SyriaComment.com

New Format at Joshualandis.com

2006-09-24T00:05:00.000-05:00

Dear all,
Please go to my new Syria Comment format:

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/

My latest article: "Bayanouni Improves on Alawi Question" is posted there.

September 24, 2006

Al-Qaida Plans for Syria

2006-09-20T10:40:00.001-05:00

Here is a note I received from Massoud Derhally of Arabian Business about a documentary al-Jazeera is showing on al-Qa`ida in the Levant. It explains how al-Qa`ida leaders hope to open a new front in Syria and the states surrounding Palestine.

Al Jazeera ran on Sept 18 the second part of a documentary by Yusri Fouda on Al Qaeda in "Bilad al Sham". The thesis is that inherently Al-Qaeda has a forward looking plan that was to attack the US, draw America to the Middle East and then fight it (i.e. in Iraq) and then exploit that conflict to get to the Palestinian front using Damascus and Lebanon.

The documentary interviews among others the son of Azzam who I am sure you know was instrumental in indoctrinating OBL in his early days before he jumped ship to Zawahri. It also interviews the founder of Junood Al Sham, and several Jihadi veterans from the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The seminal point the documentary makes is that "the youth are jaded with the corruption in the Arab world and an impotent leadership" so much so, that bright, educated people like Mohammad Atta (this is the documentary's assessment not mine) turn to religion as a means to an end.

In fact the founder of Junood Al Sham is on record saying the only way to fight Israel is to turn to religion and that when you do so as a fighter, you are fearless.

This zealous fervor invariably is the panacea to the "Zionist-American-Western" axis, several of the interviewees hold.

An interesting and worrying dimension to all this was the existing and growing Salafist movement in Lebanon, namely in mountainous areas and even places like Baalbak where one of the 19 hijackers that carried out the Sept.. 11 attacks was from.

The documentary goes on to narrate how Al Qaeda's man in Lebanon was arrested and then 'died' in detention. His supporters claim he was tortured and killed.

This all really is put in the context of a prophetic turn of events, where on the one hand there is a literal reading to Quranic texts to explain what is taking place on the ground in the ME region and on the other hand, a blue print of Al Qaeda's greater plans, that in many ways is at the other end of say the Christian Right ideology, that is actively trying to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah.

The exception is that Al Qaeda and the Salafists don't really see their struggle as part of preparing for such a showdown, but in essence more as confronting the infidel and crusaders.

There are some alarming clips in the documentary, where Azzam's son says there will be something like 960,000 fighters in Damascus, specifically Halab, where there will be a battle against the invading forces.

Anyway the punch line which I think you will be interested in is that the documentary assesses Syria, Lebanon and other countries can turn to America, as they have, and point to this ominous and growing radicalization, and say we can help you in this war on terror, and that if you think for a moment that there is an alternative to the status quo it lies in the nexus of this fanaticism that spreads from Iraq, to Jordan, Egypt to Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.

Best, Massoud

Lawrence Wright, who has recently published his block buster book on al-Qa`ida, The Looming Tower, which is the best al-Qa`ida book to date, has written about these plans in his latest New Yorker article: (I am copying less than half the original article. It is all worth reading.)

The Master Plan, by Lawrence Wright
For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning.
From the Issue of 2006-09-11

Suri believed that the jihadi movement had nearly been extinguished by the drying up of financial resources, the killing or capture of many terrorist leaders, the loss of safe havens, and the increasing international coöperation among police agencies. (The British authorities were pursuing him as a suspect in the 1995 Paris Métro bombings.) Accordingly, he saw the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, in 1996, as a “golden opportunity,” and he went there the following year. He set up a military camp in Afghanistan, and experimented with chemical weapons. He also arranged bin Laden’s first television interview with CNN. The journalist Peter Bergen, who spent several days in Suri’s company while producing the segment, and who recently published an oral history, “The Osama bin Laden I Know,” recalled, “He was tough and really smart. He seemed like a real intellectual, very conversant with history, and he had an intense seriousness of purpose. He certainly impressed me more than bin Laden.”

In 1999, Suri sent bin Laden an e-mail accusing him of endangering the Taliban regime with his highly theatrical attacks on American targets. And he mocked bin Laden’s love of publicity: “I think our brother has caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans, and applause.” In his writings, Suri rarely mentioned Al Qaeda and disavowed any direct connection to it, despite having served on its inner council. He preferred to speak more broadly of jihad, which he saw as a social movement, encompassing “all those who bear weapons—individuals, groups, and organizations—and wage jihad on the enemies of Islam.” By 2000, he had begun predicting the end of Al Qaeda, whose preëminence he portrayed as a stage in the development of the worldwide Islamist uprising. “Al Qaeda is not an organization, it is not a group, nor do we want it to be,” he writes. “It is a call, a reference, a methodology.” Eventually, its leadership would be eliminated, he said. (Suri himself was captured in Pakistan in November, 2005. American intelligence sources confirmed that Suri is in the custody of another country but refused to disclose his exact location.) In the time that remained to Al Qaeda, he argued, its main goal should be to stimulate other groups around the world to join the jihadi movement. His legacy, as he saw it, was to codify the doctrines that animated Islamist jihad, so that Muslim youths of the future could discover the cause and begin their own, spontaneous religious war.

In 2002, Suri, in his hideout in Iran, began writing his defining work, “Call for Worldwide Islamic Resistance,” which is sixteen hundred pages long and was published on the Internet in December, 2004. Didactic and repetitive, but also ruthlessly candid, the book dissects the faults of the jihadi movement and lays out a plan for the future of the struggle. The goal, he writes, is “to bring about the largest number of human and material casualties possible for America and its allies.” He specifically targets Jews, “Westerners in general,” the members of the NATO alliance, Russia, China, atheists, pagans, and hypocrites, as well as “any type of external enemy.” (The proliferation of adversaries mirrors Al Qaeda’s hatred of all other ideologies.)

And yet, at the same time, he bitterly blames Al Qaeda for dragging the entire jihadi movement into an unequal battle that it is likely to lose. Unlike most jihadi theorists, Suri acknowledges the setback caused by September 11th. He laments the demise of the Taliban, which he and other Salafi jihadis considered the modern world’s only true Islamic government. America’s “war on terror,” he complains, doesn’t discriminate between Al Qaeda adherents and Muslims in general. “Many loyal Muslims,” he writes, believe that the September 11th attacks “justified the American assault and have given it a legitimate rationale for reoccupying the Islamic world.” But Suri goes on to argue that America’s plans for international domination were already evident “in the likes of Nixon and Kissinger,” and that this agenda would have been pursued without the provocation of September 11th. Moreover, the American attack on Afghanistan was not really aimed at capturing or killing bin Laden; its true goal was to sweep away the Taliban and eliminate the rule of Islamic law.

In Suri’s view, the underground terrorist movement—that is, Al Qaeda and its sleeper cells—is defunct. This approach was “a failure on all fronts,” because of its inability to achieve military victory or to rally the Muslim people to its cause. He proposes that the next stage of jihad will be characterized by terrorism created by individuals or small autonomous groups (what he terms “leaderless resistance”), which will wear down the enemy and prepare the ground for the far more ambitious aim of waging war on “open fronts”—an outright struggle for territory. He explains, “Without confrontation in the field and seizing control of the land, we cannot establish a state, which is the strategic goal of the resistance.”

Suri acknowledges that the “Jewish enemy, led by America and its nonbelieving, apostate, hypocritical allies,” enjoys overwhelming military superiority, but he argues that the spiritual commitment of the jihadis is equally formidable. He questions Al Qaeda’s opposition to democracy, which offers radical Islamists an opportunity to “secretly use this comfortable and relaxed atmosphere to spread out, reorganize their ranks, and acquire broader public bases.” In many Arabic states, there is a predictable cycle of official tolerance and savage repression, which can work in favor of the Islamists. If the Islamists “open the way for political moderation,” Suri writes, they will “stretch out horizontally along the base and spread. So they once again exterminate and jihad grows yet again! So then they try to open things up once again, and Islam stretches out and expands again!”

The Bush Administration has declared a “war of ideas” against Islamism, Suri observes, and has had some success; he cites the modification of textbooks in many Muslim countries. This effort, he writes, must be countered by the propagation of the jihadi creed—and this is what his book attempts to do, offering a minutely detailed account of the tenets of Salafi jihadism. Suri urges his readers to reject their own repressive governments and to rise up against Western occupation and Zionism. Although the leaders of Al Qaeda have long excused the slaughter of innocents, and many of its attacks have been directed at other Muslims, Suri specifically cautions against harming other Muslims, women and children who may be nonbelievers, and other noncombatants.

Suri addresses the issue of Israel, writing that “the Zionist presence in Palestine” is an insult to Muslims; but he also excoriates the secular Palestinian National Authority that governs the country. “Armed jihad is the only solution,” he advises. “Every mujahid must wage jihad against all forms of normalization—its institutions, officials, and advocates . . . destroying them and assassinating those who rely on them . . . while paying attention not to harm Muslims by mistake.”

