It seems the United States wants Syria to get with the program of WHOA and start buying US made whistles or else!
U.S. to Syria: Just say ‘whoa’
By MARCUS GEE
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
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Call it the “whoa” effect.
General Tommy Franks, the U.S. commander in the Middle East, was asked on the weekend what lesson terror-sponsoring regimes should take from the defeat of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. He said that in their shoes, he would conclude that the United States is deadly serious about stopping the spread of international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
“So, if I were looking for a lesson to take away, it would be, whoa, these people are really resolute in this matter,” Gen. Franks said.
One regime may already be saying whoa. Saturday, North Korea indicated that it might be willing to accept multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. That is a big turnabout for the North, which had always insisted that it would talk only to the United States.
“It seems that North Korea is becoming a bit more flexible,” Ra Jong-yil, top security adviser to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, told reporters yesterday. “It appears that the war in Iraq set an important precedent in determining the geopolitical landscape.”
Washington is certainly hoping so, and it is doing its best to spread the whoa effect to other regimes. The immediate target: Syria.
Yesterday, a lineup of U.S. officials stepped forward to warn the Damascus regime to stop giving refuge to former Iraqi leaders, stop letting foreign fighters travel to Iraq through Syria, stop developing weapons of mass destruction and stop harbouring terrorists.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called Syria a “terrorist state” and a “rogue nation.” He produced a Central Intelligence Agency report documenting Syria’s pursuit of chemical and biological weapons.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Damascus of carrying out chemical-weapons tests and allowing Iraqis to flee into Syrian territory.
Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Damascus to adapt to the “new environment” or face diplomatic or economic pressure.
All of that followed Sunday’s comments by President George W. Bush, who prominently accused Syria of similar misbehaviour. Taken together, the warnings had an ominous sound, and they were meant to.
It’s highly unlikely that Washington will soon follow its victory in Iraq with an attack on neighbouring Syria. (Mr. Bush’s closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said yesterday there are “no plans whatsoever” to invade Syria.) Yet it is clear that Washington hopes the dramatic display of U.S. power and determination in Iraq will persuade others to clean up their act.
Washington is focusing first on Syria partly because it is genuinely angry about Syrian moves to supply war material to the Iraqi regime and shelter its fleeing officials.
The United States thought it could count on Syria to stay out of the Iraq conflict. Syria supported last fall’s United Nations resolution calling on Iraq to disarm and it has co-operated with the United States in its wider war against terrorism, but now the Americans feel betrayed.
Washington is also genuinely concerned about Syrian support for terrorism. Damascus has played host to an array of terrorist groups, including the Palestinian Hamas organization, responsible for many suicide bombings against Israelis, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based, Iranian-funded group that U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has called the “A-team of terrorism.”
Washington is clearly amplifying its anger in order to intimidate Damascus. Mr. Bush’s government has previously shown no great concern about Syrian weapons of mass destruction; raising the issue makes for a frightening echo after Iraq was invaded for the stated reason of its pursuit of such weapons.
Yesterday, Syria vehemently denied it has chemical weapons or that it has ever co-operated with Mr. Hussein’s regime. Those denials cut no ice in Washington.
Almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Bush said that from then on, Washington would make no distinction between terrorists and the regimes that support them. If Syria did not get the message then, it is hearing it loud and clear now.
Hhummm it seems that whistles are now a secret weapon of US diplomacy.
MarkB
