War (of Words) with Syria
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Friday, May 30, 2003
Hezbollah flay ban plan by Australia
Reuters via Gulf News -- May 30
Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters yesterday said that Australia's push to ban the group as a "terrorist" organisation showed it had fallen in line with a smear campaign orchestrated by Washington and Israel.
U.S. Offers To Pay For Peace
Arutz Sheva -- May 30
Syria, which still appears on the American list of terrorism-supporting countries, and Lebanon are liable to receive a half-billion dollars each from the United States. Two Congressmen - Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fl.) - have been sent by the White House to visit the Middle East next week and offer Damascus the money in exchange for "participating" in the Middle East process. Syria will be asked to end its support for terrorist organizations such as Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, and end the occupation of Lebanon by Syrian troops.
Lebanon, for its part - from where Rep. Issa's grandparents hail - will be asked to disarm Hizbullah, station its forces along the border with Israel instead of Hizbullah, and "express willingness" to reach a water-rights agreement with Israel.
US reportedly offering deal to neutralize Hizbullah
‘$500m on table’ if Beirut complies
The Daily Star -- May 30
Nicholas Blanford
Special to The Daily Star
The United States is reportedly making a fresh attempt to strike a behind-the-scenes
deal to neutralize Hizbullah, offering the government half a billion dollars if the resistance is dismantled and Syria pulls its troops out of Lebanon.
The offer is reportedly being conveyed by Darryl Issa, a Republican congressman for California, and Democrat Robert Wexler during a visit to Beirut Friday, the daily As-Safir said Thursday. The two congressmen will also travel to Damascus to discuss the offer with Syrian officials, the paper said.
As-Safir said the $500 million would be delivered in phases as Lebanon fulfilled a number of demands. An initial $100 million would be disbursed if Lebanon agreed to settle its water disputes with Israel, namely the allocation of water from the Hasbani River.
A further $250 million would be handed over for development projects in the border district if Hizbullah’s military wing is dismantled and the army deployed along the UN-delineated Blue Line. The remaining $150 million would be allocated to water and agricultural projects in the South.
There was no immediate official comment on the offer, but few believe that Lebanon and Syria will accept the alleged deal.
If the report is true, it would not be the first time that the US attempted to cut a deal to curb Hizbullah’s military activities. After Sept. 11, 2001, Issa reportedly delivered a message to Hizbullah’s leadership on behalf of the US administration, asking the party to withdraw from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, publicly distinguish between Islam and terrorism and share information it has on groups the US considers terrorist organizations. In return, the US administration would forgive Hizbullah’s alleged past involvement in anti-Western attacks.
The deal was rejected by Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who described it as a “political hand grenade hurled to finish us off.”
Nasrallah also said that the US attempted to buy off Hizbullah in early 2000, offering millions of dollars, a guaranteed political role in Lebanon and international recognition if it abandoned the struggle against Israel after the Israeli Army withdrew from the South.
Meanwhile, the daily Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Thursday that Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been removing weapons from the border district around Marjayoun. The newspaper also said that Iran has stopped training Hizbullah pilots, apparently hang-glider pilots trained to carry out suicide operations inside Israel.
Timur Goksel, UNIFIL’s spokesman and senior adviser, said that Indian peacekeeping troops deployed in the Marjayoun area had seen no unusual movement.
He also said no hang-gliders had been seen in south Lebanon.
“The only things flying around here bigger than a bird are Israeli jets,” Goksel said.
The only known incident of a hang-glider being used in an attack on Israel happened in November 1987.
The Third Phase of the War on Terror
BBC World News -- May 30
During a BBC report on Hizbullah and Lebanon Dr. Loren B. Thompson of the Lexington Institute had this to say ...
From the viewpoint of the United States, a country that cannont prevent its territory from being used as a base for attacks against other countries is by definition a failed state. It lacks sovereingty, and therefore external powers have the legitimacy of acting in order to prevent them becoming a threat.
Blair in Kuwait Before Iraq Trip; Warns Iran, Syria
Reuters -- May 28
By Mike Peacock
KUWAIT CITY - British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Kuwait on Wednesday before he was due to make the first trip to neighboring Iraq by a Western leader since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
He also delivered a warning to neighbors Iran and Syria not to meddle in Iraq's future or support militants who could upset hopes of progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace moves
"It's particularly important that Iran and Syria cease to support any terrorist groups," he said.
