The Debacle of Demographic Fatalism.

 

by  Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

 

Demographobia – the illogical fear of Arab demography – has become a central element shaping Israel's state of mind in general and the attitude toward Judea & Samaria in particular. However, all projections dooming Jews to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean have been crashed at the rocks of reality.  From a minority of 8% and 33% in 1900 and 1947 respectively, Jews have become a solid majority of 67% west of the Jordan River (without Gaza), benefiting from a demographic tailwind.

 

In March 1898, the leading Jewish historian/demographer, Shimon Dubnov – who opposed Theodore Herzl's Zionist vision - projected that in the year 2000, there would be only 500,000 Jews west of the Jordan River.  But, in 2000 there were five million Jews west of the Jordan River.

 

During the 1940s, Professor Roberto Bacchi, the founder of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics and the mentor of the current Israeli demographic establishment, projected that in 2001 there would be only 2.3 million Jews, constituting a 34% minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.  But, in 2001, there were five million Jews – a 60% majority!

 

In 1967, Prime Minister Levy Eshkol was advised that by 1987 there would be an Arab majority.  But, in 1987 Jews maintained a 60% majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

 

Israel's demographers have traditionally underestimated Jewish fertility, idolized Arab fertility, ignored Arab emigration and minimized the potential of Aliya (Jewish immigration).  Hence, they dismissed the prospect of a massive Aliya in the aftermath of the 1948/9 War.  However, one million Jews arrived.  They projected no substantial Aliya, during the 1970s,  from the Communist Bloc. But, almost 300,000 Jews arrived.  During the 1980s they ridiculed the expectation for an Aliya wave from the USSR, even if gates might be opened.  Nevertheless, one million Jews returned to the Homeland from the USSR.

 

In 2009, in defiance of fatalistic projections, there is a robust 67% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River, excluding Gaza. The Arab-Jewish fertility gap has shrunk from 6 births per woman in 1969 to 0.5 births in 2008 (3.4:2.9).  According to the UN Population Division, the average global Muslim fertility rate has declined as a result of modernization, urbanization and family planning. For instance, Iranian fertility rate decreased to 1.7 births per woman, Egypt – 2.5 births, Jordan – 3 births, Algeria – 1.8 births.  In addition, annual Arab net-emigration from Judea and Samaria has escalated since 2000 (the 2^nd Intifadah) and shifted to a higher gear in 2006 (PLO-Hamas war).  At the same time, the number of annual Jewish births has increased by 45% from 1995 (80,400) to 2008 (117,000), while the number of annual Arab births during the same period – in pre 1967 Israel – has stabilized at 39,000. 

 

An 80% Jewish majority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel is attainable in light of the current demographic trend. It would be advanced by the implementation of a long overdue demographic policy: highlighting Aliya, returning of expatriates, establishing a Jewish National Fund to support global Jewish demography, migration from the Greater Tel Aviv area to the periphery, converging school and working hours, etc.

 

The upward trending Jewish demography has critical national security implications. It proves that anyone claiming that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan River, and that the Jewish State should concede Jewish geography, in order to secure Jewish demography, is either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading.

 

 

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Reconsidering the Suez Campaign.

 

by Caroline Glick  

It is hard to seize the initiative. The consequences of acting are frightening. It is always better to let others go first. But sometimes that is impossible. Today it is becoming clear that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has no choice but to lead.

The stakes have never been higher. Every day we are beset by an avalanche of evidence that Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear armed state. From the secret uranium enrichment facility in Qom, to Iran's solid fuel missile test this week to the disclosure that Iran is developing a trigger device to detonate nuclear bombs, it is clear that Teheran is building a nuclear arsenal and that - at a minimum - it is determined to use it to force the nations of the Middle East to bend to its fanatical will.

Until now, as Israel faced this growing threat, it has tried to avoid leading by seeking to convince the US to act against Iran. Since US President Barack Obama took office 11 months ago, Israel's desire to convince the US to act against Iran has driven Netanyahu to take drastic steps to appease the White House.

Netanyahu has bowed to American pressure and announced his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland, even as the Palestinians themselves made clear that they reject Israel's right to exist.

