Soccer Dad

Syria asserts itself

via memeorandum

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday publicly charged President Bashar Assad's government with transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah's forces inside Lebanon. Syria and Hezbollah both denied the charges. But the allegations already are affecting U.S. foreign policy: Republicans pressed on Capitol Hill to block the appointment of a new American ambassador to Damascus, according to congressional officials. The White House said it was pressing ahead.

The Scuds are believed to have a range of more than 435 miles--placing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear installations all within range of Hezbollah's military forces. During a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used rockets with ranges of 20 to 60 miles.

This may affect the appointment of Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Lebanon and Syria two weeks ago and raised the issue of weapons transfers with President Bashar al-Assad. Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones said that the specifics of what the senator learned before he left for Syria were classified but that Kerry "recognizes that the flow of weapons to Hezbollah raises very legitimate concerns in Israel and with all parties seeking peace in the region."

The Foreign Relations Committee approved on a voice vote Tuesday the nomination of Robert Ford as the new ambassador, but three GOP senators noted their objection and congressional aides said a floor vote may face delays unless the administration can provide answers on the Israeli allegations.

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha denounced the reports as a "ridiculous story" created by Israel and its allies to spoil the possibility of a rapprochement with the United States. He said no U.S. official has raised the issue with him.

Laura Rozen has a bit more detail:

What is clear is that earlier this month, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an advocate of engagement with Damascus, traveled to Syria for meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as to Lebanon.

Aides won't reveal what was discussed in the meeting between Kerry and Assad, with one saying it is classified, with the implication being Kerry was sent to confront Assad with some intelligence or evidence.

Kerry also stopped off in Rome for meetings with unidentified government officials on his way home from Damascus, according to his itinerary. Italy heads up a UN mission monitoring the situation in southern Lebanon since the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war.

A former senior U.S. official involved in the region says the crucial "question is whether the shipment was actually made."

"It is possible Syria was planning to ship Scuds but after warnings from the U.S. and Israel backed off," the former senior U.S. official said. "Scuds are clearly a red-line for Israel. And if Syria were to do something that foolish, Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] could not afford to sit back and just let it happen."

Perhaps the Kuwaiti newspaper report should be viewed skeptically as it also reported that the United States would delay the appointment of Ford. On the other hand Scuds are pretty large, it would be hard to hide one.

Israel's not the only one being threatened by Hezbollah. Tony Badran writes:

What was abundantly clear in the May 2008 fighting was that Hezbollah sought to secure strategic points and communication routes linking its strongholds in southern Lebanon to its new fortifications in the Bekaa Valley, which meant guaranteeing access through Jumblatt's fiefdom in the mountains, where the Barouk overlooks the Bekaa. Moreover, in the event of a domestic conflict, by controlling the heights of the Chouf and Metn regions and gaining access to the coastal road through the mountains of Jbeil, where a friendly Shia community resides, Hezbollah could link predominantly Shia enclaves, breaking them out of their isolation, and surround the main areas of concentration of other Lebanese communities.

Jumblatt always understood the implications of this, and in summer 2009 he relayed to Progressive Socialist Party cadres his concerns over a future war between Hezbollah and Israel and its domestic ramifications. He expected that Hezbollah would "need to expand to areas where it doesn't have a presence in order to protect is political existence." Jumblatt added that "this requires us to deal with flexibility and openness, moving on from the problems that arose from this during the July 2006 aggression."

It's unclear whether Hezbollah would restrict its presence to the Barouk mountaintop, or whether it would deem it necessary to make logistic use of Druze villages that it assaulted two years ago. This, of course, would expose these villages to massive devastation by the Israel Air Force, which could provoke entirely new dynamics inside Lebanon.

Doug Ross asks rhetorically:

I wonder how all of those wonderful speeches, the flowery rhetoric and the humiliating, bended-knee outreach to the Arab Street is working out?

Noah Pollak answers:

The Scud-D has been around for decades; why is it being transferred to Hezbollah at this particular moment? There are two likely reasons: (1) the White House has become the most prominent Western critic of Israel, and Syria is confident that President Obama will not do much to either punish an Israeli enemy or speak clearly in Israel's defense. (2) Under the Obama Doctrine, many enemies of America are treated with kindness in order to prove that they should not fear us, under the theory that once the fear is gone, there will be very little to obstruct the progression of smooth relations. The engagement policy thus requires the overlooking of all kinds of bad behavior.

Syria, it appears, has made an accurate calculation on both of the above counts.