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| Syrian President Assad, right, is seen with Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi Saturday during an official visit by an
Iraqi delegation to Syria. Louai Beshara |
Syria still weighs retaliation for Israeli raid
Officials in Damascus say that another strike would be met with a Hizbullah-style counterattack.
from the October 3, 2007 edition
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Israel has in the past violated Syrian airspace, buzzing the presidential palace with warplanes several times and even taking out a suspected training camp for Palestinian militants near Damascus in 2003.
But last month's raid has generated much speculation. Some reports allege that Israel swooped down and destroyed a nascent nuclear weapons facility thought to be aided by North Korea, which is believed to have already supplied Syria with sophisticated technology for long-range missiles that can hit deep inside Israel. The Israelis have been tight-lipped about the September incident, neither confirming nor denying it.
The New York Times quoted anonymous US administration officials several days after the incident saying that there was concern North Korea was handing the remnants of its nuclear materials to Syria before it dismantled its atomic weapons program in a deal it recently struck with the US.
On top of this speculation, Jane's Defence Weekly wrote in a September article that a July explosion at a military installation in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo took the lives of dozens of Iranian weapons engineers while they were loading a warhead filled with mustard gas onto a ballistic missile. The Syrians, however, say the explosion occurred at a conventional arms depot.
Syria's state-run media has since been on the defensive, denying claims made in the international press and denouncing the Israeli raid. "People are very angry for what they see as a blatant Israeli violation of Syria," says Mahdi Dahlala, a former Syrian minister of information. "They want their government to do something."
Mr. Habbash, the parliamentarian, says Syria is more ready now to shore up its ties with Iran, its ally of nearly three decades, in the event of a conflict. "We expect Iran to help us against Israel and aggression, and Iran has the same expectations from us to help protect them."
Still, Syria's apparent readiness to employ guerrilla warfare tactics suggests that it believes that alliance may not be enough to protect the country. Instead, go-it-alone thinking is likely causing the country to rethink its defense strategy, perhaps even its nuclear weapons option, according to Charles Ferguson, a nonproliferation expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US research institution.
"The overriding factor is Syria's sense of vulnerability," says Mr. Ferguson. "It lives in a very rough neighborhood and does not have reliable allies to come to its defense. So, from the realist perspective, it would make sense for Syria to at least consider a possible nuclear weapons program."
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