He bowed to US pressure and is implementing a draconian freeze on all Jewish building in Judea and Samaria, despite the fact that the Palestinians refuse to even discuss peace with Israel.

Netanyahu has allowed Defense Minister Ehud Barak to unravel national unity still further by picking fights with yeshiva heads who oppose the wholly theoretical possibility that IDF soldiers will be ordered to expel Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria in the framework of a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

As for Iran itself, the government and the IDF are loudly expressing Israel's support for US-backed sanctions, despite their sure knowledge that those proposed measures will have no significant impact on Teheran's will or capacity to build nuclear bombs.

Unfortunately, Netanyahu's appeasement efforts have not brought a US payoff. The Obama administration continues to downplay the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat and its calls for sanctions are half-hearted and will not prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Moreover, the Obama administration remains stridently opposed to using military force to destroy Iran's nuclear installations. This was made clear during a high-level war game at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government earlier this month. At Harvard, former US undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns played Obama and former UN ambassador Dore Gold played Netanyahu. At the end of the game, the US had disavowed its strategic alliance with Israel because Jerusalem refused to give Washington veto power over its right to attack Iran's nuclear installations. On the other hand, America had failed to get Russia and China to support sanctions and Iran was three months away from the bomb.

The Harvard game came just a few months after the real-world CIA Director Leon Panetta made what was supposed to be a secret visit to Israel and demanded that Israel not attack Iran without US permission.

All of this makes clear that Israel cannot depend on the US to defend it from Iran. Indeed, it makes clear that a breach of relations with the US is unavoidable.

IN LIGHT of this harsh reality, the time has come for Netanyahu to take the lead. While frightening, there may be a silver lining in this cloud.

If Israel moves boldly, others may support it. This was the message of an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday authored by Olivier Debouzy, a former French diplomat specializing in intelligence and nuclear military affairs, titled, "How to Stop Iran."

In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Debouzy to France's Defense and National Security White Paper Commission. A private attorney, Debouzy is well connected to Sarkozy and his national security team.

Debouzy opened with a recap of what is already known. Iran "is not serious about negotiating in good faith," and in all likelihood, it has, "for more than a decade now, concealed a significant part of what appears to be a major nuclear military effort."

He then explained what is at stake for the West. Western failure to stop Iran will convince the Persian Gulf states that they cannot trust Western security guarantees and are best served by developing their own nuclear arsenals. All semblance of a nuclear nonproliferation regime will be cast to the seven winds.

Given the stakes, Debouzy concludes that it is time for the US, France, Britain and Israel to "try to reach an agreement on how to terminate the Iranian nuclear program militarily." He suggests first taking an example from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and imposing a quarantine on Iranian shipping in the Persian Gulf while compelling Iran's neighbors to desist from all trade and financial transactions with it.

If this doesn't work, Debouzy acknowledges, "It might be necessary to go beyond that and actually resort to force to prevent the Iranians from achieving nuclear military capabilities." To this end, he proposes planning "for a massive air and missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."

While Debouzy invoked the Cuban Missile Crisis, given the Obama administration's position on Iran, a more apt analogy is the 1956 Suez Crisis. Whereas in 1962 the US acted alone against the threatened Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba, in 1956, France, Israel and Britain acted against Egypt without US permission to limit the harm that then-Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser could cause to their separate strategic interests.

Today, the Obama administration's treatment of US allies and enemies alike bears far more resemblance to the Eisenhower administration's policies than to those of the Kennedy administration. And in turn, the administration's behavior presents allied governments with options reminiscent to those they faced in 1956.

To the extent that Debouzy's article represents a significant thought stream in France and perhaps in Britain, it tells us three important things. First, it tells us that a significant constituency in Europe believes the time has come to act militarily against Iran's nuclear installations. Second it tells us that influential voices in France have lost patience with Obama. Sarkozy himself all but accused Obama of living in Fantasy Land at the UN Security Council meeting four months ago, in light of Obama's support for global nuclear disarmament and his cavalier attitude towards Iran's nuclear program.