Britain has taken a more measured approach than Washington to Damascus and Syria, favoring dialogue with both.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped up charges that Iran was harboring wanted leaders of the Islamic militant network al Qaeda. Insiders say he is pressing for a U.S. policy shift to support "regime change" in Tehran.
The UK premier stopped well short of that.
[One of the recurring themes of today's sampling of articles is the tremendous variation in tone from different media outlets carrying the same basic stories.
Earlier today a couple of articles about the third anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon were posted to this page. The Daily Star article focuses on Hizbullah's defiant stand against Israel, which invaded as deep as Beirut, and occupied parts of Lebanon for 22 years. The Ha'aretz article mentions a desire by the Sharon government to strike at Hizbullah during the recent US invasion of Iraq -- a desire that was thwarted by the US govenment. (Of course, we know from an earlier UPI article that Sharon government officials were helping Rumsfeld lobby within the Bush cabinet for "hot pursuit" forays by US forces into Syria.)
Here's another view, from the US Christian right, with an interesting choice of headline.]
Lebanon Abandoned: Broken Promises Three Years Later
CBN -- May 27
By Chris Mitchell
Middle East Bureau Chief
Several hundred Israeli soldiers died over the years protecting Israel's northern border. The pullout created major changes in both people and places.
CBN.com – on the ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER — Three years ago this month, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israeli troops out of the south Lebanon security zone. While Barak made good on a campaign promise, the pullout had a devastating impact on thousands of south Lebanese, many of them Christians.
[Detailed article about the neocons' war of words with Iraq. Reporter Jim Lobe names names.]
Neo-cons move quickly on Iran
Asia Times -- May 28
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Reports that top officials in the administration of President George W Bush will meet this week to discuss US policy toward Iran, including possible efforts to overthrow its government, mark a major advance in what has been an 18-month campaign by neo-conservatives in and out of the administration.
Overshadowed until last month by their much louder drum-beating for war against Iraq, the neo-cons' efforts to now focus US attention on "regime change" in Iran have become much more intense since early May, and have already borne substantial fruit.
A high-level, albeit unofficial, dialogue between both countries over Iraq, Afghanistan and other issues of mutual interest was abruptly broken off by Washington 10 days ago amid charges by senior Pentagon officials that al-Qaeda agents based in Iran had been involved in terrorist attacks against US and foreign targets in Saudi Arabia on May 12. Tehran strongly denied the charge.
Now, according to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times, the administration is considering permanently cutting off the dialogue - which included its senior envoy for both Iraq and Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad - and adopting a far more confrontational stance vis-a-vis Tehran that could include covert efforts to destabilize the government.
Pentagon hawks, particularly Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, who have long been closely associated with neo-conservatives outside the administration centered at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), reportedly favor using the heavily armed, Iraq-based Iranian rebel group, the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization, which surrendered to US forces in April, as the core of a possible opposition military force.
They are also pursuing links with the Iranian exile community centered in southern California, which has rallied increasingly around Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran who was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
According to a recent story in the US Jewish newspaper The Forward, Pahlavi has cultivated senior officials in Israel's Likud government with which the neo-conservatives in Washington - both in the administration and outside it - are closely allied.
Besides charges - considered questionable by the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - that Iran may be sheltering al-Qaeda operatives allegedly involved in the May 12 attacks in Riyadh - the administration has voiced several major concerns about the country's recent behavior.
Senior officials have accused Tehran of accelerating a major nuclear program that they say is designed to produce weapons and of infiltrating "agents" into Iraq in order to create problems for the US-dominated occupation there. They have also continued to call Iran a major supporter of international terrorism, primarily due to its backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It was Tehran's backing for Hezbollah that earned it a prominent place on the target list produced by the Project for the New American Century in an open letter to Bush on September 20, 2001, just nine days after al-Qaeda's attack on New York and the Pentagon.
The letter's 41 mainly neo-conservative signers urged Bush to retaliate directly against Iran if it failed to cut off Hezbollah. The same letter anticipated virtually every other step so far taken by the administration in its "war on terror", including invading Afghanistan, severing ties to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
In October, 2001, influential figures at the AEI and like-minded think tanks launched a new line of attack on Iran by publishing articles in sympathetic media, most notably on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, arguing that the Iranian people were so disillusioned by the ruling mullahs in Tehran, including the "reformists" around President Mohamed Khatami, that they were ready to rise up against the government in a pro-US revolution.
