Prelude to an attack on Syria?
The Yassin Assassination
By Gary Leupp
Mar. 28 — Everyone is predicting a spate of horrific suicide
bombings in Israel as Hamas and other Palestinian groups respond to
the “targeted assassination” of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (and killing
of seven other people) by an Apache helicopter air strike a few days
ago. According to MSNBC, Israel’s army chief has stated that Yassir
Arafat and the Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah will also be
assassinated. I take it for granted that the assassins, proud of their
work, convinced of its necessity and goodness, know exactly what they’re
doing. They have factored in ghastly reprisals, and have plans about
how to follow up.
Some observations and predictions:
1. The foreign policy of the Bush administration has since 9-11 been
steered by officials who have a well thought out and clearly articulated
plan to affect regime change throughout the Middle East. Such change
in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and a number of other Muslim countries is central
to the neo-cons’ world-transforming project. While Israel’s
security is not the key issue in Bush Middle East policy, it is a very
important secondary one, and US and Israeli policies are closely coordinated.
2. Last October 5, Israel responded to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing
in Haifa by staging an air strike on Syria, the first time it had bombed
Syria in 30 years. Ariel Sharon argued that Damascus “sponsors”
Islamic Jihad and “Palestinian terrorism” in general and so
Israel was acting in self-defense.
3. While condemned by European leaders, including the British foreign
minister, and almost everybody else, the attack was justified by President
Bush as necessary to “defend the homeland.” (Note: not “your
homeland” but “the homeland.” Bush seems not to distinguish.)
It was praised by leading neocon Richard Perle (then still on the Defense
Policy Board), who declared, “I am happy to see the message was
delivered to Syria by the Israeli air force, and I hope it is the first
of many such messages.” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
stated, “There will have to be change in Syria, plainly.”
(This makes me recall the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel—an
interesting novelette written around 160 BCE, and incorporated into
the Old Testament. The neocons are, in effect, saying: “The handwriting
is on the wall; Bashir Assad’s days are numbered; his kingdom will
be divided—not between the Medes and the Persians, but— between
the Americans and the Israelis.” http://www.inisrael.com/golan/
)
4. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
John Bolton, administration point man on Syria, argued last fall in
Congress for the “Syria Accountability Act,” which was passed,
398-5, by the House of Representatives Oct. 16. (99% approval. Isn’t
it great to live in a democracy where well-informed elected officials
can express varied views about the Middle East?) Then it sailed through
the Senate.
Officially vilifying Syria (which has actually been an ally against
al-Qaeda), it accuses Damascus of sponsoring terrorism, amassing weapons
of mass destruction, and occupying Lebanon, and applies economic sanctions
against the Arab nation. Bolton accuses Syria of allowing “terrorists”
to cross its border to abet the resistance in Iraq, receiving some of
those elusive WMD from Iraq, and providing banking services for the
Iraqi resistance. So there is a long list of charges against Syria,
as there was against Iraq, and as there is against Iran— enough
to persuade the sufficiently impressionable that Syria should be attacked
and occupied.
5. The assassination of the wheelchair-bound paraplegic 75 year old
Yassin was condemned by Kofi Annan, and by European leaders, including
British foreign minister Jack Straw, but Condoleeza Rice, speaking for
the Bush administration, refused to criticize it, merely appealing for
everybody in the region to keep calm. While the Bush administration
denies any foreknowledge of the attack, it will of course stand by Mr
Sharon, whom Bush with his characteristic distance from the real world
has dubbed “a man of peace.”
6. The neocons have suffered a series of setbacks, including the highly
embarrassing revelations of Bush’s former top anti-terrorism advisor
Richard Clarke, who charges that Bush demanded intelligence forces concoct
links between 9-11 and Iraq to justify an invasion. Anyone paying attention
now knows that the Iraq stage of the Terror War was based on lies. The
bleeding sore of the occupation saps Bush’s political support,
and he and his world-transforming ideologues may be out of jobs come
November. That prospect doesn’t make the neocons more humble, but
rather more desperate to achieve such pieces of their ambitious program
as they might in the next seven months.