Finally, by including Israel in a theoretical military alliance against Iran, Debouzy's article suggests that in spite of its anti-Israel positions on issues related to the Palestinians, France may be willing to assist Israel if Netanyahu decides to attack Iran's nuclear installations. That is, his article lends the impression that if Israel is willing to act boldly, it may not have to act alone.

THE LAST time that Israel acted militarily with others without US support was during the Suez Crisis. Debouzy's suggestion of French support for an Israeli strike against Iran should provoke our leaders to reconsider the lessons of that campaign.

At the time, Britain and France joined forces with Israel because their national interests were harmed by Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal. Nasser's move imperiled the British-allied Hashemite regimes in Iraq and Jordan. It opened the door for Soviet influence in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. And it endangered the flow of oil to Europe through the Suez Canal.

Nasser's move harmed Israel by threatening to permanently close the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. Israel also stood to benefit from a joint attack against Egypt because it afforded Israel the opportunity to severely weaken Nasser's regular forces in the Sinai and his fedayeen terror cells in Gaza.

Despite Nasser's escalating ties with the Soviet Union, the Eisenhower administration opposed ejecting him from the Suez Canal for a host of reasons. The US wished to please its Saudi ally which, like Egypt, sought to weaken the British-allied Hashemite regimes in Iraq and Jordan. The US wished to quash Britain and France's residual post-war capacities to act without US support as Washington solidified its position as the unquestioned leader of the Western alliance against the Soviet Union. Washington was politically inconvenienced by the need to support the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt as it condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Finally, the Eisenhower administration opposed a strong Israel.

Although all three countries achieved their military goals, the US's decision to side with Egypt against them caused them all tremendous political damage. Washington forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai and it threatened Britain with economic devastation until then-prime minister Anthony Eden agreed to remove British forces from the area. France was similarly humiliated into withdrawing.

America's brutal reaction caused many Israeli analysts to conclude that Israel must never again go to war without US permission. And from David Ben-Gurion on, all Israeli leaders have given the US a de facto veto over nearly all of Israel's military moves.

While Israel's fear of angering America is understandable, it is far from clear that its interests were ever served by this policy. The fact is, while Israel was forced to withdraw from Sinai, the benefit it gained from the Suez Campaign still far outweighed the cost. Through the war, Israel secured its maritime rights in the Suez Canal and weakened significantly Egypt's regular and irregular forces in Sinai and Gaza.

What is clear is that 53 years ago it made no sense to get into an open conflict with Dwight Eisenhower. As the former Allied commander in Europe, Eisenhower's strategic credentials were unassailable both at home and abroad. Then, too, in 1956 the US was enjoying unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. Politically - at home and abroad - Eisenhower was immune to criticism.

Obama is no Eisenhower. The US is suffering its worst economic decline since the Great Depression. After just 11 months in office, Obama's approval ratings have sunk to 50 percent. His lack of credibility in foreign affairs came though clearly this month when a mere 26% of Americans said they believe he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

At the same time, Israel has never faced a threat as grave as that of a nuclear-armed Iran. There can be little doubt that if Ben-Gurion and Eisenhower were in charge today, Ben-Gurion wouldn't hesitate to again defy Eisenhower and attack Iran - with or without France and Britain. Certainly, Netanyahu cannot justify placing Israel's fate in Obama's hands.

Fortunately, as Netanyahu's moment of decision rapidly approaches, we see that if he seizes the reins, he is likely to be surprised to find many other leaders offering him a helping hand.

 

Caroline Glick  

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Enduring Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Axis Part I

by Michael Rubin

1st part of 2

The Obama administration would like to move Syria into the camp of more moderate Arab states, but there is scant evidence that Syria is willing to give up its support for terrorist organizations. Like Iran, it remains a destabilizing and dangerous force in the region.

Key points in this Outlook:

* The Lebanese and Israeli border is calmer today than during the 2006 war, but the potential for regional conflict is great.

* Both the Syrian and Iranian governments have used Hezbollah to conduct proxy warfare against Israel.

* The Obama administration has tried to move Syria from a rejectionist state into the more moderate Arab camp, but there is no evidence that the engagement policy has worked.

