by CKR
Here in the United States, General Petraeus's and Ambassador Crocker's testimony before Congress and President Bush's entirely predictable speech have been taking up the airwaves. So we missed out on Israel's fine adventure in Syria, quietly carried out the week before.
Both Israel and Syria have chosen to say little about the interactions, which suggests the possibility of things gone wrong on both sides, or actions taken that range outside those expected of responsible members of the world community. There's not enough information out there to be able to say which it is.
The Washington Post (also here) and the New York Times both were able to turn their attention from Iraq toward the end of the week to tell us some things that the United States government and other interested American parties were saying about the apparent Israeli raid.
Not surprisingly, John Bolton sees whatever happened as reason to draw back from any interactions with North Korea (other than those carried out by bombers or missiles). One hypothesis is that the site that Israel seems to have bombed is reported (or is reported to have been reported by Israel's intelligence services) to have received nuclear somethings from North Korea.
Joseph Cirincione, the head of the program on nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, says it's more war-drumming against Iran. Blake Hounsell asked Glenn Kessler, the author of the WaPo article, to respond to Cirincione. Part of his response seemed strange to me:
No one tried to wave us off the story, including people who normally I thought would have tried their best to prevent us from printing it.But who would have not wanted this printed? Certainly none of those who are drumming for more war in the Middle East. The people in this government who like to keep things secret are the very same ones who would like an excuse to bomb Iran. Certainly not those who think that bombing runs in that area and the cause for them are things that the American public should know. So, Glenn, who is it that might want this story kept quiet?
The Observer is trying to put the story together, too. This one seems to be the most credible to me. If Syria had a nuclear program, it was about at the level of Libya's: equipment in boxes, some of it not even unpacked. North Korea's nuclear test told the world that it's not ready to mass-market full-up nuclear weapons, so, even if it was a shipment from North Korea that provoked the Israeli attack, it would more likely have been equipment for a nuclear program than the ultimate threat to Israel.
The fact that Syria has said little about the raid suggests that something not so nice was going on at the facility that was hit and that the raid indeed inflicted the damage Israel desired.
Israel has a number of reasons to remain quiet. It may not want to give away information about the capabilities of its newest bombers. It may not want to inflame relations with Turkey, which was not so far away from the Syrian target. Or things may not have gone as Israel would have preferred, from malfunctions of their new bombers to mistaken intelligence on the target.
In the absence of clear information, John Bolton has made it a two-fer: North Korea is supplying Syria, so we must stop talks with them (although Christopher Hill is not following the neocon line) and it is an excuse for hitting Syria today, Iran tomorrow.
The Observer suggests that it was a dry run for an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear targets. DebkaFile, abandoning its usual run at the title for most sensational reporting, tends to support such an interpretation by suggesting that Israel was checking out the Russian anti-aircraft missiles recently installed in Syria, which have also reportedly been installed in Iran.
[Credit must be given to discussants at Strategy Talk, particularly Parvati Roma. Thanks.]
Update (9/17/07): Jeffrey Lewis constructs a timeline of the reporting.
Further update (same day): Hari's comment below reminded me of another factor: the Proliferation Security Initiative. If the strike indeed eliminated a shipment of nuclear equipment from North Korea to Syria, then the United States and its allies in the Proliferation Security Initiative would have wanted to intercept that shipment. That State Department link doesn't tell us which nations participate in the PSI, so we can't even guess if Israel was acting under its auspices. And, as in many other things, the Bush administration regards the activities of the PSI as secret, so that could be a reason for all the secrecy on Israel's side.
If indeed this was a PSI strike, one might think that that organization would like to trumpet its triumph. But you can't count on that with all that secrecy. However, most of the PSI interceptions so far seem to have been at sea, and if a North Korean ship suspected of carrying nuclear-related materials was being tracked, one might expect another interception at sea, rather than a more warlike bombing.
So I'd put a PSI interception low on the scale of probabilities. But with all that secrecy, you just don't know.