Of Old and New News

In journalistic lingo, the story could very well be called a long-shot scoop. It contains revelations, which do not necessarily have to be freshly obtained in order to create sensation.

By some strange coincidence, two of these slow-to-explode bombs have just synchronically burst on the international scene. By an even stranger coincidence, they are both related to two present priorities of American diplomacy: the de-nuclearization of North Korea and the revival of the peace efforts in the Middle East. The ultimate coincidence is that Syria, our own dear and always present neighbour, is cast in a starring role in each one of these businesses.

In September 2007, following an Israeli air strike on some mysterious installations in northern Syria, we were all quite confounded with the way both attacker and attackee played in concert, if not by mutual agreement, the card of total discretion. Vague rumours circulated from Israeli army sources, never inclined to over-publicize its special operations, about the highly strategic nature of the target. As for the Syrians, they did not even pretend to be too exercised by this raid against an ostensibly abandoned military installation. Six months later America literally exposes the plot, even as it defends its decision to have given an informal green light to the Israelis to destroy what was indeed a plutonium treatment plant installed in the Syrian North-East desert. The rather comical outcome is that the International Atomic Energy Agency is cast as the cuckolded husband, its outrage covering at the same time the cheating Syrian heart, the swift and efficient Israeli response, and the unknowns in Uncle Sam’s psyche.

It is always American wont, as it was demonstrated on Thursday, to think that one of these warheads is able to strike in more than one direction. Thus, and in spite of its denials, Damascus is accused of having secretly acted to obtain nuclear capacity, whose aims are nothing less than explicit. The supporting videos have revealed the evidence (of what seems to imply an amazing failure by the Syrian Military Intelligence services) that the north-Korean supplier had violated the international agreement signed last year under which Pyongyang had committed not only to suspend its own programs but also to abstain from exporting its nuclear technology in exchange for supplies of alternative energies.

Last but not least, this is a very explicit warning addressed to Teheran. In the eyes of Washington, Iran’s underground activities underpin the international concerns to which the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic gives rise. Though considerably less spectacular than the 1981 destruction of the Iraqi experimental nuclear reactor Osirak, the recent September’s raid upon Syria can very well betoken an attack upon the same type of Iranian installations…

In the midst of all these warlike speculations, a definitely softer bomb was released by president Basher el-Assad in an interview with a Qatari newspaper about Turkish mediation between Israel and Syria, an effort that would lead to Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan in exchange of a total peace. It is valid to congratulate the Syrians right now, even if it is necessary to await the visit today in Damascus of the Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan, to know more about this prospect, even as we wonder whether Ehud Olmert and Assad are strong enough leaders to impose on their respective peoples the concessions and sacrifices required for peace.

It is definitely normal and legitimate for Syria to seek negotiation, and to accept that these talks are impossible without American sponsorship. What is less normal and acceptable is the obstinate sanctimonious denial of what is clear to all: that all these recently exposed secret machinations have been going on, and indeed even stepped up considerably, since the war of 2006 summer. What is inappropriate and logic-defying upfront insolence is that in attempting to arrive at its objective of peace with Israel, Syria plays Lebanon as hostage by destabilizing it with the assistance of its Iranian ally and its trustworthy Lebanese militia; turning Lebanon into the launching sites of a thousand year old war with the same Israel with whom it seeks peace.

It would be interesting to learn what the automatic pro-Syrian opposition thinks about it all, always unfailingly prompt in pontificating so grandiloquently about great principles and such.