From the Telegraph (UK):
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria secretly incited Iraq’s top Shia leader to declare holy war against US and British forces, according to Washington’s former administrator in the country.
In his new book, My Year in Iraq, Paul Bremer said he heard the explosive intelligence in October 2003 as sectarian tensions soared across the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The report came from an extremely senior source, the supreme leader of Iraq’s majority Shia community, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
According to Mr Bremer, the news was passed to him by Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a senior Shia politician involved in negotiations with the ayatollah. The Syrian leader had apparently recalled the Shia-led uprising against the British in 1920 and urged the Shia to repeat history.
The news “stunned” the US administration in Iraq. “This was an act of extraordinary irresponsibility from Syria’s president,” Mr Bremer writes. “We had good intelligence showing that many insurgents and terrorists were coming into Iraq through Syria.”
But the allegation was far more serious, he says. “This message from Assad essentially incited Shia rebellion. If he were to succeed, the coalition would face an extremely bloody two-front uprising, costing thousands of lives.”
The revelation that Syria’s leader was trying to stoke unrest inside Iraq goes some way to explaining Washington’s unrelenting hostility towards the Damascus regime ever since.
As Don Rumsfeld has noted (with his trademark litotes), Syria, under Assad, has been “very unhelpful” during the Iraq campaign—so much so that even former US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger (a foreign policy realist under George HW Bush) went from suggesting in 2003 that George W Bush should “be impeached” were he to attack Syria, to suggesting only recently, in the wake of the London bombings, that military strikes against both Syria and Iran were called for.
What a difference a couple of years make, huh?
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Assad will survive 2006—at least, not unless he does a complete 180 and joins the anti-terror coalition without reservation and with full and verifiable cooperation. Because the US simply cannot continue to allow the Syrian border to act as a staging ground for jihadists, particularly with Iran assuming a threatening posture across the way. All of which could augur a limited military action againt Syria; and if that isn’t bad enough, you know your time is about up when your former VPs are calling for your overthrow from exile—essentially giving western powers the cover they need to remove the problem Assad has created for both the coalition and the burgeoning Iraqi democracy. From the AP:
A former vice president of Syria called from exile for the overthrow of the regime he served for decades, saying Friday that “a shameless mafia” is running the country and that its president surrounds himself with sycophantic advisers and is unfit to rule.
Abdul-Halim Khaddam, now accused by Syria of treason, stopped just short of accusing President Bashar Assad of involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Khaddam told The Associated Press in an interview that Hariri was “threatened in a crystal-clear way on numerous occasions” before his death in a truck bombing last year  including by Assad himself.
Khaddam recounted how Assad once summoned Hariri to give him a dressing down. Hariri, a Lebanese nationalist who sought to wrest his country from Syrian control, had opposed giving pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud an extended term.
“You are working against us and you are conspiring against us. You are seeking to install a president in Lebanon. I’m the decision-maker. Anyone who contravenes my decisions I will crush,” Khaddam quoted Assad as telling Hariri.
Asked what Assad may have meant by crush, Khaddam said: “What does crush mean? Crushing with a thousand kilograms of explosives.”
Khaddam was for many years Syria’s top official in Lebanon and was a member of the ruling Baath Party’s regional command, its most influential body, for almost 30 years.
He represents an old guard long seen as wary of Assad, who became president after the death of his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, in 2000. Bashar Assad took some steps toward political reform, such as freeing political prisoners, soon after taking power. But he later clamped down on pro-democracy activists, leading some analysts to conclude he was hampered by opposition from hard-line holdovers from his father’s regime.
The office of Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad said he was not available for comment.
The executive editor of Lebanon’s leading newspaper, An-Nahar, a harsh critic of Syria’s domination of Lebanon, said Khaddam was a key player in the regime he now criticizes.
And let’s face it: when a former top Baathist official is unhappy with the strategy you’re taking in the fight against the west (and to maintain control over Lebanon), you need to find some new friends, fast.
Unfortunately, Saddam Hussein is holed up in a cage somewhere, and the Iranians will soon have their hands full with problems of their own.
But there’s always Gallagher, I suppose.
(h/t Allah)
I do. What reason is there to think revolution is imminent? Particularly in light of the jihad in Iraq, which serves as warning to liberals in the rest of the Middle East that they can expect years of bombings if they do anything foolish like depose their dictators.
Hmmm.
There will always be Gallagher. When the sun dies and the cockroaches are the only ones left they’ll be going “Shit! I just saw Gallagher!”.
Jeff,
Seriously. What makes you think Iran is facing any trouble.
From what I’ve seen, Iran has no problem telling both the US and the UN to fuck off. Didn’t I just read they unsealed their uranium enriching facilities?
They seem to know they can get away with it. I play poker. I know when my bluff is being called, and the UN bluff just got called.
Once the radioactive dust settles over Tel Aviv, I’m sure a debate will begin in America over whether there are STILL weapons of mass destruction REMAINING in Iran, so, I imagine it will be a few years and 17 UN resolutions later before we actually get to, you know, invade.
But until then, I see no evidence that Iran faces much of any threat from us.
Jefe,
You write, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Assad will survive 2006â€â€at least, not unless he does a complete 180 and joins the anti-terror coalition without reservation and with full and verifiable cooperation. Because the US simply cannot continue to allow the Syrian border to act as a staging ground for jihadists, particularly with Iran assuming a threatening posture across the way.”