There are five regions, according to Suri, where jihadis should focus their energies: Afghanistan, Central Asia, Yemen, Morocco, and, especially, Iraq. The American occupation of Iraq, he declares, inaugurated a “historical new period” that almost single-handedly rescued the jihadi movement just when many of its critics thought it was finished.

The invasion of Iraq posed a dilemma for Al Qaeda. Iraq is a largely Shiite nation, and Al Qaeda is composed of Sunnis who believe that the Shia are heretics. Shortly before the invasion, in March, 2003, bin Laden issued his own list of targets, which included Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen—not Afghanistan or Iraq. Presumably, he regarded the chances of a Taliban resurgence as remote; moreover, he was aware that an Iraqi insurgency could ignite an Islamic civil war and lead to ethnic cleansing of the Sunni minority.

The American occupation posed a major opportunity, however, for a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi....

Zarqawi and his men were putting into action the vision that Abu Musab al-Suri had laid out for them: small, spontaneous groups carrying out individual acts of terror in Europe, and an open struggle for territory in Iraq.

Suicide bombings became a trademark of Zarqawi’s operation, despite Maqdisi’s condemnation of the practice....

Within radical Islamist circles, Zarqawi’s gory executions and attacks on Muslims at prayer became a source of controversy. From prison, Maqdisi chastised his former protégé. “The pure hands of jihad fighters must not be stained by shedding inviolable blood,” he wrote in an article that was posted on his Web site in July, 2004. “There is no point in vengeful acts that terrify people, provoke the entire world against mujahideen, and prompt the world to fight them.” Maqdisi also advised jihadis not to go to Iraq, “because it will be an inferno for them. This is, by God, the biggest catastrophe.”

Zarqawi angrily refuted Maqdisi’s remarks, saying that he took orders only from God; however, he was beginning to realize that his efforts in Iraq were another dead end for jihad. “The space of movement is starting to get smaller,” he had written to bin Laden in June. ...

In July, 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s chief ideologue and second-in-command, attempted to steer the nihilistic Zarqawi closer to the founders’ original course. In a letter, he outlined the next steps for the Iraqi jihad: “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate. . . . The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before—the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.”

Zawahiri advised Zarqawi to moderate his attacks on Iraqi Shiites and to stop beheading hostages. “We are in a battle,” Zawahiri reminded him. “And more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”

Zarqawi did not heed Al Qaeda’s requests. As the Iraqi jihad fell into barbarism, Al Qaeda’s leaders began advising their followers to go to Sudan or Kashmir, where the chances of victory seemed more promising. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, was confronting a new problem, which one of its prime thinkers, Abu Bakr Naji, had already anticipated, in an Internet document titled “The Management of Savagery.”

Naji’s identity is unknown. Other Islamist writers have said that he was Tunisian, but a Saudi newspaper identified him as Jordanian....

In 2005, Hussein produced what is perhaps the most definitive outline of Al Qaeda’s master plan: a book titled “Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of Al Qaeda.” Although it is largely a favorable biography of Zarqawi and his movement, Hussein incorporates the insights of other Al Qaeda members—notably, Saif al-Adl, the security chief.

It is chilling to read this work and realize how closely recent events seem to be hewing to Al Qaeda’s forecasts. Based on interviews with Zarqawi and Adl, Hussein claims that dragging Iran into conflict with the United States is key to Al Qaeda’s strategy. Expanding the area of conflict in the Middle East will cause the U.S. to overextend its forces. According to Hussein, Al Qaeda believes that Iran expects to be attacked by the U.S., because of its interest in building a nuclear weapon. “Accordingly, Iran is preparing to retaliate for or abort this strike by means of using powerful cards in its hand,” he writes. These tactics include targeting oil installations in the Persian Gulf, which could cut off sixty per cent of the world’s oil supplies, destabilizing Western economies.

In an ominous passage, Hussein notes that “for fifteen years—or since the end of the first Gulf War—Iran has been busy building a secret global army of highly trained personnel and the necessary financial and technological capabilities to carry out any kind of mission.” He is clearly referring to Hezbollah, which has so far focussed its attention on Israel. According to Hussein, “Iran has identified American and Jewish targets around the world. This secret army is led by two professional Lebanese men who have pledged full allegiance to Iran and who hold enough of a grudge against the Americans to qualify them to inflict damage on Jewish and American interests around the world.”

Iran, he continues, has been cultivating good relations with other Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas. “Iran views these parties as its entrenched wings in occupied Palestine,” Hussein writes, asserting that the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh in February, 2005, were secretly aimed at countering Iranian influence on the Palestinian resistance. “Al Qaeda interpreted this as the first step toward launching an attack on Iran,” Hussein claims. Both the U.S. and Israel view Hezbollah, the Islamist group in Lebanon, as a creature of the Iranian state, and are intent on eliminating it. “The military campaign against Iran will begin when the United States and Israel succeed in disarming Hezbollah,” Hussein predicts.

Hussein claims, without offering evidence, that Iran already has thirty thousand intelligence agents in Iraq. “Since the Americans have not succeeded in eliminating the Sunni resistance, how can they deal with the situation if the Shiites join the resistance? Iran plans to incite its proponents in Iraq to join the anti-U.S. resistance in the event that the United States or Israel launches an attack on Iran. Iran plans to open its border to the resistance and provide it with what it needs to achieve a swift and major victory against the Americans.” Al Qaeda, he writes, also expects the Americans to go after Iran’s principal ally in the region, Syria. The removal of the Assad regime—a longtime goal of jihadis—will allow the country to be infiltrated by Al Qaeda, putting the terrorists within reach, at last, of Israel....

Al Qaeda’s twenty-year plan began on September 11th, with a stage that Hussein calls “The Awakening.” The ideologues within Al Qaeda believed that “the Islamic nation was in a state of hibernation,” because of repeated catastrophes inflicted upon Muslims by the West. By striking America—“the head of the serpent”—Al Qaeda caused the United States to “lose consciousness and act chaotically against those who attacked it. This entitled the party that hit the serpent to lead the Islamic nation.” This first stage, says Hussein, ended in 2003, when American troops entered Baghdad.

The second, “Eye-Opening” stage will last until the end of 2006, Hussein writes. Iraq will become the recruiting ground for young men eager to attack America. In this phase, he argues, perhaps wishfully, Al Qaeda will move from being an organization to “a mushrooming invincible and popular trend.” The electronic jihad on the Internet will propagate Al Qaeda’s ideas, and Muslims will be pressed to donate funds to make up for the seizure of terrorist assets by the West. The third stage, “Arising and Standing Up,” will last from 2007 to 2010. Al Qaeda’s focus will be on Syria and Turkey, but it will also begin to directly confront Israel, in order to gain more credibility among the Muslim population.

In the fourth stage, lasting until 2013, Al Qaeda will bring about the demise of Arab governments. “The creeping loss of the regimes’ power will lead to a steady growth in strength within Al Qaeda,” Hussein predicts. Meanwhile, attacks against the Middle East petroleum industry will continue, and America’s power will deteriorate through the constant expansion of the circle of confrontation. “By then, Al Qaeda will have completed its electronic capabilities, and it will be time to use them to launch electronic attacks to undermine the U.S. economy.” Islamists will promote the idea of using gold as the international medium of exchange, leading to the collapse of the dollar.

Then an Islamic caliphate can be declared, inaugurating the fifth stage of Al Qaeda’s grand plan, which will last until 2016. “At this stage, the Western fist in the Arab region will loosen, and Israel will not be able to carry out preëmptive or precautionary strikes,” Hussein writes. “The international balance will change.” Al Qaeda and the Islamist movement will attract powerful new economic allies, such as China, and Europe will fall into disunity.

The sixth phase will be a period of “total confrontation.” The now established caliphate will form an Islamic Army and will instigate a worldwide fight between the “believers” and the “non-believers.” Hussein proclaims, “The world will realize the meaning of real terrorism.” By 2020, “definitive victory” will have been achieved. Victory, according to the Al Qaeda ideologues, means that “falsehood will come to an end. . . . The Islamic state will lead the human race once again to the shore of safety and the oasis of happiness.”

Al Qaeda’s version of utopia has drawn the allegiance of a new generation of Arabs, who have been tutored on the Internet by ideologues such as Suri and Naji. This “third generation of mujahideen,” as Suri calls them, have been radicalized by September 11th, the occupation of Iraq, and the Palestinian intifada. (Suri wrote this before the current struggle in Lebanon.) Those jihadis fighting in the conflict in Iraq have been trained in vicious urban warfare against the most formidable army in history. They will return to their home countries and add their expertise to the new cells springing up in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and many European nations....

Although American and European intelligence communities are aware of the jihadi texts, the work of these ideologues often reads like a playbook that U.S. policymakers have been slavishly, if inadvertently, following....

As the writings of Abu Musab al-Suri, Abu Bakr Naji, Fouad Hussein, and others make clear, the tradition of Salafi jihad existed before bin Laden and Al Qaeda and will likely survive them; yet, from the beginning of the war on terror, the strategy of the Administration has been to decapitate Al Qaeda’s leadership. Bruce Hoffman, who is the author of “Inside Terrorism” and a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, told me, “One of the problems with the kill-or-capture metric is that it has often been to the exclusion of having a deeper, richer understanding of the movement, its origins, and our adversaries’ mindset. The nuances are absolutely critical. Our adversaries are wedded to the ideology that informs and fuels their struggle, and, by not paying attention, we risk not knowing our enemy.”

