In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: Israel confirms attack on Syria
Reactions: Bashar al-Assad; Mohamed ElBaradie
Background: The air strike to the present
Opinion and Analysis: Proliferation or Disinformation?
History: Osirak and previous Israeli attacks on Syria
Reference Material: Syria, Israel and Hezbollah
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Syrian 'Nukes': Proliferation or Disinformation?
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Amid the conjecture regarding the recent Israeli air strike on Syria, conflicting unofficial reports warn of nuclear proliferation or a repeat of the intelligence failures made in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
30-Second Summary
Oct. 2—The Israeli military confirmed for the first time that its air force attacked a Syrian target almost a month earlier, on Sept. 6.
Israel has still not given a motive for the raid, an omission that has inspired a number of theories.
One of the first explanations to gain credence was that the planes struck an arms cache intended for the militant Islamic organization Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
It has also been suggested that the incursion was a test of Syria’s air defenses or a dry run for an attack on Iran.
On Sept. 18, a former editor of The Jerusalem Post, writing in The Wall Street Journal, judged that the idea that the target was nuclear technology from North Korea was the likeliest scenario offered so far.
Five days later the Times of London added more speculative details to that scenario, alleging that Israeli commandos went into Syria to collect evidence of a nuclear weapons facility before the Sept. 6 raid.
Other commentators have been more reluctant to endorse the idea that North Korea has been supplying Syria with nuclear technology.
BBC world affairs correspondent Nick Childs surmises that certain parties in the United States and Israel are using the allegation to “peddle their own political agendas—for example, to unnerve Syria or Iran.”
Analysts at the BBC, The New York Times, and GlobalSecurity.org have drawn comparisons between the current claims about Syrian WMDs and the spread of faulty intelligence on Iraq before the U.S.–led invasion.
Whatever prompted it, Israel’s attack on Syria offers an object lesson in the geopolitical complexity of events in the Middle East.
Israel has still not given a motive for the raid, an omission that has inspired a number of theories.
One of the first explanations to gain credence was that the planes struck an arms cache intended for the militant Islamic organization Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
It has also been suggested that the incursion was a test of Syria’s air defenses or a dry run for an attack on Iran.
On Sept. 18, a former editor of The Jerusalem Post, writing in The Wall Street Journal, judged that the idea that the target was nuclear technology from North Korea was the likeliest scenario offered so far.
Five days later the Times of London added more speculative details to that scenario, alleging that Israeli commandos went into Syria to collect evidence of a nuclear weapons facility before the Sept. 6 raid.
Other commentators have been more reluctant to endorse the idea that North Korea has been supplying Syria with nuclear technology.
BBC world affairs correspondent Nick Childs surmises that certain parties in the United States and Israel are using the allegation to “peddle their own political agendas—for example, to unnerve Syria or Iran.”
Analysts at the BBC, The New York Times, and GlobalSecurity.org have drawn comparisons between the current claims about Syrian WMDs and the spread of faulty intelligence on Iraq before the U.S.–led invasion.
Whatever prompted it, Israel’s attack on Syria offers an object lesson in the geopolitical complexity of events in the Middle East.
Headline Links: Israel confirms attack on Syria
Oct. 2—Israel admitted for the first time that the attack on Syria had indeed taken place, as Syrian authorities had alleged for some weeks. The information was broadcast on Israeli Army radio, and no motive for the attack was forthcoming.
Source: The BBC
Reactions: Bashar al-Assad; Mohamed ElBaradie
Syria’s president gave an interview to the BBC in which he promised to retaliate to the Israeli raid. He was ambiguous about what form that reprisal would take. President Bashar al-Assad said, “Retaliate doesn’t mean missile for missile and bomb for bomb. We have our means to retaliate, maybe politically, maybe in other ways.” The BBC provides a video of the interview online.
Source: The BBC
In an interview published on Oct. 1, Mohamed ElBaradie, head of international nuclear watchdog organization the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), was asked how much his organization knew about a Syrian nuclear facility supplied by North Korea. ElBaradie replied, “We have zilch on that. We would be happy to investigate it if anybody has any information that is nuclear-related, but today we have nothing.”
Source: Newsweek
Background: The air strike to the present
Sept. 21—Beyond the Headlines covered the full context of the Sept. 6 Israeli strike on Syria in a story titled "North Korea Suspected of Nuclear Trade to Syria."
Source: findingDulcinea
Sept. 23—The Times of London reported that unnamed Washington and Israeli sources had described an Israeli commando raid into Syrian territory that preceded the air strike. This attack, detailed subsequently in a number of other news sources, was allegedly conducted at the request of American officials who wanted concrete proof of the Syrian nuclear arms program.
Source: The Times of London
Sept. 22—The New York Times reported that American officials were assessing “Israel’s private claims that what their jets struck was tied to nuclear weapons development.” According to the Times, U.S. intelligence agencies are inclined to be particularly cautious in examining the evidence in the light of recent mistakes in assessing Iraq’s weapons capacity.
Source: The New York Times
Sept.16—Andrew Semmel, deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, came close to confirming the allegations that Syria was developing a nuclear weapon with North Korean aid. So far, he is the only named U.S. official to offer such confirmation. He only went as far as saying that “North Koreans were in Syria and that Syria may have contacts with ‘secret suppliers’ to obtain nuclear equipment,” according to the Associated Press.
