Syria on Neocons' Hit List

Many of the same people who led the campaign for war against Iraq signed a report released three years ago that called for using military force to disarm Syria of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to end its military presence in Lebanon.

Among the signers are several senior members of the administration of President George W. Bush, including the chief Middle East aide on the National Security Council, Elliott Abrams; Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky; and senior consultants to both the State Department and the Pentagon on Iraq policy, Michael Rubin and David Wurmser. Also signing were Richard Perle, the powerful former chairman of the Defense Policy Board (DPB); Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former United Nations ambassador; Frank Gaffney, a former Perle aide who heads the Center for Defense Policy; Michael Ledeen, another close Perle collaborator at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI); and David Steinmann, chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

The study, Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role, was co-authored by Daniel Pipes, who has just been nominated by Bush to a post at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), and Ziad Abdelnour, who heads a group founded by him called the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL). The study was released by Pipes' group, the Middle East Forum.

The USCFL, whose 67 "Golden Circle" members include virtually all of the 31 signatories of the report, has been a major force behind the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act that was just reintroduced in the House of Representatives last Friday by Reps. Eliot Engel, a USCFL member, and Ileana Ros Lehtinen. The legislation, which had 150 cosponsors in the House last year, would impose far-reaching economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria until the president certified that it has stopped all support to Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and other groups that Washington considers "terrorist," the government withdraws its estimated 20,000 troops from Lebanon, and takes other measures long demanded by Washington.

"Now that Saddam Hussein's regime (in Iraq) is defeated," Engel said April 11, "it is time for America to get serious about Syria. The United States must not tolerate (its) continued support of the most deadly terrorist organizations in the world, its development of weapons of mass destruction, and its occupation of Lebanon." He said a companion measure, cosponsored by Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican Sen. Rick Santorum will soon be introduced in the Senate. The action comes amid a two-week-old flurry of threats by top administration officials against Syria over its alleged failure to cooperate with Washington's military campaign against Baghdad.

Those threats culminated Sunday when Bush himself accused Syria of having chemical weapons, although he did not specify whether they were home-grown or received from Iraq for safe-keeping, as alleged by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon earlier this year and repeated by senior Pentagon officials. Last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Syria of harboring members of Hussein's regime, and, asked whether Damascus was "next" after Iraq, replied that "it depends on people's behavior."

Intelligence officials told reporters last week that Rumsfeld had ordered the drawing up of contingency plans for a possible invasion of Syria and that Feith, the Pentagon's number three official, had begun work on a policy paper about Syria's support of terrorist groups.

"There's got to be a change in Syria," said Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz last Sunday on a TV network news program. "It is a strange regime, one of extreme ruthlessness." At the same time, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, a favorite of Wolfowitz and Perle who may be tapped to play a top political role in post-war Iraq, declared that Washington was fighting enemies in a "World War IV" that includes "fascists of Iraq and Syria," a reference to Syria's ruling Baath Party.