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Recent Appearances...

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria says Russian missile defense system ‘ineffective’

2020-05-03

[MEM]

The Syrian military has criticized the Russian S-300 missile defense system, saying that it is largely ineffective against Israeli air strikes, Avia.pro reported yesterday. A Syrian military source told the Russian outlet that the radar used on the S-300 and the Pantsir-S systems has proven to be incapable of detecting and hitting Israeli cruise missiles on numerous occasions.

Other Russian air defense systems incorporated into Syria’s military infrastructure were said to be even more “backward”, such as the S-125, Osa and Igra air defense missiles.

This is not the first speculation about the effectiveness of these air defense systems, as they date back to the Soviet era and were supplied to the then USSR’s Syrian Baathist ally from the 1960s to the 1980s. They don’t bear comparison with more recent systems that Russia has manufactured, such as the S-400.

Radars which do work, however, are reportedly those manufactured and delivered by China in recent years, such as the long-range JY-27 and JYL-1 systems as well as the LLQ120 radar which detects low-altitude targets. These, the Syrian military has said, work successfully in their detection of Israeli missiles and help the success of some Russian air defense missiles. A potential solution, according to Avia.pro, could be to import more Chinese radars to work in conjunction with the Russian missiles

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.S.-led air war in Syria is off to a difficult start

2014-10-12

[WashingtonPost] The U.S.-led air war in Syria has gotten off to a rocky start, with even the Syrian rebel groups closest to the United States turning against it, U.S. ally Turkey refusing to contribute and the plight of a beleaguered Kurdish town exposing the limitations of the strategy.

Not to sound cynical, but it's a limitation to the Beltway crowd, which expects everything to go well because Their People are in charge, "those are our jets," and there's elections in less than a month.

U.S. officials caution that the strikes are just the beginning of a broader strategy that could take years to carry out. But the anger that the attacks have stirred risks undermining the effort, analysts and rebels say.

The main beneficiary of the strikes so far appears to be President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have taken advantage of the shift in the military balance to step up attacks against the moderate rebels designated by President Obama as partners of the United States in the war against extremists. The rebels say they have been put in a difficult position in which they are being asked to support a strategy that has so far brought them no benefits and is regarded with suspicion by ordinary Syrians. They are now insisting they will not support the strikes unless the strategy is extended to include toppling the Assad regime — a position shared by Turkey, which hosts the rebel leadership.

A situation any experienced politician in the world is familiar with. Somehow that escapes both this journalist and the Washington Post...
Seriously, anyone with knowledge of human behavior, a sense of history, or even being a regular reader of this rag shouldn't be surprised. Attacking the IS in one area means that other actors will benefit and thus displease other interests. It doesn't take much to think the Ergodan government, with its overall objective of toppling the Syrian Baathist government, has an understanding with the IS while still supporting some of the other rebel groups. The Sauds also want to see the Syrian regime toppled and support their own brand of rebels, but not at the expense of a powerful IS who'll kill both them and their Mecca franchise. The Qatari also want Damascus toppled, but don't care who as long at Qatar is left alone or better yet, comes out with a sweet deal.

Since the outcry about the choice of targeting in the first days of the air campaign, the majority of coalition attacks have been concentrated in the three northern and eastern provinces governed by the Islamic State as part of its self-proclaimed caliphate, which stretches across the Syrian border into Iraq. U.S. officials say the strikes are working to achieve the core American objective — to degrade and ultimately defeat the militants.

Residents of Islamic State-controlled areas say the attacks have had a noticeable impact on the jihadist group’s tactics and behavior, forcing it to adopt a lower profile to avoid detection from the air.

In their self-styled capital of Raqqah, the foreign jihadists who until recently swept through the streets in armored convoys, showing off American Humvees and other booty captured from the Iraqi army, now drive around in regular vehicles, according to residents. Elsewhere, the militants have vacated headquarters, checkpoints, command posts, courts and other facilities, many of which had been conspicuously painted with the Islamic State’s distinctive black-and-white logo.

So they're not stupid. What's the next step?

The strikes are not unpopular among ordinary people in Raqqah, who yearn for an end to the militants’ harsh rule, said another resident interviewed on a visit to Turkey. He also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is afraid. Since the U.S.-led attacks began, Syrian government airstrikes have stopped, he said.

But the attacks have not loosened the militants’ grip on power, he and other residents said, or had any significant impact on the militants’ capacity to launch offensives and capture territory, as the assault on the Kurdish border town of Kobane has demonstrated. Over a two-week period, fighters swept unimpeded through a string of villages around the town. Only when they reached the town itself did the U.S. military weigh in with intensified strikes. U.S. officials have defended the response to the Kobane battle by pointing to the broader strategy, which is primarily aimed at rolling back the Islamic State’s gains in Iraq.

It's not the "broader strategy". It's the only strategy.

In Syria, the strikes have highlighted the absence of U.S. partners on the ground. Moderate rebels grouped in the Free Syrian Army were pushed out of the Islamic State’s northeastern strongholds during fierce fighting over the summer and now have no presence in the areas that are the chief target of the coalition attacks. The one front on which the rebels are battling the Islamic State, in the northern province of Aleppo, has not seen any coalition airstrikes, even though rebels say they have asked for them.
My take: The "big idea" is to use US and allied air power and have indigenous boots on the ground to "degrade and defeat" the IS. The overall strategy, for various reasons, will take years. The strategy will also have lots of setbacks thanks to many competing national interests and a reasonably competent, strong-horse enemy that really isn't being designated as one.

The problems appear to be that the strategy is coming in about a rhetorical day late and several thousand dollars short. Thanks to a focus on US domestic political considerations and a decided lack of US leadership, there's no one driving this strategy. There's no one calling in the targets anywhere in the area of operations. What passes for allied air support is fragmented by those participating nations' objectives and what operations the allies will participate in. The Sauds would like to concentrate on Syria. The British and Australians have forces but not in any number to have a significant effect. Qatar is providing facilities and some command support, but they're playing a be-friends-with-all game that undermines the strategy.

There's also no coordination with indigenous troops as to objectives and targeting. Arms supply and training of indigenous forces is scattered and piecemeal, likely due to national domestic considerations and, again, the obvious lack of a single point of leadership.

And - attacking the IS at this point is essentially like a partially-deflated balloon; pressing on one area in Iraq means the IS is free to concentrate on another, like Kobane in Syria.

Kobane's fall will mean that the IS would have a clear pipeline from the Turkish border to Aleppo. It's no small secret that the IS is using Turkey as a staging and rest area. That it also removes an annoying 'ethnic problem' for the Turks is a side benefit.

On the other hand, the primary, perhaps the only, objective of the US strategy is currently to stabilize Iraq and degrade IS capability in that 'country'. Syria might come later. The IS presence and operations in Syria are no doubt being viewed by the planners as an inconvenience and a distraction.

