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1421. A Turkish Rapprochement with Middle East Rogue States?

Author:
Soner Cagaptay
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul will make an official visit to Tehran on January 10. This visit comes on the heels of a January 6-8 trip to Turkey by Syrian president Bashar al-Asad -- the first ever by a Syrian head of state -- during which Asad was showered with praise by the Turkish media. Why is Ankara suddenly at ease with Damascus and Tehran, both of whom have given Turkey headaches by supporting the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and harboring Turkish Hizballah and other Islamist terror groups?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Turkey, Middle East, Arab Countries, and Syria

1422. Europe, Syria, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author:
Dalia Dassa Kaye
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Syrian president Bashar al-Asad's January 6 interview with London's Daily Telegraph -- in which he indicated that Syria would not relinquish its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities until Israel did so also -- suggests that Syria is not likely to follow Libya's recent example of foregoing WMD in order to improve relations with the West. Still, Europe's newly aggressive approach to countering proliferation offers an opportunity for greater transatlantic coordination and the potential to reap concrete results.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, Arab Countries, and Syria

1423. Indicting Hamas: By Disrupting Its Operations, Does the West Become a Target?

Author:
Matthew Levitt
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Last week, federal authorities in Chicago indicted three senior Hamas members—two of whom were arrested in the United States, while the third remains at large in Syria—on charges of racketeering and (in the case of one defendant) providing material support to terrorists. The indictment marks a watershed in the prosecution of terrorists raising funds and plotting attacks from the United States. It also raises reason for concern: might Hamas now target Western interests?
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Arabia, Syria, and Chicago

1424. Is All Quiet on Israel's Northern Front?

Author:
Zohar Palti
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
For much of the upcoming presidential election season, the United States will no doubt be preoccupied with domestic affairs on the one hand, and the postwar transition in Iraq on the other. Although Washington undoubtedly hopes for a quiet year in the Middle East, reality might bring less desirable results. In the Arab-Israeli arena, the most significant threat to regional stability (beyond Palestinian terrorism) is the Syria-Hizballah-Iran triangle. Hizballah and Syria appear to be reverting to their traditional pattern of ratcheting up terrorist activity whenever they feel they are being ignored. Unless an effort of some sort is made to halt such escalation, Israel's northern front will become the site of a broader conflict in which neither Israel nor the United States wants to become enmeshed at the moment.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Middle East, Israel, Arab Countries, and Syria

1425. Iraq: The Wrong War

Author:
Charles V. Peña
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
President Bush asserts that U.S. military action against Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein was in material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. But even if Iraq was in violation of a UN resolution, the U.S. military does not exist to enforce UN mandates. It exists to defend the United States: its territorial integrity and national sovereignty, the population, and the liberties that underlie the American way of life. So whether Iraq was in violation of Resolution 1441 is irrelevant. The real question is whether Iraq represented a direct and imminent threat to the United States that could not otherwise be deterred. If that was the case, then preemptive self-defense, like Israel's military action against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the 1967 Six Day War, would have been warranted. And if Iraq was not a threat, especially in terms of aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, then the United States fought a needless war against a phantom menace.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, United Nations, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan

1426. Hizbollah: Rebel Without A Cause?

Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Few political actors in the Middle East have seen their environment as thoroughly affected by recent events in the region as Hizbollah, the Lebanese political-military organisation that first came on the scene in the mid-1980s. In U.S. political circles, calls for action against Hizbollah, which is accused of global terrorist activity, are heard increasingly. With the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime, the U.S. has upped its pressure on Syria and Iran - Hizbollah's two most powerful patrons. Meanwhile, Israel has made clear it will not tolerate indefinitely the organisation's armed presence on its northern border. Within Lebanon itself, weariness with Hizbollah and questions about its future role are being raised with surprising candour.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Ethnic Conflict, Politics, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria

1427. The Defense Monitor: The World At War

Author:
Col. Daniel Smith
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
At the start of 2003, the United States remains focused on fighting global terrorism in general even as it zeroes in on Iraq as the nexus of evil. But a number of factors in play today make international support for such a venture less effusive than in 1990-91, when the last anti-Saddam “coalition of the willing” formed. Many economies, including those of three of the four big financial supporters of the 1990-91 war — Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia — are weaker. Any war would be relatively more expensive. Suspicions about U.S. motives, fueled by the Bush administration's initial unilateralism, remain alive despite Washington's patient work in obtaining a UN Security Council resolution on new inspections. Germany has declared it will provide no forces; use of Saudi Arabian airbases to launch combat missions against Iraq remains unclear; and troop contributions, as well as moral support, from other Arab states such as Egypt and Syria may not materialize.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Iraq, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt

1428. Russia faces Europe

Author:
Dov Lynch
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
The crisis on Iraq has challenged key features of international relations. The United States and Britain intervened in Iraq without the specific support of the United Nations, avoiding a second resolution in February 2003 precisely because they feared coercive action would be vetoed. The UN has taken a serious blow and the parameters of international law on self-defence and the use of force are being redefined by US and British actions. The crisis has also left the transatlantic relationship in tatters, with the appearance of serious divisions in Europe and inside the European Union. France, Germany and Russia coordinated their positions against coercive actions within the UN Security Council, adopting a number of joint declarations in 2003 on how to strengthen the inspection regime. With all this, the very notion of the West as it existed in the Cold War seems under question.
Topic:
Security and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, America, Europe, France, Kosovo, Germany, United Nations, and Syria

1429. Defensible Borders for Israel

Author:
Dore Gold
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The quest for defensible borders has been an axiom of Israeli governments since 1967 on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 242. Defensible borders for Israel has been explicitly backed by Washington since the Reagan administration. In Rabin's last Knesset address he made clear that Israel "will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines." He insisted on a map including a united Jerusalem, the settlement blocs, and the Jordan Valley. In 2003, Israeli planners will have to operate under the assumption that the dismantling of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure will be incomplete, and should a Palestinian state nonetheless be established, its complete demilitarization will not be reliable. During the Oslo years, the Palestinian leadership was in material breach of the military clauses of the Interim Agreement, seeking to import illegal weaponry like SA-7 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and manufacturing Qassam rockets. Many of the same security figures who breached Oslo now serve the government of Mahmud Abbas. Moreover, fundamentalist groups like Hamas that mentioned the Islamic term hudna, for cease-fire, understood that it means a truce that is maintained until the balance of power changes. This means they will seek rearmament; Israeli military intelligence was, in fact, reporting that Hamas had accelerated production of Qassam rockets in early July. In their pronouncements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have even used a weaker term: ta'liq - a temporary cessation of hostilities. In the wake of the decline of the threat from Iraq, Israel will require defensible borders to meet the growing lethality of the Palestinian threat, backed by the assistance of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration should provide Israel with assurances concerning defensible borders as it seeks Israel's acquiescence to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Topic:
Security, Government, and Religion
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan

1430. Hizballah's Message of Hate and Powell's Levant Visit

Author:
Avi Jorisch
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
As Secretary of State Colin Powell prepares to visit Syria and Lebanon on May 3, his agenda will most likely address the war on terrorism. The most active support for terrorism from both Damascus and Beirut is for Hizballah. To understand what the group's aims and ambitions are, few sources are better than al-Manar, Hizballah's Lebanese television station. The channel broadcasts messages calling for death to America and suicide bombings against American forces in Iraq.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Iraq, America, Middle East, Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and Beirut