Al-Qaida Plans for Syria

2006-09-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

Al Jazeera ran on Sept 18 the second part of a documentary by Yusri Fouda on Al Qaeda in "Bilad al Sham". The thesis is that inherently Al-Qaeda has a forward looking plan that was to attack the US, draw America to the Middle East and then fight it (i.e. in Iraq) and then exploit that conflict to get to the Palestinian front using Damascus and Lebanon.

The documentary interviews among others the son of Azzam who I am sure you know was instrumental in indoctrinating OBL in his early days before he jumped ship to Zawahri. It also interviews the founder of Junood Al Sham, and several Jihadi veterans from the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The seminal point the documentary makes is that "the youth are jaded with the corruption in the Arab world and an impotent leadership" so much so, that bright, educated people like Mohammad Atta (this is the documentary's assessment not mine) turn to religion as a means to an end.

In fact the founder of Junood Al Sham is on record saying the only way to fight Israel is to turn to religion and that when you do so as a fighter, you are fearless.

This zealous fervor invariably is the panacea to the "Zionist-American-Western" axis, several of the interviewees hold.

An interesting and worrying dimension to all this was the existing and growing Salafist movement in Lebanon, namely in mountainous areas and even places like Baalbak where one of the 19 hijackers that carried out the Sept.. 11 attacks was from.

The documentary goes on to narrate how Al Qaeda's man in Lebanon was arrested and then 'died' in detention. His supporters claim he was tortured and killed.

This all really is put in the context of a prophetic turn of events, where on the one hand there is a literal reading to Quranic texts to explain what is taking place on the ground in the ME region and on the other hand, a blue print of Al Qaeda's greater plans, that in many ways is at the other end of say the Christian Right ideology, that is actively trying to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah.

The exception is that Al Qaeda and the Salafists don't really see their struggle as part of preparing for such a showdown, but in essence more as confronting the infidel and crusaders.

There are some alarming clips in the documentary, where Azzam's son says there will be something like 960,000 fighters in Damascus, specifically Halab, where there will be a battle against the invading forces.

Anyway the punch line which I think you will be interested in is that the documentary assesses Syria, Lebanon and other countries can turn to America, as they have, and point to this ominous and growing radicalization, and say we can help you in this war on terror, and that if you think for a moment that there is an alternative to the status quo it lies in the nexus of this fanaticism that spreads from Iraq, to Jordan, Egypt to Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.

Best, Massoud

The Master Plan, by Lawrence Wright
For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning.
From the Issue of 2006-09-11

Suri believed that the jihadi movement had nearly been extinguished by the drying up of financial resources, the killing or capture of many terrorist leaders, the loss of safe havens, and the increasing international coöperation among police agencies. (The British authorities were pursuing him as a suspect in the 1995 Paris Métro bombings.) Accordingly, he saw the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, in 1996, as a “golden opportunity,” and he went there the following year. He set up a military camp in Afghanistan, and experimented with chemical weapons. He also arranged bin Laden’s first television interview with CNN. The journalist Peter Bergen, who spent several days in Suri’s company while producing the segment, and who recently published an oral history, “The Osama bin Laden I Know,” recalled, “He was tough and really smart. He seemed like a real intellectual, very conversant with history, and he had an intense seriousness of purpose. He certainly impressed me more than bin Laden.”

In 1999, Suri sent bin Laden an e-mail accusing him of endangering the Taliban regime with his highly theatrical attacks on American targets. And he mocked bin Laden’s love of publicity: “I think our brother has caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans, and applause.” In his writings, Suri rarely mentioned Al Qaeda and disavowed any direct connection to it, despite having served on its inner council. He preferred to speak more broadly of jihad, which he saw as a social movement, encompassing “all those who bear weapons—individuals, groups, and organizations—and wage jihad on the enemies of Islam.” By 2000, he had begun predicting the end of Al Qaeda, whose preëminence he portrayed as a stage in the development of the worldwide Islamist uprising. “Al Qaeda is not an organization, it is not a group, nor do we want it to be,” he writes. “It is a call, a reference, a methodology.” Eventually, its leadership would be eliminated, he said. (Suri himself was captured in Pakistan in November, 2005. American intelligence sources confirmed that Suri is in the custody of another country but refused to disclose his exact location.) In the time that remained to Al Qaeda, he argued, its main goal should be to stimulate other groups around the world to join the jihadi movement. His legacy, as he saw it, was to codify the doctrines that animated Islamist jihad, so that Muslim youths of the future could discover the cause and begin their own, spontaneous religious war.

In 2002, Suri, in his hideout in Iran, began writing his defining work, “Call for Worldwide Islamic Resistance,” which is sixteen hundred pages long and was published on the Internet in December, 2004. Didactic and repetitive, but also ruthlessly candid, the book dissects the faults of the jihadi movement and lays out a plan for the future of the struggle. The goal, he writes, is “to bring about the largest number of human and material casualties possible for America and its allies.” He specifically targets Jews, “Westerners in general,” the members of the NATO alliance, Russia, China, atheists, pagans, and hypocrites, as well as “any type of external enemy.” (The proliferation of adversaries mirrors Al Qaeda’s hatred of all other ideologies.)

And yet, at the same time, he bitterly blames Al Qaeda for dragging the entire jihadi movement into an unequal battle that it is likely to lose. Unlike most jihadi theorists, Suri acknowledges the setback caused by September 11th. He laments the demise of the Taliban, which he and other Salafi jihadis considered the modern world’s only true Islamic government. America’s “war on terror,” he complains, doesn’t discriminate between Al Qaeda adherents and Muslims in general. “Many loyal Muslims,” he writes, believe that the September 11th attacks “justified the American assault and have given it a legitimate rationale for reoccupying the Islamic world.” But Suri goes on to argue that America’s plans for international domination were already evident “in the likes of Nixon and Kissinger,” and that this agenda would have been pursued without the provocation of September 11th. Moreover, the American attack on Afghanistan was not really aimed at capturing or killing bin Laden; its true goal was to sweep away the Taliban and eliminate the rule of Islamic law.

In Suri’s view, the underground terrorist movement—that is, Al Qaeda and its sleeper cells—is defunct. This approach was “a failure on all fronts,” because of its inability to achieve military victory or to rally the Muslim people to its cause. He proposes that the next stage of jihad will be characterized by terrorism created by individuals or small autonomous groups (what he terms “leaderless resistance”), which will wear down the enemy and prepare the ground for the far more ambitious aim of waging war on “open fronts”—an outright struggle for territory. He explains, “Without confrontation in the field and seizing control of the land, we cannot establish a state, which is the strategic goal of the resistance.”

Suri acknowledges that the “Jewish enemy, led by America and its nonbelieving, apostate, hypocritical allies,” enjoys overwhelming military superiority, but he argues that the spiritual commitment of the jihadis is equally formidable. He questions Al Qaeda’s opposition to democracy, which offers radical Islamists an opportunity to “secretly use this comfortable and relaxed atmosphere to spread out, reorganize their ranks, and acquire broader public bases.” In many Arabic states, there is a predictable cycle of official tolerance and savage repression, which can work in favor of the Islamists. If the Islamists “open the way for political moderation,” Suri writes, they will “stretch out horizontally along the base and spread. So they once again exterminate and jihad grows yet again! So then they try to open things up once again, and Islam stretches out and expands again!”

The Bush Administration has declared a “war of ideas” against Islamism, Suri observes, and has had some success; he cites the modification of textbooks in many Muslim countries. This effort, he writes, must be countered by the propagation of the jihadi creed—and this is what his book attempts to do, offering a minutely detailed account of the tenets of Salafi jihadism. Suri urges his readers to reject their own repressive governments and to rise up against Western occupation and Zionism. Although the leaders of Al Qaeda have long excused the slaughter of innocents, and many of its attacks have been directed at other Muslims, Suri specifically cautions against harming other Muslims, women and children who may be nonbelievers, and other noncombatants.

Suri addresses the issue of Israel, writing that “the Zionist presence in Palestine” is an insult to Muslims; but he also excoriates the secular Palestinian National Authority that governs the country. “Armed jihad is the only solution,” he advises. “Every mujahid must wage jihad against all forms of normalization—its institutions, officials, and advocates . . . destroying them and assassinating those who rely on them . . . while paying attention not to harm Muslims by mistake.”

There are five regions, according to Suri, where jihadis should focus their energies: Afghanistan, Central Asia, Yemen, Morocco, and, especially, Iraq. The American occupation of Iraq, he declares, inaugurated a “historical new period” that almost single-handedly rescued the jihadi movement just when many of its critics thought it was finished.

