Israel Bombed Syria On Sept. 6
Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 06:01:00 PM PDT
A secret mission reportedly used eight fighter planes to destroy a nuclear cache:
"Israel has enforced a news blackout on what may be its air force's most audacious raid since its jets destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981."Source: Guardian
That secrecy unraveled in the last 24 hours and John Bolton was quoted in Haaretz as stating that:
"I think this is a clear message not only to Syria, I think it's a clear message to Iran as well, that its continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons are not going to go unanswered."
Bolton would love to see more war in the Middle East. Most of the rest of us don't. More over the flip....
From the Sunday Times article that broke the story:
It was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.
At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.
The article speculates that the material was provided by North Korea, either for use by Syria in developing nuclear weapons or for hiding so North Korea could rebuild its nuclear program in the future.
Further speculation in the Guardian was that this raid and the seemingly coordinated leaks by Israeli and American sources is a precursor to a similar raid on Iran in the future. The neocons, led by John Bolton, are in full cry about the axis of evil working together. From this article:
It is an angle that has been pushed hardest by the neoconservative hawk and former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. But others have entered the fray, among them the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who, without mentioning Syria by name, suggested to Fox television that the raid was linked to stopping unconventional weapons proliferation.
Most explicit of all was Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for nuclear non-proliferation policy, who, speaking in Rome yesterday, insisted that 'North Koreans were in Syria' and that Damascus may have had contacts with 'secret suppliers' to obtain nuclear equipment.
And where did this intelligence come from? It seems Tel Aviv:
The opaqueness surrounding the nature of what may have been hit in Operation Orchard has been compounded by claims that US knowledge over the alleged 'agricultural site' has come not from its own intelligence and satellite imaging, but from material supplied to Washington from Tel Aviv over the last six months, material that has been restricted to just a few senior officials under the instructions of national security adviser Stephen Hadley, leaving many in the intelligence community uncertain of its veracity.
Hmmmm....
Can the Middle East ever find that elusive condition called peace? Is the violence in the Middle East spread further while the neocons are running our foreign policy? Can the US still be considered an honest broker in any Israel/Palestinian peace negotiations? Would a Democratic president have any different stance vis-a-vis Israel than the current administration?
Only time will tell.
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