It's not necessarily a bad strategy. A credible effort involving a centralized and effective command and control system, an effective US foreign policy team, judicious use of special forces, counter-intelligence, operational counter terrorism, diplomatic efforts, domestic intelligence and law enforcement efforts, and above all, leadership and the will to use all of these for likely a decade, might be effective.

But I'm not optimistic.

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The Grand Turk

How Will The Insulted Sultan Respond?

2012-06-26

[Jerusalem Post] Syrian air defenses downed a Turkish F-4 which was completely unarmed and flying solo on a test mission for Turkish national radar system.

On June 22, Syrian air defenses downed a Turkish F-4 which was completely unarmed and flying solo on a test mission for Turkish national radar system.

Although Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
declared the warplane had been flying over Syrian territorial waters, it was then revealed that the Turkish jet was shot down in international airspace. Turkey has now initiated a comprehensive diplomatic effort abroad, including a presentation before the North Atlantic Council on June 26, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has informed the domestic opposition of the need for a national consolidation. Indeed, the ongoing crisis reflects a drastic shift in Turkish-Syrian relations, and the possible trajectory of the event will determine the relevance of Turkey's regional leadership ambitions.

DURING PROF. Ahmet Davutoglu's era in the Turkish foreign ministry, Turkey shifted from its traditional "non--involvement in the Middle East" principle and isolationist stance. Davutoglu's famous book Stratejik Derinlik largely dwells on the concept of redefining Turkey's foreign policy priorities. Notably, under the subtitle of "an Unavoidable Hinterland: Middle East," Davutoglu mentions that the Middle East region has been (and should be) defined well beyond the geopolitical unity but within the geocultural integrity which has been fostered by the Islamic civilization.

Under the new paradigm, Ankara strived to improve political influence on Turkey's Middle Eastern hinterland.

Within the historical Ottoman territories, the new doctrine aimed to make territorial borders around Turkey "de facto meaningless."

In accordance with making borders de facto meaningless Ankara strived to boost its trade ties with the Middle Eastern nations, pursued economic integration through free trade zones, and cancelled visa requirements to provide mass cultural interaction and mobility.

The Davutoglu doctrine seeks to transform the historical Ottoman territories in the Greater Middle East into a Turkey-centric free trade zone with high cultural interaction and free, unrestricted movement.

Indeed, Syria was at the very center of the new Turkish foreign policy. Just three years ago, in 2009, Turkey and Syria established a high-level strategic cooperation council which even included joint cabinet meetings twice a year, and visa requirements between the two countries were canceled. Furthermore, Turkey's socioeconomic integration policy and soft power charm offensives toward Syria were designed to achieve a level of postmodern integration which could have exceeded the classic nation state paradigm. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
things were about to change due to the turbulence in the Arab world.

THE SYRIAN crisis is not Solely Syrian. In fact, when the "Arab Spring" was ignited in Tunisia and quickly brought about the demise of the Cold War remnant regimes of the Arab world, Ankara had high expectations about the relevance of the "Turkish model," which is believed to successfully combine religious values and democracy.

However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
by the time the turbulence reached Bahrain and Syria, it was no longer either Arab or spring, but a sectarian struggle between the Shi'ite and Sunni sects of Islam.

Iran, for that matter, characterized the Arab Spring as inspired by Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution from the very outset of the protests in Tunis, Egypt and Libya. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
when it came to Syria, Tehran reversed its stance radically, and has been backing its most important ally diligently. On the other hand, Turkey did not back the uprising in Bahrain in practice, but at present, Ankara is one of the most important protectors of the Syrian political and armed oppositions.

Essentially, these sectarian divisions are not the result of a new wave of theological debate within Islam, but a military-political rivalry between the two blocs. In the Sunni bloc, now Turkey strives to lead the Gulf States due to its regional hegemony agenda and growing national capacity. On the other hand, the Shi'ite bloc's natural leader is Iran. Briefly, the new status quo rendered abortive the Davutoglu doctrine's imperial vision, which is not sectarian in nature, and dragged Turkey into being a Sunni actor of the Middle East.

WITHOUT A doubt, the troublesome economy of Europe and the forthcoming elections in the United States are leaving Ankara alone in its struggle against the Syrian Baathist dictatorship's bloody crackdown.

Furthermore, the Gulf States' economic capacity is able to finance the Syrian opposition but does not offer a robust military assistance.

Therefore, by shooting down the Turkish fighter jet, it is argued, Damascus aimed to take advantage of the current situation in which Syrian tyranny in enjoying a stalemate between regional and global powers, to send a message to political and armed opposition by questioning Turkey's capability. The move is a demonstration of defiance toward Turkish involvement in the Syrian turmoil, and in the larger context, Turkey's regional leadership ambitions. Besides, it is obvious that Damascus would have not been that audacious if the target was an Israeli fighter jet.

THEORETICALLY, THE clash between Turkey and Syria is tantamount to a clash between the normative idealism of Ankara's ambitions and the pragmatic realism of the Baathist dictatorship's survival strategy. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
in the Middle East, a state which responds to military aggression with rhetoric and condemnation cannot claim regional leadership.

It is a tough environment with constant low-intensity conflicts, and conventional wars take place nearly in every decade. Put simply, if Assad now does not feel as worried as he would if his air defenses had downed a British or an Israeli warplane, or an American one, Turkey's regional leadership ambitions are tantamount to empty talk.

For instance, in 1998, during the expulsion of Abdullah Ocalan, the currently imprisoned leader of PKK terrorist organization, Hafez Assad stepped back by giving way to Turkish gunboat diplomacy. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
Iran's mounting political-military profile and Russia's rise under Putin now constitute a different security environment than the one that existed in the 1990s.

Nevertheless, the recent escalation might be a game-changer regarding the possible trajectory of Turkish- Syrian tensions. The incident may dramatically shift Turkish public opinion, which currently opposes war with Syria. The pilots are still missing; if they were killed, the traditional religious-nationalistic martyrdom cult of the Turkish culture would garner support of masses demanding Assad be payed back.

Although mainstream Turkish media favors muddle-through efforts, as it generally does, there is no middle course for Ankara in the final analysis. Therefore, in the following weeks we may either witness a military intervention against Damascus, which would be spearheaded by Turkey and may trigger a regional clash, or the downfall of Turkey's neo-Ottomanist ambitions along with Ankara's return to the classic isolationist policy. No one would bow before a sultan who tolerates such an insult.