The invasion of Iraq posed a dilemma for Al Qaeda. Iraq is a largely Shiite nation, and Al Qaeda is composed of Sunnis who believe that the Shia are heretics. Shortly before the invasion, in March, 2003, bin Laden issued his own list of targets, which included Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen—not Afghanistan or Iraq. Presumably, he regarded the chances of a Taliban resurgence as remote; moreover, he was aware that an Iraqi insurgency could ignite an Islamic civil war and lead to ethnic cleansing of the Sunni minority.

The American occupation posed a major opportunity, however, for a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi....

Zarqawi and his men were putting into action the vision that Abu Musab al-Suri had laid out for them: small, spontaneous groups carrying out individual acts of terror in Europe, and an open struggle for territory in Iraq.

Suicide bombings became a trademark of Zarqawi’s operation, despite Maqdisi’s condemnation of the practice....

Within radical Islamist circles, Zarqawi’s gory executions and attacks on Muslims at prayer became a source of controversy. From prison, Maqdisi chastised his former protégé. “The pure hands of jihad fighters must not be stained by shedding inviolable blood,” he wrote in an article that was posted on his Web site in July, 2004. “There is no point in vengeful acts that terrify people, provoke the entire world against mujahideen, and prompt the world to fight them.” Maqdisi also advised jihadis not to go to Iraq, “because it will be an inferno for them. This is, by God, the biggest catastrophe.”

Zarqawi angrily refuted Maqdisi’s remarks, saying that he took orders only from God; however, he was beginning to realize that his efforts in Iraq were another dead end for jihad. “The space of movement is starting to get smaller,” he had written to bin Laden in June. ...

In July, 2005, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s chief ideologue and second-in-command, attempted to steer the nihilistic Zarqawi closer to the founders’ original course. In a letter, he outlined the next steps for the Iraqi jihad: “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate. . . . The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before—the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.”

Zawahiri advised Zarqawi to moderate his attacks on Iraqi Shiites and to stop beheading hostages. “We are in a battle,” Zawahiri reminded him. “And more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”

Zarqawi did not heed Al Qaeda’s requests. As the Iraqi jihad fell into barbarism, Al Qaeda’s leaders began advising their followers to go to Sudan or Kashmir, where the chances of victory seemed more promising. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, was confronting a new problem, which one of its prime thinkers, Abu Bakr Naji, had already anticipated, in an Internet document titled “The Management of Savagery.”

Naji’s identity is unknown. Other Islamist writers have said that he was Tunisian, but a Saudi newspaper identified him as Jordanian....

In 2005, Hussein produced what is perhaps the most definitive outline of Al Qaeda’s master plan: a book titled “Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of Al Qaeda.” Although it is largely a favorable biography of Zarqawi and his movement, Hussein incorporates the insights of other Al Qaeda members—notably, Saif al-Adl, the security chief.

It is chilling to read this work and realize how closely recent events seem to be hewing to Al Qaeda’s forecasts. Based on interviews with Zarqawi and Adl, Hussein claims that dragging Iran into conflict with the United States is key to Al Qaeda’s strategy. Expanding the area of conflict in the Middle East will cause the U.S. to overextend its forces. According to Hussein, Al Qaeda believes that Iran expects to be attacked by the U.S., because of its interest in building a nuclear weapon. “Accordingly, Iran is preparing to retaliate for or abort this strike by means of using powerful cards in its hand,” he writes. These tactics include targeting oil installations in the Persian Gulf, which could cut off sixty per cent of the world’s oil supplies, destabilizing Western economies.

In an ominous passage, Hussein notes that “for fifteen years—or since the end of the first Gulf War—Iran has been busy building a secret global army of highly trained personnel and the necessary financial and technological capabilities to carry out any kind of mission.” He is clearly referring to Hezbollah, which has so far focussed its attention on Israel. According to Hussein, “Iran has identified American and Jewish targets around the world. This secret army is led by two professional Lebanese men who have pledged full allegiance to Iran and who hold enough of a grudge against the Americans to qualify them to inflict damage on Jewish and American interests around the world.”

Iran, he continues, has been cultivating good relations with other Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas. “Iran views these parties as its entrenched wings in occupied Palestine,” Hussein writes, asserting that the peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh in February, 2005, were secretly aimed at countering Iranian influence on the Palestinian resistance. “Al Qaeda interpreted this as the first step toward launching an attack on Iran,” Hussein claims. Both the U.S. and Israel view Hezbollah, the Islamist group in Lebanon, as a creature of the Iranian state, and are intent on eliminating it. “The military campaign against Iran will begin when the United States and Israel succeed in disarming Hezbollah,” Hussein predicts.

Hussein claims, without offering evidence, that Iran already has thirty thousand intelligence agents in Iraq. “Since the Americans have not succeeded in eliminating the Sunni resistance, how can they deal with the situation if the Shiites join the resistance? Iran plans to incite its proponents in Iraq to join the anti-U.S. resistance in the event that the United States or Israel launches an attack on Iran. Iran plans to open its border to the resistance and provide it with what it needs to achieve a swift and major victory against the Americans.” Al Qaeda, he writes, also expects the Americans to go after Iran’s principal ally in the region, Syria. The removal of the Assad regime—a longtime goal of jihadis—will allow the country to be infiltrated by Al Qaeda, putting the terrorists within reach, at last, of Israel....

Al Qaeda’s twenty-year plan began on September 11th, with a stage that Hussein calls “The Awakening.” The ideologues within Al Qaeda believed that “the Islamic nation was in a state of hibernation,” because of repeated catastrophes inflicted upon Muslims by the West. By striking America—“the head of the serpent”—Al Qaeda caused the United States to “lose consciousness and act chaotically against those who attacked it. This entitled the party that hit the serpent to lead the Islamic nation.” This first stage, says Hussein, ended in 2003, when American troops entered Baghdad.

The second, “Eye-Opening” stage will last until the end of 2006, Hussein writes. Iraq will become the recruiting ground for young men eager to attack America. In this phase, he argues, perhaps wishfully, Al Qaeda will move from being an organization to “a mushrooming invincible and popular trend.” The electronic jihad on the Internet will propagate Al Qaeda’s ideas, and Muslims will be pressed to donate funds to make up for the seizure of terrorist assets by the West. The third stage, “Arising and Standing Up,” will last from 2007 to 2010. Al Qaeda’s focus will be on Syria and Turkey, but it will also begin to directly confront Israel, in order to gain more credibility among the Muslim population.

In the fourth stage, lasting until 2013, Al Qaeda will bring about the demise of Arab governments. “The creeping loss of the regimes’ power will lead to a steady growth in strength within Al Qaeda,” Hussein predicts. Meanwhile, attacks against the Middle East petroleum industry will continue, and America’s power will deteriorate through the constant expansion of the circle of confrontation. “By then, Al Qaeda will have completed its electronic capabilities, and it will be time to use them to launch electronic attacks to undermine the U.S. economy.” Islamists will promote the idea of using gold as the international medium of exchange, leading to the collapse of the dollar.

Then an Islamic caliphate can be declared, inaugurating the fifth stage of Al Qaeda’s grand plan, which will last until 2016. “At this stage, the Western fist in the Arab region will loosen, and Israel will not be able to carry out preëmptive or precautionary strikes,” Hussein writes. “The international balance will change.” Al Qaeda and the Islamist movement will attract powerful new economic allies, such as China, and Europe will fall into disunity.

The sixth phase will be a period of “total confrontation.” The now established caliphate will form an Islamic Army and will instigate a worldwide fight between the “believers” and the “non-believers.” Hussein proclaims, “The world will realize the meaning of real terrorism.” By 2020, “definitive victory” will have been achieved. Victory, according to the Al Qaeda ideologues, means that “falsehood will come to an end. . . . The Islamic state will lead the human race once again to the shore of safety and the oasis of happiness.”

Al Qaeda’s version of utopia has drawn the allegiance of a new generation of Arabs, who have been tutored on the Internet by ideologues such as Suri and Naji. This “third generation of mujahideen,” as Suri calls them, have been radicalized by September 11th, the occupation of Iraq, and the Palestinian intifada. (Suri wrote this before the current struggle in Lebanon.) Those jihadis fighting in the conflict in Iraq have been trained in vicious urban warfare against the most formidable army in history. They will return to their home countries and add their expertise to the new cells springing up in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and many European nations....

Although American and European intelligence communities are aware of the jihadi texts, the work of these ideologues often reads like a playbook that U.S. policymakers have been slavishly, if inadvertently, following....

As the writings of Abu Musab al-Suri, Abu Bakr Naji, Fouad Hussein, and others make clear, the tradition of Salafi jihad existed before bin Laden and Al Qaeda and will likely survive them; yet, from the beginning of the war on terror, the strategy of the Administration has been to decapitate Al Qaeda’s leadership. Bruce Hoffman, who is the author of “Inside Terrorism” and a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, told me, “One of the problems with the kill-or-capture metric is that it has often been to the exclusion of having a deeper, richer understanding of the movement, its origins, and our adversaries’ mindset. The nuances are absolutely critical. Our adversaries are wedded to the ideology that informs and fuels their struggle, and, by not paying attention, we risk not knowing our enemy.”

