My take on the big uproar over the US raid into Syria is that it will blow over in a few days. While Syria probably didn’t sit down with US troops and say “gee how can we plan a joint operation against the targets,” I suspect Syria probably turned a blind eye, knowing that the raid carried out one of their stated security objectives. Scroll down a few posts to read my theory in greater depth. Borzou of the LA TIMES looks at the possibility that Syria green-lighted the attack:
Everyone’s still scratching their heads about Sunday’s dramatic U.S. attack on a Syrian village five miles from the Iraqi border.
Plenty of unanswered questions remain, like why didn’t the Syrians do anything to thwart the Americans, such as launching anti-aircraft batteries deployed along their border? Ronen Bergman, an Israeli intelligence expert and author of the recent “The Secret War with Iran,” speculates that Syria green-lighted the U.S. operation. In an interview with an Israeli newspaper and in a chat with Britain’s Sky News, Bergman cites two senior American officials who he says told him the Americans went after an alleged Al Qaeda leader in Syria only after getting Damascus’ OK.
He says the Syrians were at first reluctant to appear to be submitting to U.S. pressure by going after the guy themselves. In the end, they discretely gave the Americans permission to cross their border and hunt him down … According to Bergman, Syrians told Washington they wouldn’t block their way if commandos entered their country in broad daylight:
“If you want to do this, do it. We are going to give you a corridor and carte blanche. We will not harm your troops. … The Syrians have invested so much in aerial defences, especially against choppers and the Americans go in in daylight and nothing is being done.”
According to U.S. officials, the target of the raid was a man named Abu Ghadiya, an Al Qaeda figure responsible for funneling guns and fighters through Syria and into Iraq. But journalists who reached the site quoted villagers as saying the only people killed were innocent civilians. Does it make sense that Syria would OK such a dramatic U.S. attack? There’s been a slight thaw in relations between Syria and the U.S. over the last few months. Syria’s secular leadership has been fighting radical Islamists for decades. From a Syrian point of view, why not let the U.S. take care of the region’s Abu Ghadiyas? And as for the timing, it’s better for Damascus to let the U.S. finish the job now and blame the Bush administration, whose reputation in the Middle East could hardly get worse, and make a fresh start with the Obama or McCain teams.
My Commentary
The comments accuse the post’s writer of merely following a right-wing agenda, trying to disguise or legitimize American agression. Ok, but how do we explain that this mission just happens to fit in with Syria’s stated security goals?
Governments, almost by definition, say one thing and do another. There wouldn’t be anything especially unusual about the Syrian government making a public show about “US agression” while having had full knowledge of it all along. No government’s statements can be taken at face value. Could Italy’s protests following the 2003 CIA kidnappings in Milan be taken at face-value? I don’t think so.
Also, if in fact the raid was green-lighted, there is the possibily (even likelihood) that only the Security apparatus and highest level political people would know about it and therefore the people bitching up the biggest storm could genuinely think that Syria got shafted when in fact it didn’t.
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Better Late Than Never?
In a recent interview, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made some shocking statements about what Israel is going to have to give up:
Virtually on his way out the door from the prime minister’s office, Ehud Olmert told Israelis what he really thinks of the future of the peace process.
In a sweeping interview with the mass circulation newspaper Yedioth Ahranot, Mr. Olmert said on the eve of the Jewish New Year last week that Israelis are dreaming if they think they can make peace with the Palestinians without paying the price: a withdrawal from most of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories,” Olmert told the Yediot Aharanot newspaper last week. “We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.”
Asked if this included Jerusalem, he said: “Including in Jerusalem, with special solutions that I can envision on the topic of the Temple Mount and the sacred and historical sites.”
Olmert said that for 35 years he was unwilling to look at the realities of Jerusalem, the eastern half of which Israel annexed after the Six-Day War in 1967.
OK this is nice to hear. But why now? Why are you saying this now, after adopting a “take it or leave it” hard-line approach towards peacemaking for your entire career in government? And isn’t this an admission that previous Israeli peace attempts were ingenuous? CSM notes how the comments are complicating Tipi Livni’s attempts to form a new cabinet:
To peace enthusiasts, this is good news for the future direction of the Kadima Party, which has supported a moderate if motionless platform since taking over in March 2006. To conservatives who don’t see conditions conducive to a settlement of the conflict, Olmert’s comments show a clear leftward tilt that puts him – and possibly Kadima – squarely in the camp of Israelis who are willing to make significant concessions to the Palestinians and the Syrians.
This means that while left or middle-of-the-road parties would like to join a government led by Livni, it will be harder for her to bring in parties such as Shas, which holds 10 percent of the seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
It seems to me that Olmert’s comments, which are truly extraordinary for a PM to say, are too spontaneous to actually be spontaneous. Maybe he is saying this as part of some kind of coordinated effort with Livni to gradually prepare the Israeli public for the realities they are going to have to face-if they want serious peace.
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