Bush demands Syria be 'good neighbor'

[Sixxkiller]

Liebchen,

If that was true, why did they install them after the revolution?

-Ray

[Battlefront.com]

Iran wasn't a good pick for a couple of reasons:

1. It is less likely to involve a ground war. At least not for many, many years to come due to their entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US and Brits aren't up for it, and if they aren't then nobody else is either. Unfortunately, much of NATO requires major logistics support from the US specifically, but Britain and even Germany as well. Many of Europe's militaries are being reduced to nothing more than local militias (I say that without malace to the militaries, since this is a political decision).

2. Their equipment isn't necessarily any better than Syria's. I'm not even sure they have more of it, though they might have more in fighting condition. Last year we looked into Iran in great detail but I don't remember more than the impressions I had when looking at the two cases side by side.

3. The hardline government in Iran is doomed to fail. It might take another decade or perhaps two, but the ideological grip on power will slip thanks to the large population of restless and materialistic youth that is in the country. We might see peaceful change there sometime soon (one would hope).

Other reasons are very much in favor of Iran, that's for sure. Nukes being one, interference in Iraq being another. However, on balance we felt Syria was a better pick for the setting and more plausible in the short term time frame (i.e. 2007). If there is war with Syria by that time it will be messy enough, but Iran... let's please not even think about that. The world as we know it will cease to function until such a war concluded. And that could be a long, long time.

Steve

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

I agree Iran isn't likely but as to your reasoning on Nato capabilities you are missing the point.

Most Western European Democracies are reducing defence expenditure and not modernising and developing substantial projection capabilities because they see no need.

They don't want the likes of Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but if they do they'll live with it like they lived with the Soviet Union. They favoured containment over war with Iraq for the same reason, having seen containment and war, they prefer war.

They may make noises about the importance of Nato and the like but the truth is Europeans are voting with their wallets. There is no immediate major threat to Europe and so what they have old or not is more than adequate for their current needs.

As to war in the Gulf, well why bother. The US seems to have a fixation with somehow controlling events their for strategic reasons, but the European attitude is "You can't drink oil". regardless of who's in power they will either sell us oil or be poor.

Long before the collapse of the Soviet union it was already europes biggest supplier of gas.

Whether it be diplomatic partnership or the expansion of the EU to include the former eastern block and eventually with luck Turkey, the European view is that economic partnership , integration and sharing soverignty are better guarentees of peace and prospertity that the ability to go over their and teach them a lesson.

So it's not so much about the lack of capacity as an ernest belief that intervening in the likes of Iran is a bloody stupid thing to do.

Slowly but steadily continental europe is getting out of the war business, and becoming more like South America in terms of maintaining only modest capabilities for immediate self defence.

I live in Scotland to the East is Nato Norway that spends almost 2% of GDP on defence, to the west neutral Ireland that spends less than half that.

I have heard a lot of people say that Ireland can't really defend itself, but I have yet to here a convincing arguement as to it being in any real danger.

It seems to me that Irelands defence spending seems pretty much right for both the level of threat and their foreign policy objectives.

As to your point on the regime in Iran, it kind of runs counter to the recent landslide presidential election result that saw a hardline working class mayor come to power.

In the run up to the election few in the west predicted that in part because their information was comming predomiantly from the middle classes, journalists and even bloggers.

The problem is we weren't listening to the people at the bottom, because we had no direct links to them. So we got a distorted picture, a bit like over reliance on Iraqi exiles, who had their own reasons to paint a picture of Iraq ready to throw flowers at liberators.

I think the Iranian revolution has a lot more life in it yet, true it will evolve and change, but I am dubious of the notion that their is some hierachy of governemt that goes from tribes and clans through kings to ultimately western style democracy at the top.

Don't get me wrong, I think democracy is great, and wouldn't want to live under anything else, but the notion that it is an evolutionary thing rather than just one of many constantly changing forms of government is for me false.

Putins Russian is already more like that of Breshniev that Gorbachov or Yeltsin. True there has been privatisation and economic reform as in China, but if you drop the communist bit about social control and have a single party dominating the political system for the good of the nation and it's people then you are pretty close to "National Socialism".

Different forms of government evolve and change and a strong , (all be it authoritarian by our standard) central islamic one in Iran has very chnce of enduring for decades to come.

You may not like it but their really is little indication other than wishful thinking that it will change.

Peter.

[Chops]

I am not sure why Battlefront thinks that the U.S. or the United Nations or Nato for that matter, would want to restore the Syrian Assad government if it fell. From what I have read, including the following article it seems that it is a goal of the incompetent Bush Administration to remove the Assad government.

Life Imitating Art -

From the New York Times

October 15, 2005

G.I.'s and Syrians in Tense Clashes on Iraqi Border

By JAMES RISEN and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials.

The firefight, between Army Rangers and Syrian troops along the border with Iraq, was the most serious of the conflicts with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to American and Syrian officials.

