For the first time since the start of the war in Iraq, the leader of a large and recognized Shi'ite religious organization has publicly called for a jihad against the U.S. forces. Meanwhile, American pressure on Syria is mounting
"This administration is the stupidest and most violent of all the American administrations ... We are suffering from a range of American pressures that are the heaviest since - well, I don't know, I wasn't alive in the 16th century." That was the message of Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara this week, in a meeting he held with Syrian journalists to mark the country's Press Day. Al-Shara may not be living in the 16th century, but he seems to have been Syria's foreign minister from time immemorial, and part of the Syrian problem.
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Sunday was apparently "America Day" in Syria and Lebanon. In addition to al-Shara's evaluation of the U.S. administration, the secretary-general of Hezbollah had a few important things to say to President George Bush. For example, he invited all the Muslim religious sages in the entire Islamic world "to do something together about the situation in Iraq, so that the Americans will not be able to take advantage of the split in the Muslim leadership. Let us adopt the Iraqis to our hearts so that they will be able to unify their choice: opposition in the form of a war of jihad, making sacrifices for the cause [or suicide attacks - Z.B.]."
This was the first time since the start of the war in Iraq that a Shi'ite religious leader of a large and recognized religious organization called for a jihad against the American forces. Neither the Shi'ite leadership in Iraq, which is far from being a monolithic body and contains fierce opponents to the United States, or even the Shi'ite leaders in Iran, dared to say what Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah did in precise terms, pulling no punches, and in public before a crowd of thousands of his followers.
"The resistance movement [against the U.S. in Iraq] may not be able to remove the U.S. from Iraq within a year, but it will be able to remove Bush, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and [National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice, together with their Zionist friends, from the White House," Nasrallah assured his listeners. Nasrallah's scenario requires no deep understanding: Suicide attacks and sabotage operations against the American forces in Iraq will cause American public opinion to turn against the president and not re-elect him, thus bringing about the disappearance of this group of leaders from the White House.
Contrary to what is usually thought in Washington or Jerusalem, Nasrallah does not coordinate all his actions, still less his speeches, with Syria. By the same token, not everything that Syria or Hezbollah does or says is necessarily related to Israel. This time Nasrallah seems to have placed even the Syrians in a particularly tough position. In the face of American pressure on Damascus to shut down the offices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, prevent Saddam Hussein's supporters from giving him assistance and disarm Hezbollah - that is, to neutralize the military threat it poses to Israel - the last demand is the most difficult of all and perhaps even impossible. To get around it, Syria maintains that Hezbollah in particular, and the actions of the government of Lebanon in general, are an internal Lebanese matter and that Syria has no control over Hezbollah's activity.
Deterrent force
In a slightly more detailed version of this, the head of Syrian intelligence, Bahjat Suleiman, explained that disarming Hezbollah is liable to cause the renewed flare-up of an intercommunal war in Lebanon, a development that would soon lead to renewed Israeli intervention in the country. Thus, while Syria has taken a number of steps to placate the administration in the past few weeks - it has removed a large part of its forces from Lebanon, announced that it is restricting the activity of Palestinian organizations (though saying nothing about shutting down their offices), and since May has prevented the entry of senior Iraqi figures into its territory - when it comes to Hezbollah, Syria behaves as though this matter has nothing to do with it.
That, at least, is the situation on the surface. However, according to American sources, Syria has made it clear to Hezbollah that it will not permit the organization to carry out operations against Israel or to take action that is liable to bring about even heavier American pressure. Along with this clarification to Hezbollah, Syria let the heads of the Palestinian rejectionist groups arrive at a hudna with the Palestinian Authority - in other words, Damascus supported a respite, even if only temporary, in the armed resistance, ordered the Lebanese army and the Lebanese prosecution to take action against militants who attacked American targets in Lebanon, and made vague utterances to the effect that it is ready to renew negotiations with Israel.
These hints were received loud and clear in Hezbollah, to the point where even the head of the organization's political committee, Sheikh Ibrahim Amin al-Sayed explained at an assembly that was held in Baalbek: "The resistance [Hezbollah's military activity] is quiet now, so there is no reason to demand the disarming of the organization ... The military operations are carried out on a basis of policy as well as political positions and circumstances." Those circumstances, he added, "could be appropriate to military operations tomorrow or in another month or more."
Hezbollah, then, views its role to be that of a deterrent force in the present stage and not as an offensive force, and it is restricting its activity to the Lebanese arena. Al-Sayed thinks Hezbollah will not reach a hudna with Israel, because the organization's task is to expel the occupier from Lebanese soil. At the same time, he understands the position of the Palestinian organizations: "We here in Lebanon are not facing circumstances, pressures or challenges of the kind that the Palestinian organizations are up against."
Within this system of understandings between Syria and Hezbollah, and between Syria and the government of Lebanon, political forces are active that might explain how it happens that the secretary-general of Hezbollah comes out against the U.S. administration with much hoopla and thus pushes Syria up against the wall of American pressure. Hezbollah is a Lebanese organization that has 12 members in the country's parliament. It has shares and directors in government companies, runs its own media outlets, operates a network of welfare, educational and medical services, and is credited with liberating Lebanon from Israeli occupation. Hezbollah is in full civilian, as well as military, control in southern Lebanon, and wields very great influence in the Baalbek region and in the southern sections of Beirut. As a result, Hezbollah is one of the most important political forces in Lebanon even if the slogan of war against Israel does not buy it many supporters in the country.
