Thurs. 14 Oct. 2010
GUARDIAN
Ø Presdient Assad is reasserting his country’s influence in the Middle East………………………………………………….1
REUTERS
Ø Did Syria win the nuclear battle?...... ….4
LATIMES
Ø Israel: Iranians at the gates — what to do?...... 8
COUNTER PUNCH
Ø To Exist is to Resist" : From Apartheid South Africa to Palestine ……………….………………………..…………10
INDEPENDENT
Ø Israel has no future as a purely Jewish state……....………..17
VOA
Ø Iraqi Prime Minister Visits Syria to Mend Year-old Rift...... 19
HAARETZ
Ø Assassinating Ahmadinejad today is like assassinating Hitler in 1939…….………………………………………………..21
NYTIMES
Ø Searching for Crumbs in Syria’s Breadbasket……………..22
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Syria: middle man of the Middle East
For the first time since the 2003 Iraq invasion, Syria has political leverage in the Middle East and United States
Mohanad Hage Ali,
Guardian,
14 Oct. 2010,
"Iraqi democracy will succeed, and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran, that freedom can be the future of every nation." Those were the words of President George Bush on 6 November 2003.
At the moment, bluntly put, the outcome is not what Bush envisaged. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan emboldened Iran by the simple riddance of its arch enemies: Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Syria, on the other hand, has only recently re-emerged from the cold as a major regional power broker, surviving years of American and international pressure in Lebanon and Iraq, both now weak and divided states, ripe for external influences, proxy wars and bargaining.
While Iran increased its regional influence, Syria remained on the defensive, growing increasingly isolated. The Bush administration reinforced its aggressive policy with the Syria Accountability Act paving the way for more political and economic pressure.
Syria's standing further deteriorated after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, in 2005. The political and popular fallout from the assassination, along with mounting international pressure, forced Syria to withdraw its forces and saw the emergence of an anti-Syrian government in Lebanon.
By then, Syria was "feeling pretty lonesome" and "Washington thought that's a good state of mind to have them in", according to Richard Murphy, former US ambassador to Syria. The Bush administration was assessing Syria's future by talking to opponents of President Bashar al-Assad and even providing them with financial assistance in certain cases.
In Iraq, Syria was repeatedly accused, even by Iran's Iraqi Shia allies, of supporting the Sunni insurgency and facilitating the movement of suicide bombers through its borders. Syria denied the allegations, even after Iraqi state television broadcast confessions from captured insurgents, clearly stating they had received help and training in Syria on their way to Iraq.
Damascus stood by – just waiting for the tide to change or, in other words, for the Bush administration to leave the White House. Patience is a formidable weapon for a non-democratic regime; time does not run out as foreign policy is not bound by constitutional term limits.
Syrian patience seems to have paid off well. In Lebanon, Syria has recovered its political weight. Last December, Rafik Hariri's son, Saad – the current prime minister – visited Damascus to meet Assad, the man he had previously accused of killing his father (Hariri has since retracted his accusations).
Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader and a key political figure, also made a U-turn; he considered his alliance with the former American administration "a black spot" in his history, and called for the strengthening of ties with Syria. He then declared his withdrawal from the governing March 14 alliance – a move that could now give Syria's allies a majority in parliament.
On the Iraqi side, the Syrian harvest took longer. The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, accused Syria of harbouring Ba'athists, and relations between both countries further deteriorated.
Syria decided to sit back and wait for Iraqi elections to bring about – in the words of the deputy foreign minister, Faysal al-Moqdad, – "a friendlier government". In the elections, held last May, Syria (along with Saudi Arabia) openly supported the Iraqiya coalition, led by the secular Iyad Allawi, a former Iraqi prime minister. After receiving unprecedented Sunni support, Allawi's coalition won the largest share of seats (91), slightly ahead of Maliki (89).
Syria wanted Maliki out but Iran had a different stance and both countries worked in different directions. After much Iranian effort, Syria was eventually persuaded to accept Maliki – reportedly after he sent a letter to Damascus apologising for his accusations – and on 9 September the Syrian and Iraqi prime ministers had a "friendly" phone conversation.