The 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel took not only outside observers by surprise, but also Israel and the government of Lebanon. A day after an operation in which Hezbollah killed five Israeli soldiers and captured two others, the Israel Defense Forces struck Lebanese targets as far north as Beirut. Over subsequent days, the Israeli Air Force bombed Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods in Beirut and struck targets in the country's

north. U.S., European, and Arab diplomats scrambled to prevent the spread of hostilities.

While Arab governments remained conspicuously silent, unwilling to support Hezbollah publicly, if at all, Iranian authorities egged on the militia. Speaking six days after the war began, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the speaker of Iran's parliament, declared, "To Hassan Nasrallah [Hezbollah's secretary general] we say, well done. This religious scholar roars like a lion, and the blood of Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini rages in his veins."[1] Iran's supreme leader encouraged Hezbollah to keep fighting. According to Nasrallah, Ali Khamenei sent him a letter two days after the war began, which stated, "You have a hard war ahead, but if you resist, you will triumph."[2]

United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701 restored calm, but only a tenuous one. While the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) returned to Lebanon, it failed to prevent the resupply of Hezbollah with an arsenal even more advanced than before the 2006 conflict. The Lebanese and Israeli border may be calm today, but the potential for regional conflict has only grown. If a new conflict erupts, it likely will be deadlier and harder to contain to Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah now possesses missiles capable of striking not only Haifa, but also Tel Aviv.[3]

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has reached out diplomatically to both Syria and Iran in the belief that a less confrontational approach to conflict resolution might lead the two states to reconsider their rejectionist behavior. It has not worked. While Tehran and Damascus may welcome the incentives inherent in U.S. engagement, both states continue to use proxies to pursue radical aims and undercut stability. Iran may be Hezbollah's chief patron, but Syria is the lynchpin that makes Iranian support for foreign fighters possible. While Israel may be the immediate target of the Iran-Syria nexus, the partnership threatens broader U.S. interests.

A Proxy Is Born

Hezbollah formed against the backdrop of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon as an Iranian proxy. Ali Mohtashimi, Iran's ambassador to Syria from 1982 to 1985, discussed the group's beginnings in an interview with the Iranian newspaper Shargh on August 3, 2008:

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Ayatollah Khomeini changed his mind about sending large forces to Syria and Lebanon. . . . I was really worried about Syria and Lebanon. I went to Tehran and met with Ayatollah Khomeini. As I was worried about Lebanon and enthusiastic about the idea of sending forces to Syria and Lebanon, I started talking about our responsibilities and what was going on in Lebanon. The imam cooled me down and said the forces we send to Syria and Lebanon would need huge logistical support. . . . The only remaining way is to train the Shi'a men there, and so Hezbollah was born.[4]

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) supported the new group as it fought or co-opted other Shia militias in southern Lebanon. The Iranian government is not shy about credit. On May 14, 2009, the London-based pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat published an interview with Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Syria from 1986 to 1997, and again from 2005 through 2007.

Correspondent Manal Lufti described Akhtari as "the operational father" of Hezbollah, "engineer of the special relationship" between Syria and Iran, and "coordinator of Iran's relations with Palestinian organizations in Damascus," groups listed annually as terrorist organizations in the State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism.[5] Indeed, according to Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, "the Iranian embassy in Damascus became the most important Ira-nian embassy in the world. It represented something akin to a 'regional center' for Iran's diplomatic activities that extended from Damascus to Beirut and the Palestinian territories and became privy to files on several matters, chief of which was Iran's relations with Syria, Hezbollah, [and] the Palestinian organizations."[6]

Iran and Syria worked jointly to unify the Shia who, through the early 1980s, were divided between Amal and Hezbollah. Akhtari described how he and Ghazi Kanaan, the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, met over months to manage reconciliation, which ultimately led to the victory of Hezbollah, the more religious of the two groups.[7] While Syria cultivated a reputation for secularism among many Western academics, Akhtari describes a different regime.[8] "The late President Hafiz al-Asad trusted Ayatollah Khomeini and respected him. He was one of those who believed that any opposition to the Islamic Republic in any shape or form and under whatever pretext amounted to treason to the Arab, Islamic, and Palestinian causes."[9] By 1988, Hezbollah was the dominant force not only in southern Lebanon, where it painted itself as the vanguard of resistance against Israel's occupation, but also in Beirut, which would remain under Syrian occupation for the next seventeen years.

