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Complaints of Syria's spying on Lebanon ring hollow

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published June 26, 2005

No matter what you think about Syria, it's a little disingenuous, if not hypocritical, for the United States to complain so loudly about the presence of Syrian intelligence agents in neighboring Lebanon.

What about the CIA? Do our own agents never leave their woodsy headquarters in Virginia?

On Friday, the day after the State Department claimed Syria still had agents in Lebanon, it was revealed that an Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA operatives accused of seizing an imam in Milan in 2003 and spiriting him to Egypt.

Italian prosecutors think the CIA nabbed the man, thought to be an al-Qaida supporter, as part of its much criticized "rendition" program, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval. The alleged abduction harmed an operation by Italian authorities, investigators say, and the imam's whereabouts remains unknown.

As embarrassing as this may be to the United States, it's no big secret that most major nations have spies snooping around in other places, occasionally with troublesome results. And there are few greater examples than our own intelligence service.

Even if operations like that in Italy can be defended as part of the war on terrorism, it's worth remembering it was the CIA itself that contributed to the rise of Islamic extremism and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network in Afghanistan. Throughout the Soviet Union's ill-fated war there in the 1980s, the CIA funneled arms and money to jihadists fighting the "Godless" communists. After the Soviets pulled out in 1989, the jihadists began to turn against the Western "infidels."

"As the years passed, these radical Islamic networks adopted some of the secret deception-laden tradecraft of the formal intelligence services," writes Steve Coll in Ghost Wars, a superb account of the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan up to 9/11.

The CIA is not the only agency whose activities have backfired. In 1997, Israeli Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists nabbed a Hamas member in Jordan and squirted poison in his ear. That so angered King Hussein that he demanded Israel release Sheik Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, from prison. Yassin returned to the Gaza Strip and continued to incite violence against Israel until he was assassinated by a missile strike last year.

The point of all this is not to excuse Syria. While it certainly is more moderate and religiously tolerant than some of our Arab "friends" (Saudi Arabia, to name one), it also supports terrorism against Israel, is ruled by a dictator and fostered a climate of corruption and oppression during its long occupation of Lebanon.

For reasons of history, geography and culture, however, Syria will always be close to Lebanon, no matter how much that annoys the State Department. Again, it is worth remembering that our own government supported Syria's occupation in 1989 as a way of ending a brutal Lebanese civil war that had killed as many as 150,000.

The United States and the United Nations were right to demand Syria withdraw its troops this spring and stop trying to deprive the Lebanese of the honest, democratic government they deserve. But does the State Department really think Syria is not going to keep a close eye on a neighbor of such economic and strategic importance - just as the CIA, the Mossad and other intelligence services are right now operating in places they consider important to their national interests?

Like it or not, it's all part of that old game, "Spy vs. Spy."

Susan Taylor Martin can be reached at susan@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 26, 2005, 00:35:56]