That conversation worked like magic. After 24 hours, oil ministries in both countries signed an agreement to build a pipeline to export Iraqi oil through Syria; all the co-operation agreements between the two countries were reactivated, and both ambassadors returned to their positions in Damascus and Baghdad. About a week later, Ahmadinejad visited Damascus to discuss "the Iraqi issue" among other regional subjects and Assad reciprocated with a visit to Tehran.
For the first time since the 2003 Iraq invasion, Syria now has political leverage in Baghdad. Maliki needs support from Damascus to form a regionally and locally legitimate government with adequate Sunni representation, and to launch another reconciliation initiative with the insurgency's leaders.
Iraq was not the first time Damascus and Tehran parted in their "strategic alliance". Syria and Iran fought a proxy war in Lebanon in the late 1980s, through the two rival Shia movements, Amal and Hezbollah, both respectively aligned to the two countries. The Syrian army clashed with Hezbollah in Beirut, and executed 23 of its members in 1987.
Last year in Yemen, Syria stood by Saudi Arabia as its forces took on Shia rebels across the border, while Iran was accused of training and supporting them. Earlier this year, the ruling Ba'ath party in Syria resumed its mediation role between the Yemeni government and the opposition parties' umbrella group; yet another role that conflicts with Iran's foreign policy.
Syria's ambitions do not end there; it is also seeking to mediate between Iran and the west. It is still unclear how great a role Syria could play in that. What's certain, though, is that the days of pressure and gloom during the Bush administration are long gone, and that the Obama administration has recognised the need to engage with Syria, as the Iraq Study Group recommended in 2006.
The Obama administration needs Syria's help in the Palestinian issue, especially because of its strong leverage with Hamas (whose political leader, Khaled Meshaal, lives in Damascus) and a dozen other opposing Palestinian factions. For that reason, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, met Syria's foreign minister, Walid Muallem, in New York on 27 September and his deputy followed up with a two-day visit to Washington.
The past is now behind both countries, what remains is the Damascenes' favourite game: bargaining.
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Analysis: U.N. nuclear agency faces dilemma over Syria
Fredrik Dahl
Reuters,
Wed, Oct 13 2010,
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear agency says Syria is stonewalling its investigation into suspected atomic activity, but it may hold back from escalating the dispute to avoid opening a new front at a time of rising tension with Iran.
It has been more than two years since Syria allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the Dair Alzour desert site, where secret nuclear work may have taken place before it was bombed to rubble by Israel in 2007.
U.S. intelligence reports said it was a nascent North Korean-designed nuclear reactor intended to produce bomb fuel. Syria, like its ally Iran, denies having an atomic weapons programme.
Washington has suggested the Vienna-based U.N. agency could invoke its "special inspection" mechanism to give it the authority to look anywhere in Syria at short notice.
Damascus would probably refuse such a demand and IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano would then have to choose between raising the stakes further or, in effect, accepting his office can do little more to make an unwilling member state cooperate.
Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace referred in a report to inspections and other means used by the agency to make sure countries do not acquire atom bombs.
"Syria is winning its battle with the IAEA over safeguards compliance," he said.
"Fearing a confrontation, Amano is not willing to request from Damascus a special inspection to probe allegations raised by Western states and Israel that Syria built a clandestine reactor."
URANIUM TRACES
In its latest report on Syria in September, the IAEA said the country's refusal to allow U.N. inspectors access to the area was endangering potential evidence in the investigation.
Earlier this year, it gave some weight to suspicions of illicit atomic activity by saying uranium traces found in a visit by inspectors in 2008 pointed to nuclear-related activity.
In a debate in the IAEA's 35-nation board last month, U.S. ambassador Glyn Davies said Washington would back the agency's use of all tools at its disposal to advance the investigation.
Syrian envoy Mohammed Badi Khattab said the IAEA did not need to go back to Dair Alzour because it already had ample proof it was a non-nuclear military site.
