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Jewish World Review April 15, 2003 / 13 Nisan, 5763
Michael Ledeen
Political war can remove terror masters in Syria and Iran
As President George W.Bush has said since the first days after the
September 11 attacks in the U.S., this will be a long war, involving
many terrorist organisations and many countries that support them.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was never the most threatening of those
countries. That dubious honour belongs to Iran, the creator of modern
Islamic terrorism in the form of Hezbollah, arguably the world's most
lethal terrorist organisation.
And then there is Syria, which has worked hand-in-glove with Iran to
support Hezbollah both in its terrorist garb (Hezbollah trains in the
Bekaa Valley in Syrian-occupied Lebanon) and its political and
philanthropic costume, in which Hezbollah members sit in the
Lebanese parliament.
Today, both Iran and Syria are engaged in a desperate terrorist
campaign against coalition forces in Iraq.
And neither country has been reluctant to announce its intentions.
Just over a week ago, for example, the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad
incautiously told an interviewer that just because Iraq was conquered
did not mean the coalition had won. He said the enemies of Britain
and the U.S. would have to be patient, just as they were in Lebanon in
the 1980s and 1990s, driving the U.S. and Israel out of the country by
means of terrorist attacks.
And Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, announced publicly that the
presence of U.S. forces in Iraq would be even worse than that of
Hussein, arguably the man most hated by Iranians.
Their strategy of a second Lebanon was worked out over many
months, and in the run-up to the coalition invasion both Syria and Iran
facilitated the movement of terrorists into Iraq.
The joint strategy seems counter-intuitive to those who believe it is
next to impossible for Sunnis and Shi'ites to co-operate, and that Iran
could never co-operate with the Hussein regime. But both Syria and
Iran have good reason to contest the coalition victory. Assad and
Khamenei have both heard Bush's reference to the Axis of Evil, and
they have studied the many White House statements over the past 18
months. They have concluded that once the coalition victory in Iraq is
consolidated, they are next on the hitlist.
So the Syrians and the Iranians are going to fight now in Iraq. They
are not going to send their armies against us, but rather a swarm of
terrorists, from Hezbollah to Islamic Jihad, Hamas, al-Qa'ida, Ansar
al-Islam and the rest of the jihad mafia.
Meanwhile, warnings in recent days from U.S. Secretary of Defence
Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell have signalled
something quite new in the U.S.'s war against terrorism. The State
Department and the CIA have until recently argued in favour of a sort
of strategic engagement of both Damascus and Tehran. Top
diplomats and intelligence analysts had maintained the U.S. and
Syria had common interests in fighting terrorism, since Osama bin
Laden had condemned the Assad family's secular tyranny. And
despite Bush's harsh condemnations of Iran (an unelected regime
defying the Iranian people's clearly expressed desire to be free), the
State Department had continued to work for better relations with the
mullahs.
But when both Powell and Rumsfeld come out swinging against the
mullahs and the Assads, it is safe to assume they have solid and
abundant information to show the "second Lebanon strategy" is
being implemented.
So we can forget about the happy dream of being able to destroy the
Baathist regime in Iraq, democratise the country and then turn our
attention elsewhere. We are in a regional struggle, and we are
compelled to deal with it.
Now what? The short answer is: regime change.
It is impossible to win the war on terrorism so long as the regimes in
Syria and Iran remain in power. The good news is that both are
vulnerable to political attack.
The soft underbelly of the Syrian regime is the very place Bashar
Assad hailed as the model for the terrorist campaign against the
coalition, namely Lebanon. The world knows Lebanon is a military
colony of Damascus, and that despite its parliamentary fig-leaf, it is
governed by the Syrian intelligence service.
We should unleash the full panoply of political weapons on behalf of
Lebanese freedom: a vigorous human rights campaign, attention to
the many stories of brutality and abuse coming from the lively
Lebanese diaspora, political observers at every Lebanese election,
demands for shutting down the infamous terrorist training camps in
the Bekaa Valley, and investigations into the state of religious
freedom.
Meanwhile, big brother should get similar treatment. Assad should
be forced to account for the occupation of Lebanon. Perhaps one of
those sanctimonious judges in Belgium or The Hague might have a
look at the domination of Syria by an unelected regime from a
minuscule sect.
I do not believe the Syrian people welcome dictatorship any more
than the Iranians do, and the Iranians have made clear their hatred
and contempt for the vicious mullahcracy that has wrecked their
country over the past 23 years. In Iran, we have a seemingly
irresistible political card to play: give the people the same sort of
political support we gave the Yugoslavs under Milosevic, the Poles,
Hungarians and Czechs under the Soviet empire, and the Filipinos
under Marcos. We, and the Iranian people, want a peaceful transition
from dictatorship to democracy. There is even a suitable leader for
the transition period: the late shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, widely
admired inside Iran despite his refreshing lack of avidity for power or
wealth.
As Bush has said, this war has a variety of targets and requires a
variety of strategies. No one I know wants to wage war on Iran and
Syria, but there is now a clear recognition that we must defend
ourselves against them. They are an integral part of the terror network
that produced September 11. Left undisturbed, they will kill us in Iraq
and Afghanistan and mount new attacks on our homelands.
But unlike Iraq, there is no need for a military campaign. Our most
potent weapons are the peoples of Syria and Iran, and they are
primed, loaded and ready to fire. We should now pull the political
lanyards and unleash democratic revolution on the terror masters in
Damascus and Tehran.
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04/07/03: The Others: We have miles to go in eliminating the Axis
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