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Experts disagree on dangers of Syria
© St. Petersburg Times Is Syria a bigger threat to Americans than Iraq? Yes, says Florida Sen. Bob Graham , chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. In recent interviews, Graham has blasted Syria for its support of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese group that killed 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983 and that now has "a substantial capability to strike inside the United States." "In my judgment that's the No. 1 threat" to America, Graham told the St. Petersburg Times last month. "That threat should be our first priority." But several experts on Syria say neither it nor Hezbollah pose a real danger today to U.S. interests. The Bush administration has even praised the Syrian government for cooperating in the war on terrorism, and opposes congressional efforts to impose tough sanctions on the country. "Saying Syria is worse than Iraq shows a misunderstanding of the Middle East," says Moshe Maoz, a Hebrew University historian and author of books on Syria and its late dictator, Hafez Assad. "Syria is not a saint -- everybody knows that -- but Hezbollah is mostly a threat against Israel. They did attack when there were American troops in Lebanon, but they killed to oust foreign forces from Lebanon. I doubt very much whether Hezbollah will go out of its way to attack America -- this is a danger that I think is . . . not very well based." These conflicting views of Syria's threat reflect the difficulty in knowing what to make of Syria itself, an enigmatic country that in some ways seems to be trying to open up and improve its relations with the United States and that in other ways seems hopelessly mired in the Cold War era. "For decades there has been a contrast between the attitude of the U.S. Congress to relations with Syria -- regardless of a Democratic or Republican majority -- and that of the administration, particularly the State Department," Syrian journalist Ibrahim Hamidi wrote in the Beirut Daily Star. "The former has been generally hostile. The latter has always sought to keep channels open -- despite Syria's links to the former communist bloc, to supposedly rogue states like Iran and Cuba and to purportedly terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah -- because of Syria's regional weight, its role in preserving stability in the Middle East and the secular nature of its regime." Since 1976, when Syrian troops first entered neighboring Lebanon to intervene in that country's civil war, Syria has played a dominant role in Lebanese affairs. That has included support for Hezbollah in its fight to oust Israeli soldiers from southern Lebanon, which Israel invaded in 1982 to root out Palestinian terrorists and establish a security zone. Israel finally withdrew in 2000. "Hezbollah is seen by Syrians and by a huge majority of Lebanese as a very legitimate resistance movement -- in fact as the guerrilla force that got rid of the Israelis after 22 years of occupation," says Patrick Seale, a British journalist considered the West's top authority on Syria. "Hezbollah is a purely local phenomenon, directed purely at the Israelis. . . . I think the reason the Israelis and Americans are hostile is that Hezbollah has managed to establish some deterrent capability, and the Israelis know very well that if they hit Lebanon they will be hit back. This is a very rare thing in the region, and that is why it is being targeted." Hezbollah continues to launch occasional rocket attacks at Israeli troops across the border, and is thought to have been behind the failed attempt earlier this year to smuggle 50 tons of Iranian weapons to the Palestinian Authority aboard the ship Karin A. Maoz, the Israeli professor, considers Hezbollah a "radical organization." But he, too, views it as essentially a local movement aimed at Israel and unlikely to harm America. "Practically speaking, they don't have the resources -- Hezbollah is 2,000 people, that is all," he says. Nonetheless, New Yorker magazine reports, Hezbollah has established "cells" in South America and the United States, where it has raised money for its anti-Israel operations through activities that include cigarette and drug smuggling. Although there is no proof the cells are capable of violent acts, investigators in North Carolina found anti-American propaganda and photographs of cell members posing in front of the White House and Washington Monument. Intelligence sources also think Hezbollah operatives, "with the help and cover of Iranian diplomats, have been making surveillance tapes of American diplomatic installations in South America, Southeast Asia and Europe," the New Yorker says. "These tapes, along with maps and other tools, are said to be kept in well-organized clandestine libraries." Hezbollah also runs training camps in Lebanon's Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley, where terrorists from around the world reportedly are taught how to forge identification, make bombs and plot assassinations. "We should tell the Syrians that we expect them to shut down the Bekaa Valley camps within X number of days, and if they don't, we are reserving the right to shut them down ourselves," says Graham. Hezbollah has not been suspected of any overt anti-U.S. acts in years, but it killed enough Americans in Lebanon in the '80s to makes it second only to al-Qaida in killing U.S. citizens. That history of attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets landed Hezbollah on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations and is a key reason for Syria's inclusion on the department's list of seven nations that support terrorism. But fewer U.S. sanctions apply to Syria than to Iran, Iraq or other countries on the list -- something pro-Israel groups and many members of Congress hope to change with the "Syrian Accountability Act." It would ban the export of military and "dual-use" items, and impose other sanctions until Syria met several conditions: -- Stop supporting terrorism, developing ballistic missiles and nonconventional weapons. -- Withdraw all of its military and security personnel from Lebanon. -- Stop smuggling oil from Iraq in violation of U.N. sanctions. The act is opposed by the Bush administration, which fears it would limit its options in dealing with a country that -- as Maoz puts it -- "is not a lost cause yet." Syria has already benefited from the administration's flexible approach to the war on terror. The country smuggles as many as 200,000 barrels of oil a day from Iraq in a deal that helps both sides: Syria keeps the cheaper Iraqi oil and exports its own oil at higher prices, while Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein uses the money from the illegal sales to develop his weapons program. Although this arrangement is a boon to two nations that the U.S. government calls "state sponsors of terrorism," the administration has turned a blind eye as a way of thanking Syria for its help on other fronts of the war on terror. "Syria is one nation that has cooperated with the CIA very extensively, so much so that there are State Department officials who have said publicly that Syria helped save American lives," says Murhaf Jouejati, a Syrian expert at George Washington University. Earlier this year, Syria reportedly tipped off the CIA to a planned attack against U.S. personnel in an undisclosed Persian Gulf country. The CIA also has access to Mohammed Zammar, who allegedly recruited some of the Sept. 11 hijackers and is now in Syrian custody. Syria has provided intelligence on other Islamic groups and individuals linked to al-Qaida. Among them is a Syrian businessman who purportedly managed the bank accounts of top al-Qaida members, one of whom is in U.S. custody awaiting trial in connection with the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Less clear is whether Syria is helping crack down on al-Qaida suspects who have fled to Lebanon. Lebanese authorities, presumably with Syrian assent, recently arrested three men who said they were planning to start an al-Qaida training camp in south Lebanon. But Israeli officials suggest Syria has helped al-Qaida members relocate by allowing them to pass freely through Syrian territory. Some of the uncertainty about Syria's true motives stems from the conflicting signals sent by its new leader, Bashar Assad, son of the late dictator. A British-educated eye doctor, Assad initially took steps toward reform, but has since retrenched and even engaged in virulent anti-Israeli rhetoric. Hafez Assad, though a stronger ruler than his son, "very much neglected the internal scene so the young Assad inherited a mountain of problems -- a hopelessly overstaffed and incompetent civil service, rampant corruption, hugely overpopulated universities, a terrible official press and an unreformed economy with bankrupt nationalized industries," says Seale, the British journalist. "He's been trying to reform almost every aspect of society, but he's met a lot of opposition from entrenched interests." That's a good reason why the United States, instead of imposing sanctions on the struggling country, should retain the flexibility to work with Syria, says Maoz. "I think the Bush administration should not exercise too much pressure on Syria," he says. "It should leave the option to win it over and also to make fresh efforts toward Syrian-Israeli peace, which would strengthen American interests in the Middle East." -- Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com
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