"Iran is ready to blow sky-high," wrote AEI scholar Michael Ledeen back in November 2001. "The Iranian people need only a bright spark of courage from the United States to ignite the flames of democratic revolution."
When, much to the State Department's dismay, Bush named Iran as part of the "axis of evil" in late January, 2002, both Israel and the neo-conservatives pressed their advantage, arguing repeatedly that dialogue even with Khatami was a waste of time and that Washington should cast its lot instead with "the people" against the regime.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and Ledeen's AEI colleague, argued last August in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard that the mere presence of US troops in Iraq would bring about revolution next door.
"Popular discontent in Iran tends to heat up when US soldiers get close to the Islamic Republic," he wrote. "An American invasion could possibly provoke riots in Iran - simultaneous uprisings in major cities that would simply be beyond the scope of regime-loyal specialized riot-control units."
But the intensity and frequency of the campaign against Tehran picked up dramatically earlier this month. On May 5, Standard Editor William Kristol, whose office is six floors below the AEI, wrote that the United States was "already in a death struggle with Iran over the future of Iraq" and that "the next great battle - not, we hope, a military battle - will be for Iran".
The very next day, the AEI hosted an all-day conference entitled "The Future of Iran: Mullahcracy, Democracy and the War on Terror", whose speakers included Ledeen, Sobhani, Gerecht, Morris Amitay of the neo-conservative Jewish Institute for National Security Studies and Uri Lubrani from the Israeli Defense Ministry.
The convenor, Hudson Institute Middle East specialist Meyrav Wurmser (whose husband David worked as her AEI counterpart until joining the administration), set the tone: "Our fight against Iraq was only one battle in a long war," she said. "It would be ill-conceived to think that we can deal with Iraq alone ... We must move on, and faster."
"It was a grave error to send [Khalilzad] to secret meetings with representatives of the Iranian government in recent weeks," Israeli-born Wurmser said, complaining that, "rather than coming as victors who should be feared and respected rather than loved, we are still engaged in old diplomacy, in the kind of politics that led to the attacks of September 11."
Just days later, the Khalilzad channel was abruptly closed, and a Christian Right ally of the neo-conservatives, Senator Sam Brownback, introduced the "Iran Democracy Act" that sets as US policy the goal of "an internationally monitored referendum to allow the Iranian people to peacefully change their system of government".
"Now is not the time to coddle this terrorist regime," he said. "Now is the time to stand firm and support the people of Iran - who are the only ones that can win this important battle."
Russia presses Iran over nuclear fuel
Financial Times -- May 27
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Russia has responded to US pressure by telling Iran it will not supply nuclear fuel for the reactor it is constructing unless the Islamic republic agrees to intrusive inspections of all its nuclear facilities, say US and European officials.
Moscow's move was seen in Washington as a big step in the Bush administration's efforts to hinder Iran's development of nuclear weapons. Russia had resisted US pressure to stop construction of the Bushehr plant.
The policy change was also seen in the context of President Vladimir Putin's efforts to ensure a harmonious summit with George W. Bush in St Petersburg on Sunday, following their differences over the Iraq war.
Moscow Says Will Not Back out of Iran Nuke Plans
Riyadh Daily -- May 28
Moscow will not drop plans to build Iran’s first nuclear plant despite growing US pressure over fears Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear arms, Russia’s atomic energy minister was quoted on Tuesday as saying. Russia’s technology sales to Iran and the construction of the Bushehr power station have been a major irritant in relations with Washington, adding to unease over Moscow’s refusal to back US military action in Iraq. "Russia does not see any reason now to review its stance and its role regarding construction of the first nuclear reactor," Prime Tass news agency quoted Alexander Rumyantsev as saying after talks with visiting Iranian nuclear officials on Monday.
[To hedge bets on which is the next country to be liberated, this page follows news about Iran from time to time.]
U.S. dismisses Iran's claim that it arrested suspected al-Qaida members
Knight Ridder Newspapers -- May 27
By Jonathan S. Landay
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Tuesday dismissed Iran's claim that it had arrested suspected al-Qaida members but said the United States would use diplomacy to pressure the Islamic regime to stop harboring terrorists.
"It's a diplomatic course that the president is pursuing and it's a course that trusts the Iranian people, at its core, that the future of Iran will be determined by the people of Iran," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Fleischer reiterated U.S. charges that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, rejecting Tehran's assertions that its nuclear program is for civilian energy production.
"They don't need nuclear energy for their electric grid," he said. "They have sufficient energy from . . . gas and from oil."