Hezbollah thrived under Syrian occupation. Both the Syrian and Iranian governments used Hezbollah to conduct proxy warfare against Israel. Symbolism is important in the Middle East. In April 2001, when Nasrallah met Khamenei, Nasrallah kissed Khamenei's hand, symbolizing fealty.[10] In the decade before Israel's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah conducted more than three dozen suicide attacks against Israeli forces in Lebanon.[11] Between Israel's withdrawal and the eruption of war between Israel and Lebanon, Hezbollah conducted twenty-one additional operations against Israel itself.[12]

The Syrian government not only turned a blind eye toward the group's activities in Lebanon as Hezbollah systematically worked to undercut that state's sovereignty, but also facilitated a supply of Iranian missiles to Hezbollah. As Patrick Devenny, Henry M. Jackson National Security Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., noted in a prescient article six months before the 2006 war, "The Hezbollah missile threat to Israel has expanded not only in quantity but also in quality. In recent years, the group's operational artillery reach has grown. Experts and analysts generally put the Hezbollah rocket force somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 missiles. The heart of this arsenal remains rooted in Hezbollah's massive stocks--perhaps 7,000 to 8,000--of 107mm and 122mm Katyusha rockets, virtually all of which were supplied directly from existing Iranian army stocks."[13]

The Israel Defense Forces' failure to eradicate Hezbollah in the 2006 war led many analysts to declare Hezbollah the victor.[14] Hezbollah had survived Israel's onslaught and become the first Arab entity to hit Haifa since Israel's founding in 1948.[15] Robert G. Rabil, director of graduate studies at Florida Atlantic University and a well-regarded Syria and Lebanon analyst, went further, suggesting that Hezbollah's rise may have come at Syria's expense.[16]

Michael Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

./..

The Enduring Iran-Syria-Hezbollah Axis. Part II

 

by Michael Rubin

 

2nd part of 2

 

Is Syria Still Important?

 

Syria enabled Hezbollah's rise. It became the transit point for Iranian arms. In addition, Syria provided crucial safe haven for offices, personnel, and organization, not only for Hezbollah, but also for Palestinian terror groups and, since 2003, Islamist terrorists operating in Iraq. Through it all, Iranian support has been key.

 

In a 1996 speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, then-secretary of state Warren Christopher noted that Iran provides significant financial assistance to many terrorist groups that maintain offices in Lebanon. "Iran has not stopped at rhetoric. It meets frequently with all the major terrorist groups--including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP-GC [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command]. . . . It provides them with money--up to several million dollars a year in the case of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others, and up to $100 million a year for Hezbollah alone. Iran also supplies them with arms and material support, training, and--in some cases--operational guidance."[17] More recently, Western diplomats in Lebanon estimate that Iranian assistance to Hezbollah is closer to $200 million annually.[18]

 

The arms trade continues through Syria. As the German military prepared to enforce the prohibition on Hezbollah resupply under terms of its UNIFIL mandate, the German news magazine Focus reported on October 9, 2006, that Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) had concluded that the Islamic Republic had already resupplied missiles to Hezbollah in the aftermath of the war. The BND reported that the resupply had occurred over land through Syria.[19] In 2008, Akhtari estimated that the volume of total trade ranged from $2.5 to $3 billion.[20] While illegal arms are but a tiny fraction of that figure, such trade traditionally provides cover for arms transfers. On May 29, 2007, for example, a Turkish train carrying construction supplies from Iran to Syria hit a mine allegedly laid by a Kurdish terrorist group and derailed. Police discovered an undeclared cache of Iranian arms, including rocket launchers and rifles.[21] The Turkish route into Syria may become more important as Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoˇgan tightens relations with both Tehran and Damascus. Regardless, Iranian cargo planes land frequently at Damascus International Airport.[22] Suspicion over their role in the illicit weapons trade led the European Union to sanction Iran Air Cargo.[23]

