Weapons of Misdirection
Tom Barry, March 9, 2004
Getting out of the
political quicksand of Iraq, or at least burying the bloody occupation
as an embarrassing daily news item, is mission number one for the Bush
campaign.
Extricating U.S. troops and
political capital from the mess the Bush administration created in Iraq
may be mission impossible. But the president’s political and ideological
handlers have proved adept at spinning the administration out of
scandals and misadventures. Their operating principle, which they
enshrined as official national security strategy, seems to be: the best
defense is a good offense.
When you are down in the polls
and the “bring ‘em on” machismo no longer seems to get the patriotic
rise it first did, the Bush team doesn’t retreat. It advances with more
tough words backed by military muscle and missionary zeal. The Bush
administration still has an itchy trigger finger, and is in search of
another evildoer to confront.
Even before the U.S. occupation
forces settled into Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad, the
neoconservatives who have set the direction of the Bush presidency’s
radical foreign and military policies were looking toward Syria. Before
the month is out, it’s likely that President Bush will announce new
sanctions against Syria--accusing the northern neighbor of Israel,
Lebanon, and Iraq of many of the same offenses that were leveled against
the Hussein regime in Iraq. The charge list includes developing
biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, condemning the U.S.
occupation of Iraq, supporting international terrorism, and succoring
anti-U.S. and anti-Israel guerrilla forces.
Immediately before the Iraq
invasion, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security traveled to Israel and promised Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
that “it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and
North Korea afterwards.” In April 2003 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz warned: "There's got to be a change in Syria."
Road to Damascus
The road to Damascus, which is
at the center of the Bush administration’s roadmap for restructuring the
Middle East, doesn’t run directly from Baghdad. Its starting points are
in Washington, Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, and Beirut--charted by the
neoconservative think-tanks, the Christian Right, and the right-wing
Zionists who move easily back and forth between Capitol Hill and the
Middle East.
The neoconservatives harbor a
deep sense of history--one that is shaped, they say, by the forces of
good and evil and the righteous and the appeasers. For the neocons,
history also teaches the virtues of certain political strategies, such
as the necessity of establishing bipartisan front groups and
establishing the legislative foundation for their agendas.
One of the key figures who has
set Washington on the road to Damascus is Ziad K. Abdelnour, an
expatriate investment banker from Lebanon who, together with neocon
supporters of Israel’s Likud Party and the Christian Right, established
the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL) in 1997.
The USCFL describes itself as
the “cyber-center for Pro-Lebanon Activism.” USCFL was one of the
leading proponents of the “Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty
Restoration Act of 2003,” which calls for a series of sanctions against
Syria and which President Bush signed on December 12, 3003.
Like Ahmad Chalabi, chief of
the London-based and U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress (INC), the
USCFL’s Abdelnour is an expatriate investment banker. He has lobbied the
Bush administration and the U.S. Congress for a U.S. foreign policy that
mirrors the hard-line position of Israel’s Likud Party. Working closely
with neocon supporters on Capitol Hill in the late 1990s, Chalabi helped
persuade Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which
provided support for the Iraqi National Congress and other anti-Saddam
Hussein forces. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 set the bipartisan
foundation for a military-induced regime change in Iraq. In the lead-up
to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, necon polemicists such as Richard Perle,
William Kristol, and Bruce Jackson created the Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq (CLI) to consolidate bipartisan support for the
preventive war.
The neoconservatives, strongly
backed the right-wing Zionist lobby through such groups as the Orthodox
Union and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, have
followed a similar strategy to advance their agenda for political
transformation in Syria and Lebanon. In much the same way that they
moved forward their agenda for regime change in Iraq step by step, the
neocon advocates for a radical transformation in the Middle East have in
the case of Syria and Lebanon also formed a “front group”--USCFL--and
supported bipartisan legislation that establish the political base for
sanctions against Iraq--and eventual U.S. military action. USCFL’s page
of “selected links” recommends just three lobbying organizations:
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Christian Coalition of
America. (4)
USCFL, a self-described
“non-profit, non-sectarian think tank,” states that it aims to rid the
Middle East of “dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential
conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons of mass
destruction” and to do so while abiding with the tenets of the Charter
of the United Nations. (5) (6)
USCFL’s core supporters, which
it calls its “Golden Circle,” include several members of the Bush
administration: Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Paula Dobriansky, Michael
Rubin, and David Wurmser. Other prominent neocons in the Golden Circle
include Daniel Pipes (Middle East Forum and U.S. Institute for Peace),
Frank Gaffney (Center for Security Policy), Jeane Kirkpatrick (AEI) ,
Michael Ledeen (AEI), David Steinmann (Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs), and Eleana Benador (Middle East Forum). Also included
in this circle of those who have donated $1,000 or more to USCFL is Rep.
