syria is too high a price” she said. For the Arabs, the rise of Iran is the threat. The Iran factor today is different than it was 15 years ago”-a pointed reference to Baker’s tenure as secretary of state-“so I have to challenge the notion that Iran could be an ally in the process.”

Her position did not sit well with Baker and several others. Nearly everyone else had told the study group that active diplomacy with Syria and Iran was vital to stabilizing Iraq and the Middle East.

The next day the study group held a secure videoconference with Tony Blair. The British minister had recently sent his top foreign policy advisor to Syria to see if there was a way to pry opens the diplomatic doors. Through Sir Nigel Sheinwald had not succeeded, Blair remained a strong advocate of talking with the Syrians.   

At 2:30 that afternoon the members of the study group gathered for a much anticipated session with former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton suggested initiating talks with Iran without any preconditions. “We have to have some trusted advisor and start to talk to Iran” he said. “If you might fight somebody someday, you sure ought to talk to them”.

The former president made a strong pitch for engaging the Syrians in the peace process:”Go to the Syrians and ask them. Do you really think this relationship with Iraq works for you?” The war in Iraq was weakening America in the eyes of the world. “Iranian and North Korean foreign policy is to stick it up America’s ass because we’re tied down in Iraq,” he said.

“Mr. President”, Baker said, “you came closer than anyone to a deal with Syria.”

In the meantime Rice repeated her frequent warning to the Iraqis that they needed to hang together or they would hang separately from lampposts.

“We need something to deter Iran and Syria,” said Cheney, “and that’s important not just for Iraq but for the region and for Lebanon, too.”

Several hours before the president was to present his new strategy on national television, Hadley held a conference call with members of the Iraq study group.

The President decisions were pretty much “Baker-Hamilton plus a surge,” Hadley said. adding that they should all be pleased because the President had embraced many of the 79 recommendations.

“Steve,” Leon Panetta said, “There are three principal recommendations we made.” The first had been an international push for more diplomacy, including Iran and Syria.

Hadley said they were doing a lot of international diplomacy but they just couldn’t do Iran and Syria.

Rice rejected the notion that the Middle East had been stable and that the Bush administration had come along and disturbed it by invading Iraq. “What stability? Saddam shooting at our aircrafts and attacking his neighbors and seeking WMD and starting a war every few years? Syrian forces, 30 years in Lebanon?

Rice considered the war nothing less than “the realignment of the Middle East. On the one side you’ve got Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states” supporting non extremists. “At the other side, you’ve got the Iranians, Hezbollah, and Hamas.” with Syria shifting sides, she said.

Just as the State Department begins to thaw relations with Syria, A federal district court in Washington, D.C., issued an opinion awarding $412,909,587 in a judgement against Syria. It found Bashar al-Asad and Asef Shawqat liable. None of the Defendants filed an answer or otherwise appeared.

The suit was brought by relatives of Jack Armstrong and Jack Hensley, who were two U.S. civilian engineers who were kidnapped and beheaded in Iraq in 2004 by al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (“al-Qaeda in Iraq”). This incident gained worldwide notoriety after the terrorists released a gruesome video of the beheadings on the Internet.

The judgement reads:

“Plaintiffs presented evidence in the form of live testimony, videotaped testimony, affidavit, and original documentary and videographic evidence. Plaintiffs presented credible expert testimony from four experts and from an Iraqi countryman concerning Syria’s assistance to Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Iraq. From this evidence, certain conclusions are clear. Syria was the critical geographic entry point for Zarqawi’s fighters into Iraq, Levitt T-1-127, and served as a “logistical hub” for Zarqawi. Id. at 119, 127. Syria supported Zarqawi and his organization by: (1) facilitating the recruitment and training of Zarqawi’s followers and their transportation into Iraq; (2) harboring and providing sanctuary to terrorists and their operational and logistical supply network; and (3) financing Zarqawi and his terrorist network in Iraq. Once Zarqawi beheaded civilian Nicholas Berg, the depth of his inhumanity was obvious but Syria did not withdraw its support.

Four experts testified regarding Syria’s support of Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Iraq:

(1) Evan Kohlmann is a private consultant who gave expert testimony on the history, infrastructure, and the use of the Internet as a medium for the distribution and dissemination of propaganda by Zarqawi and his terrorist network. Kohlmann T-114. His testimony was based on evidence that he collected and archived from 2004 through 2006 from Internet sites that are direct sources of information from Zarqawi and his network. Id. at 25.

(2) Dr. Matthew Levitt is a director of Counter Terrorism Intelligence Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy. Levitt at 105. He was previously employed in counter-terrorism positions in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Treasury. Id. at 107, 111. He is the author of a book that includes chapters on Syria’s sponsorship of terrorism. Id. at 115.

(3) Dr. Marius Deeb is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and for more than thirty years has studied, written, and taught about Islamic politics, Syria, and Syria’s support for terrorism. Deeb T-1-61-64.

(4) David Schenker is the director of Arab politics at the Washington Institute and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Schenker T-1-81-84. Mr. Schenker previously was the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense on matters relating to Syria from 2002-2006. Id. at T-1-79.