 

Hezbollah is not the only recipient of Iranian largesse on Syrian territory. Matthew Levitt, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) terror and financial analyst, noted in congressional testimony that estimates of Iranian assistance to Hamas ranged between $20 million and $50 million each year through the 1990s.[24] Much of this money was and still is channeled through Hezbollah.[25] Upon Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death in 2004, for example, Iranian intelligence reportedly channeled $22 million through Hezbollah to fund Palestinian terrorist groups more sympathetic to the Iranian line.[26]

 

The assassination of Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus highlights the crucial role Syria plays in international terrorism, regardless of its diplomatic posturing. On February 12, 2008, a car bomb in Damascus killed Mughniyeh, a fixture on the FBI's most-wanted list until his death. In the wake of Mughniyeh's death, Akhtari's comments highlighted the importance of Syria in the terror nexus. "We trust Syria," the Iranian ambassador explained. "It is their concern more than ours because Mughniyeh was their guest in Damascus and, of course, because of the close relations between Hezbollah and Syria."[27] Indeed, Hezbollah agents may do Syria and Iran's dirty work, not only against Israel and Western forces in Iraq, but also against Lebanon itself. A lengthy UN investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri appears ready to finger Hezbollah as the trigger party.[28]

 

 

Syria Remains Pivotal

 

Desire to make progress on the Middle East peace process, unravel the Syria-Iran axis, and end Syrian support for terrorism motivates the Obama administration's efforts to flip Syria diplomatically from its role as a rejectionist state into the more moderate camp populated by countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan, which may not always be pro-American in the expression of their foreign policy, but at least keep their support for terrorism indirect and do not countenance Iranian influence.[29]

There is no evidence, however, that the State Department's engagement policy has worked. Syrian concessions--allowing the American Cultural Center to reopen, for example--have been halfhearted and more than offset by revelations of continued Syrian proliferation efforts and its facilitation of terror.[30] Nor does it appear that Tehran and Damascus have loosened their relations. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met Syrian president Bashar Assad repeatedly, most recently last month in Turkey.[31]

 

Welcoming Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallim to Tehran on November 5, 2009, Ahmadinejad said, "Comprehensive Tehran-Damascus relations keep getting deeper, wiser, and stronger with the passage of each new day, and such relations are not easily subjected to other developments."[32]

 

Meanwhile, successful U.S. and Israeli interdiction efforts of Iranian arms at high sea, while embarrassing to Iran, have made Syria's role as a route for weapons delivery more important. The last decade has witnessed several high-profile interceptions of weapons:

 

ON JANUARY 29, 2001, THE ISRAELI NAVY SEIZED TWO CONTAINERS OF WEAPONS, REPORTEDLY OFFLOADED IN WATERTIGHT CONTAINERS BY THE CALYPSO, A LEBANESE ARMS-SMUGGLING SHIP.

             

ON MAY 7, 2001, THE ISRAELI NAVY SEIZED THE SANTORINI WHILE IT WAS ON ITS FOURTH ARMS-SMUGGLING MISSION. THIS SHIP CARRIED 107MM ROCKETS, MORTARS, ROCKET-PROPELLED GRENADES, ANTIAIRCRAFT MISSILES, AND ANTITANK WEAPONRY.

             

 ON JANUARY 3, 2002, THE ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTED THE KARINE-A, A GAZA-BOUND FREIGHTER, WHILE IT WAS ON THE RED SEA. ONBOARD, NAVAL COMMANDOS FOUND FIFTY TONS OF SOPHISTICATED IRANIAN WEAPONRY.[33]

           

ON MAY 20, 2003, THE ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTED THE ABU HASSAN, A FISHING VESSEL CARRYING WEAPONS, EXPLOSIVES, AND DETONATORS.[34]

           

ON JANUARY 19-20, 2009, THE U.S. NAVY INTERCEPTED THE MONCHEGORSK, AN IRANIAN FREIGHTER CARRYING MILITARY SUPPLIES TO SYRIA IN VIOLATION OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1559.[35]

           