It illustrated the dangers facing American troops as Washington tries to apply more political and military pressure on a country that President Bush last week labeled one of the "allies of convenience" with Islamic extremists. He also named Iran.

One of Mr. Bush's most senior aides, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that so far American military forces in Iraq had moved right up to the border to cut off the entry of insurgents, but he insisted that they had refrained from going over it.

But other officials, who say they got their information in the field or by talking to Special Operations commanders, say that as American efforts to cut off the flow of fighters have intensified, the operations have spilled over the border - sometimes by accident, sometimes by design.

Some current and former officials add that the United States military is considering plans to conduct special operations inside Syria, using small covert teams for cross-border intelligence gathering.

The broadening military effort along the border has intensified as the Iraqi constitutional referendum scheduled for Saturday approaches, and as frustration mounts in the Bush administration and among senior American commanders over their inability to prevent foreign radical Islamists from engaging in suicide bombings and other deadly terrorist acts inside Iraq.

Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was in the Vietnam War: a sanctuary for fighters, money and supplies to flow over the border and, ultimately, a place for a shadow struggle.

Covert military operations are among the most closely held of secrets, and planning for them is extremely delicate politically as well, so none of those who discussed the subject would allow themselves to be identified. They included military officers, civilian officials and people who are otherwise actively involved in military operations or have close ties to Special Operations forces.

In the summer firefight, several Syrian soldiers were killed, leading to a protest from the Syrian government to the United States Embassy in Damascus, according to American and Syrian officials.

A military official who spoke with some of the Rangers who took part in the incident said they had described it as an intense firefight, although it could not be learned whether there had been any American casualties. Nor could the exact location of the clash, along the porous and poorly marked border, be learned.

In a meeting at the White House on Oct. 1, senior aides to Mr. Bush considered a variety of options for further actions against Syria, apparently including special operations along with other methods for putting pressure on Mr. Assad in coming weeks.

American officials say Mr. Bush has not yet signed off on a specific strategy and has no current plan to try to oust Mr. Assad, partly for fear of who might take over. The United States is not planning large-scale military operations inside Syria and the president has not authorized any covert action programs to topple the Assad government, several officials said.

"There is no finding on Syria," said one senior official, using the term for presidential approval of a covert action program.

"We've got our hands full in the neighborhood," added a senior official involved in the discussion.

Some other current and former officials suggest that there already have been initial intelligence gathering operations by small clandestine Special Operations units inside Syria. Several senior administration officials said such special operations had not yet been conducted, although they did not dispute the notion that they were under consideration.

Whether they have already occurred or are still being planned, the goal of such operations is limited to singling out insurgents passing through Syria and do not appear to amount to an organized effort to punish or topple the Syrian government.

According to people who have spoken with Special Operations commanders, teams like the Army's Delta Force are well suited for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering inside Syria. They could identify and disrupt the lines of communications, sanctuaries and gathering points used by foreign Arab fighters and Islamist extremists seeking to wage war against American troops in Iraq.

What the administration calls Syria's acquiescence in insurgent operations organized and carried out from its territory is a major factor driving the White House as it conducts what seems to be a major reassessment of its Syria policy.

The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon earlier this year in the wake of the assassination in February of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, in Beirut led to a renewed debate in the White House about whether - and how - to push for change in Damascus.

With no clear or acceptable alternative to Mr. Assad's government on the horizon, the administration now seems to be awaiting the outcome of an international investigation of the Hariri assassination, which may lead to charges against senior Syrian officials.

Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor in charge of the United Nations investigation of the killing, is expected to complete a report on his findings this month.

If Mr. Mehlis reports that senior Syrian officials are implicated in the Hariri assassination, some Bush administration officials say that could weaken the Assad government.

"I think the administration is looking at the Mehlis investigation as possibly providing a kind of slow-motion regime change," said one former United States official familiar with Syria policy. The death - Syrian officials called it a suicide - on Wednesday of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan of Syria, who was questioned in connection with the United Nations investigation, may have been an indication of the intense pressure building on the Assad government from that inquiry.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, issued one of the administration's most explicit public challenges to Damascus recently when he said that "our patience is running out with Syria."

"Syria has to decide what price it's willing to pay in making Iraq success difficult," he said on Sept. 12. "And time is running out for Damascus to decide on this issue."

Some hawks in the administration make little secret of their hope that mounting political and military pressure will lead to Mr. Assad's fall, despite their worries about who might succeed him. Other American officials seem to believe that by taking modest military steps against his country, they will so intimidate Mr. Assad that he will alter his behavior and prevent Syrian territory from being used as a sanctuary for the Iraqi insurgency and its leadership.

"Our policy is to get Syria to change its behavior," said a senior administration official. "It has failed to change its behavior with regard to the border with Iraq, with regard to its relationships with rejectionist Palestinian groups, and it has only reluctantly gotten the message on Lebanon."