I dunno. Assad may not last long, sure, but if he does, it sure as fuck isn’t going to be because Bush has welcomed him back into the fold. Ain’t gonna happen. One of Bush’s most attractive qualities, for me at least, is his ability to hold onto a grudge and never let go. If Bush is, as the Lefties say, an intellectual lightweight with the worldview of a 5 year old, then following that same analogy that “grudge” against Assad is his teddy bear, and Iraq is the Neverland Ranch.
Assad will pay for this. Maybe not this year, or next, but eventually, yeah. None of this 90’s I feel your pain crap.
f
We’ll have France’s back when they decide to do something about Assad.
France decides to do something about Assad? The only thing France will ever do to Assad is send him more brie and pate.
Oh, come on. EVERYONE knows Assad is just a CIA plant laying the groundwork for further expansion of the Hitlerburton megacorporate hegemony…
Assad is an ass-wad, a pimple on the butt of Islam playing Ladders and Chutes in a game of Texas Hold ‘Em. He will be exiled in Algeria before ‘07. The Iranians, on the other hand, are playing high-stakes chess. They invented it, don’t you know. They’re thinking 20 moves ahead and see no downside to their opening gambit. They get the bomb and it’s technically “checkmate” on a host of geopolitical fronts.
Jwebb  Didn’t Saddam sorta think he had technical “checkmate” when everybody believed he had WMD’s in the 90’s?
How’d that work out for him?
For the longest, I though of Assad as a figurehead. A compromise between different factions in the government, least till someone gets the upperhand. Then this guy popsup and paint a different picture. Assad the stone cold killer.
Was it ever realistic to believe these men who want to run Syria would be incline to give that power to a precieve weakling. If you want the ring of power you grab it.
If I remember correctly there was a article about those Syrians who are helping the terrorist in Iraq. The article meantion many of there leaders were in Prison, until Assad let them lose. That adds to the former VP picture.
I would really like if Jeff prediction would come true. I have a feeling if there was a chance of a internal overthrowing Assad this year the former VP would still be in Syria.
I just love the way Gallagher smashes those watermelons.
For Assad, surely you mean Galloway, don’t you?
Oh, and the banana cream pies too. You can’t beat that for funny. You just can’t.
Bbbbb-but, this can’t be true. The Syrian Baath, like their Iraqi brothers, are secular. They would never ever ever work with Islamic groups.It would be as far-fetched as Saddam writing a Koran with his own blood, or meeting with Al Q envoys, or putting “God is Great” on the national flag. It could never happen.
Not only that, but Syria is a largely Sunni country, and the Sunni could never work with the Shia. To do so would be as fanciful as if Shia Iran allowed Sunni Al Q leaders safe haven, or transit of the country. Could never ever happen.
Right?
I am very glad for the fact that Bush never has to run in another election ever again. In the last two years of his Presidency he’s in the perfect position to Do What Must Be Done and ride off into the sunset.
He doesn’t have to moderate for “the good of the Republican Party.” At the Congressional level they’re self-destructing and don’t stand for much anyway. And at the state level and lower, they’ll keep doing just fine, give or take a state or two.
He hasn’t annointed a successor, so he can shield the next Republican Pres. candidate from fallout.
History will judge him how it judges him. That die is pretty much cast.
He’s going to have to deal with assholes camping out in his driveway in Crawford for a couple of decades anyway.
So if what needs to be done for the good of the country is a series of targeted assasinations, a bombing campaign with significant unavoidable civilian casualties, or even opening up the Football to take out some Iranian nuke sites, he can concentrate on the geopolitical implications and ignore (or at least minimize) the domestic political and personal fallout.
I think that give us a whole lot more options than we would otherwise have.
Don’t forget Jim,
Syria doesn’t have a large stockpile of WMDs because Iraq had no WMDs to ship to Syria on those thousands of heavy transports crossing into Syria during the build-up to the war. Which is lucky, because if they did they would have, but, because they didn’t, they didn’t.
Huh, guys? You mean that jihadis would never cooperate with secular Baathists? But of course the insurgency isn’t Baathist or jihadi at all, but nationalist Sunni, upset and reasonably so at infidel invaders in Iraq. All the rape and murder was outsourced to zionists who, of course, went home after we invaded. Nothing here to see, keep moving.
And there is absoposilutely no way that Saddam would ever consent to sending his WMD to Syria: he is a fantastic learner and I’m sure he got the message when he sent his airforce to Iran…and never got it back. Tsk Tsk.
And let’s not forget that this “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was all about WMD, because it was all over oil, I mean WMD, because we never once mentioned you know freedom and democracy before we went in, except when we named the operation. Because we never, ever, not once, found any WMD, except for a couple of tonnes of uranium and a couple of vats of chemicals that if you mixed vat A with vat B, you get vat Holy Hopping Jeebus! this stuff stings.
We all know that if you have bullets and you have guns, they are completely safe until you put the bullets together with the guns and form loaded guns. At no time should you question the insouciant connection of Saddam having hundreds of tons of ‘bullets’ and ‘guns.’ Trust us, it was all completely innocent.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and despite a flu bug that’s been going around the office, I feel fine.
I wish I had a pencil thin moustache . . .
Don’t be surprised if a few of that Syrian bastard’s palaces are incinerated one day soon.
Several well-placed souped-up 500 pounders will concentrate his mind wonderfully.
***
The Israeli AF can’t do much about Iran, but they can sure do something about Syria….
The Boston Blackie kind?
And an autographed picture of Andy Devine?
A two tone Ricky Ricardo Jacket?