The writer, who served as a post-doctoral fellow for the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel, holds a PhD from the Strategic Researches Institute at the Turkish War College, and a Master's degree from the Turkish Military Academy.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Irans Shifting Strategy

2008-05-15

This goes with the article just below -- Pity Lebanons Shia Community

By NIBRAS KAZIMI May 12, 2008

The healing in Iraq and the deterioration in Lebanon are not unrelated. In fact, Iraq will serve as both cause and effect to Lebanons misfortunes. Iran, eclipsed in Sadr City, had decided to allow its sectarian acolytes to put on a show of strength in Beirut. And the jihadists of Al Qaedas ilk, soon to be eclipsed in Mosul, will migrate to Beirut to meet Irans challenge.

Five years ago, there was a hope that held Iraq as a would-be beacon for democracy throughout the Middle East, but that vision had too many determined enemies both inside and outside Iraq. Yet as the situation there darkened through the actions of these regressive forces, the spontaneous outpouring of liberty demonstrated by the Lebanese people seemed to validate the notion that democracy and liberty would take in the region, and that the hope for what Iraq may portend was not misplaced. But the Cedar Revolution, as the March 2005 events of Beirut are remembered, also had too many internal and external enemies determined to spoil the elation.

Two countries that were dead-set against Iraq succeeding were Syria and Iran. These are also the two countries most responsible for fomenting political paralysis and chaos in Lebanon.

In Iraq, the Iranians and the Syrians began a joint-partnership aimed at harnessing the disruptive energies of the Mahdi Army as a weapon by which to retaliate against America should either of them get attacked, as well as acting as a force keeping Iraq in a state of permanent disorder.

Syrias influence on the Sadrist movement from which the Mahdi Army springs is often overlooked: Damascus was a refuge for many prominent Sadrists during the latter years of Saddam Husseins tyranny, and the Syrian Baathists brokered the initial rapprochement between the Sadrist old guard and Iran. Many of these Sadrist apparatchiks were openly hostile to the Iranians and Irans preferred acolytes in Iraq such as the Hakim family, long-standing rivals of the Muqtada al-Sadrs father, the man who founded the Sadrist movement. Actually, many of them continue secretly to believe that Saddams regime had nothing to do with their leaders murder in early 1999 and lay the blame solely on the Hakims and Iran.

However, after the first major confrontation between the Sadrists and American troops in the spring of 2004, the Iranians saw potential in Sadrs thugs at around the same time as they were becoming increasingly disappointed with the Badr Corps, the Iranian-trained militia under the leadership of the Hakim family. The Hakims had become too invested in, and integrated within, the Iraqi state their revenues from contracts and trade earned inside Iraq exceeded the overall budget of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which had funded them previously and could not be counted on to act as Irans agents of disorder. Whereas the Hakim turned independent as they didnt need Iran anymore, the Sadrists were desperate for arms and training, and Iran was more than willing to accommodate them with the Syrians acting as go-betweens.

It was in this vein that the first batch of Iranian-administered training was supposed to take place in Damascus during November 2004. It was geared towards turning ten of the top Mahdi Army field commanders into the security chiefs of a parallel intelligence agency working on behalf of the Iranians. The seminar did not take place on time, and it is unclear whether it ever subsequently took place in Damascus.

But other training, on security matters and terrorism, did take place in a camp near Tehran, according to captured Mahdi Army commanders in Iraq, and it was administered by instructors from Lebanese Hezbollah. It should also be noted that the political channel through which the Syrian leadership maintains its relationship with Hezbollah primarily through General Muhammad Nassif, ostensibly the Syrian prime ministers deputy on security matters is the very same channel through which the Syrians communicate with the Sadrists.

Thus, the Iranians and the Syrians were hoping to turn the rag-tag elements of the Mahdi Army into an Iraqi version of Hezbollah, with both a political wing represented by Mr. Sadr and a military wing that they called the majamee alkhasa, or Special Groups, a name chosen in Tehran and not a technical term invented by American commanders as so many Iraq-watchers seem to think.

And boy, was that a mistake: the Mahdi Army as a whole and the Special Groups in particular have collapsed after seven weeks of fighting against a confident and capable Iraqi Army that was bolstered by American air cover and logistical support. On Thursday, the Sadrists effectively offered their surrender to Prime Minister Maliki, who had earlier put them on notice that he would smash into their redoubts, especially Baghdads slum of Sadr City, if they continued to act as saboteurs. Mr. Maliki was prepared to go all the away, including displacing hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sadr City and arresting Sadrist parliamentarians.

Iran had lost and the leaders in Tehran needed to save face fast. Iran needed to show that it could create mischief around the region for that has always been one of Tehrans strategic strengths. That is why they pushed Hezbollah to overreact when given a juicy provocation by the American-backed cabinet of Fouad al-Siniora. The Lebanese government has done and said many provocative things in the past but Hezbollah chose this particular provocation to throw a theatric and violent tantrum.

The situation in Lebanon is immensely complex and there are too many factors to list as to why it had been so messy, yet it was a manageable mess that never seemed to boil over that is, until Hezbollah decided to rampage through Beirut and humiliate the Siniora government and the March 14 coalition that supports it; showing them up as weak and feckless, and in turn embarrassing America and Saudi Arabia for being unable to do anything to help their allies. This was no coup or deft move aimed at breaking the political stalemate: Iran was simply flexing its muscles in Beirut through Hezbollah because Irans other pawns were shown-up as feckless and weak in Sadr City.

That too was a major mistake. The Iranians and the Syrians may have concluded that they have passed the worst of the Sunni-Shia tensions that were roiling the Middle East over the last couple of years. In particular, the ruling Alawites of Syria, a Shia-offshoot minority, were worried about internal fall-out should the majority Sunni Syrians get exposed to headlines blaring sectarians strife in Lebanon next door. However, recent polling from the Middle East seemed to indicate that being virulently anti-American and anti-Israeli was enough to offset the stigma of being a Shia or an Alawite among Sunni audiences, and this may have emboldened the Syrians to go along with Irans plan.

But there was no escaping the potent imagery of armed Shia gangsters, under orders from Hezbollah and its affiliates, seemingly emasculating Beiruts Sunnis and wounding their pride, especially given the rising sectarian temperatures in Lebanon that had never abated. Suddenly, the Sunnis of Lebanon felt exposed and no longer able to trust their established communal leaders, such as the Hariri family, to protect them. That is why they may look elsewhere for muscle, and thats why jihadist internet forums have lighted up with giddy expectations of taking the jihad against the Shias from the streets of Baghdad to the streets of Beirut.

Mr. Maliki has just ordered the launch of a much-anticipated military campaign to rid Mosul, Iraqs third largest city, of whatever significant vestige of Al Qaedas remaining in Iraq. The inevitable jihadist collapse there will push more and more jihadists to re-establish their efforts elsewhere, and nowhere looks more promising than Lebanon.

Mr. Kazimi is a contributing editor to The New York Sun.

