The Tag-Team of Terror BY: Boris Ryvkin

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji al-Otari (left) and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami (right) talk during an official meeting at Saad Abad palace in Tehran, Iran

Last week was marked with pomp and circumstance both at home and abroad. President Bush campaigned all over the country, from Montana to Florida, touting his social security reform agenda, the Knesset voted in favor of over $1 billion in compensation for the settlers to be evacuated from Gaza, Howard Dean, head alto of the liberal choir, was made Democratic Party chairman, and a new alliance was created in the Middle East. We turn our attention to the latter event because failure to address it might become more and more dangerous in the future. The threat that both Iran and Syria pose to American interests in the Middle East and to the stability of global order means that their union poses a “clear and present danger” to our attempt to bring democracy and freedom to the region.

The alliance was accelerated by the recent assassination of former moderate Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A car bomb planted along his motorcade route in Beirut killed over 30 people and sent a mass of protestors onto the streets. Although the Syrian government, under the brutal leadership of President Assad, denied all responsibility for the attack, the Lebanese placed Syria at the top of their suspect list. President Bush and the international community condemned the attack. The President made a speech where he called Syria a nation that was “out of step with the Middle East”, and he urged Assad to comply with UN resolutions and remove the over 60,000 Syrian occupation troops from Lebanon. The Assad regime has been suffering from economic stagnation, a rise of reform minded moderates, and international pressure for actively financially and militarily sponsoring such notorious terrorist groups as Hamas and Hezbollah (recognized as being second only to Al-Qaeda in operational capabilities). These groups have not only been at the center of the barbaric campaign to butcher innocent Israeli civilians and drive the Jewish state into the sea, they have also aided the insurgency in Iraq. In fact, the CIA has stated that evidence exists of camps in Syria where Zarquawi and his international terrorist contingent have been trained and supplied. The terrorists that originate from within Iraq itself have also been aided by the Syrians. When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the IDF to carry out precision strikes on Palestinian terrorist leaders, it was Syria who gave a number of senior members political asylum to escape Israeli justice. The Assad regime is an authoritarian government, which bases it power, as all authoritarian states do, on the rule of force. Dissenters are quashed and freedom of expression and movement are very limited. The state is the only one of the three major nations bordering Israel that has still not signed a treaty with the Jewish state, and it has shifted its foreign policy to a point where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that “relations with Syria are not improving.”

Iran, a theocratic dictatorship governed by Shiite Muslim clerics, came into being in its present state after the 1979 revolution to overthrow the U.S. backed government of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeini set up a government system where Islamic fundamentalism and a rabid hatred of Israel and the US came to dominate. Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980’s, which cost over 2 million casualties, and has sought to take advantage of American setbacks in Iraq. Iranian Shiite radicals and weaponry have been flowing across the border to support the insurgency trying to destabilize the new democratic Iraqi government. Over 50 tons of weaponry, from rockets to grenades to machine guns was found on a train heading for the Palestinian terrorists several years ago, and Iran’s cat and mouse game with regards to its nuclear ambitions have put the entire world on notice. Iran and the IAEA have been squaring off for over two years about what the Iranians officially cite as “nuclear power for peaceful electric purposes” and the international community fears as “a developing nuclear weapons program”. With the Iranian parliament voting overwhelmingly to reject the nuclear freeze order and with over 136 suspected weapons sites scattered across the country, Iran is readying for a possible military response. Iran, in an official statement, said that an American invasion would be met with complete destruction. Regardless, Iran’s moderate and pro-west lobby, mainly backed by people in their teens and twenties, has grown more and more vocal about government abuses and a need for economic and political reform. The more obstinate and provocative Iran’s position becomes, the greater the chance, it is hoped, that the fundamentalists will be overthrown, or at least, be forced to reform themselves.

The two governments, seeing the growing threat posed to them by western democratic reform and America’s War on Terror, have signed an agreement to mutually guard themselves against “common threats” to their security. With Russia sponsoring a nuclear reactor project for the Iranians, and the French unwilling to move rapidly against Syria (their former colony), the US and our allies must continue to face this coordinated threat to both Operation Iraqi Freedom and the War on Terror as a whole. Instead of moving to demonstrate their intent to cooperate and negotiate with the wished of the international community, the two nations have taken a step in the wrong direction, the consequences of which are still uncertain.

-Boris Ryvkin