Last December, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon claimed that Iraq had
shipped chemical and biological weapons to Syria. Early this month,
General Kupperwasser, head of Israel's army intelligence, was not so
certain when he told a Knesset committee: "...it is possible that
Iraq transferred missiles and weapons of mass destruction into Syria."
After Kupperwasser's allegation, Secretary Rumsfeld remembered that
he had known for some time of chemical weapons in Syria. His deputy,
Paul Wolfowitz, promptly concluded: "There's got to be change in
Syria." Former CIA director James Woolsey threw down the gauntlet
at UCLA when he demanded that the "fascist" government of
Syria has to be replaced.
Yet, after having heard all these dire allegations and threats, we read
in the April 8 issue of the Washington Post that General Richard Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was telling reporters: "there
is no evidence" that weapons of mass destruction have been moved
out of Iraq into another country. Whom are the American people to believe,
Sharon or Myers? The world in fact is still waiting for somebody in
Iraq to discover the chemical weapons of whose existence the Bush administration
was so certain a month ago. Even before the invasion started, the U.N.'s
inspectors had determined that Iraq no longer possessed either nuclear
or biological weapons. While the world owes a debt of gratitude to the
coalition soldiers who ended Saddam's bloody tyranny, the same preemptive
attack on Syria can hardly be justified on the same grounds as the invasion
of Iraq.
This writer met toured Syria and met with numerous Syrians in 1996 when
Hafez al-Assad ruled, and again in 2001 after his son Bashar had assumed
the presidency. Nobody denied that, since 1970, the 17 million inhabitants
of Syria have been governed by a dictatorial coterie of mostly members
of the Alawite sect, led with an iron hand by the elder Assad until
2000, and by the younger since then. Bashar, however, noticeably eased
his father's restrictions on speech and press and lifted burdensome
economic controls. Anybody who tells you that Syrians are anti-American
has never been there.
Many have relatives in the U.S. and most speak favorably of America
and Americans. Few Syrians hesitate, however, to tell any American who
will listen how extremely bitter they are over the unconditional support
the U.S. government extends to Israel's brutal and destructive occupation
government. Why, Syrians tend to ask, do Congress and the President
ignore the daily killings of Palestinians and demonize desperate young
Palestinians who retaliate with explosives strapped to their bodies.
It is most depressing for visiting Americans to hear, day-in and day-out,
the Syrian litanies against what they consider anti-Arab bigotry on
the part of America's leaders. For Syrians, members of Hizbollah are
not terrorists but fighters against the wanton Israeli incursions into
Lebanon. Privately, several Syrians admitted to me that Syria, like
all Arab countries, is hopelessly outgunned by Israel's armed forces,
even without their weapons of mass destruction.
Did Mr. Bush forget that Hafez' government condemned Saddam Hussein's
invasion of Kuwait in 1991 and joined the anti-Iraqi coalition with
troops? The old man even accepted U.S. proposals for an Arab-Israeli
peace conference but balked when Israel refused to return the Golan
Heights to Syria.
President Bashar, a British-trained ophthalmologist with a British wife,
has his hands tied by the hard-line Baathists in the military who might
oust him if he tried to liberalize Syria and make concessions to Israel.
The Europeans are on much better terms with Bashar than the U.S. because
they do not see any gain in labeling Syria a "terrorist state."
Prime Minister Blair even paid a friendly visit to Bashar, and British
companies sold Syrians the very night vision equipment that, according
to Secretary Rumsfeld, they then resold to their embattled fellow Arabs
in Iraq.
Surely, if President Bush followed Tony Blair's lead and ventured a
face-to face-talk with President Bashar, that might yield both countries
far more political gain than the counterproductive policy of denunciations
and threats.