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Iraq

Iraq: The Facts On The Ground & The Politics

2006-10-25

Courtesy of John Toranto "Best of the Web

There's been a lot of discussion back home about the course of the war, the righteousness of our involvement, the clarity of our execution, and what to do about the predicament in which we currently find ourselves. I just wanted to send you my firsthand account of what's happening here.

First, a little bit about me: I'm stationed slightly northwest of Baghdad in a mixed Sunni/Shia area. I'm a sergeant in the U.S. Army on a human intelligence collection team. I interact with Iraqis on a daily basis and I help put together the intel picture for our area of operations. I have contacts with friends, who are also in my job, in every are of operations in the Fourth Infantry Division footprint, and through our crosstalk I'd say I have a pretty damn good idea of what's going on in and around Baghdad on a micro and intermediary level.

I wrote heavily in favor of this war before I enlisted myself, and I still maintain that going into Iraq was not only the necessary thing to do, but the right thing to do as well.

There have been distinct failures of policy in Iraq. The vast majority of them fall under the category "failure to adapt." Basically U.S. policies have been several steps behind the changing conditions ever since we came into the country. I believe this is (in part) due to our plainly obvious desire to extricate ourselves from Iraq. I know President Bush is preaching "stay the course," but we came over here with a goal of handing over our battlespace to the Iraqis by the end of our tour here.

This breakneck pace with which we're trying to push the responsibility for governing and securing Iraq is irresponsible and suicidal. It's like throwing a brick on a house of cards and hoping it holds up. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)--a joint term referring to Iraqi army and Iraqi police--are so rife with corruption, insurgent sympathies and Shia militia members that they have zero effectiveness. Two Iraqi police brigades in Baghdad have been disbanded recently, and the general sentiment in our field is "Why stop there?" I can't tell you how many roadside bombs have been detonated against American forces within sight of ISF checkpoints. Faith in the Iraqi army is only slightly more justified than faith in the police--but even there, the problems of tribal loyalties, desertion, insufficient training, low morale and a failure to properly indoctrinate their soldiers results in a substandard, ineffective military. A lot of the problems are directly related to Arab culture, which traditionally doesn't see nepotism and graft as serious sins. Changing that is going to require a lot more than "benchmarks."

In Shia areas, the militias hold the real control of the city. They have infiltrated, co-opted or intimidated into submission the local police. They are expanding their territories, restricting freedom of movement for Sunnis, forcing mass migrations, spiking ethnic tensions, not to mention the murderous checkpoints, all while U.S. forces do . . . nothing.

For the first six months I was in country, sectarian violence was classified as an "Iraqi on Iraqi" crime. Division didn't want to hear about it. And, in a sense I can understand why. Because division realized that which the Iraqi people have come to realize: The American forces cannot protect them. We are too few in number and our mission is "stability and support." The problem is that there's nothing to give stability and support to. We hollowed out the Baathist regime, and we hastily set up this provisional government, thrusting political responsibility on a host of unknowns, each with his own political agenda, most funded by Iran, and we're seeing the results.

In Germany after World War II, we controlled our sector with approximately 500,000 troops, directly administering the area for 10 years while we rebuilt the country and rebuilt the social and political infrastructure needed to run it. In Iraq, we've got one-third that number of troops dealing with three times the population on a much faster timetable, and we're attempting to unify three distinct ethnic groups with no national interest and at least three outside influences (Saudi Arabian Wahhabists, Iranian mullahs and Syrian Baathists) each eagerly funding various groups in an attempt to see us fail. And we are.

If we continue on as is in Iraq, we will leave here (sooner or later) with a fractured state, a Rwanda-waiting-to-happen. "Stay the course" and refusing to admit that we're screwing things up is already killing a lot of people needlessly. Following through with such inane nonstrategy is going to be the death knell for hundreds of thousands of Sunnis.

We need to backtrack. We need to publicly admit we're backtracking. This is the opening battle of the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We cannot afford to lose it because of political inconveniences. Reassert direct administration, put 400,000 to 500,000 American troops on the ground, disband most of the current Iraqi police and retrain and reindoctrinate the Iraqi army until it becomes a military that's fighting for a nation, not simply some sect or faction. Reassure the Iraqi people that we're going to provide them security and then follow through. Disarm the nation: Sunnis, Shias, militia groups, everyone. Issue national ID cards to everyone and control the movement of the population.

If these three things are done, you can actually start the Iraqi economy again. Once people have a sense of security, they'll be able to leave their houses to go to work. Tell your American commanders that it's OK to pass up bad news--because part of the problem is that these issues are not reaching above the battalion or brigade level due to the can-do, make-it-happen culture indoctrinated into our U.S. officers. While the attitude is admirable, it also creates barriers to recognizing and dealing with on-the-ground realities.

James, there's a lot more to this than I've written here. The short of it is, the situation is salvageable, but not with "stay the course" and certainly not with cut and run. However, the commitment required to save it is something I doubt the American public is willing to swallow. I just don't see the current administration with the political capital remaining in order to properly motivate and convince the American public (or the West in general) of the necessity of these actions.

At the same time, failure in Iraq would be worse than a dozen Somalias, and would render us as impotent and emasculated as we were in the days after Vietnam. There is a global cultural-ideological struggle being waged, and abdication from Iraq is tantamount to concession.

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How we've changed in five years

2006-09-11

This represents some ideas I've been having for the past couple weeks. I'll probably revisit this several times in the course of the day, so there's no guarantee the post as of 23:00 will like much like the post at 00:00. I'll make further changes as an editor, and the other editors can feel free to contribute as they please.

Not quite a week after 9-11-01 the New York Times yes, that New York Times ran an editorial entitled "How We've Changed in a Week." They found, prematurely, that the nation had gotten "back to normal":

But the normal we are returning to is different from what we knew a week ago.
What you might call "an abnormal normality."
Tuesday's tragedies were not only unifying but clarifying. Americans now live a state of war against an irrational, vengeful and elusive enemy.

This is a statement of fact. Some of us have kept this statement of fact in mind for five years. The New York Times isn't among them.
And if we are to win, we will have to become used to the idea that we are in this for the long haul. Coming to terms with that new reality, winning this war, will require discipline, stamina and sacrifice.

True, and wise words, even if long forgotten by the people who wrote them. We're five years into a war that will probably run for a generation, perhaps longer. The enemy remains vengeful and elusive, though much better defined now. We can clearly see, assuming we're paying attention, not a monolithic enemy but a multiheaded hydra.

