{"id":2457,"date":"2009-03-21T15:52:09","date_gmt":"2009-03-21T15:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=2457"},"modified":"2009-03-21T15:52:09","modified_gmt":"2009-03-21T15:52:09","slug":"arms-nukes-bolton-birds-and-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/arms-nukes-bolton-birds-and-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"Arms, Nukes, Bolton, Birds, and Wine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arms Probe \u2018Torpedoing\u2019 U.S. Overture, Syria Says<\/a> (Update1)
\nBy Bill Varner<\/p>\n

\"MONCHEGORSK<\/a>

MONCHEGORSK - Ship held in Limosol for transporting small arms from Iran to Syria. Seen in Rotterdam on 27th September 1992 <\/p><\/div>\n

March 20 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration is hurting its bid to improve relations with Syria by pressing a United Nations probe into an arms shipment seized by Cyprus en route to the Syrian port of Latakia, a Syrian diplomat said.<\/p>\n

\"Jaafari\"

Jaafari<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt is torpedoing this overture,\u201d Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja\u2019Afari said in an interview today at the UN about the shipment, which the U.S. and Britain say came from Iran. \u201cMaybe some circles within the administration are not in full accord with this effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ja\u2019Afari was referring to the UN Security Council\u2019s request that by today Iran and Syria explain the arms, including rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, found aboard a ship. Iran has ignored the query, while Syria sent a letter to the Security Council panel accusing it of overlooking arms violations by Israel, Ja\u2019Afari said….<\/p>\n

The weapons shipment violates the UN arms embargo on Iran that is among sanctions intended to block its nuclear program, U.S. and U.K. envoys have said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Security Council sanctions committee is currently reviewing the response from Syria and determining next steps,\u201d Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the UN, said. \u201cAs a member of that committee, the U.S. is engaged in that review.\u201d…
\n
\n\u2018Orchestrated Campaign\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cRaising the issue of this shipment is part of an orchestrated campaign to exert pressure on us to get political concessions,\u201d Ja\u2019Afari said in the interview. \u201cWe are saying that the Security Council has had all kinds of indications of Israeli violations of international law and has never held them accountable. It is a double standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ja\u2019Afari said Syria and other Arab nations have the right to obtain weapons to defend against \u201cIsraeli invasions and aggressions.\u201d The ambassador wouldn\u2019t say whether he was referring to the weapons seized by Cyprus.<\/p>\n

Cyprus has held the Russian-owned, Cypriot-flagged Monchegorsk off the southern port of Limassol since Jan. 29. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, it was traveling to Syria from Iran with weapons destined for Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah militia or the Palestinian group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip….<\/p>\n

Iran’s Axis of Nuclear Evil<\/a>
\nBy JOHN BOLTON in WSJ, March 21, 2009<\/p>\n

\n
\"John

John Bolton<\/p><\/div>\n

While President Obama’s unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn’t really this week’s big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector — Iran’s former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari — disclosed Tehran’s financing of Syria’s nuclear weapons program. That program’s centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.<\/p>\n

At this point, it is impossible to ignore Iran’s active efforts to expand, improve and conceal its nuclear weapons program in Syria while it pretends to “negotiate” with Britain, France and Germany (the “EU-3”). No amount of video messages will change this reality. The question is whether this new information about Iran will sink in, or if Washington will continue to turn a blind eye toward Iran’s nuclear deceptions.<\/p>\n

That the Pyongyang-Damascus-Tehran nuclear axis went undetected and unacknowledged for so long is an intelligence failure of the highest magnitude. It represents a plain unwillingness to allow hard truths to overcome well-entrenched policy views disguised as intelligence findings.<\/p>\n

Key elements of our intelligence community (IC) fought against the idea of a Syrian nuclear program for years. In mid-2003, I had a bitter struggle with several IC agencies — news of which was leaked to the press — concerning my testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Syrian program. Then Sen. Joe Biden made the Syria testimony an issue in my 2005 confirmation battle to become ambassador to the United Nations, alleging that I had tried to hype concern about Syria’s nuclear intentions. (In fact, my testimony, in both its classified and unclassified versions, was far more anodyne than the facts warranted.)<\/p>\n

Key IC agencies made two arguments in 2003 against the possibility of a clandestine Syrian nuclear weapons program. First, they argued that Syria lacked the scientific and technological capabilities to sustain such a program. Second, they said that Syria did not have the necessary economic resources to fund a program.<\/p>\n