ON NOVEMBER 4, 2009, THE ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTED THE FRANCOP, AN ANTIGUA-FLAGGED VESSEL THAT WAS ALLEGEDLY CARRYING THREE HUNDRED TONS OF IRANIAN WEAPONRY TO HEZBOLLAH.[36]

 

The importance of Syria grows as authorities in Tehran make clear their commitment to support Hezbollah and Palestinian groups, which the United States considers terrorists. When Ahmadinejad visited Damascus last spring, he met with the leaders of Damascus-based terrorist groups and promised them continued support.[37] Less than three weeks later, Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament whom some American journalists dub a pragmatist,[38] declared, "We are proud to defend Hamas and Hezbollah. We are not trying to hide it. They are fighters in the path of God, and you can call them whatever you like," adding that the idea that Tehran would ever abandon the two groups was a "U.S. dream."[39]

 

 

The Danger of Syria's Safe Haven

 

Syria's continued support for terrorists and other foreign fighters undermines any diplomatic gains the United States achieves. Because of Syria, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 has failed to prevent Hezbollah's rearmament. Meanwhile, the IRGC has more political power now than at any previous point in its history.[40] As such, statements by its commander that "in the near future, we will witness the destruction of Israel, the aggressor, this cancerous microbe Israel, at the able hands of the soldiers of the community of Hezbollah," should raise concerns in Washington and European capitals about the possibility of a regional conflagration.[41]

 

Recent reports that Iran transshipped gas masks and chemical weapons through Syria to Hezbollah should only heighten concern as the Islamic Republic increases its defiance in international discussions about its nuclear activities.[42] Across the U.S. political spectrum, analysts agree that, should Israel, the United States, or any other power strike at Iran's nuclear facilities, the Islamic Republic would respond, at least in part, by activating its proxy terrorist networks. Palestinian groups in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and foreign fighters in Iraq all have Syrian support in common.[43] Not only Hezbollah's rhetoric but also its track record suggest a willingness to attack Western targets, should war against Iran erupt.

 

Given both the circumstances and the stakes, it is ironic that U.S. officials continue to accept the fiction of Syrian sincerity. As difficult as stopping terrorist supplies may be, the likelihood that proxy groups will voluntarily forfeit their capability is low, and the cost of allowing terrorists to use such arms is high.

 

Michael Rubin

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Notes

 

1.Middle East Media Research Institute, "Iranian Parliament Speaker: The Blood of Khomeini Rages in Nasrallah's Veins; The Confrontation Is Not Only in Lebanon, but Deep Inside Occupied Palestine and within the Range of the Lion Clubs of Hizbullah . . . No Place in Israel Will Be Safe," Special Dispatch 1210, July 21, 2006, available at www.memri.org/ report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1749.htm (accessed December 14, 2009).

 

2."Enemies Working to Eliminate the Guardianship of the Supreme Jurisconsult," Partow-e Sokhan, in Persian, December 13, 2006, in Open Source Center IAP20061220011007.

3.Yoav Stern, "Report: Hezbollah's New Missiles Have Range 'Israel Can't Fathom,'" Haaretz (Tel Aviv), August 29, 2008.

4.Quoted in Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah," Ash-Sharq al-Awsat (London), May 18, 2008.

5.U.S. Department of State, "State Sponsors of Terrorism," Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 (Washington, DC, 2009), available at www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122436.htm (accessed December 11, 2009); and Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

6.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

7.Ibid.

8.Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), 169-79.

9.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

10.Mehdi Khalaji, "Iran's Shadow Government in Lebanon" (PolicyWatch 1124, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 19, 2006), available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2489 (accessed December 11, 2009).

11.Robert Pape, Dying to Win (New York: Random House, 2005), 265-81.

12.Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Hizbullah Attacks along Israel's Northern Border May 2000-June 2006," June 1, 2006, available at www.mfa.gov.il/NR/exeres/9EE216D7-82EF-4274-B80D-6BBD1803E8A7 (accessed December 11, 2009).

13.Patrick Devenny, "Hezbollah's Strategic Threat to Israel," Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2006).

14.Efraim Inbar, "How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War," Middle East Quarterly (Summer 2007).