There is al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's creation, still in business, now fragmented, its forces augmented by wannabe terrorists worldwide, its leadershhip confined to the backwoods insularity of the Pak-Afghan border more Pak than Afghan, if our assessment is correct.
There is Iran, the fountainhead of Shiite terrorism, parent of Hezbollah and patron of Syria, which isn't particular about the religious orientation of the terrorists it patronizes.
There is the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring Hamas, confining itself to tormenting Israel, while probing the limits of the democratic process to try and take power in Egypt and Jordan.
There is a separate group of Pakistani-sponsored or abetted terrorist organizations, Lashkar-e-Taiba preeminent among them at the moment, which bedevil India and which make common cause with al-Qaeda. Along with Lashar are the poorly controlled offshoots of Pak jihadism like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

And toward the bottom of the list we have the Marxist groups like PFLP, DFLP, and Fatah itself, the living legacy of patrons have gone out of business, the Maoists in Nepal, the NPA in the Philippines, and FARC in Colombia.

I forgot to include the overt fascisms like Sammy's Baath Party, the Syrian Baathists, and the amalgam of Islamism and fascism that runs Sudan. They make common cause with the Qutbists out of a combination of self-preservation and anti-Westernism...

Overlaying virtually all of the Islamist is Qutbist thought, combining the techniques pioneered by the Marxists and the anarchists with the theology of the Wahhabists on one hand and the nonsense of the Mahdi on the other.

Financing the Wonderful World of Terror is the Muslim man in the street, though his charitable donations, and oil the oil that fuels the Iranian economy and the oil that makes the Saudi princes rich. Every time the price of a barrel of oil goes up a dollar, that's another dollar available to finance our demise.

And legitimizing and coordinating it all is the Ulema, the Learned Elders of Islam, loosely organized in the Supreme Council of Global Jihad. We don't hear about them anymore, but they're still there, and we keep hearing from the individual holy men who make up the Council of Boskone.

The Times then goes on to explain what's required of us:

For years now, younger Americans have yearned to prove that they are as patriotic and as capable of self-sacrifice as the Greatest Generation. The commitment made after Pearl Harbor was both larger and simpler than the one we are being asked to undertake.

It says much about the quality of thought — the quality of people — making up the U.S. military as opposed to those making up the New York Times that one's stayed on target and the other's been drifting since about a month after this article was written.
Back then, the aim was clear, the path was obvious, and the sense of solidarity was natural for a country that had to focus single-mindedly on winning World War II.

Americans have in fact proven their patriotism and their commitment. Today they're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they're working in support of the war effort in dozens of other countries. They're men and women who are living up to the example provided by the heroes of 9-11: the men of Flight 93, the NYPD and FDNY, Barbara Olsen and a host of others. These are the men and women of the current Greatest Generation, the ones who don't flinch, don't whine, just go in and get the job done.

Our shared mission, to eradicate terrorism, is a noble one.

It's also a lonely mission. Much of the rest of the world is frightened of the task.
The rewards for victory would be immense a safer world and a planetary commitment to cooperation and tolerance. But our individual tasks are vague. President Bush is unlikely to reinstate the draft or impose rationing. We will go about our ordinary jobs as before. Buying consumer goods is not only possible, it has been elevated to a virtual act of patriotism to aid a flagging economy. Nevertheless, we will need to make sacrifices that are all the more difficult because they are unseen and require more patience than heroism.

There's the rub, isn't it? It's hard to be patient. The heroism of patience doesn't involve running into burning buildings. Patience doesn't go well with a short attention span.

American resilience, which allows us to bounce back from setbacks, forgive old enemies and rewrite our national story for every generation, has a downside. Some may call it a short national attention span.

That's what we call it around these parts. We've dwelt upon that very subject numerous times. That fact is, the Times is no less susceptible to Short Attention Span Syndrome than is Joe Sixpack and Harriet Soccermom.

Yesterday's crusade is tomorrow's inconvenience. The gas crisis that was supposed to commit us to energy conservation quickly gave way to the S.U.V. era. People who willingly stand in lines to get through airport security this month may not be so understanding by the Thanksgiving holidays.

The patience lasted past that first Thanksgiving, but not by all that much.

It was evaporating by Christmas. Part of that evaporation was given impetus by Congress' move to make airport screeners civil servants.

It would have lasted longer had the nation accepted the War on Terror as a matter of life and death, but without a draft, without rationing, without the mobilization for total war it's understandable that it wore off.

Perhaps most painful of all, America may have to give up the post-Vietnam illusion that it is possible to fight wars with few casualties.

The Times, with its emphasis on our casualties and the rights of the bad guyz, obviously hasn't given up its illusions...
Our success in the Persian Gulf and even our limited achievements in the Balkans created the illusion that American military technology is sophisticated enough to be used in combat without putting soldiers in harm's way.

Soldiers go "in harm's way" — I hate that term, by the way. Soldiers don't just hang themselves out there for danger to find. — for a reason, that reason being to achieve objectives, to whit, the defeat of the enemy. Good commanders try to achieve their objectives with the minimum of casualties. By the same token, good commanders know that they will likely have to expend precious lives to achieve those objectives. Horribly bad commanders sacrifice their men by the thousands to achieve their objectives, and another kind of horribly bad commander refuses to make the sacrifice, thereby forfeiting the objectives.
But what we have actually been enjoying is an extended string of luck.

The light casualties we've taken have not been a matter of luck, a point the Times missed because they have no particular understanding of military tactics. Our casualties in combined arms operations have been remarkably low. This will continue when and if we go to war with Iran and/or Syria. Military operations that aren't firmly based on combined arms will be higher. Occupation casualties can be even higher, especially when faced with a determined combination of Baathist guerrilla warfare and Islamist terrorism.
Last week, the message came through loud and clear that luck can run out.

In that past few years it's been seldom that we've read the opinion pages of the Times and nodded in agreement. With bodies still unrecovered from the rubble, with soot and the smell of death still in the air, the Times, like the rest of the nation, could see what needed to be done. The could even see what the pitfalls of the coming years would be. But after five years of politix as usual, business as usual, and a constant parade of the usual suspects across the front pages, they've fallen victim again, like much of the rest of the nation to the very things they warned about.

The gravest mistake, the most egregious error, that the Bush administration has made has been to let the public forget, to return to business as usual, when the enemy we face means to destroy us. Probably, rather than pulling retirees out of retirement to fill support slots the draft should have been reinstated. Probably, since we're at war with an enemy that's financed by oil money, we should have instituted gasoline rationing.

But those are should haves. We didn't do those things. We're stuck with the world the way it is. We'll have to live with the consequences of not doing those things, which means we're going to have to work around the problems they raise. Like most shortcuts, it will boil down to "pay me now or pay me later," with the payment being in lives and resources.

Link

Europe

Belgian extremist leader Dyab Abu Jahjah wants to go to Lebanon to fight the Zionists(Tm)

2006-07-15

The Belgian citizen from Lebanese descent Dyab Abu Jahjah, founder of the Arab European League, posted a message on the website of this organisation (www.arabeuropean.org) two days ago, expressing his will to go back to Lebanon. Under the title The homeland is calling, the post of Abu Jahjah leads to think that he wants to go to Lebanon to fight the Zionists.