Apologies to David Schenker

2006-09-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

My apologies to David Schenker. Several days ago I wrote: "David Schenker of WINEP and Tony Badran of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are pushing [a] conspiracy theory.” The conspiracy theory I was referring to is the notion that the Syrian government was behind the terrorist attack on the American embassy.

In fact, Tony Badran argues that Syria was behind the attack, not David Schenker. I incorrectly lumped the two together because this is what Guy Darst of the Boston Herald did in his misleading article, cited as the source of my remarks.

I have since communicated with David Schenker. He sent me two articles about the embassy bombing, one of which Darst borrowed from. By taking Schenker's remark out of its original context and plopping it in with Badran's more serious accusations, Schenker was done an injustice and I compounded it.

The two articles that give a full account of David Schenker's argument about the Damascus bombing make clear that he stops short of arguing that the government set up the bombers. Eli Lake of the New York Sun, quotes Schenker as follows:

"A couple of things like this have happened before," Mr. Schenker said. "The embassy was stormed with the facilitation of the government, once in 1998 and once in 2000. The Syrians have been a welcoming environment for any number of terrorists for decades, so it should come as no surprise that unauthorized terrorists have taken up residence there and would be able to pull off this kind of attack."

Schenker himself writes at counterterrorism.org :

In terms of context, though, the key point is that if this attack was indeed perpetrated by Islamists, it is the direct result of the double game being played by the Asad regime. The regime supports Sunni and Shiite Islamist militants in Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, and Iraq, and in the past has not acted against terrorists entering Jordan. Syria no longer cooperates with the US on Al Qaida, either. Given the regime's friendly disposition toward terrorists, it would be no surprise if some unauthorized terrorist organizations were setting up shop in Damascus.

As these quotes make clear, Schenker did not suggest that Syrian authorities authorized the bombings. He argues that Syria was burnt by the fires it has started and keeps aflame. This is very different from Badran's argument.

As for Badran and Vox's claims that I contradict myself by not subscribing to the notion that the Syrian government was behind the bombing, this is specious. Tony quotes an article published by me on Syria Comment, but written by Abdulla Ta'i, which argued that Syrian authorities had set jihadists up to be arrested last year. In the incident that Abdullah was describing, the authorities apprehended the extremists before an attack was carried out. I cannot say whether Abdulla's informant was correct, but the likelihood of it being correct seemed higher to me than much of the speculation done by people with no contact with Syria. Vox quotes a second article written by a friend, which explained how Syrian authorities allowed and managed the demonstration which ended with the burning of the Danish embassy.

The implications of both articles are provocative, but they don't add up to Syria staging the embassy attack in which quite a few people were hurt, almost all Syrians. There is a big difference between staging the capture of jihadists or encouraging a crowd to attack the Danish embassy when no one is in it and trying to blow up the US embassy when it is full of people. In the same light, it is easy for Americans to understand why the US armed and funded jihadists in Afghanistan to fight Russia, but they don't think America is behind jihadism when it doesn't serve its interests or kills Americans. Syrians commonly use the Afghan connection to argue that the CIA was running Zarqawi as an agent in Iraq.

I gave four reasons why it doesn't make sense for Syria to stage the jihadist bombing of the embassy. I think Syria genuinely wants to engage the West if the West is willing to compromise. I don't believe Asad wants the American embassy in Damascus to be shuttered, halting the very limited means of communication that remain open between him and Washington.

One final remark about the articles written by other people that I publish. All I find interesting. Most I see the sense in. Some I don't believe, for example, I don't think it is likely that Hariri was killed by Islamic extremists. All the same, given the importance of the Hariri trial and the fact that most Syrians with whom I discussed it are not convinced that Syria did it, I publish alternative views, if they are backed up with an argument. The comment section is the best place to shoot down such speculation. Sometimes I make mistakes, as I did with David Schenker. I am happy to apologize when I know I am wrong.

"The UN Report will be a Bust," by Idaf

2006-09-17T15:18:00.000-05:00

"The UN Report will be a Bust"
by Idaf, published on Syria Comment
September 16, 2006

The most interesting paragraph for me in Kaplan's article was this:
This is a lot to bite off. It's not at all an appealing idea, whatever the trade-offs, to legitimize the resumption of Syrian influence in Lebanese politics or the stiffening of Hezbollah's political power. But those things are going to happen anyway. Should they happen with Syria in an alliance with Iran—or in a security arrangement that involves the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union?
I agree with Kaplan that this seemingly is going to happen anyway. I'm betting that Mr. Brammertz's upcoming report would be more focused on Al-Qaida's role in the assassination. Two reasons for my assumption:

1 - Two days ago, the former interior minister Suleiman Franjieh said in a TV interview that the 13 Al-Qaida suspects held by Lebanese security forces HAVE CONFESSED to plotting to kill Hariri and working with Abu-Adas.

The newly formed Information Branch of the Lebanese security (which was formed specifically to investigate the Hariri assassination, under the direct political influence of Saad Hariri) has admitted to torturing them. Franjieh said in the interview that he spoke to the head of the branch about whether this was true. The answer he got was: “it is not credible as the confession was made under torture”! The head of the branch also admitted that the suspects confessed that they sneaked Abu Adas into Syria through the normal border crossing point with Syria (as per the records of the Lebanese border point). When asked why the Syrians did not smuggle Abu Adas across the "military line" when they still controlled it, the answer was that he was snuck into an Al-Qaida stronghold! Hence the growing insistence today that the Syrian authorities control Al-Qaida! Personally, I think that this is pathetic. Franjieh continued with a bombshell: “The 14 February group has refused to allow the Brammertz team to meet with the 13 suspects so far!!!”

2- Saudi and Egypt seem to have decided to reach out to Syria, despite the deterioration of relations during the Lebanon War. The Syrian information minister visited Saudi a few days ago, met with his counterpart, and gave a very friendly press conference following the meeting in Saudi. Mubarak recently said that Egypt's relations with Syria would always be "brotherly," no matter what. Bilal (the Syrian information minister) also gave an interview to the very pro-Mubarak Al-Ahram (which had attacked Assad after his famous speech of August 15). Furthermore, if anyone is following the Saudi media recently, he/she will have noticed that attacks on Syria were halted about a week ago. (read Al-Sahrq Al-Awsat and Al-Arabiya in the last week).

My interpretation of this is that the Saudis and the Egyptians have received information that the Brammertz report is a bust (or maybe that it is re-focusing on Al-Qaida). If so then this might strengthen the pro-Syria political powers in Lebanon and they most likely will be back in power very soon, or will at least join the government. I recently spoke to the head of a polling company in Lebanon, which is regularly commissioned by Zogby International and he said that post-war polling showed that the so called March 14 group's popularity is at an all time low. Nasrallah tops the "national leader" poll followed by Michel Aoun. Saniora comes fourth!

Posted by Idaf

Also don't miss t_desco's comments about the meaning of the embassy bombing here
It begins:

Don't miss the symbolic dimensions of this attack:

1. It says "look, we are able to strike in the heart of the Syrian capital."

2. The Syrian security forces are seen defending Americans, thus undermining (at least symbolically) "President Asad's policy of opposing the United States."

3. had the attack been successful, it would have increased tensions between Washington and Damascus.

Don't forget that al-Qa'ida wants the US to attack Iran and Syria. See, for example, the excellent article by Lawrence Wright, "The Master Plan, For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning." (continue...)

"Let's Make a Deal," by Fred Kaplan

2006-09-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

Fred Kaplan at Slate has written an excellent article explaining what it would take to make a deal with Syria. I have copied a bit of the article below. (Warning: he quotes me.) One of the important questions that weighs on all those pushing engagement is what Syria really wants. Here is a bit of Fred's article.

I also appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio for an half an hour interview, Thursday, September 14, 2006, about Syria. (Slide the bar to the second half hour).

Here is the Kaplan article:

Let's Make a Deal
It's time to talk to Syria.
Fred Kaplan
posted Sept. 15, 2006

It's a golden moment for a diplomatic overture to Syria.
This week's armed assault on the U.S. Embassy in Damascus should have shown Syrian President Bashar Assad that his country isn't as immune to the region's terrorism as he might have thought.

The Syrian security guards' successful repulsion of the attack and defense of the embassy should have shown President George W. Bush that the two countries might share some interests—and that the terrorist threat isn't as monolithic as he's made it appear in recent speeches.

The incident comes in the wake of the summer's disastrous war between Israel and Hezbollah, which should have shown all concerned that military power alone—even when unfurled by the once-invincible Israel Defense Forces—cannot resolve the region's political conflicts.

It's worth trying to strike a deal with Assad because: 1) He can be bought off (he's offered to be bought off before, on several occasions); 2) yanking him away from Iran will pull the rug out from under Iran; 3) getting him to temper his support of Hezbollah will defang Hezbollah.
But to buy off Assad requires buying him—giving him something in exchange for his switch. And that's something George W. Bush is loath to do.
An alliance with Iran gets Assad security, economic aid, and investment. Supplying arms to Hezbollah gets him leverage in Lebanon and street cred with Arabs. If he changes policies and does what Tony Snow wants him to do, what does he get in return?

