The recent attack by the Israel Air Force against a so-called terrorist camp in Syria marked a significant escalation of Israel’s aggressive foreign policy. But as significant as this attack was the official reaction of the US administration was of no less importance.
When Syria asked the UN security council to condemn this open violation of the most basic elements of international law the US threatened to veto it. And US president Bush himself reacted to this aggression not by expressing at least a few words of regret or disapproval but instead simply said that he had told Sharon that “Israel must not feel constrained defending the homeland”.
No doubt Israel’s ultra-right wing government was pleased to hear this. One of Sharon’s ministers, Avigdor Lieberman, already openly threatened Syria. He said Israel should “incinerate Beirut and Damascus” in retaliation for resistance attacks in the West Bank. “We should take advantage of our military superiority and visit Syrian and Lebanon with destruction for their support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”
Indeed Israel could and would not start a war without the – at least silent – consent of its paymaster in Washington.
Israel’s war-mongering against Syria can not be understood without looking at the strategies discussed in the ruling circles of US imperialism. Here the faction of the so-called neo-conservatives (neo-cons) – which is closely allied with Israel’s ruling party Likud – play a central role.
Their most prominent members are US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, under-secretary of state John Bolton, heads of the Pentagon’s Office of Programs, Analysis and Evaluation Steven Cambone, Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross from the Defence Policy Board under Defence Secretary Rumsfeld and Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice-President Richard Cheney.
The neo-conservatives already viewed a war against Syria for „regime-change” – i.e. to replace the Assad regime by a loyal puppet – some years ago as part of their plan to subjugate the Middle East under the full control of US imperialism and its main ally Israel.
Four years ago a group close to the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC) published a document – called “Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role?”. It was released by a pro-Likud research group called The Middle East Forum (MEF) – whose president is the Islamophobic MEF president Daniel Pipes, who was recently appointed by Bush to a post at the U.S. Institute of Peace – and the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL). The USCFL is a grouping of right-wing American Christians, right-wing American Zionists, and a sprinkling of Lebanese exiles.
This document outlines steps to be taken against Syria: first “tightening the screws” with denunciations and economic sanctions and then escalating to military action. The architects of this document included a number of influential figures in the Bush-Administration today: Elliot Abrams, the convicted perjurer now running Bush’s Middle East policy; Douglas Feith, a high ranking top aid; Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary to Colin Powell, and influential Pentagon advisors such as David Wurmser, Michael Leeden and last but not least Richard Perle.
The co-authors also included former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Michael Ledeen, another AEI fellow; Frank Gaffney, a former Perle aide in the Reagan administration who now heads the Centre for Defence Policy; and David Steinmann, chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). With the exception of Kirkpatrick, all of these figures outside the administration played key roles in urging Bush to go to war in Iraq.
In 2001 the USCFL published a paper “A Petition Demanding War Against Governments That Sponsor Terrorism”. In it they asked the administration that six “rogue nations” – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya and Sudan — “turn over their governments to the United States” or they will face a massive military response. The United States will then “occupy these territories until proper governments can be established.” Naturally they should allow “long-term access” to major military bases.
The USCFL makes no secret of how US imperialism should threaten these states military: “America must set a clear example-identical to that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you tread on me, I will wipe you off the face of the earth.”
So it is not surprising that in the last six months these influential groups increased their pressure on Bush to go after Syria. Throughout the Iraq war people like Paul Wolfowitz and Feith, argued that Syria represented a serious threat to the United States and its troops in Iraq, at one point asserting that Damascus was sheltering senior Iraqi leaders and its weapons of mass destruction.
“There’s got to be a change in Syria,” Wolfowitz said in April, adding that the government was a “strange regime, one of extreme ruthlessness”. At the same time, another prominent conservative, former CIA director James Woolsey, said that the “war on terrorism” should be seen as “World War IV” that should include as targets “fascists of Iraq and Syria”.
Only last week Richard Perle visited Israel and said he hoped the air strike reflected a new Israeli policy similar to the Bush doctrine. „We have problems with the Syrians who continue to support terrorism. We have to find a way to get them to stop,‰ Perle was quoted as saying. Asked whether this would include US military action against Damascus, he said: “Everything;s possible.”
Perle said it would not be difficult to commit forces to Syria despite heavy US troop commitments to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Korean peninsula. Syria is militarily very weak,” he said.
Indeed this points to an important issue. The other so-called rough states – i.e. states who do not totally subjugate to the dictates of US-imperialism – like Iran or North Korea are military much more serious obstacles. So if US imperialism wants and feels confident to continue its reactionary “war against terrorism” Syria would be the easiest target. In addition since it is a neighbour of Israel the later could help a lot.
Indeed there is a certain logic in the US and Israel’s war-mongering. They want to break and liquidate all resistance, be it the heroic Intifada of the Palestinian people or the guerrilla struggle in Iraq. This is a natural pre-condition for the USA’s – and that of its Zionist allies – goal to totally subjugate the Middle East. For this they want to demoralise the national resistance and cut of all potential sources of supply. So Syria is a natural target for the ruling class in USA and Israel.
However this is extremely risky because an attack by Israel or US imperialism against Syria could provoke a mass rebellion in the region. Furthermore as the example of Iraq did show they might be able to crush the regime and occupy Syria but this could be only the beginning of a mass national liberation struggle – costly and politically disastrous for the image of the empire.
It is quite possible that they first try to bring down the regime by a combination of economic sanctions and selective military strikes so that this could provoke a coup d’etat by a pro-US faction in the army.
The League for the 5th International stands for the military defeat of any aggression against Syria – be it by Israel or the USA. Without offering any political support for the reactionary dictatorship of Assad we call for the military defence of Syria. The anti-capitalist and anti-war movement must become a conscious anti-imperialist movement to fight the biggest enemy of mankind – US imperialism.