He wrote: The Zionists will not get us on our knees, their pride and arrogance can not match our belief in the justice of our cause, and in the evil that they represent in this world () This might be the last text I will write before going home on a trip that might be my last () I lived my life for this Nation, and not a hair in me will hesitate in laying it down for this Nation too. The fight for Arab Unity, Liberation, Freedom and Socialism is the essence of Justice in the Homeland and beyond. Some people call it a fight for god, some people call it a fight for mankind, in essence it is one and the same fight for freedom and justice () When oppression rises above the sun to cover it, and injustice defies the wind and the Wicked and the Evil feast on the Flesh of innocent men, women and children. From within the darkness and the orgy of blood, a sword will shine, and the brave will murmur: What a beautiful day to die

He might possibly go, but I doubt it. The head cheeses talk a great martyrdom, but they're usually running for their lives when the rockets hit. This is directed more toward the rubes, who're willing to go off and do the bidding of their local holy man or Fearless Leader™...

Founded a few years ago, the Arab European League (approximately 1 000 members) is regarded by most of the European security services as an extremist organization advocating a communitarian model of society. For instance, the League asks the recognition of Arabic as an official European language. In the past, the League had various problems for its anti-Semitic messages. Dyab Abu Jahjah himself was accused to be linked to the Hezbollah, but he is more clearly aligned on the Syrian Baathist policy, both nationalist and socialist.

Link

Home Front: WoT

VDH: Making Sense of Nonsense

2006-01-20

The United States is engaged in the most radical and dangerous gambit in the Middle East since the end of the Ottoman Empire. Established powers are not often inclined to tamper with the status quo abroad, and so do not support the weaker and disenfranchised. They usually prefer to prop up whoever ensures order and stability. But after September 11, the old safe way was seen as dangerous, and the new dangerous way as ultimately more safe.

America not merely reversed its own past practice of supporting autocrats who pumped oil and kept Communists out, at least in the Middle East; but in staying on after the removal of Saddam Husseinâso unlike post-Soviet Afghanistan, Lebanon of 1983, or Mogadishu in 1993âit spent billions of dollars and hundreds of lives to give birth to democracy.

On the principle of one-person one-vote, the United States has somehow enfranchised the hated Shia and Kurds, without demonizing the Sunnis. And the Sunnis will probably end up with political representation commensurate with their numbers, despite a horrific past association with Saddam Hussein and the blood of American soldiers on their hands.

And the response?

Shiites claim that we are caving in to the terrorist supporters of al Qaeda and the former Hussein regime. Sunnis counter that we are only empowering the surrogates of Iranian crazies. The Iranians show their thanks for our support for their spiritual brethren in Iraq by humiliating European diplomats with promises to wipe out Israel.

In the larger Middle East, the democratic splash in the Iraqi pond is slowly rippling out, as voting proceeds in Egypt and the Gulf, Syria leaves Lebanon, and Moammar Gadhafi and Pakistanâs Dr. Khan cease their nuclear machinations. Hundreds of thousands of protesters hit the streets in Lebanon and Jordanânot to slur the United States, as predicted, for removing Saddam Hussein, but to damn Bashar Assad and al-Zarqawi as terrorist killers. Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader, now calls for Western pressure to root out the Syrian Baathists.

Youâd never know all this from the global media or state-run news services in Europe and the Middle East.

We have sent tens of millions of dollars in earthquake relief to Pakistan, even though for over four years it has given de facto sanctuary to the killers responsible for murdering three thousand Americans. In response, the Pakistani Street expects Americans to provide debt relief, send them aid, excuse their support for our enemiesâand then goes wild should we ever cross the border to retaliate against al Qaeda terrorists in their midst who are plotting to trump 9/11.

At home, much about Iraq has been turned around in Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass fashion. Indeed the debate over Iraq has too often descended into Jabberwocky-like gibberish. We were once slandered as hegemonic; but when we didnât steal anything in Iraq, and instead spent billions in aid, suddenly we were called naive by the now realist Left.

The war was caricatured as all about grabbing oil. Then when the price skyrocketed, we were dubbed foolish for tampering with the fragile petroleum landscape, or with not charging Iraqi price-gouging exporters for our time and services.

Americans tried to remain idealistic on the principle that Iraqis, if freed and helped, could craft a workable democracy, and that such consensual governments would make the volatile Middle East safer, since elected and legitimate governments rarely attack their own kind. In response, the supposedly idealistic Left charged that we were bellicose and imperialistic â as if being on the side of the purple-fingered Iraqi voter was not preferable to being on the side of the terrorist and insurrectionist, who masked his fascism with national rhetoric.

The realist Right was aghast that profits and the balance of power were lost in the equation. The isolationists felt we were either doing Israelâs bidding, wasting lives and money on hopeless tribesmen, or fattening the government to administer a new empire. And all these alternative views were predicated on the 24-hour pulse of the battlefield, to be instantly modified, retracted, or amplified when events suggested dramatic improvement or disheartening setback.

The exasperated public is told that we had too few troops in postwar Iraq, but have too many now. We wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible, so as not injure Arab sensitivities or create perpetual dependency, but we ended up needing an unfortunately high profile just to put down insurrectionists.

Jay Garner was too much the military man; Paul Bremmer too little.

Prewar forecasts warned a worried public that we might lose 3,000-5,000 soldiers just in removing Saddam. Three years later, we have removed him and sponsored a democracy to boot, and at far less than those feared numbers. But we react as if we had faced unexpected numbers of casualties.

Despite the fact that al Qaedists were in Kurdistan, Al Zarqawi was in Saddamâs Baghdad, terrorists like Abu Abas and Abu Nidal were sheltered by Iraqis, and recent archives disclose that hundreds of Iraqi terrorists were annually housed and schooled by the Baathists, we are nevertheless assured that there was no tie between Saddam and terrorists. Those who suggest there were lines of support are caricatured as liars and Bush propagandists.

Apparently, we are asked to believe that the al Qaedists whom Iraqis and Americans kill each day in Iraq largely joined up because we removed Saddam Hussein.

After September 11, many of our experts assured us that it was ânot a question of if, but whenâ we were to be hit againâwith the qualifier that the next strike would be far worse, entailing a dirty bomb, or biological or chemical agents.