Joshua Landis—whose blog, Syria Comment, is the most informative clearinghouse of analysis on the country—thinks that Assad wants better relations with the United States; that he turned to Iran in part because he needed to turn somewhere and had no alternative.

Assad is a secular leader, faces his own Islamist threats from within (as the embassy assault dramatized), and must wonder how durable his alliance with the mullahs of Iran might be. Even before George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq, Assad tried to revitalize relations by offering the administration intelligence on Saddam's plans and forces—but he was rebuffed.

In other words, it's a big mistake to regard Syria as an implacable foe—much less to lump it along with the myriad regimes and movements (Iran, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, North Korea, and so on) that Bush views as a monolithic force of darkness in the global war on terrorism. (This Manichean view may be Bush's most unfortunate misconception. By not understanding the nature of his enemies, he cannot defeat them; and by failing to detect the fissures that divide them, he passes up opportunities to play them off against one another.)
What would Assad need to change his ways? Landis and others suggest a few incentives: a guarantee that neither the United States nor Israel would attack Syria; excision from the official list of nations that sponsor terrorism (a step that would permit aid and investment from the West); some liberty to flex political influence in Lebanon; and negotiations with Israel to get back the Golan Heights.

In exchange, Assad would have to earn Syria's removal from the terrorism list (that is, he would really have to stop sponsoring terrorism); he would have to stop funneling arms to Hezbollah and, instead, support Hezbollah strictly as a political party; and he would have to accept Israel's existence within the framework of a two-state accord with the Palestinians (which—though it's always dangerous to be optimistic about such things—a new, possibly unified, government in the Palestinian territories seems on the verge of doing).

This is a lot to bite off. It's not at all an appealing idea, whatever the trade-offs, to legitimize the resumption of Syrian influence in Lebanese politics or the stiffening of Hezbollah's political power. But those things are going to happen anyway. Should they happen with Syria in an alliance with Iran—or in a security arrangement that involves the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union?

We need allies to maintain influence and stability in the Middle East, and we hardly have any these days. It may be time to resume the practice of "realism" and build up some allies to help do our dealings, even if it means trading favors with the lesser and more malleable of evils.

Megan Stack of the L.A. Times quotes me in an article entitled, Syrians Foil Strike on U.S. Embassy. I like Megan Stack and she has written many good stories on Syria and Lebanon this past year; however, her editors must have cut a paragraph because it sounds like I support the notion that the Syrian government was behind the embassy bombing, which I explained to her was a silly notion. Here is how she quotes me:

But questions linger: Why have militants never struck Syria with the force and skill brought to bear against Arab neighbors such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia? Is Syria given a pass by armed groups because of Assad's reputation as an anti-American figure?

"The speculation has been that the Assad regime has put people up to this," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma who spent last year living in Damascus. "Are they in league? Have they cut a deal?"

David Schenker of WINEP and Tony Badran of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, are pushing this conspiracy theory. Tony said, "Every time the regime wants to show that it is embattled or that it shares the same enemy as the United States, there is an incident like this." This is spin - and then these guys claim Arabs always see conspiracy theories. Both these guys repeat ad naseum that Asad is a bumbler and hardly in control of Syria - then they describe him a superman who can manipulate every jihadist in Syria. If the 5 or 6 jihadist events in the last three years in Syria were all sham events, we must conclude that Syria has no jihadism or extremist presence working against the regime. This means that the other leaders of the Middle East are out of control and bumblers because they cannot police their countries as Bashar al-Asad can. We must conclude that they should all be taking lessons in leadership and in providing security in the countries from Asad.

House Cleaning and Format Suggestions

2006-09-15T18:06:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,
I am preparing to move Syria Comment to another site and to migrate to Word Press instead of blogger. Here is the new site I am preparing http://joshualandis.com.

I would appreciate it if anyone interested would take a look and send me any ideas for how to format it or what to add - that would be a great help.

Word Press offers a more powerful software package than blogger. I will be able to categorize my posts - i.e. list them under key words, such as "opposition," "Asad," "Alawites," "Kurds," "Islam," "Economics," "Culture," etc.

One can easily appreciate the advantages of such an archiving mechanism. Researchers will easily be able to access articles of interest to them by following a category. If you have suggestions for categories that will help you or that you think I should include, please post them in the comment section.

Also, if you know of interesting or better gizmos than those I use or have other suggestions about formatting or look, please write them in the comment section or send them directly to me: landis@ou.edu. I have a tech person helping me with this for the time being, so I can add stuff and change things for another week or so before I am left to my own primitive devices.

It will cause a little turbulence as I switch over, which will not be for some time as I don't really know how to use it properly and am still adjusting things.

I will also be able to block IP addresses on Word Press, which will help to control the amount of spam, Inshaallah. Many of you have complained about the nasty comments that get reposted many times a day. Hopefully, we will be able to zap those.

I will also be able to have recent comments listed on the sidebar.

If you know of other sites you think are particularly format friendly or after which I should model my own, send me a link. I have already admired From Beirut to the Beltway's formating.

Liberals And The Chances For Democracy In The Middle East - By EHSANI2

2006-09-14T18:25:00.000-05:00

Liberals And The Chances For Democracy In The Middle East – Third In line?
By EHSANI2
September 14, 2006

It has often been suggested that the Arab world is not ready for western style liberal democracy. One often hears that there is something unique or intrinsic about the Arab culture that inhibits democratic governance. Such sentiments have made it possible for the region’s dictators to widely suppress all basic principals of individual freedom, civil liberties, accountability and free elections.

While a culture of tribalism is often sited as a reason, other traditional interpretations of authoritarianism in the region point the blame at its colonial past. One can argue that just like the French and British before them, American foreign policy has invested and promoted military-security institutions at the expense of civil-legal ones in order to maintain control over the region’s restive societies and its vast energy resources.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s, young army officers used military coups to reach power at the expense of a number of the regimes that were affiliated with the British and French colonialists. Regrettably, the new Arab leaders over promised and under achieved.

The old colonial rule simply gave way to a traditional brand of authoritarian tyranny. Almost without exception, the new military regimes have had little respect for human rights and have come to use whatever means necessary to silence political opponents.

The above course of events is not dissimilar to the experience of Latin America. Just like the Arabs, the Hispanic world was thought to be naturally more authoritarian and hierarchical than western Anglo-Saxon cultures. It was long argued, therefore, that the continent would never be ready to part with its own brand of authoritarianism that has followed its own colonial past. Indeed, during the second half of the twentieth century, a number of countries in the region became hostage to authoritarian regimes that were unparalleled in their brutality and suppression of civil society and political movements.

U.S foreign policy did not help. By favoring dictators like Pinochet over the democratic (Socialist) government of Salvador Allende in Chile, the U.S. government put its weight behind dictators that promised stability, anticommunism, and economic trade and investment opportunities. In “Thank God they’re on our side: The U.S. and right wing-Dictatorships”, David Schmitz, notes how this policy conflicted with a theoretical embrace of the principles of liberal democracy and human rights. U.S. officials viewed Latin Americans as racially inferior and strong authoritarian leadership as necessary for economic modernization.

Just like all others in history, the Latin American Authoritarian regimes performed poorly in terms of economic development, and together with extensive human rights violations, they ultimately lost legitimacy internally. Democracy soon emerged. Economic growth soon followed. Note how this took place in spite of, rather than because of, U.S. policies.

But if democracy emerged in Latin America in spite of U.S. policies, should one therefore be optimistic about the prospects of a similar scenario in our own region?

As I will explain below, I think that the Islamists of our region will prove a major obstacle in this endeavor. Latin American liberals benefited from the fact that they did not have to compete with their own religious fundamentalists for power as the vacuum emerged. We do.

Enter Islam and the Middle East:

As the Latin American dictators fell from power, it was that region’s liberals that filled the vacuum. Regrettably, the liberals of our region come a distant third behind their current dictators and the Islamists who are waiting second in line. Unless something is done, if and when our dictators are removed (military regimes rarely leave power unilaterally), it is most likely going to be the Islamists rather than the Arab liberals who will be the next winners in our region. This should not come as a surprise.

With most other political and social groups decimated by the state, Islamists have had the exclusive benefit of building large constituencies, thanks to the social and economic services they provide to a suffering population (Hamas and Hezbollah are perfect examples). The secular Arab rulers have in the meantime masterfully used the fear of Islamism to perpetuate their absolute control.

Arab liberals, in the meantime face a catch 22 situation. Were their dictators to fall from power, the Islamists who aim to abolish secular, social and political order and replace it with an Islamic one will be their new masters. Otherwise, were their current dictators to remain at the helm, one can only expect more human rights abuses, arbitrary arrest and detention, fundamentally unfair trials in security courts, infringements on privacy rights, police corruption, restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly and association.

Some hopeful commentators and scholars have argued that mainstream Islamists have changed. They point to signs that these Islamists have now come to conclude that democracy is the most effective mechanism to guard dictatorships and protect the human rights of the Muslim populace. This writer is hardly as optimistic.

The liberals of our region face a massive uphill battle because their third position in line renders them a target from both the dictators and the Islamists. In the minds of many Muslims, liberal democracy is synonymous with western political hegemony and domination. As the scholar Fawaz Gerges argues, democracy tends to be seen as a manipulative tool wielded by Western powers to intervene in Arab/Muslim internal affairs and to divide and conquer.

