Browse > Home / Afghanistan, Fear Mongering, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Propaganda, Syria, War of Terror / Nuclear allegations fuel new cold war / Random Post

Nuclear allegations fuel new cold war

June 24, 2008

Damascus // The Syrian nuclear affair is shrouded in mystery of the sort that can only really arise in the Middle East, that timeless arena of intrigue, political struggle and warring intelligence agencies.

Only a single fact is undisputed and incontrovertible: on Sept 6, Israel bombed a Syrian military facility, out in the north-eastern desert region. Beyond that lay only claim and counterclaim, allegations and suppositions; the United States and Israel have said the structure was a nuclear reactor that was close to completion, an allegation the Syrians deny.

These disputes will most certainly not be cleared up by the UN nuclear inspectors currently in Syria on a three-day visit to look for evidence of a secret nuclear programme.

Although the facts of the case remain lost in a fog, what is clear is that the air raid took place in a region tense with what is shaping up to be a new cold war - a contest between Iran and the United States for regional dominance.

Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and the Palestinian territories are the physical battlegrounds, the competition for power manifesting itself in a complex series of interlocking and overlapping wars - including the “war on terror” - with implications that reach across the world.

In simple terms, Iran, Syria and North Korea are lined up against the United States, Israel and the West. China and Russia are loosely opposed to the United States but shift a little from side to side, as the situation suits them.

Syria is a small state with limited resources yet it has a key role in the struggle, perhaps even a pivotal one. It is not inevitable that Damascus pits itself against Washington and its allies; the Syrian regime is secular and the country has a long history as a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic state, arguably having more in common with Turkey and Mediterranean Europe than it does with the oil-rich Gulf.

The Syrian position is based on a national determination - which has at times become a monomaniacal obsession - to regain the Golan Heights. The Golan was seized by Israel in 1973 and subsequently illegally occupied, as it remains to this day. Since then Israel and Syria have been in a state of war.

Unable to face Israel’s US bankrolled military power directly, Syria has focused on supporting Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, both of which have waged an armed guerrilla struggle against Israel, in part at least acting as Syrian proxies.

While other Arab states have quietly fallen under US influence and by extension acquiesced to Israel - to the point of opposing Hizbollah - Syria, with its Golan in mind, has refused to yield to the US tide.

The United States and Israel have said Hamas and Hizbollah are terrorist groups, that Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism and must therefore be treated as an international pariah, a rogue nation. Such labels cut little ice in the Middle East, where most ordinary people view the Israeli and US governments as the world’s largest, most effective, terrorist organisations on the planet.

Washington has been further enraged by Damascus’s rejection of the US occupation of Iraq, and the fact anti-US militants have crossed into Iraq from Syria. The invasion at first appeared to spell trouble for Syria and Iran, with Iraq potentially turning into a rich and powerful, pro-US outpost in the centre of the region. That was what Washington hoped for, and it is a reality that never materialised. Instead the war came as a political gift to Iran and Syria, with the United States bogged down in a long conflict that has cost trillions of dollars and thousands of US lives.

Since the Iranian revolution, Tehran has been an enemy of Israel and supportive of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements, including Hamas and Hizbollah. That connection, and a shared opposition to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq - and the US presence in the post-Saddam country - has led to a deepening relationship between Syria and Iran. This has alarmed other Arab states, dominated by Sunni Muslims, who fear the regional spread of Shia Islam from Iran, across the new Shiite-led Iraq.

The role of North Korea in all of this is much more a matter of speculation than that of either Syria or Iran. The United States and Israel crudely view Damascus, Pyongyang and Tehran as a triumvirate of rogue states, an “axis of evil” united by their opposition to the American way of life and desperate to obtain arsenals of weapons of mass destruction that they could one day use on Israel.

Syria and Iran both have said they do not want nuclear weapons. The powerful Iranian clergy said such destructive power is against Islam. Syria, not a wealthy state, said such weapons are too expensive and utterly unusable - dropping a nuclear warhead on Israel would be like dropping one on Damascus, given their proximity.

Whatever the facts of the Syrian nuclear affair, it falls within this landscape. The United States and Israel said Syria did have a reactor, and see that as concrete proof of an axis of evil on the brink of nuclear capabilities that threaten the Earth.

Damascus said it has not had a nuclear programme and views all of this - the bombing, the inspections, the media circus - as just another episode in a joint US-Israeli colonial project, one that seeks to squash all opposition by all possible means.

The National | Phil Sands | Monday, June 23, 2008

Last 5 posts in Afghanistan

Last 5 posts in Fear Mongering

Last 5 posts in Iran

Last 5 posts in Iraq

Last 5 posts in Pakistan

Last 5 posts in Propaganda

Last 5 posts in Syria

Last 5 posts in War of Terror

Posted by Philip Dru · Filed Under Afghanistan, Fear Mongering, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Propaganda, Syria, War of Terror | Random Post | 

Comments

Got something to say?