Yet when we are still free from an assault 52 months later, censors assure that our safety has nothing to do with the Patriot Act, nothing to do with wiretaps, nothing to do with killing thousands of terrorists abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nothing to do with creating democratic Afghan and Iraqi security forces who daily hunt down jihdadists far from Americaâs shores. And yet, strangely, there is no serious legislation to revoke the Patriot Act, to outlaw listening to calls from potential terrorists, or to cut off funds for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Summarize what the media, the Europeans, the Middle East, and the opposition at home say about Iraq, and the usual narrative is that an initial mistake was made far worse by ideologues, leading to a hopeless situation that only makes the U.S. appear foolish and impotent, while ruining the military, creating a police state at home, and emptying the treasury.

Yet these same critics surely donât want Saddam Hussein back. They concede that after three successful elections, Iraq just might be the first truly democratic society in the history of the Middle East. And they privately acknowledge that the reputations of Osama bin Laden and Al Zarqawi are on the wane. How was that possible when almost everyone fouled up?

So how do we make sense of what seems so nonsensical? Rather easilyâjust keep in mind four general talking points about Americaâs recent role in the world and most things gradually becomes clearer.

Point One (for Americans): My own flawless three-week removal of Saddam Hussein was ruined by your error-prone postwar peace.

Point Two (for Middle Easterners): We are for democracyâunless you Americans help us obtain it.

Point Three (for Europeans): We are privately for and publicly against what you do.

Point Four (for everyone else): When angry at either the United States (or yourself,) just blame the Jews in America, and Israel abroad.

Sometimes in these crazy times, that is all you need to know.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian Baathist regime could fall

2005-03-02

March 02, 2005, 7:54 a.m. (from nro site)
A Loosening Grip
Protests in Lebanon give hope to two nations.

Born in Syria, Farid Ghadry, is president of the Reform Party of Syria, "a US-based opposition party" of pro-democracy Syrians.

In the wake of Lebanon's government stepping down, NRO Editor Kathryn Lopez caught up with Ghadry to get his quick read on the state of play in both Lebanon and Syria.

National Review Online: How big of a deal is the government resignation in Lebanon? Were you surprised by it?

Farid Ghadry: It is a huge deal because not only did it show that the peaceful will of the people can prevail in curbing despotism, but it also showed how weak Syrian Baathists are. And that is very important. The Syrians and Lebanese have lived the last 44 and 29 years respectively under fear from a powerful police state that is accountable to no one. The Lebanese experience with the killing of Hariri has demolished the concept that Syrian Baathista are all-powerful and they are accountable to no one. The Lebanese people are emboldened by the support of the international community and members of parliament like Ahmad Moufatfat and Walid Ido have warned high Syrian intelligence officers that they seek to bring them to justice if implicated in the killing of Hariri....Ghadry: We believe that first and foremost, the United States need to understand that most Syrians are peaceful people. The majority are Sufi Muslims that want to live in peace and do not share the vision of other extreme Sunni Muslims in introducing [Islamic law] as the staple of a new Syrian government. There are those of us who have lived in the U.S. and feel that the interests of both countries are parallel — delivering at the same time a peaceful nation and a nation that wants to bring economic prosperity through a culturally sensitive capitalist society. The United States must leave the Syrians a chance to show that we are worthy of building a better nation. What we want is help to overthrow the regime,

Yay. A prominent person sort of supports my theory of a reform military govt for Syria.

Link

Terror Networks & Islam

Michael Ledeen: Values and Interests

2004-12-23

The notion that we are fighting an "insurgency" largely organized and staffed by former elements of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime is now fully enshrined as an integral piece of the conventional wisdom. Like earlier bits of the learned consensus — to which it is closely linked — it is factually wrong and strategically dangerous.

That it is factually wrong is easily demonstrated, for the man invariably branded the most powerful leader of the terrorist assault against Iraq — Abu Musab al Zarqawi — is not a Baathist, and indeed is not even an Iraqi. He is a Palestinian Arab from Jordan who was based in Iran for several years, and who — when the West Europeans found he was creating a terror network in their countries (primarily Germany and Italy) and protested to the Iranians — moved into Iraqi Kurdistan with Iranian protection and support, as the moving force in Ansar al Islam.

You cannot have it both ways. If Zarqawi is indeed the deus ex machina of the Iraqi terror war, it cannot be right to say that the "insurgency" is primarily composed of Saddam's followers. Zarqawi forces us to think in regional terms rather than focusing our attention on Iraq alone. Unless you think that Iraqi Defense Minister Shaalan is a drooling idiot, you must take seriously his primal screams against Iran and Syria ("terrorism in Iraq is orchestrated by Iranian intelligence, Syrian intelligence, and Saddam loyalists"). Indeed, there has been a flood of reports linking Syria to the terror war, including the recent news that the shattered remnants from Fallujah have found haven and succor across the Syrian border. Finally, the Wahabbist component carries the unmistakable fingerprints of the quavering royal family across the border in Saudi Arabia.

The terror war in Iraq was not improvised, but carefully planned by the four great terror masters (Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia) during the infuriatingly long run-up to the liberation. They made no secret of it; you have only to go back to the public statements of the Iranian mullahs and the Syrian Baathists to see it, for top Iranian officials and Bashir Assad publicly announced it (the mullahs in their mosques, Bashir in a published interview). They had a simple and dramatic word for the strategy: Lebanon. Assad and the mullahs prepared to turn Iraq into a replay of the terror war they had jointly waged against us in Lebanon in the 1980s: suicide bombings, hostage-taking, and religious/political uprisings. It could not have been more explicit.

Some of our brighter journalists have recently written about Iraqi documents that show how Saddam instructed his cohorts to melt away when Coalition forces entered Iraq, and then wage the sort of guerilla campaign we now see. But neither they nor our buffoonish intelligence "community" have looked at the documents in the context of the combined planning among the four key regimes. Anyone who goes back to the pre-OIF period can see the remarkable tempo of airplanes flying back and forth between Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, and even Pyongyang (remember the Axis of Evil?), as military and intelligence officials worked out their strategies. Some of those flights, as for example those between Saddam's Baghdad and the mullahs' Tehran, were a kind of man-bites-dog story, since in the past such flights carried armaments to be dropped on the destination, whereas in 2002 and early 2003 they carried government officials planning the terror war against us in Iraq.

The myth of the Baathist insurgency is actually just the latest version of the old error according to which Sunnis and Shiites can't work together. This myth dominated our "intelligence" on the Middle East for decades, even though it was known that the Iranian (Shiite) Revolutionary Guards were trained in (Syrian-dominated, hence secular Baathist) Lebanon by Arafat's (Sunni) Fatah, starting as early as 1972. The terror masters worked together for a long time, not just after the destruction of the Taliban. But we refused to see it, just as today we refuse to see that the assault against us is regional, not just Iraqi.