7. This month has seen a “human rights” demonstration in Damascus
and a couple days of Arab-Kurdish ethnic rioting following a soccer
game. These are unusual events in tightly-controlled Syria. There may
be an outside hand in them, endeavoring to destabilize the Syrian regime
preparatory to some major, externally organized action.
8. A major Hamas suicide bombing would provide a fine pretext for an
attack on Syria, perfectly legitimate to anyone predisposed to think
Hamas=international terrorism=Syria.
9. At least one Hamas leaflet has suggested that the US bears partial
responsibility for Yassin’s assassination: “The Zionists didn’t
carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist
American administration and it must take responsibility for this crime.”
Let’s think about this statement. If the US government can say
“you’re for us or against us,” and make no distinction
between “terrorist organizations” and those who “sponsor”
them, surely your good, decent, normal Palestinian on the street can
draw a connection between an assassination conducted on the explicit
orders of Ariel Sharon (whose government is, as the number one recipient
of US foreign aid, subsidized by the US to a mind-boggling $ 3 billion—some
say $ 6 billion—per year and enjoys about the most intimate relationship
with Washington that any foreign government has ever had) and the American
administration. Condoleeza Rice has said the US had no prior knowledge
of the assassination, but then she also says honest Richard Clarke’s
recent charges about Bush’s handling of the al-Qaeda issue are
“ridiculous.” The sad fact is that Condi is ridiculous, and
her job absolutely requires that she deny US links to assassinations
if such occur.
Is the Hamas statement implausible? It seems in fact unlikely that Sharon
would undertake his extremely newsworthy action without consulting with
the government which subsidizes his own. So Hamas could say: “We
make no distinction between those defying international law and assassinating
our leaders, and those who sponsor them.” Still, it is unlikely
that they would undertake an attack on Americans on US soil, however
much either al-Qaeda or the neocons might want that (and even be inclined
to stage it) in order to exacerbate the confrontation between Islam
and the west that they both relish, for their different reasons.
In any case, the statement about “responsibility for this crime”
cited above was immediately trumpeted in the US media as a Hamas threat
to attack the US, something it has never done, would be stupid to do,
and probably has no intention of doing. Hamas is not al-Qaeda, however
much the Bushites want to conflate all opponents of the US and Israel
into a single, simple terroristic Evil. Homeland Security Director Tom
Ridge immediately indicated that Washington takes “quite seriously”
a threat never explicitly made. But Hamas, as it mourns the loss of
its founder, and speculates about what forces produced his murder, becomes
demonized, al-Qaeda-ized, another object of American fear.
Start worrying now, everybody, that terrorist Hamas, angry about the
death of their terrorist founder at the hands of our Israeli friends—a
death we support—is going to attack us, because they blame us for
it! That’s the message.
Hamas having been hit by a strike condemned by the entire world (except
the US and Israel) and having, in perfectly rational response, expressed
outrage, now in its injured state becomes more targeted by the US than
ever. Henceforth whatever Sharon does against Hamas, he will be able
to depict as an effort to defend not merely his country but the American
Homeland threatened by these angry anti-American Palestinians. And whatever
measures the Bushites take against “Palestinian terrorism”
will be undertaken as “Homeland Defense” measures as well,
the Israeli and American homeland boundaries having been thoroughly
blurred long since.
10. Let us say Perle’s dream comes true and the Israeli air force
does attack pro-Hamas Syria. Let’s say it does so big-time, Sharon-style,
and does major damage. Enough to cause enough disorder for the US to
argue that a deteriorating situation requires international intervention.
The Iraq attack required months of preparation, but intervention in
Syria will happen very quickly, coming like a thief in the night as
it did in Haiti. Perle has suggested that there are troops to spare
in Iraq that can occupy “weak” Syria in short order. Even
if Israeli action provides the context, Israeli forces won’t be
needed, and US action will be lent some thin international legitimacy
if a few hundred “coalition” troops participate. Thus a second
Arab nation will become Americanizedly “free,” while Palestinians
infuriated by these events will commit acts that will justify the “ethnic
cleansing” of the West Bank.
I truly hope my imagination has gotten the better of me, that I am a
false prophet, and that what I describe will not come to pass.
Hands off Syria!
