Syria's Road to Damascus
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
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Written April 8, 2003
Updated March 7, 2005
Was Saddam Hussein hiding in Syria? DEBKAfile, an
Israeli-owned rumor mill thought so two years ago. He was supposed to be in the
Mediterranean coast town of Latakia in the Cote d'Azur De Cham Resort, a
neighbor of the al-Assads, the indigenous dynastic rulers. Allowing him entry
was supposed to be one of a series of manifestly anti-American moves by the
Syrian regime.
The Department of Defense has repeatedly accused the country - still on the
State Department's list of terror-abetting polities - of shipping weapons and
materiel, such as night goggles and jamming systems for satellite global
positioning devices, across the border to Hussein's depleted and besieged
forces. Arab volunteers, some bent on suicide attacks, have been crossing into
Iraq from an accommodating Syria.
Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense, called these unhindered
flows "hostile acts". The CNN quoted former CIA director James Woolsey calling
the Syrian regime "fascist". Even the docile Colin Powell warned Syria during
his tenure that it is facing a "critical choice".
According to the Kuwaiti daily, Al Rai Al Am, in a related incident, U.S.
special forces have demolished two years ago a pipeline which delivered more
than 200,000 barrels of heavily discounted oil a day from Kirkuk in Iraq to
Syria, in defiance of repeated American requests. A railroad link between the
neighboring countries was also blown up. Western sources denied both these
reports.
Structures within Syria's military and secret services, acting through business
fronts, have been implicated in arms trafficking from Syria to Iraq, including,
according to the pro-Israeli Forward magazine and the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz,
anti-aircraft missiles, rockets and Scud missile guidance systems, tank
transporters and antitank missiles from Russia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Belarus and
Bulgaria.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful Jewish lobby, intends
to capitalize on such bad blood. Its executive director, Howard Kohr, told
various media recently that AIPAC will target the transfer of missile
technologies from Russia to Syria, Iran and North Korea, two of which are
charter members of the "axis of evil" together with Iraq.
On Apruil 2003, repeating accusation aired on December 2002 by Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, Brigadier General Yossi Kupperwasser, a senior officer in the
Israeli intelligence community, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
of Israel's Knesset that Syria was harboring Iraqi chemical and biological
agents and long-range missiles. Even the Americans found these charges too
outlandish to endorse.
Despite fears publicly expressed by Bashar al-Assad and other senior Syrian
officials, Syria is unlikely to be the next target of the coalition forces. It
is an American strategic asset. An ardent historical foe of Iraq, it joined the
American-led coalition in the first Gulf War and the war on terrorism.
Syria also voted for resolution 1441 in the Security Council, calling for Iraq's
disarmament under pain of war. It is also indispensable to any lasting Middle
East settlement. The administration torpedoed the Syria Accountability Act, a
Congressional attempt to impose sanctions on Damascus. According to the official
Syrian news agency SANA, Tony Blair called al-Assad to inform him "that Britain
disagrees completely with those who promote the targeting of Syria".
At the time, in an interview to the London-based Arabic language al-Hayat
newspaper, Powell denied any intention to invade either Syria or Iran. But the
conspiracy-minded noted the revival, by Israel, of a plan to carry oil from
Mosul to Haifa, through a disused pipeline running via Syrian territory. Hooman
Peimani in Asia Times concluded:
"Unless the pipeline were redirected through Jordan, another country bordering
Israel and Iraq with normalized relations with Israel, the pipeline project will
require a different regime in Syria. In other words, regime change in both Iraq
and Syria is the prerequisite for the project. As (Israeli Minister of National
Infrastructure, Yosef) Paritzky did not mention a redirecting option, it is safe
to suggest that the Israelis are also optimistic about a regime change in Syria
in the near future."
The demise of Hussein's pariah regime spells economic trouble for Syria. Still
largely a socialist command economy, it has only recently embarked on a hesitant
and partial path towards market reforms. Iraq served as both the source of cheap
energy and a captive market for shoddy Syrian goods. Bilateral trade, excluding
oil, amounted to $2 billion, according to the Khaleej Times, a United Arab
Emirates daily.
Syria, itself a fledgling oil producer, re-exported some of the Iraqi crude and
much of its own output through a pipeline leading from Kirkuk directly to the
port of Banias. It reaped between $500 million to $1 billion annually from such
arbitrage. Syria extracts about 400,000 barrels of crude per day and c. 8
billion cubic meters of natural gas a year.
Lebanon is another paradise likely to be lost to Syria in the wake of the Iraq
war. The country, largely occupied by the Syrian security apparatus, has been
divvied to lucrative fiefdoms controlled by politicians belonging to the late
Hafiz al-Assad's old guard.
The Lebanese economy and its financial sector are far superior to Syria's. But
the United States is pressing a reluctant Syria to terminate its "occupation" of
Lebanon and, thus, to let the West dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist
organizations, such as the Iran-backed Hizbullah, that thrive there.
Observers say that the subtraction of the Iraqi and Lebanese windfalls is a
blessing in disguise. It will force Syria to modernize, reform its bloated
public sector, restructure or genuinely privatize its numerous state-owned
enterprises, develop its energy sector and introduce the rudiments of a monetary
policy and a banking system. Syrian manufacturers have already begun to develop
markets in other Arab countries and in East Europe.
Not all is lost. Syria, a largely agricultural country, enjoyed bumper crops in
2003-4. Its ports inevitably serve as the entry points for goods used in Iraq's
reconstruction. Such traffic is a boon to its budding service industries.
Nor is Syria as isolated as the United States and Israel might wish it were.
In April 2003, Jordan and Syria signed an agreement to construct the $87 million
Al Wihda dam on the northern Yarmuk River which flows from Syria to its
neighbor. It will add 80 million cubic meters of drinking and irrigation water
to Jordan's dilapidated supplies. The facility will be erected by Ozaltin, a
Turkish construction firm, and financed by Jordan with loans from the Abu Dhabi
Development Fund and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.
Turkey has also been reaching out to Syria and Iran in a belated effort to
counter an emerging Kurdish polity within a federated postwar Iraq. This
rapprochment started prior to the latest Iraq war, days after Colin Powell
departed Turkey in the belief that fences have been mended. Iranian Foreign
Minister Kamal Kharrazi visited Ankara and Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
embarked on a trip to Syria.
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami traveled to Syria and Lebanon in early May
2003. President Bashar al-Assad briefly stopped in Tehran in March 2003 to
discuss the brewing crisis in Iraq. A common statement of mutual defense against
"common enemies" was signed last month (February 2005) .
This flurry of summits indicates the formation of a broad front aimed at
countering certain American allies - notably the Kurds. The participants also
aspire to affect the future shape of their region. It is a tall order and they
may well be too late.
As Richard Murphy, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from
1983 to 1989, recently told the Daily Telegraph:
"There's a perception that the time has come to spread democracy in the Middle
East. Their view is that the US paid heavily on September 11 for having not
stood by its principles in dealing with autocracies in the Middle East."
Also Read:
God's Diplomacy and Human Conflicts
The Economies of the Middle East
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