Some Islamic movements have tried to reengineer the traditional western liberal democratic values to give them a more Islamic look. This effort is unlikely to succeed.
Islamicizing liberal democracy does not work. Indeed, Islam and western liberal democratic principals are incompatible.

Our dictators in the meantime have masterfully exploited the parties that lie behind them in the pecking order.

In the case of Syria, the risks of the Islamists have been more than hypothetical. The only serious challenge to the country’s authoritarian rule arose in the late 1970’s from the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood who rejects the basic value of the secular Baath and object to rule by the Alawis, whom they consider heretical. In response to the uprising, the government crushed the insurgency of course. Syria’s liberals have paid the price since then. All calls for democracy and civil rights have been implicitly and explicitly rejected as the regime presented itself both internally and externally as the sole political force that can rescue the country from the threat of “dangerous ideologies”. This is a form of threat construction. In Latin America, the threat of communism or capitalism. In Syria and other parts of the Middle East, the desire to oppose Israel and later Islamic fundamentalism proved an important motivating factor.

Had it not been for the Islamic fundamentalists, one can argue that the Syrian regime and others in the region will sooner or later lose their legitimacy in a world dominated by the reemergence of democratic governments throughout the world. It is the opinion of this writer that the inability of our liberal voices to occupy the second spot constitutes a major hurdle that has dramatically slowed democracy in our region. The Islamists need to give way. The notion that our present dictators are our only choice against “dangerous ideologies” is a card that needs to be taken away from them.

In the meantime, those that condone the actions of our region’s dictators and make excuses for their horrendous track record should be exposed and put to shame. On the other hand, the liberals amongst us who risk their lives as they oppose the current status quo deserve our utmost respect. Progressive forces in our region are regrettably a small minority. The international community ought to identify them and support them at the expense of the autocratic regimes that have crushed the aspirations of their citizens and drove them into poverty and despair. In the meantime, Islamists need to be constantly reminded that they have no room in politics and civil society. Rather than holding banners proclaiming that “Islam is the solution”, they have to be reminded that they have been one of the main obstacles that have slowed our region’s march from authoritarianism towards liberal democracy.

Bombing the US Embassy - What Does it Mean?

2006-09-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

The attempted bombing of the US embassy in Damascus has stirred up a debate over whose fault it is that the attack took place.

On Sept 12, four militants attempted to bomb the US embassy with a car bomb, which did not go off. One Syrian officer was killed; three of the attackers were killed and the forth wounded in a shoot out with Syrian guards. He has since died in hospital of his wounds.

Eleven innocents were wounded including seven Syrian telephone company employees working in the area, as well as an Iraqi man and woman. A senior Chinese diplomat was hit by shrapnel while standing on top of a garage within the Chinese Embassy compound.

Imad Mustapha, Syria's ambassador in Washington speculated that Jund al-Sham may have been responsible for the attack because it has been involved in several previous botched attacks over the past two years. Here is a bit of background on the group published by the Toronto Star. But we don't know what the group represented.

According to the NYTimes, one of the attackers first tried to gain access to the embassy by brandishing a bouquet of flowers and telling the guard that he wanted to deliver them to the embassy staff as a gesture of condolence for the September 11 attacks. When the ruse didn't work, the attackers began to yell, "God is Great" and opened fire with machine guns and grenades. My good friend Ayman Abdelnour witnessed the attack and describes what happened to the NYTimes.

Although secretary of State Rice thanked Syria for helping to save American lives, the usual enmity between Syria and the US quickly returned. Imad Mustapha blamed the US for "fuelling extremism" in the region. US officials shot back that Syria supports terrorist and must stop it.

Mr. Bush's "policies in the Middle East have fuelled extremism, terrorism and anti-U.S. sentiment," the Syrian government said in a statement issued by its embassy in Washington. It said Syrian security forces fought bravely to defend the U.S. embassy.

Describing it as "a heinous terrorist attack by an extremist group," Damascus also said it was about time the Bush administration reassessed its Middle East policies.

The White House shot back, suggesting it was up to Damascus to change.

"Syrian police forces did their job, and they were professional about it," said Mr. Bush's spokesman Tony Snow. "Now the next step is for Syria to play a constructive role in the war on terror: Stop harbouring terrorist groups, stop being an agent in fomenting terror and work with us to fight against terror."

Mohammad Habash, an MP and head of the Islamic Studies Center, said it was not surprising that extremist groups would emerge to fight 'the US project in the (Middle East) region' and that there was widespread exasperation over the 'absolute US bias towards Israel' in that country's recent fighting with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Time Magazine's Scott McCloud has a good article, explaining that this event really means that Syria has a growing terror problem like all the other states of the region. But in the conclusion he adds a paragraph pitched to please his US readers. He says the attack can be read as "reaping what you sow" or chickens coming home to roost. As he writes:

Another way to look at it is that the Syrian regime may be reaping what it sows. Among Arab leaders, Assad is alone in his outspoken support for Islamic militant groups like Hizballah in Lebanon, and the Palestinian factions, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. U.S. officials believe that the Assad regime has secretly aided the three-year-old Sunni insurgency in Iraq, providing passage for jihad volunteers and funds, and safe haven for insurgency leaders.

But this doesn't make much sense. The al-Qaeda type jihadist groups are not emerging in Syria because Syria encourages them in other countries.

Syria has been one of the most skillful and successful opponents of al-Qaeda related jihadists. There have been no successful jihadist operations in Syria in the last 20 years. This is an excellent record when compared to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, and we won't mention American occupied Iraq. Are all these states sowing what they reap? I think not.

Why has Syria been successful against al-Qaeda-type groups? Either it is because the Syrian mukhabarat (security services) are better and more skillful then their counterparts in neighboring countries, or it is because President Asad's policy of opposing the United States has been popular and has protected Syria from the wrath of takfiri groups, despite the regime being secular and dominated by Alawites, who are considered Kufr by Salafis. It is probably a combination of both. Syria is a stricter and controlled police state than its neighbors, which gives the mukhabarat wider latitude to impinge on civil society. Also, Asad’s policies have generally been lauded by the public. Both have protected Syrians from terrorism.

If we are to follow the logic of "chickens coming home to roost." We would have to conclude that Syria has fewer chickens than other Arab regimes, the United States, Britain, Spain, Indonesia and Turkey, which have all been subject to more devistating attacks than Syria.

As for the conspiracy theorists who suggest that the attack on the Embassy was a Syrian government inspired job, it doesn't make sense.

1. Why would Syria allow a police officer to be killed and seven other Syrians to be wounded, in an unsuccessful attack?

2. To assume that the recrudescence of jihadist groups in Syria over the last two years is inspired by the regime doesn't make sense. The spread of jihadist groups throughout the region has been dramatic. Why would one assume that Syria was somehow magically spared this same phenomenon?

3. Since the end of the Lebanon War, Asad and his entire cabinet have been insisting that it is time for the peace process to be set into motion. Asad has been asking for engagement with the US and land for peace. Why would he blow up the US embassy?

4. The entire axis of "bad," or whatever it is being called these days, is lying low and trying to attenuate tensions with the West. Iran is talking with the Europeans and trying to be accommodating. Hizbullah has not made a peep in 3 weeks as it tries to get its feet back on the ground. It is complying with the ceasefire much better than Israel is. Hamas has just created a government of national unity with the PLO so that it can speak to the Israelis through a veil. Syria is insisting it wants negotiations with Israel and has accepted 1701 and accommodated Kofi Annan. There is a pattern of accommodation among the anti-American countries in the region. They are trying to patch up relations that were frayed during the war. It does not make sense for Syria to diverge from what is clearly a unified game plan on the part of the anti-American front. Why would it bomb the US at a time that it is pushing for engagement?

The success of the Syrian authorities in thwarting the terrorist operation against the American embassy underlines the usefulness of the Syrian regime in the fight against al-Qaeda and takfiri organizations. We the regime to be toppled, there would be a lot more of them in Syria.

Americans like to say that Syria is one of the worst supporters and proliferators of terrorism because it supports Hizbullah, Hamas, and other militant Palestinian organizations, lumping both al-Qaeda type jihadists in with Hizbullah and the like. This is one of the great weaknesses of American policy. It represents the blindness of American analysts.

Like it or not, there is a big difference between Salafist groups and Hizbullah or even Hamas. The latter two have fairly concrete goals that are limited to liberating land they claim as theirs. Bin Laden and associates are much more radical and have global scope and goals. Syria is not wrong to distinguish between the two. Washington would be well served to do the same. That does not mean that Washington need grant Hizbullah and Hamas all their demands - of course not. Nonetheless, Washington is foolish to believe that it cannot bargain with them and must destroy them rather than search for a political solution. There is a political solution to Hizbullah and Hamas. Bin Laden would be much more difficult to satisfy.

Farid Zakaria explains why this is a big mistake in his excellent article:

Mao & Stalin, Osama & Saddam
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

Bush is starting to repeat one of the central errors of the cold war: treating our enemies as one entity.