The official added: "We have had people for years sending them messages telling them to change their behavior. And they don't seem to recognize the seriousness of those messages. The hope is that Syria gets the message."

There are some indications that this strategy, described as "rattling the cage," may be working. Some current and former administration officials say that the flow of foreign fighters has already diminished because Mr. Assad has started to restrict their movement through Syria.

But while he appears to be curbing the number of foreign Arab fighters moving through Syria, the American officials say he has not yet restricted former senior members of Saddam Hussein's government from using Syria as a haven from which to provide money and coordination to the Sunni-based insurgency in Iraq.

"You see small tactical changes, which they don't announce, so they are not on the hook for permanent changes," a senior official said about Syria's response. "They are doing just enough to reduce the pressure in hopes we won't pay attention, and then they slide back again."

In an interview with CNN this week, Mr. Assad denied that there were any insurgent sanctuaries inside Syria. "There is no such safe haven or camp," he insisted.

In this tense period of give and take between Washington and Damascus, the firefight this summer was clearly a critical event. It came at a time when the American military in Iraq was mounting a series of major offensives in the Euphrates Valley near the Syrian border to choke off the routes that foreign fighters have used to get into Iraq.

The Americans and Iraqis have been fortifying that side of the border and increasing patrols, raising the possibility of firing across the unmarked border and of crossing it in "hot pursuit."

From time to time there have been reports of clashes, usually characterized as incidental friction between American and Syrian forces. There have been some quiet attempts to work out ways to avoid that, but formal agreements have been elusive in an atmosphere of mutual mistrust.

Some current and former United States military and intelligence officials who said they believed that Americans were already secretly penetrating Syrian territory question what they see as the Bush administration's excessive focus on the threat posed by foreign Arab fighters going through Syria. They say the vast majority of insurgents battling American forces are Iraqis, not foreign jihadis.

According to a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, intelligence analysis and the pattern of detentions in Iraq show that the number of foreign fighters represents "well below 10 percent, and may well be closer to 4 percent to 6 percent" of the total makeup of the insurgency.

One former United States official with access to recent intelligence on the insurgency added that American intelligence reports had concluded that 95 percent of the insurgents were Iraqi.

This former intelligence official said that in conversations with several midcareer American military officers who had recently served in Iraq, they had privately complained to him that senior commanders in Iraq seemed fixated on the issue of foreign fighters, despite the evidence that they represented a small portion of the insurgency.

"They think that the senior commanders are obsessed with the foreign fighters because that's an easier issue to deal with," the former intelligence official said. "It's easier to blame foreign fighters instead of developing new counterinsurgency strategies."

Top Pentagon officials and senior commanders have said that while the number of foreign fighters is small, they are still responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of United States Central Command, said on Oct. 2 on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" that he recognized the need to avoid "hyping the foreign fighter problem."

But he cautioned that "the foreign fighters generally tend to be people that believe in the ideology of Al Qaeda and their associated movements, and they tend to be suicide bombers."

"So while the foreign fighters certainly aren't large in number," he said, "they are deadly in their application."

[ October 15, 2005, 01:58 AM: Message edited by: Chops ]

[Tiger II]

Originally posted by Abbott:

Nice looking website Jim. It is attractive, easy to read and simple to navigate.

Hey, your website looks waaaaay more interesting than mine! I stuck my business site there 'cause I've not gotten around to a 'just for fun' site. Yet.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Chops:

From what I have read, including the following article it seems that it is a goal of the incompetent Bush Administration to remove the Assad government.

Nowhere in the article you quoted is President Bush or his administration described as "incompetent". Why did you feel the need to include that descriptor in your lead-in?

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Nowhere in the article you quoted is President Bush or his administration described as "incompetent". Why did you feel the need to include that descriptor in your lead-in?

Maybe because he feels that way? :confused:

Why did Tigger II resurrect this thread now? Just one week and it'd been the two year birthday...

[Tiger II]

Why? Maybe because:

1] he felt like it (the Peng answer, but less profane]

2] he's such a lurker, he just realised someone replied to one of his posts [old timer's response]

3] the computer he uses is reeeeeealy unreliable [not likely, but what the heck]

4] to see if someone like Sergei would get fished into keeping it going EVEN LONGER

5] all of the above.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Nowhere in the article you quoted is President Bush or his administration described as "incompetent". Why did you feel the need to include that descriptor in your lead-in?

Maybe because he feels that way? :confused:

Why did Tigger II resurrect this thread now? Just one week and it'd been the two year birthday... </font>

[-E]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Why not buy it directly from us?

Madmatt

Why not take a shower?

[-E]

Originally posted by acrashb:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by MikeyD:

quietly ships Canadian citizens that it wants tortured to Damascus

Not any more. According to The Economist, Syria has cutoff all intelligence cooperation with the US (which includes torturing Canadians). </font>