"Now, look, part of the reason we
went into Iraq was -- the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was
we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't,
but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction." --
George Walker Bush, 21 August 2006, Press Conference
September 19, 2003
ARE YOU SYRIA-OUS?
Now they're saying Iraqi WMD were hidden in
Syria – seriously!
by Justin Raimondo
It would be funny if it wasn't so ominous. Remember those
"weapons of mass destruction" the Iraqis were supposed to be
holding, poised to
strike us at any moment? Yeah, that's right,
the ones that turned out to not exist – or
were destroyed after Gulf War I. Or
something. Well, anyway, it turns out they aren't missing,
after all – they were spirited over the border to Syria! Honest! Cross my
heart and hope to die. If you don't believe me, just ask
John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control. Testifying
before the House International Relations subcommittee, Bolton said the
United States sees such reports "as cause for concern,"
although they haven't been confirmed. "We are continuing," he
averred, "to seek conclusive evidence": the U.S. has raised the
issue with the Syrians "on numerous occasions."
Bolton – a key figure in the
neocon clique
that lied us into
war with Iraq – drew up a familiar indictment: the Syrians are
assembling "weapons of mass destruction," sponsoring terrorism,
and are even suspected of secretly building nukes. In short, the same
accusations that turned out to be lies last time around, this time are
leveled at Damascus, with the extra added twist that the Syrians are
supposedly encouraging foreign volunteers to cross the border into Iraq
to fight the occupation forces.
Readers of
this
story in the Forward will remember that Bolton was supposed to
have testified in July, but the CIA and the State Department objected: in
their view, the same people who gave us the Niger uranium
forgery didn't deserve an encore. Bolton's assertions were reportedly
debunked in a 38-page internal memo, and his testimony was delayed. Now
the Energizer Warmonger has popped up again, spouting
"intelligence" that has already been vetted and found wanting.
What is going on here?
What we are witnessing is the culmination of a strategy clearly outlined
in a 1996 paper prepared for the Institute for Advanced Strategic and
Political Studies, entitled
"A Clean Break: A
New Strategy for Securing the Realm." This was a collaborative
effort by Richard
Perle,
James Colbert,
Charles
Fairbanks,
Jr.,
Douglas Feith,
Robert Loewenberg,
David Wurmser, and
Meyrav Wurmser – a good number of whom are now ensconced in high
positions in this administration. The paper outlined for then Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a new Israeli strategic vision that would not
only rid the Israelis of their Palestinian problem, but give them
"breathing space" and revitalize the Zionist dream of a Greater
Israel:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with
Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.
This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an
important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of
foiling Syria's regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's
regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the
Hashemites in Iraq."
Rolling back Syrian influence in Lebanon, and even calling for
strikes within Syria itself, the authors of "A Clean Break"
laid out a road map for making the Middle East safe for Israel – one that
had nothing to do with creating a Palestinian state. Syria was seen as
the main enemy, but, in their view, the road to Damascus had to start in
Baghdad – as it has. Using the U.S. as a blunt instrument, Israel
has shaped its strategic environment. While the Coalition
Provisional Authority hasn't restored the
Hashemites
quite yet, Bolton's testimony signals that the second phase of Operation
Clean Break is underway.
Among the most militantly obnoxious of the neocons, Bolton's belligerence
is underscored by his tone of unbridled arrogance:
"Of course,"
he testified,
"I will have much more to say on all of these subjects during the
closed hearing, and I look forward to a more specific and detailed
discussion than we can have in an open hearing. As we all recognize, the
importance of protecting and preserving vital intelligence sources and
methods necessarily and properly restricts what we can say publicly.
Nonetheless, the conduct of national security requires that we take all
available information into account, which I believe we will be able to do
in a classified session."
In other words: it's none of the public's business why or how we
might go to war. The neocons know what's best for us. And, no, we can't
say who is the source of this endless stream of fabrications, fibs, and
crude forgeries. That information is "properly restricted."
In his concluding remarks to the committee, Bolton invoked the specter of
"the destructive potential of terrorism on September 11,"
leading one to wonder when we'll be hearing that the Syrians were really
behind 9/11. Maybe we can put
Laurie Mylroie on the job,
under contract with the
Office of
Special
Plans.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Syria has been our ally in
the war against Al Qaeda:
"Syria and the United States have shared intelligence about
al-Qaeda, according to U.S. government sources, and FBI and CIA officials
have reportedly traveled to Syria to meet with Syrian intelligence
officers. The two countries are also said to be cooperating to gather
information about what the September 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta did while
researching his university thesis in the Syrian city of Aleppo in the
1990s and about Syrian-born individuals who investigators say were
connected to the al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, involved in the
September 11 attacks. Syria has reportedly allowed U.S. officials to put
questions to an alleged al-Qaeda associate who it's holding, a
Syrian-born German citizen first detained in Morocco."
Syria is a regional test for the U.S. Here is an Arab country, seen
by Israel as an implacable enemy, uniquely positioned to give the U.S.
invaluable cooperation. The American interest is clearly rapprochement,
while the Israeli interest is just as clearly confrontation. As to whose
interests will prevail, in the struggle within the administration, I am
in no position to predict – only to hope.
Israel's lobby in the U.S. is pushing hard to impose
economic
sanctions on their next target, and pressuring this administration to
ratchet up the rhetoric. Karl Rove's
"no
war in '04" rule, discussed in
my last column,
may not be able to withstand their machinations. We are a border incident
away from taking the war into Syria, and beyond.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j091903.html
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