Many of the statements emerging from official (that is, both governmental and media) Washington nowadays reflect yet another error, a corollary of the axiom that sees the region hopelessly divided between Shiites and Sunnis. The corollary has it that the impending electoral victory of the Iraqi Shiites will greatly increase Iranian leverage in Iraq. The truth, as Reuel Gerecht so eloquently demonstrated in the Wall Street Journal last week, is precisely the opposite, because the Shiite leaders in Iraq are fundamentally opposed to the Iranian doctrine that places a theocratic dictator atop civil society. The Iraqis adhere to the traditional Shiite view that people in turbans should work in mosques, leaving civil society to secular leaders, and therefore their victory in Iraq will threaten the sway of the mullahs across the border. We should not view all Shiites as a coherent community, and we should welcome a traditional Shiite society in Iraq, and recognize that it is a valuable weapon in the war against the terror masters in Tehran.

The mullahs know this well. They dread the success of traditional Shiites in Baghdad, and they are desperately trying to foment a Sunni/Shiite clash of civilizations. That is the explanation of the resumption of suicide-bombing attacks in the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala, which the mullahs' intelligence agents had terminated when previous bombings intensified anti-Iranian (rather than the hoped-for anti-Sunni) passions. As many Iraqi leaders have observed, the recent attacks in the holy places demonstrate desperation, not growing "insurgent" strength.

The clear strategic conclusion remains what it should have been long before Coalition troops entered Saddam's evil domain: No matter how strongly we wish it to be otherwise, we are engaged in a regional war, of which Iraq is but a single battlefield. The war cannot be won in Iraq alone, because the enemy is based throughout the region and his bases and headquarters are located beyond our current reach. His power is directly proportional to our unwillingness to see the true nature of the war, and our decision to limit the scope of our campaign.

The true nature of the war exposes yet another current myth: that we are at greater risk because we failed to send sufficient troops into Iraq. More troops would simply mean more targets for the terrorists, since we are not prepared — nor should we be — to establish a full-scale military occupation and to "seal off" the borders with Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Hell, we can't even seal off the Mexican border with the United States, an area we know well. How can we expect to build a wall around Iraq?

No, we can only win in Iraq if we fully engage in the terror war, which means using our most lethal weapon — freedom — against the terror masters, all of them. The peoples of Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are restive, they look to us for political support. Why have we not endorsed the call for political referenda in Syria and Iran? Why are we so (rightly and honorably) supportive of free elections in the Ukraine, while remaining silent about — or, in the disgraceful case of outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell, openly hostile to — free elections in Iran and Syria? Why are we not advancing both our values and our interests in the war against the terror masters?

Faster, please.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria's jihad without borders program

2004-11-04

Ali's sense of outrage moved him to sign up. The thought of U.S. troops around the holy shrines of Karbala and Najaf "made me sick," says the 25-year-old Lebanese Shiite. So a few months ago he joined a group of 50 or so men from the town of Baalbek, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, who had decided to fight in the Iraqi resistance. They traveled to the battlefield by way of Damascus.

Ali rode in the back of a pickup from the Syrian capital across the Iraqi border with five other enlistees, all of them carrying false Iraqi IDs issued to them in Syria. Later the group hid in the secret compartment of a meat truck, for the journey's final leg down the highway to Karbala. After 10 days' training with 200 other newcomers, Ali was issued an AK-47, a black headband and a green uniform. He spent the next month serving against the Americans as a member of the Mahdi Army, headed by the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Who sent the Lebanese contingent to Iraq? Ali says it's no mystery: "Baath Party people."

Saddam Hussein's Baath Party was supposedly abolished after the fall of Baghdad. But the Pan-Arabist political group has another branch that's anything but defunct: the ruling party of Syria. Hawks in the Bush administration used to dream aloud of pushing on from Baghdad to Damascus. Now, according to some administration officials, the Syrians may be doing their bit to make sure the Americans remain bogged down in Iraq. "The Americans captured the old leadership, like Saddam Hussein," says Assem Kanso, a member of the Syrian Baathists' National Command. "But what about the others? Many of them like to go to Syria." You might call it their home away from home.

The Syrian government, which denies aiding the insurgency, purports to have clamped down on its Iraqi border. But smugglers don't seem intimidated. In Lebanon's biggest Palestinian-refugee camp, Ein Hilweh, a veteran Palestinian fighter, displays 15 falsified Iraqi passports. He says he has visited Iraq three times since the war began, escorting new recruits for the insurgency. They traveled from Damascus to Baghdad via commercial bus. Each passport goes for $1,000, he says. Who pays, and who organizes the trips? "Don't ask," he says. "It's better for you and it's better for me."

Two months ago, after the shooting stopped in Najaf, many of the Lebanese fighters volunteered for service against the Americans in Fallujah. As insurgents, they were earning $800 a month—three times an Iraqi policeman's salary. Instead, Ali went home to the Bekaa Valley. "I got scared," he says. "Some local people were friendly, and some were not. It was like you had one enemy in front of you and one behind you." He has one regret, he says, about his time in Iraq: "I didn't have the good fortune to shoot any Americans." Tragically, some of Ali's friends may have better luck.

Link

Syria-Lebanon

WMD stashed in Syria?

2004-01-06

This is a follow-up to yesterdayâs question about who Nizar Najoef is. Looks to me like heâs pretty credible.
"Nizar Najoef" is more commonly spelled Nizar Nayyouf, and he is a remarkable man. He was a journalist and an activist for liberal reform under Hafez Assad, and as a result spent nine years in prison. In his first prison, Nayyouf tried to organize a prisonersâ rebellion; he was soon transferred to another prison where he promptly began a hunger strike. Finally, he was sent to a military prison where he was subjected to appalling torture, and is apparently partially paralyzed as a result. Nevertheless, Nayyouf somehow managed to smuggle out information about the torture of his fellow prisoners. Numerous human-rights groups and reportersâ organizations tried to intervene in his case; he was finally released in 2001 following a plea from the Vatican. Nayyouf now lives in Europe.

Where does Nayyouf say the WMD is (or was) hidden? In tunnels beneath the town of al-Baida; near the village of Tal Snan; and in "Sjinsjar" (Dutch spelling), a city east of the highway between Hama and Damascus. Nayyouf says he received the information through connections in Syrian intelligence. He believes the U.S. knows all of this, but is biding its time for political reasons. It will act on the information, he told the newspaper, "when the U.S. thinks itâs time to see Assad go."

Is there anything to this? Who knows. Whatâs impressive is that, despite paralysis, blindness, and illness due to torture, Nayyouf is still battling the Syrian Baathists. Not long ago he participated in a press conference accusing the regime of still imprisoning a Lebanese man who disappeared 12 years earlier. Heâs probably right about that. Nayyouf even beat a libel suit brought against him by Syriaâs former vice president (another Assad), after Nayyouf revealed that heâd ordered the murder of political prisoners. Heâs irrepressible.

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