"If Syria doesn't behave according to our explicit expectations, we will attack it," the very senior American officer stated. He was sitting in his office with an Israeli guest, and in contrast to the usual style of Americans when talking to Israelis about Arabs, he was direct and blunt. By attacking Syria, the officer was asked to make clear, was he referring to the Syrian forces in Lebanon that were assisting Hezbollah? "Not only there," the very senior figure asserted, "in Syria itself."
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A few days later, a colleague of his, an official who is not very much junior to him, was asked whether, in the event of an American-Syrian clash, the administration would again expect Israel to sit on the sidelines and do nothing. "No," the official said surprisingly. "On the contrary, we are taking into account that a confrontation between us and Syria over the attitude toward Hezbollah will bring about shooting into Israel by Hezbollah and a commensurate Israeli response."
An American strike on Syria is still far off: it will be preceded by political and diplomatic activity, including an initiative in the United Nations Security Council aimed at obtaining resolutions that will oblige the closure of terrorist headquarters in Damascus. And perhaps Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, will come to his senses and abandon his caprices.
The evaluation of Israeli Military Intelligence is that this will be exceedingly difficult for the Damascus regime to do: "The basic idea of Iraq, Syria and Iran - and, in a different degree, of the PLO - was that it is possible to lead a double life: terrorism and weapons of mass destruction alongside feigned innocence and denial of responsibility. That idea and the asymmetrical weapons that were used against Western power might have sustained a serious blow. To prove that the idea is still alive, large-scale attacks have been and will be mounted against American forces, and it is precisely for that reason that the Americans will persist in the battle."
Something new is happening in post-Iraq-war Washington - the "laserkrieg," in the coinage of Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, who is in charge of force- building for the Pentagon, and transforming NATO, as the head of the Joint Forces Command. This is a campaign in which, say its fomenters, the speed of the decisions and their implementation dwarfs the German Blitzkrieg of 1940 and the Israel Defense Forces in 1967. In more folksy terms, America has latched onto security and has no intention of letting go.
This is the propitious moment for Israel's integration into the new American system, for mutual benefit, but so far the opportunity has encountered a routine approach. Israel seems to have accepted quiescently its relegation to the backyard, separated from the regional responsibility of the Americans, without taking note that the circumstances have changed and now make it possible to enter through doors that until now were locked and bolted.
Right of return to Haifa
The IDF's proposals for expanding its cooperation with the U.S. armed forces are supposed to be coordinated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's military secretary, Rear Admiral Yoav Galant, a former commander of Shayetet 13 (naval commandos). One area that is crying out for change is the neglect of Haifa Port by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Since the attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in October, 2002, and the crashing wave of attacks along Israel's shores around the same time, the visits of the U.S. Navy to Haifa have all but ceased. It was only at the conclusion of the mission of the destroyer USS Porter, which was helping protect Israel against a possible attack by Iraqi ballistic missiles, that Eucom (U.S. European Command) agreed to allow the ship's 350 sailors and officers a brief shore leave in Haifa.
The U.S. military is teetering between two poles: the projection of force via remote control, and the protection of that force against terrorist attacks. The commanding officers fear for their skin if units in their sector, or in transit to and from the sector, are attacked. The orders oblige American soldiers to behave exactly like civilians and obey alerts issued by the administration; in Israel, for example, even though they have never been attacked the way they have been targeted repeatedly in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, they are not permitted to use public transportation or to visit crowded places. They are allowed to train at IDF bases and firing zones, provided the access route is short and is not exposed to attack. The authority to return the ships to Haifa - a city of which American sailors are fond - is in the hands of the commander of the Sixth Fleet, Vice Admiral Scott Frye, with the approval of his superiors. Frye is well versed in the fabric of connections in Washington; a signal from above could help him recommend a return to Haifa.
In the next stage, Israel could propose itself as a station for a U.S. Navy program to shorten the stay of its personnel away from home. Its vessels sail on missions of six to ten months to remote areas. To prevent masses of embittered sailors leaving, the idea was raised to create a double crew for each ship. In mid-mission the vessel will dock for repairs and one of the crews will fly home, to be replaced by the other. In Australia, where the program has been operating for the past few months, the reception has been cool: Local organizations are demonstrating against the American military presence. In Israel they'll love it. One of the alternatives that could prove of interest to the Pentagon is a land bridge (preferably by train) from Haifa or Ashdod to Jordan, en route to Iraq, and emergency bases for transport and refueling aircraft.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the United States has invested $48 billion in air and sea transport. That capability makes it unnecessary to maintain remote and costly bases and enhances flexibility. Still, even the giant C-17 transporters, which are supposed to be able to fly a mechanized brigade equipped with advanced Striker armored personnel carriers to any destination in the world within four days, are more effective when they have bases to touch down at in mid-journey. Jordan and Egypt aided the American war effort in Iraq, but there is no knowing what will happen to their regimes.
Like Australia, Japan and Egypt, Israel is a "major non-NATO ally," but the exploitation of this status so far has been quite meager, in order not to rile the Arabs. The Americans created CentCom (Central Command) during the period in which Ariel Sharon was Israel's defense minister. An internal dispute between the joint chiefs led to a compromise and its establishment by stages, with "the confrontation states of Israel, Syria and Lebanon" being left out of the new command and being placed in Eucom. At present, the Eucom commander is responsible for 93 countries. Israel's natural place is in CentCom, with the exception of an anchorage for the Sixth Fleet.
The previous Eucom commander, Air Force General Joseph Ralston, was effusively friendly to Israel and to his counterparts in the IDF - Matan Vilnai and Uzi Dayan - in his period as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But he, too, agreed last year that it would be best to leave Israel in Eucom. A seam line, a sector boundary has to be demarcated somewhere, Ralston said at the time, and maybe the line between Israel and Jordan is a bit artificial, given the two countries' good security relations, but so is the line between India (which is part of Pacom, the Pacific Command) and Pakistan (which is in CentCom). The commander of CentCom holds group meetings with all the commanders in chief of the friendly armies in his region, and the presence of the IDF chief of staff at such a gathering would embarrass the generals from Saudi Arabia and other countries.
The senior officer knew, even before it was made public, that the commander of CentCom, Tommy Franks, has decided to retire - if not now, when will he capitalize on his momentary glory in memoirs and media appearances? - and has declined to be appointed to the vacant position of head of the land forces. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, under whose lash the senior officer corps is languishing, may send Marines General Peter Pace, the current vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to CentCom. Pace is close to civilian personnel in the Pentagon who are friendly to Israel.
In the Lebanon War, when the strategic relations between Washington and Jerusalem were set in the format that is still intact, President Ronald Reagan was (too) friendly but lacked understanding of details. His defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, was alienated from Sharon and from the Israeli line that Sharon represented, and he changed his approach only when Yitzhak Shamir and Moshe Arens succeeded Menachem Begin and Sharon. The Joint Chiefs viewed Israel as a nuisance. Everything has changed since then: President George Bush, Rumsfeld, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers and the large majority of the senior commanders are sympathetic to Israel and are ready to consider improving the bilateral security relations, too. An improvement along those lines will not only be the product of staff work. It can also come from above, from a directive delivered by Bush in the wake of a meeting with Sharon; but Sharon first has to make the request, and so far there is no sign that the Israeli system is bothering to prepare properly for the summit meeting
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