Syria has previously suggested uranium particles found at the site came from Israeli weapons used in the strike or were dropped from the air, an assertion dismissed by the West.
The Syrian case has been overshadowed by a more high-profile dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, which the West fears is aimed at making bombs and Tehran says is for producing electricity.
One important difference between the two, diplomats say, is that Iran's work is still going on while the Syrian site was destroyed.
The IAEA last resorted to special inspection powers in 1993 in North Korea, which still withheld access and later developed nuclear bomb capability in secret.
SPECIAL INSPECTION
Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said the evidence raised questions about whether Syria was breaking legally-binding commitments.
"It seems to me that this is a case which really calls out for a special inspection," he said.
Any such move may anger Damascus, whose relations with Washington improved after Barack Obama took office in 2009.
If Syria were to reject a possible special inspection request, the IAEA board could vote to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council, as it did with Iran four years ago.
This seems unlikely in the near future and Syria may be backed by board members from developing countries, but Western states are expected to keep up the pressure.
"We're likely to see a continued stalemate, with associated low-level tension at the (IAEA) board, for some time to come," said Andreas Persbo, Executive Director of the Verification Research, Training and Information Center (VERTIC) in London.
Syria has allowed inspectors to visit an old research reactor in Damascus where they have been checking whether there is a link with Dair Alzour after discovering unexplained particles of processed uranium at both.
Hibbs said that, as time passed, it would be easier to hide any non-declared nuclear activities. "The U.S. and other Western states are getting increasingly concerned that time is running out on the IAEA in Syria."
Kile said it would be troubling if North Korea was supplying nuclear weapon-relevant technology to a country without such arms. "I think that for many...is really a red line," he said.
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ISRAEL: Iranians at the gates — what to do?
Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem,
Los Angeles Times,
13 Oct. 2010,
Israel often warns that Iran is at its gates, waging war by proxy from both south and north. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon brings Iran to Israel's northern gate in the flesh, and the question many are asking is what to do.
Nothing, is the official answer. The high-profile visit is being met with a low-key response. We don't need a campaign, said Foreign Ministry sources this week, Ahmadinejad does his own negative PR and is "his own worst enemy."
"The Lebanese are the first to understand the grave implications for their country, we needn't intervene," spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
Uzi Rabi, head of Middle East studies at Tel-Aviv University, echoed this sentiment. The best PR for Israel's policies on the matter is Ahmadinejad himself, he said. "Let him say what he wants and let Israel make the best use of it," Rabi said in a radio interview Wednesday. Rabi alluded to the wider context of the visit, noting Ahmadinejad's eroding support within Iran and the tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which is believed will finger Hezbollah. Among other things, Rabi said, the visit is a clear statement to the West that its efforts to "transfer Lebanon to the 'right camp' have failed."
But the official silent treatment should not be misinterpreted for lack of concern, writes the Jerusalem Post. Unnamed officials said Wednesday that the visit marks Lebanon conversion into "an Iranian protectorate". Ahmadinejad's appearance as a "commander surveying his soldiers" should set off red warning lights around the world, the sources said. Other spokesmen used the "landlord" metaphor instead.
Meeting with soldiers in the northern Golan Heights, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Ahmadinejad's visit reflects Hezbollah's increasing dependence on Iran. Lebanon may cease to exist as an independent state and Israel should follow developments and give them thought in terms of "intelligence and military."
One lawmaker is through thinking and isn't waiting for developments; Aryeh Eldad told Israel Radio flat-out what needs to be done. If there had been found a person who could have eliminated Hitler on the eve of World War II, Eldad said, this would have changed the course of history, certainly that of the Jews. Israel was founded so that Jews would be responsible for their fate and never again face extermination, he said, and it is now in a situation where it can "eliminate in South Lebanon the man de-legitimizing our very existence" and threatening to annihilate it. "Eliminating Ahmadinejad today is like eliminating Hitler in 1939," the legislator said.