These assertions were not based on highly classified intelligence. Instead, they were personal views that some IC members developed based on public information. The intelligence that did exist — which I thought warranted close observation of Syria, at a minimum — the IC discounted as inconsistent with its fixed opinions. In short, theirs was not an intelligence conclusion, but a policy view presented under the guise of intelligence.<\/p>\n

How wrong they were.<\/p>\n

As for Syria’s technical expertise, North Korea obviously had the scientific and technological ability to construct the reactor, which was essentially a clone of the North’s own at Yongbyon. Moreover, it is entirely possible that Syria’s nuclear program — undertaken with Pyongyang’s assistance — is even more extensive. We will certainly never know from Syria directly, since Damascus continues to deny it has any nuclear program whatever. It’s also stonewalling investigation efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency.<\/p>\n

As for Syria’s ability to finance a nuclear program, Iran could easily supply whatever Syria might need — even in a time of fluctuating oil prices. Moreover, given Iran’s hegemony over Syria, it is impossible to believe Syria would ever undertake extensive nuclear cooperation with North Korea without Iran’s acquiescence. Iran was likely an active partner in a three-way joint venture on the reactor, supplying key financial support and its own share of scientific knowledge. Cooperation on ballistic missile programs between Pyongyang and Tehran is longstanding and well-advanced, and thereby forms a basis of trust for nuclear cooperation. Moreover, both Iran and North Korea share a common incentive: to conceal illicit nuclear weapons programs from international scrutiny. What better way to hide such programs than to conduct them in a third country where no one is looking?<\/p>\n

Uncovering the North Korean reactor in Syria was a grave inconvenience for the Bush administration. It enormously complicated both the failing six-party talks on North Korea and the EU-3’s diplomatic efforts with Iran, which Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice so actively supported.<\/p>\n

Mr. Asghari’s revelations about Iranian financing of Syria’s nuclear program — if borne out — will have precisely the same negative impact on Obama administration policies, since they track Mr. Bush’s so closely. In fact, the two administrations’ approaches differ only to the extent that Mr. Obama is poised to pursue policies, like face-to-face negotiations with Iran, that the second term Bush State Department wanted to do, but faced too much internal dissonance to implement.<\/p>\n

The Nowruz video reflects the dominant view within the Obama administration that its “open hand” will be reciprocated. It’s likely Iran will respond affirmatively to the near-plaintive administration request to “engage.”<\/p>\n

And why not? Such dialogue allows Iran to conceal its true intentions and activities under the camouflage of negotiations, just as it has done for the past six years with the EU-3. What’s more, Iran will see it as confirmation of U.S. weakness and evidence that its policies are succeeding.<\/p>\n

There is very little time for Mr. Obama to change course before he is committed to negotiations. He could start by following Iran’s money trail.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bald facts
\n<\/a>, Times of London<\/p>\n

I\"Bald<\/a>

Bald Ibis, thought to be extinct in the Middle East in the 1990s, a colony of six was found at Palmyra, Syria, in 2002. <\/p><\/div>\n

Which brings me to Birds of Syria. It’s a field guide. If you get a copy, remember to read it right to left. It is in Arabic, and is the first field guide to Syria accessible to Syrians. It has been put out by the Syrian Society for the Conservation of Wildlife, with the backing of Birdlife International.<\/p>\n

How many Syrians knew that there are 394 species of birds in their country? A field guide allows the scales to fall from your eyes, so you might see the incalculable riches of your own place, and of all places. This has on its cover the extraordinary bald ibis, critically endangered. It includes the sociable lapwing, also endangered, and the Syrian serin, a local speciality.<\/p>\n

\"Syrian<\/a>

Syrian Sirin<\/p><\/div>\n

The bald ibis is worth the admission money alone. This ridiculous looking bird was thought to be extinct in the Middle East in the 1990s. But a colony of six was found at Palmyra, Syria, in 2002. Extraordinary events like this happen in places where there are not many birdwatchers to the square mile. This book will begin to change that, opening the wonders to more people, inspiring more efforts for conservation.<\/p>\n

But first, the field guide will tell every one of its readers about the most wonderful thing of all: that there are more different kinds of living things than you thought possible.<\/p>\n

See also this wonderful article on<\/strong> Lebanon’s Wine Country<\/a>, Touring and Tasting in the Bekaa Valley, by BROOKE ANDERSON. She includes a bit about wine production in Syria. Evidently, some 30 winemakers operate in Lebanon, more than double the number that were producing in 2005. … The Saad\u00e9 Group announced the opening of two new wineries — one called Bargylus in the Syrian coastal province of Latakkia.<\/p>\n

\"The

The bar at Ch\u00e2teau Kefraya<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ramzi

Ramzi Ghosn, winemaker at Massaya<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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