Why did the West create a mess in Syria, which is in turn flooding the West with Syrian immigrants? In part, because of the pressure of intellectuals such as Yossi Klein Halevi, who wrote in the Los Angeles Times April 15, 2003:
JERUSALEM — Though Syria was conspicuously omitted from President Bush’s “axis of evil,” the regime of Bashar Assad has now replaced Saddam Hussein as the Arab world’s leading supporter of terrorism and stockpiler of weapons of mass destruction.
Syria is the only Arab country that actively backed Hussein, reportedly encouraging suicide bombers to cross into Iraq, sheltering Iraqi war fugitives and possibly storing nonconventional weapons for Hussein.
By focusing on those provocations, the Bush administration is correcting a serious flaw in its war against terrorism. The region’s most vicious terrorist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, maintain operational centers in Damascus. As one administration insider put it, any taxi driver in the Syrian capital knows the address of half a dozen terrorist groups.
Worse, Syria arms and protects the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. Until Sept. 11, Hezbollah held the world record in the number of Americans killed through terrorism. In two suicide bombings in the 1980s, Hezbollah murdered 260 American soldiers stationed in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. No terror organization maintains greater global reach than Hezbollah, whose cells and fund-raising network extend to six continents. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage recently noted that Hezbollah “may be the [terrorists’] A-team, while Al Qaeda may be actually the B-team.”
Syria’s support for Hezbollah endangers the entire Middle East. Since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah has reportedly placed up to 10,000 Iranian-supplied missiles along the Israeli border. Those missiles, capable of reaching every town and industrial center in the Galilee, were delivered through the Syrian army, which controls Lebanon. If another regional Arab-Israeli war occurs, the probable trigger won’t be Palestinian terrorism but Hezbollah’s missiles.
Whereas Bashar’s father, the late Syrian dictator Hafez Assad, maintained tight control over Hezbollah and saw it as an expedient tool to be wielded with caution, Bashar has embraced Hezbollah’s romantic self-image as the Arab avant-garde. Hezbollah, he has said, is a “ray of light” for the Arab world. The “historic relations” between Syria and Hezbollah, he said shortly after the Israeli withdrawal, “will be much stronger and more effective than they were in the past.” That is one promise the young Assad has faithfully kept.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
When Bashar Assad inherited his father’s regime three years ago, much was made in the international media about the new leader’s Western education and affinity for the Internet. Some even breathlessly reported that he was a Phil Collins fan. But Assad quickly proved that he was his father’s son by suppressing a reformist movement and arresting Syrian dissidents who had written an open letter to him demanding democracy.
With Hussein gone, Bashar Assad is now the Arab world’s leading rejectionist of peace with Israel. He recently asserted that Israel’s legitimacy would never be accepted by the Arab world.
Syria has opposed every Middle East breakthrough, from the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty to the Oslo process. And now Syria is taking on the United States.
The mufti of Damascus, Syria’s highest-ranking religious leader, recently urged Muslims to attack American troops in Iraq. As a government employee in a police state, he would never have issued that call without Assad’s tacit approval.
After years of Syrian provocation, Washington is finally responding. The Bush administration is demanding that Syria surrender Hussein’s nonconventional weapons — if it has them — and stop providing asylum to his henchmen. The administration is also calling attention to Syria’s own stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and its support for terrorist groups.
But Washington needs to go further: It should demand that Syria end its occupation of Lebanon, permit Beirut to disarm Hezbollah and assert control over its own country.
An American invasion of Syria most likely will not be necessary to produce results. Unlike Hussein, Bashar Assad has shown that he can be pressured. When the Turks threatened to invade Damascus unless he handed over the Kurdish terrorist leader Abdullah Ocalan, the Syrian leader quickly obliged.
If the United States is serious about uprooting terrorism, it cannot stop with its victory in Iraq. The jihadist war against the West has been actively nurtured by several key Middle East regimes.
Focusing the struggle on Damascus is the inevitable next step of the counteroffensive that began on Sept. 12, 2001.
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in 2006:
Syria had not been on bad terms with Washington before the Iraq war (it had even voted for UN Resolution 1441), and was itself no threat to the United States. Playing hardball with it would make the US look like a bully with an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Third, putting Syria on the hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to bring pressure to bear, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first. Yet Congress insisted on putting the screws on Damascus, largely in response to pressure from Israeli officials and groups like AIPAC. If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability Act, and US policy towards Damascus would have been more in line with the national interest.
Israelis tend to describe every threat in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous enemy because it is the most likely to acquire nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons as a threat to their existence. ‘Iraq is a problem … But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq,’ the defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, remarked a month before the Iraq war.
Sharon began pushing the US to confront Iran in November 2002, in an interview in the Times. Describing Iran as the ‘centre of world terror’, and bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, he declared that the Bush administration should put the strong arm on Iran ‘the day after’ it conquered Iraq. In late April 2003, Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam, he noted, was ‘not enough’. In his words, America ‘has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran.’
The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran. On 6 May, the AEI co-sponsored an all-day conference on Iran with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute, both champions of Israel. The speakers were all strongly pro-Israel, and many called for the US to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy. As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives made the case for going after Iran. ‘The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East … But the next great battle – not, we hope, a military battle – will be for Iran,’ William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard on 12 May.
The administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to create a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure. Op-eds and other articles now warn of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement of a ‘terrorist’ regime, and hint darkly of preventive action should diplomacy fail. The Lobby is pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions. Israeli officials also warn they may take pre-emptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, threats partly intended to keep Washington’s attention on the issue.
One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on policy towards Iran, because the US has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear. There is some truth in this, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.
It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel’s enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel will end up protected by the world’s only superpower. This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s point of view, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
Can the Lobby’s power be curtailed? One would like to think so, given the Iraq debacle, the obvious need to rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Islamic world, and the recent revelations about AIPAC officials passing US government secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat’s death and the election of the more moderate Mahmoud Abbas would cause Washington to press vigorously and even-handedly for a peace agreement. In short, there are ample grounds for leaders to distance themselves from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy more consistent with broader US interests. In particular, using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the cause of democracy in the region.
But that is not going to happen – not soon anyway. AIPAC and its allies (including Christian Zionists) have no serious opponents in the lobbying world. They know it has become more difficult to make Israel’s case today, and they are responding by taking on staff and expanding their activities. Besides, American politicians remain acutely sensitive to campaign contributions and other forms of political pressure, and major media outlets are likely to remain sympathetic to Israel no matter what it does.
The Lobby’s influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face – including America’s European allies. It has made it impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathisers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.
Equally worrying, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the US to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We don’t need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility towards Syria and Iran makes it almost impossible for Washington to enlist them in the struggle against al-Qaida and the Iraqi insurgency, where their help is badly needed.
There is a moral dimension here as well. Thanks to the Lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians. This situation undercuts Washington’s efforts to promote democracy abroad and makes it look hypocritical when it presses other states to respect human rights. US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which only encourages Iran and others to seek a similar capability.
Besides, the Lobby’s campaign to quash debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing sceptics by organising blacklists and boycotts – or by suggesting that critics are anti-semites – violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends. The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel’s backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned.
Finally, the Lobby’s influence has been bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities – including a peace treaty with Syria and a prompt and full implementation of the Oslo Accords – that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists. Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel more secure, and the long campaign to kill or marginalise a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and US policy more even-handed.
There is a ray of hope, however. Although the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality cannot be ignored for ever. What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel’s well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided US support and could move the US to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well.