Hezbollah's political strength is important for Syria not only in the Israeli context. Syria can draw on that strength in order to go on influencing the political structure of the Lebanese government. "A relationship of dependence exists between Syria and Hezbollah, not a relationship of giving instructions," explains a Lebanese commentator. "In a situation in which Syria is starting to understand that it will ultimately have to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and that the scale of military influence it wields in the country will be weakened, it needs loyal Lebanese forces that will ensure the continuation of its influence. Hence Hezbollah's importance for Damascus."
Game of political balances
The term of office of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Syria's faithful retainer in Lebanon, will end in November 2004. Under the Lebanese constitution, he will not be able to serve another term beyond the six years in office he will have served by that date. However, Syria may try to repeat the same maneuver it used in the case of the previous president, Elias Hrawi, when it succeeded in bringing about a one-time amendment to the constitution that enabled Hrawi to serve another term. If so, Syria will need the support of Hezbollah in a manner that will ensure that in addition to the organization's parliamentary representatives casting their vote for the amendment, Hezbollah will forge a coalition with other representatives so that together they will be able to overpower the backers of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who are against the idea of extending the president's term of office. Alternatively, if Syria decides not to try to keep Lahoud in office, it will undoubtedly need the organization's support for a "worthy" candidate.
The game of political balances in Lebanon, which Syria developed over the course of decades, is an important - perhaps the most important - political asset that Bashar Assad inherited from his father. "I am certain that if Bashar doesn't sleep well sometimes, it is because on those nights he has nightmares about Lebanon cutting itself off from Syria and conducting independent domestic and foreign policy," the Lebanese commentator notes. That nightmare had some public manifestations on June 10, when Prime Minister Hariri stated in a speech he delivered in Brazil: "We have to sit together and resolve the problems between the Israelis and the Arabs. We believe in dialogue, and we believe that we should trust the United States."
Syria reacted as though bitten by a snake: Suddenly a Lebanese prime minister was speaking "freely" and without coordination about a political process. The Syrian reaction was immediate. Three days after Hariri's speech, the Druze leader in Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt, announced that he was switching his allegiance from Hariri to President Lahoud. That statement came in the wake of a hastily arranged meeting between Jumblatt and the director of Syrian military intelligence, Rustum Ghazali. Yet in the last election campaign Jumblatt accused the Syrians of intervening in a manner that was calculated to bring about his defeat.
The question is how to play the double game. How do you please the U.S. administration while at the same time preserving Hezbollah - that is, the system of political control. Damascus believes it has found the answer in the form of a split approach: assistance to the U.S. in the war against terror, and support for what is defined as the "national struggle." Syria believed that the massive support it gave Washington in the investigation of Al-Qaida activists - "after September 11, the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, initiated the delivery of Syrian intelligence to the U.S. The Syrians had compiled hundreds of files on Al-Qaida, including dossiers on the men who participated, and others who wanted to participate, in the September 11 attacks," Seymour Hersh wrote in the July 28 issue of The New Yorker - it would be able to "protect itself" in the face of American pressure.
According to Hersh, close and ongoing relations developed between Syria and the CIA and FBI, in the course of which Syria transmitted information that saved many American lives. "In one instance," Hersh writes, "the Syrians learned that Al-Qaida had penetrated the security services of Bahrain and had arranged for a glider loaded with explosives to be flown into a building at the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters there." Thanks to Syria's help, the operation was thwarted. Agents of the CIA and FBI were allowed to conduct "intelligence-gathering operations" in Aleppo, where they questioned people who knew Mohammed Atta, one of the planners and implementers of the September 11, 2001, attacks, and the family of bin Laden, in Latakia.
George Tenet, the director of the CIA, was a frequent visitor to Syria and received full cooperation. At one stage, the CIA wanted to establish a permanent "back" channel with Damascus but apparently ran into two obstacles: the State Department, which didn't want the CIA poking around in foreign policy, and the Pentagon, which views Syria as part of the "axis of evil." Lebanese sources believe that the source of the Pentagon's hostility toward Syria is Israel and that it would have been possible to create a system of trust with Syria on the basis of security cooperation. The resumption of the discussions this month by Congress on legislation that would impose sanctions on Syria - the so-called "Syrian responsibility law" - is perceived as a direct consequence of the work of the Jewish lobby.
On June 18, another event occurred that produced a sharp Syrian response. A convoy of cars and trucks in Iraq that was heading for the Syrian border gave rise to suspicions that Saddam Hussein and members of his family were in the vehicles. An American Special Operations team penetrated Syrian territory to a depth of between 10 to 40 kilometers and waited for the convoy. About 80 people, including Syrian citizens, were killed in the American attack on the convoy, which turned out to be smuggling gasoline from Iraq into Syria. In the wake of the attack and the violation of Syrian sovereignty, Damascus decided to sever its line of cooperation with the Americans.
"Why are the many pages about the Saudis in the report of the U.S. commission of inquiry about the events leading up to September 11 blacked out, yet nothing is noted about the Syrian assistance?" the Lebanese commentator wonders. "The fact is that if Syria were to open its mouth about Saudi Arabia, the U.S. would have to erase a lot more lines concerning its relations with the Saudis."
Syria, though, will not open its mouth, because it receives large-scale aid from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. Only this week it received a convenient loan of $70 million from Kuwait in order to develop its power grid. Syria has nothing to offer in return, to the Arab states or to the West, and less and less to its own citizens. In this state of affairs, the secretary- general of Hezbollah can allow himself to embarrass the Syrians a little. After all, what will Syria do? Fire him? Launch a confrontation with the Shi'ite community? Lose the elections in Lebanon?
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