Source: Associated Press
Sept. 11—Washington waited five days to confirm that the attack had taken place. Although the U.S. government has refrained from expressing an opinion regarding the aim of the incursion, The Jerusalem Post cited an unnamed American official as saying that the planes targeted an arms shipment to Hezbollah.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
Opinion and Analysis: Proliferation or Disinformation?
Warning against Disinformation
ArmsControlWonk is the blog of Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation, author on nuclear security, and a research affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University. He provides a summary of how the Syria-North Korea theory gained momentum in the media. He saves the last word for a fellow nonproliferation analyst: “This story is nonsense … This is a political story not a threat story. The mainstream media seems to have learned nothing from the run-up to war in Iraq.”
Source: ArmsControlWonk
GlobalSecurity.org, an independently-funded policy think-tank, follows the development in the media of the allegations about Syria’s nuclear program. The article notes a number of claims that GlobalSecurity.org feels are doubtful. One interesting observation is that in June 2006 Israeli warplanes flew over a palace in Syria occupied at the time by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That operation, like the much talked about ’03 strike against a Syrian training camp and in contrast to the recent strike, was openly discussed by the Israeli military immediately after it occurred.
Source: GlobalSecurity.org
British Sunday newspaper The Observer doesn’t entirely dismiss the claims that a nuclear facility was the target of the attack, but presents reasons to treat them skeptically overlooked in much of the media coverage. For one thing, The Observer’s Peter Beaumont argues that the “almost bankrupt” Syria couldn’t afford a serious nuclear weapons program. “Others have pointed out,” he writes, “that North Korea and Syria … have also had a long history of close links—making meaningless the claim that the North Koreans are in Syria.”
Source: The Observer
Warning against Proliferation
In August 2007, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Syria, Iran, “and others might be ‘safe havens’ for North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, or may have already participated with or benefited from it.” Among the many obvious dangers, such cooperation, were it to occur, could allow North Korea to conceal the full extent of its nuclear program and attain full diplomatic relations with the United States without making a thorough disclosure of its nuclear capabilities.
Source: The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription may be required)
Sept. 25—Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton argued in The Wall Street Journal that the recent diplomatic development between the United States and North Korea “has been reduced almost to insignificance” by Israel’s attack on Syria. Bolton entreats the president to take a “tougher, more realistic attitude” to negotiations with the North than has been in evidence in recent diplomacy.
Source: The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription may be required)
Bret Stephens, former editor of The Jerusalem Post, writes that the scenario in which the Israeli attack was a pre-emptive strike against nascent nuclear facilities is “the likeliest suggested so far.” Had the raid been targeted against arms intended for Hezbollah, Stephens asserts, “Israel would have every reason to advertise Damascus’s ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty.” For a comparable reason, he discards the theory of The Observer’s Peter Beaumont (see “Warning against misinformation" above). The Israeli planes dropped their fuel tanks near the Turkish border, and Stephens argues that “if Israel is contemplating an attack on Tehran’s nuclear installations—and it is—it makes no sense to advertise the ‘Turkish corridor’ as its likely avenue of attack.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription may be required)
History: Osirak and previous Israeli attacks on Syria
On June 7, 1981 Israeli planes bombed a French-built Iraqi nuclear facility, Osirak, just outside of Baghdad. Israel claimed at the time that Iraq intended to use the reactor, ostensibly created to supply energy, to produce nuclear weapons. The recent Israeli attack on Syria is reminiscent of that earlier preemptive strike, and has also prompted speculation that this incident foreshadows a planned attack on Iran.
The BBC looks back on its reporting on the Osirak raid. It notes that there was no danger of a radiation leak as, though the reactor was near completion, is was not yet stocked with nuclear fuel.
Source: The BBC
Blogger Edward Morrissey carries the entry from Reagan’s diaries for the day Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor. Reagan wrote, “I swear I believe Armageddon is here.” He went on to record disappointment that the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, had not consulted him before launching the attack: “I can understand his fear but feel he took the wrong option … What has happened is the result of fear and suspicion on both sides. We need a real push for solid peace.”
Source: Captain's Quarters Blog
Israel's '03 attack on Syria
October 5, 2003 was last time Israel launched an air strike on a Syrian target. The attack hit what Israel claimed was a training camp for terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad.
October 5, 2003 was last time Israel launched an air strike on a Syrian target. The attack hit what Israel claimed was a training camp for terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad.
ABC News reported that Israel stated that the '03 strike was conducted in reprisal after a suicide bombing in Haifa killed 19 people. It is interesting to note that in contrast to the recent raid on Syria, Israel was very open about its aims and motivation on that occasion.
Source: ABC News
Radio Free Europe adds further details to the ’03 attack on Syria, among them the fact that the State Department was not informed beforehand.
Source: Radio Free Europe
Reference Material: Syria, Israel and Hezbollah
The BBC provides a context for the incursion, explaining that Syria and Israel are technically at war. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has said that Syria wants to negotiate a peace, but only on the condition that Israel returns the Golan Heights, the territory it annexed from Syria in 1967. Tensions have mounted since last summer’s conflict with Hezbollah, a militant organization Israel accuses Syria of sponsoring.
Source: The BBC
Hezbollah, the recipient of an alleged arms shipment that may have been the target of the Israeli incursion, is a “Lebanese umbrella organization of radical Islamic Shiite groups,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Hezbollah came into existence during the Lebanese Civil War with the aim to expel Israel from Lebanese territory. It has since become a major player in Middle Eastern politics, and was vocal in declaring victory in the summer of ’06 when Israel failed to root out Hezbollah militants firing rockets over the border into Israel.
Source: The Council on Foreign Relations
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