15.Nadia Abou El-Magd, "For the Majority of Arabs, Hezbollah Won, Israel Is No Longer the Undefeatable Army," Associated Press, August 18, 2006.

16.Robert G. Rabil, "Has Hezbollah's Rise Come at Syria's Expense?" Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2007).

17.Warren Christopher, "Fighting Terrorism: Challenges for the Peacemakers" (Soref Symposium, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1996), available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/ templateC07.php?CID=69 (accessed December 11, 2009).

18.Scott Wilson, "Lebanese Wary of a Rising Hezbollah," Washington Post, December 20, 2004.

19.Josef Hufelschulte, "Neue feuerkraft für Hisbollah" [New Fire Power for Hezbollah], Focus (Munich), October 9, 2006.

20.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

21."Konteynırda silahları" [Weapons Container], Hürriyet (Istanbul), May 30, 2007.

22.Matthew Levitt, "The New Lebanon: Democratic Reform and State Sponsorship" (PolicyWatch 1016, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 21, 2005), available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2346 (accessed December 11, 2009).

23.European Union, "Acts Adopted under Title V of the EU Treaty," Official Journal of the European Union L 61/49 (February 28, 2007), available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:061:0049:0055:EN:PDF (accessed December 11, 2009).

24.House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Iranian State Sponsorship of Terror: Threatening U.S. Security, Global Stability, and Regional Peace, 109th Cong., 1st sess., February 16, 2005.

25.Ibid.

26."Iran Expands Its Palestinian Control; Offers al-Khadoumi Five Million Dollars," Al-Watan (Kuwait), December 13, 2004, quoted in House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Iranian State Sponsorship of Terror: Threatening U.S. Security, Global Stability, and Regional Peace.

27.Manal Lufti, "The Making of Hezbollah."

28.Erich Follath, "Breakthrough in Tribunal Investigation: New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder," Der Spiegel Online, May 23, 2009, available at www.spiegel.de/international/ world/0,1518,626412,00.html (accessed December 14, 2009).

29.Seymour M. Hersh, "Syria, Israel, and the Obama Administration," The New Yorker, April 6, 2009.

30."IAEA Inspects Nuclear Research Reactor in Syria," Agence France Presse, November 17, 2009.

31.          "Ahmadinejad ba ra'is jomhuri-ye Suriya didar kard" [Ahmadinejad Meets with the President of the Republic of Syria], Asr-e Iran (Tehran), November 9, 2009.

32."Ahmadinejad: Regional Conditions in Iran's, Syria's Favor," Fars News Agency (Tehran), November 5, 2009.

33.Akiva J. Lorenz, "The Threat of Maritime Terrorism to Israel," International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, September 24, 2007, available at www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/ 251/ currentpage/6/Default.aspx (accessed December 11, 2009).

34.Shaul Shay, The Axis of Evil: Iran, Hizballah, and thePalestinian Terror (Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005), 156.

35. "Cyprus Unloads 'Gaza Arms' Ship," BBC News, February 13, 2009.

36."Israel Navy Chief: Hezbollah-Bound Iran Ship Carried Hundreds of Tons of Arms," Haaretz.com (Tel Aviv), November 4, 2009, available at www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/ 1125807.html (accessed December 14, 2009).

37."Iran and Syria Continue to Support Resistance," Gulf News (Abu Dhabi), May 6, 2009.

38.See, for example, Barbara Slavin, "How Bush Saved Iran's Neocons," Foreign Policy (November 2007).

39."Tehran Proud to Support Hamas, Hezbollah," PressTV.ir, May 25, 2009, available at www.presstv.ir/ detail.aspx?id=95985 (accessed December 7, 2009).

40.Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh, "Iran's Hidden Revolution," New York Times, June 17, 2009, available at www.aei.org/ article/100635.

41."Israel to Be Destroyed by Hezbollah," Fars News Agency (Tehran), February 19, 2008.

42."Hezbollah Silent over Report that Group Got Chemical Weapons," Daily Star (Beirut), September 4, 2009.

43.Brian Fishman, ed., Bombers, Bank Accounts & Bleedout: Al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq (West Point, NY: Harmony Project, 2008).

 

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