Sept. 18, 2006 issue - I'm glad George W. Bush is using the bully pulpit to clarify the war on terror. Many of Bush's basic ideas—such as the need for reform in the Arab world—are sensible; it's their simplistic and botched execution, coupled with a mindless unilateralism, that have derailed his foreign policy. But in the past week the president, seeking to shore up domestic support for his policies, has been redefining the nature of the enemy. In doing so he is making a huge conceptual mistake, one that could haunt American foreign policy for decades. (Continue)

News Round UP (11 September 2006)

2006-09-11T18:55:00.000-05:00

A number of noteworthy articles have appeared this past week debating the pros and cons of engaging Syria. The most hard hitting on the con side are articles by Michael Young and Lee Smith.

On the pro side is Flynt Leverett. "Illusion and Reality: The violence in the Middle East shows the negative consequences of the administration’s contempt for engagement. But the tough talk has failed," in The American Prospect, 09.12.06.

Needless to say, I find Leverett, much more convincing than I do either of the con articles. They never explain how they are going to stop Syria from meddling, without regime change, and they don't explain how they hope to change the regime, which, at the end of the day, is the only solution for them.

The Daily Star's editorial blasts Blair on the occasion of his Lebanon visit. They laud the Lebanese statesmen who refused to meet him, claiming, "Blair openly positioned himself as Hizbullah's enemy - and therefore Lebanon's."

This small article on how Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from even discussing an Iraq postwar plan is revealing.

Army official: Rumsfeld forbade talk of postwar
By Stephanie Heinatz
Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)

FORT EUSTIS, Va. - Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a postwar plan.

Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure postwar Iraq.

Scheid, who is also the commander of Fort Eustis in Newport News, made his comments in an interview with The Daily Press. He retires in about three weeks.

Scheid's comments are further confirmation of the version of events reported in "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," the book by New York Times reporter Michael R. Gordon and retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor.

In 2001, Scheid was a colonel with the Central Command, the unit that oversees U.S. military operations in the Mideast.

On Sept. 10, 2001, he was selected to be the chief of logistics war plans.

On Sept. 11, he said, "life just went to hell."

That day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, told his planners, including Scheid, to "get ready to go to war."

A day or two later, Rumsfeld was "telling us we were going to war in Afghanistan and to start building the war plan. We were going to go fast.

"Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan, Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq."

Scheid said he remembers everyone thinking, "My gosh, we're in the middle of Afghanistan, how can we possibly be doing two at one time? How can we pull this off? It's just going to be too much."

Planning was kept very hush-hush in those early days.

"There was only a handful of people, maybe five or six, that were involved with that plan because it had to be kept very, very quiet."

There was already an offensive plan in place for Iraq, Scheid said. And in the beginning, the planners were just expanding on it.

"Whether we were going to execute it, we had no idea," Scheid said.

Eventually other military agencies like the transportation and Army materiel commands had to get involved.

They couldn't just "keep planning this in the dark," Scheid said.

Planning continued to be a challenge.

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.

Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."

Even if the people who laid out the initial war plans had fleshed out post-invasion missions, the fighting and insurgent attacks going on today would have been hard to predict, Scheid said.

"We really thought that after the collapse of the regime we were going to do all these humanitarian type things," he said. "We thought this would go pretty fast and we'd be able to get out of there. We really didn't anticipate them to continue to fight the way they did or come back the way they are.

"Now we're going more toward a Civil War. We didn't see that coming."

While Scheid, a soldier since 1977, spoke candidly about the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq, he remains concerned about the U.S. public's view of the troops. He's bothered by the nationwide divide over the war and fearful that patriotism among citizens will continue to decline.

"We're really hurting right now," he said.

Cyprus finds air defense systems on Syria-bound ship: Washington Post. Interpol told Cypriot authorities the ship, the Gregorio I, which had been loaded in China and North Korea and was destined for Latakia, was carrying ballistic missile components. Cyprus searched the ship only to discover that it contained air defense systems and not weapons. They are trying to figure out what to do with it now. This is the first indication of the power of UN resolution 1701.

Assad, Lahoud ordered Hariri murder: former Syrian officer
Agence France Presse

BEIRUT, Sept 10, 2006 (AFP) - An exiled former Syrian intelligence officer has claimed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese counterpart, Emile Lahoud, ordered the assassination last year of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.
"Bashar al-Assad and Emile Lahoud gave the orders for Hariri's murder," Mohammed Zuhair as-Saddiq was quoted by the Beirut daily An-Nahar Sunday as saying in an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television channel.

"No other Syrian or Lebanese officer could have done this," he said in the interview broadcast Saturday night.

Saddiq also claimed that "former Lebanese officials and certain Arab officials", whom he did not identify to Al-Arabiya, "also participated in this crime".

Saddiq, a former colonel in Damascus' intelligence service who was speaking from Paris, also claimed that he had seen the car used to kill Hariri and 22 other people in a massive explosion on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005.

"I saw it with my own eyes," Saddiq said of the car, which he said had been prepared for the attack at a camp in Zabadani, near Damascus.

"I gave photos of it to Detlev Mehlis," who was the first head of a United Nations probe into the assassination, widely blamed on Syria and its allies in Lebanon, and roundly denied by both. "I kept the negatives."

Saddiq also claimed to have a tape recording of a conversation in which a Damascus official had encouraged him to recant.

He said he had been promised "better arrangements" than those offered to Hassam Taher Hassam, another Syrian who had retracted similar claims to those of Saddiq in testimony to the UN panel.

Saddiq, whose extradition Syria is seeking from France, also refuted Syrian media claims that there were 64 arrests warrants pending against him.

He was arrested by French police at the request of Lahoud but was later released.

"The French judiciary was convinced that I was a witness and not a criminal," he claimed.

The UN probe has already implicated senior officials from Syria, which for decades was the power broker in its smaller neighbor.

The United Nations is currently working with the Lebanese government to create an international court to try suspects in the case.

UN Under Secretary General for Legal Affairs Nicolas Michel was in Beirut this week to discuss the mechanics of that proposal. He left on Friday, saying progress had been made but that a number of issues had been identified that still needed clarification.

Abdul Halim Khaddam's National Salvation Front has published a condemnation of Farid Ghadry's Syria Reform Party circular, demanding that Alawites head for the hills. Ghadry has latched onto a new strategy of late, which is to exploit the sectarian mistrust in Syria. He has condemned the Alawite religious sect for most of Syria's problems and is warning that the Alawite led regime will be toppled by November 8. He insists that Alawites must resign from their positions in government and head for the Coastal Mountains, should they wish to save their lives. Why November 8th? We don't know.

Khaddam' group claims that this effort to provoke sectarian civil war in Syria goes against national interest and plays into the hands of Israel. Here is his full report. بيان صادر عن جبهة الخلاص الوطني

نشرت بعض وسائل الإعلام تصريحات تضمنت دعوة المواطنين السوريين الذين
ينتمون إلى الطائفة العلوية بمغادرة المدن والعودة إلى مناطقهم، كما تضمنت الطلب من
المسؤولين العسكريين والمدنيين الذين ينتمون لهذه الطائفة، بمغادرة مراكز عملهم قبل
الثامن من تشرين الثاني القادم، موعد سقوط النظام كما حددته هذه التصريحات التي
زعمت أنها معلومات استقتها من أرفع المصادر الأميركية.

إن جبهة الخلاص
الوطني في سورية إذ تستنكر هذه التصريحات، وتدينها جملة وتفصيلاً.. لتؤكد مايلي :

أولاً - إن إطلاق مثل هذه التصريحات يضرّ بالمصلحة الوطنية العليا، ومن
شأنه إثارة فتنة طائفية في البلاد تخدم المصالح والأهداف الإسرائيلية.

ثانياً - إن المواطنين السوريين، بغض النظر عن الطائفة التي ينتمون إليها،
هم جزء أصيل من مكونات الشعب السوري ومن حقهم أن يعيشوا في أي مكان من وطنهم، وأن
يتبوّأوا أيّ منصب يصلون إليه نتيجة الاختيار الشعبيّ الحر. وليس من حق أحد، كائناً
من كان، فرداً أو دولة، أن يتجاوز هذا الحق الدستوري، ويمليَ على السوريين مكان
إقامتهم أو طبيعة عملهم.

ثالثاً - إن جبهة الخلاص الوطني في سورية، تطالب
الحكومة الأميركية بإعلان موقفها من هذه التصريحات التي زعم صاحبها أنه استقاها من
مصادر أميركية رفيعة المستوى .

إن جبهة الخلاص الوطني في سورية، إذ تؤكد أن
التغيير الديمقراطي في سورية، مشروع وطنيّ خالص، وترفض أيّ تدخّل أجنبيّ في الشأن
الوطني السوري.. لتأمل من كلّ البعثيين ورجال النظام الشرفاء، أن يكونوا على مستوى
الوعي والمسئولية، فيقفوا في صف الشعب، إلى جانب القوى الوطنية، للمشاركة في عملية
التغيير الديمقراطي

10 أيلول (سبتمبر) 2006 جبهة الخلاص الوطني في سورية