Eliot Engel (R-NY), the congressional representative who was the main
sponsor of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration
Act of 2003.
The USCFL lists Amin Gemayel,
who as Lebanon's president in 1983 signed an aborted peace treaty with
Israel, as a leading supporter. Although there are a few Muslims in
USCFL’s Golden Circle, most of the Lebanese-Americans associated with
USCFL are Christian, including Abdelnour. In its selected links, USCFL
includes the Guardians of the Cedars, a fascistic Christian Right
Lebanese organization that has a military wing. The large majority of
USCFL supporters, however, are Jewish-Americans.
USCFL may be “non-sectarian,”
but its list of core supporters and the “pro-Lebanon” groups listed on
its website signal its neoconservative and pro-Likud sympathies. Among
the organizations interlocked with USCFL’s Golden Circle include
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), American Enterprise
Institute (AEI), Project for the New American Century (PNAC), Center for
Security Policy (CSP), Middle East Forum, Hudson Institute, and Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).
In 1999 Abdelnour founded the
Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB), which is the USCFL’s monthly
online publication. Michael Rubin is on the editorial board and Gary C.
Gambill, an associate with the Middle East Forum and Freedom House, is
the editor. In 2002, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum (MEF) became
a co-publisher of MEIB. The MEIB concentrates on “internal political
developments in the Middle East, especially those that are thinly
covered in other English-language publications.” (In 2000 Pipes
coauthored a jingoistic report with Abdelnour that advocated the use of
U.S. military action to force Syria out of Lebanon and to disarm Syria
of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. Virtually all 31 signatories
of this MEF report, which was used to persuade Congress to introduce and
pass the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act
in 2003, are USCFL members, and several became high officials or
advisers in the Bush foreign policy ! team, including Abrams, Perle,
Feith, Dobrianksy, and Wurmser.
The 2000 report by Pipes and
Abdelnour concluded that that "Syrian rule in Lebanon stands in direct
opposition to American ideals." It strongly criticized Washington's
policy of engaging Syria rather than confronting it. The Lebanon Study
Group of the Middle East Forum advocated harsh economic and diplomatic
sanctions. "The Vietnam legacy and the sour memories of dead American
Marines in Beirut notwithstanding," the group observed, "the United
States has entered a new era of undisputed military supremacy coupled
with an appreciable drop in human losses on the battlefield." Finally,
said the report, "If there is to be decisive action, it will have to be
sooner rather than later."
The Syria Accountability and
Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which received
overwhelming support in both the House and the Senate, is a public law
that aims: “To halt Syrian support for terrorism, end its occupation of
Lebanon, stop its development of weapons of mass destruction, cease its
illegal importation of Iraqi oil and illegal shipments of weapons and
other military items to Iraq, and by so doing hold Syria accountable for
the serious international security problems it has caused in the Middle
East, and for other purposes.” It is designed to punish Damascus for its
alleged links to terrorist groups and its alleged efforts to develop
weapons of mass destruction. It bans all transfers of “dual-use”
technology to Syria. In addition, the act recommends an arsenal of
sanctions against Syria, including: reducing diplomatic contacts with
Syria, banning U.S. exports (except food and medicine) to Syria,
prohibiting U.S. businesses from investing or o! perating in Syria,
restricting the travel of Syrian diplomats in the United States, banning
Syrian aircraft from operating in the United States, and freezing Syrian
assets in the United States. Although the bill obligates the executive
branch to enact at least two of the recommended sanctions, it does
permit the president to waive the sanctions if it is determined that
they would harm U.S. national security.
USCFL commended Rep. Engel for
his leadership in moving the bill through the House, and also expressed
its special appreciation for the strong support provided by Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rick
Santorum (R-PA) “for pioneering it in the Senate.” (1)
The appointment of David
Wurmser, a long-time advocate of U.S. military action against Syria, to
the staff of Vice President Cheney in September 2003, followed by the
president’s signing of the Syria Accountability act in December were
widely regarded as another signal that the U.S. regional restructuring
crusade might soon be embarking on the road to Damascus. If the
president imposes sanctions against Syria rather than attempting to
engage it through diplomatic channels, it’s likely that the Syrian
regime will be painted with the same fear-mongering brush used to
justify the invasion of Iraq. With Osama bin Laden still on the lam and
bedlam in occupied Iraq, the Bush administration needs to refocus public
attention on another evildoer--which, not so coincidently, is also the
next preferred target of the Likudniks in Israel.
Published by the Right Web Program at the Interhemispheric
Resource Center (IRC). ©2004. All rights reserved. Republished with
permission.