1. Facilitating the Recruitment and Training of Zarqawi’s Followers and Facilitating Their Transportation into Iraq

18. Syria and the Syrian Military Intelligence provided active assistance to Zarqawi and his
followers in Iraq by allowing and helping their operatives to move through Syria and across
the border into al-Qaeda’s first military training camp in Iraq, near the village of Rawha.
Kohlmann T-1-52-54.

19. A militant Islamic cleric on the payroll of the Syrian government, Abu Qaqa, actively
recruited terrorists for the Zarqawi network in 2003. Schenker T-1-103.

20. In late 2003, a Syrian intelligence officer named Abu Moaz transported al-Qaeda operatives,
including senior leaders, across the Syrian border to the Rawha training camp. Kohlmann
T-1-52-54. The Rawha camp was where almost all of Zarqawi’s senior officers who led his
organization in 2003-2004 were trained. Id. at 54.

21. Members of al-Qaeda in Iraq who were captured by the company operated by Sheikh Abu
Massoquoi confessed to receiving training at camps within Syria. Massoquoi Dep. at 24; see
also Deeb T-1-67, 74-75.

22. The Syrian government provided assistance to facilitate the movement of terrorists through
Syria for Zarqawi’s terrorist network. Massoquoi Dep. at 20-23.

23. The airport in Damascus, Syria is “one of the most tightly controlled locations in Syria” as
people must pass through border guards and under the observation of intelligence officials
there. Schenker T-1-94. Syria allowed insurgents to arrive without restriction into the
Damascus airport in significant numbers, before continuing their journey across the border
and into Iraq. Id. at 94, 98-99. “This wasn’t an underground railroad; this was being done
with a full recognition and support of the government of Syria.” Id. at 95.

24. Syria did not require a visa for non-Syrian Arabs entering Syria until 2006-07. Schenker
T-1-94. The U.S. Government repeatedly asked Syria to require visas but it refused until
recently. Id. at 95.

Clif Burns has more about the case on his blog, Export Law.

In the comment section:
Alex writes:

President Assad was interviewed by a Lebanese journalist. He said that the North of Lebanon is by now a serious threat to Syria’s national security.

He said that if any country wants to play any role in the Middle East, that country will need to pass through Damascus. Hariri reacted quickly warning of Syrian intentions

idaf writes: 

The Syrian move on the Lebanese border is to confront smuggling. Below is a picture of the troops ‘massed’ on the border.

Photo: Syrian troops deploy on the northern side of the Syrian-Lebanese border. Some Lebanese insist Syria is preparing to invade Lebanon but Damascus has stressed the move is linked to a crackdown against smugglers.

Notice the lack of things like tanks, APCs, or other offensive gear necessary for an assault. It is right there in plain sight. No offensive force. And the number is far less than 10,000 — more like 500. But they did need troops strong enough to deal with the smuggling clans that could easily outpower a few guards at a post.

Meanwhile, the US and others slam Syria for not controlling the border.

The context for this move against smuggling is not Syrian concerns about Salafists in Tripoli or terrorist infiltration.  The smuggling of Mazout from Syria into Lebanon, where it brings twice the price, is depleting the Syrian treasury.

The government has decided to stop the hemorrhaging to the Syrian budget caused by the smuggling, not by cutting the subsidies, which would hurt the poor who are the main consumers of mazout, but by raising taxes on the rich.  Free market reformers such Dardari have argued for getting rid of the subsidies so that all oil products rise to market prices causing smuggling to stop. Many Syrian officials do not want to do this because it will push many more Syrians below the poverty line. Free market reforms combined with worldwide commodity increases and two seasons of drought in Syria have eroded the purchasing power of the average Syrian dramatically.

Socialist-minded, Syrian officials have decided to raise taxes on the rich to make up for the subsidies. Last week the government more than doubled yearly car registration fees across the board.

Cars with 4 litre engines are now subject to a yearly payment of $3250. This is an astounding duty to pay annually. The larger the engine the higher the fee of course. When the government official was asked why the fee went up by this much, he said that if “people want to show off by buying cars with big engines, then let them pay the fee”.  (Thanks Ehsani for these figures)

This dramatic rise in car registration fees will cause considerable pain to Syrian car owners and raise the price of travel for all.  It is a sign of how seriously the Syria’s budget problems are becoming – hence the effort to stop smuggling. Syria is not interested in invading Lebanon. The Doha agreement has satisfied Damascus’ security concerns in Lebanon.

Rice and Mouallem talk in New York in the l’orient-le jour. (In French)

The Syrians say the talks went well. Rice said they only lasted 10 minutes at an Iftar and that the two talked peace negotiations and Lebanon.

Neither said that they talked about intelligence sharing and cooperation on the Iraq border, but this is probably what they did talk about.

It was the main subject of the the last Rice-Mouallem talks at Sharm al-Shaykh in May 2007.  Syria wanted intelligence sharing and was willing to accept two US generals in Damascus, but it asked that Rice send back an ambassador to Damascus. The Vice-President’s office nixed this plan. Petraeus was outraged and tried to go to Damascus himself to negotiate the resumption of intelligence sharing. He was refused permission by the White House.