George W. Bush administration policy on Syria

Syria

An Analysis of the U.S.-Syrian Conflict

This paper will analyze the G.W. Bush Administration's justification for conflict with Syria and show how the disparate reasons of internal organs within the White House and those offered to the public by way of the national press suggest that an ulterior motive much broader in scope and ideological in nature was (and is) actually the basis for justification. In doing so, this paper will utilize Conflict Theory to help bring into perspective the opposing rationales that are presented throughout the analysis.

The Bush Administration had very clear reasons for initiating conflict with Syria, outlined by such neo-conservative think tanks as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) (members of which were highly placed in the Administration itself).

And yet when the American public was addressed by the White House those reasons were often marginalized in favor of more generic motives, such as humanitarian aid, the spread of democracy/liberty, and the suppression of suspected nuclear reactors and terrorism.

What then was the real policy of the Bush Administration with regard to Syria and why was it not presented as such to the American people by the Oval Office or the mainstream media? In consideration of the overwhelming amount of "faulty" intelligence used to justify U.S. invasion of Iraq, one must wonder at the underlying issues that truly led the U.S. To war in the Middle East (in general) and into conflict with Syria (in particular).

A brief outline of the Bush Administration's interest in Syria will help frame this paper's discussion. On 11 May 2004, President Bush issued for immediate release through the Office of the Press Secretary to the Congress of the United States the announcement "that I have issued an Executive Order (order) in which I declared a national emergency with respect to the threat constituted by certain actions of the Government of Syria."

In the same letter, Bush references the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SAA), which he signed into law on 12 December 2003, and which gave the U.S. The power "to effectively confront the threat to U.S. national security posed by Syria's support for terrorism, its military presence in Lebanon, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and its actions to undermine U.S. And international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq."

From such allegations, it may be surmised that the Bush Administration was neatly lumping Syria in with Iraq, Iran and Al-Qaeda. The letter summarized the situation tersely with a regurgitation of PNAC ideology: "These policies by the Government of Syria directly threaten regional stability and undermine the U.S. goal of a comprehensive Middle East peace."

In the light of independent journalists and alternative media (as well as the PNAC papers themselves), the line could easily be interpreted to read: Syria undermines the U.S. goal of American hegemony in the Middle East. And yet to assert that U.S. interests are independent of any other nation's interests would be to leave out a major source of influence to the Bush Administration's foreign policy: Israel.

The Importance of Syria

Alfred B. Prados reasserts the basic neo-conservative perspective of Syria and its role in the Middle East when he states that the country's importance may be seen in "the course of Arab-Israeli talks; questions of arms proliferation; Syrian connections with terrorist activity; Syria's role in Lebanon; and Syria's opposition to the U.S. occupation in Iraq."

Each of these is a standard neo-conservative talking point, which makes it no surprise when Prados next considers Syria's importance in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict: "Since the outbreak of fighting between Israeli military forces and the militant Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah organization on July 12, 2006, U.S. officials have increased their criticism of Syria's political and logistical support for Hezbollah."

And here is the crux of the matter, according to Prados: "U.S. officials and Members of Congress have blamed Syria for acting as a conduit for the transfer of rockets and other arms to Hezbollah units, thereby enabling Hezbollah units to engage in military action against Israeli targets."

The importance of Syria to the neo-conservative position (which is essentially the position of the Bush Administration) is thus made clear: Syria is influencing Lebanon against Israel; thus, Syria is an enemy. Israel's well-being is at the heart of the neo-conservative agenda. One should not wonder at Prados' allegiance: he refers to Lebanese forces as "militant" -- but not Israeli forces, which could just as easily be classified so.

Historical Background

In the first half of the 20th century, Syria saw its independence both established (by King Faisal) and taken away (by the League of Nations) and placed under French mandate. Syria revolted against French occupation. A 1936 treaty would have made Syria a republic and given it independence once more; but it was not until the Free French movement of WWII and a vote of Syrian authority in 1943 that the country actually began to be governed by itself. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad of the Baath Party was installed following a coup. In 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad, already groomed for the position since the death of his brother (the former heir-apparent), took control of Syria. Since his rise to power, Bashar al-Assad has worked closely with Lebanon and demonstrated a preference for Iran over Israel.

The Current Uprising and U.S. Concern

The 2011 Syrian "uprising" is being touted as an extension of the so-called Arab Spring.

Assad is portrayed as a murderous tyrant, who has begun to slay his own people. Again, the U.S. is pictured as the hero of humanitarian aid, democracy, liberty, etc., thwarted only by the intervention of Russia and China whose vetoing power has blocked UN from adopting any resolutions.

In 2011, President Obama (with what is essentially the same Bush Administration just with a new face and name) ordered sanctions against Syria, designed to curtail the country's "use of violence against its people and begin transitioning to a democratic system that protects the rights of the Syrian people."

And yet, as shall be shown in the following narrative, evidence contradicts U.S. accusations that Assad is massacring his own people.

Syria's Resources, Policy towards the U.S. And Foreign Policy Goals

Syria's resources have much to do with its placement in the geo-political realm of the Middle East. As Ryan Dawson observes, "Syria signed off on a $10 billion pipeline deal that breaks the BTC monopoly of Turkey and Israel. And Syria holds Russia's last naval base on the Mediterranean."

In other words, Syria is geographically situated to block Israeli control of oil pipelines in the Middle East and help opposition to the West. Pepe Escobar states that "virtually all current geopolitical developments are energy-related."

Essentially, Syria is another domino in "Eurasian integration" -- and control of the integration appears to be a source of conflict between the East and the West: indeed, "keeping Russia, an energy powerhouse, from developing bonhomie with the oil-rich Persian Gulf oligarchies has been a priority in Western strategies through the past several decades."

Nonetheless, Syria has tried to maintain an amicable relationship with the U.S. The relationship became severely strained in 2005 following the Bush Administration's accusations that Syria was aiding terrorists.

Syria has attempted to work with the U.S., but as Alfred Prados notes, as long as Assad remains anti-Israel, it remains an obstacle for the Project for the New American Century -- which is one reason Secretary of State Clinton is pushing for regime change in Syria. Syria's stance, however, remains the same as it was during the Bush Administration: then as now, Assad "derided U.S. claims of creating a new Middle East and warned that 'future generations in the Arab world will find a way to defeat Israel.'"

Conflict Theory

Though most often associated with Marxist theory, Conflict Theory provides the most pertinent perspective for this study because it is so fundamentally critical of the socio/geo-political system under analysis. Conflict Theory enables the researcher to perform a macro-evaluation of the ideologies that underpin America's war on terror. Because it is not a one-sided war, it goes without saying that there are competing ideologies, which are at odds with one another. What makes this study all the more compelling is that the ideology promoted by the U.S. is only skin-deep; below the surface of the "pro-democracy, pro-freedom, anti-terrorism/nuclear armament" ideology is a geo-political ideology intimately linked to Israel by way of the neo-conservative groups in Washington. This ideology is plainly exposed by independent journalists and alternative media sources around the world, but is massively covered-up by American mainstream media outlets. Not only are these two ideologies opposed to one another (a pro-democracy, pro-freedom, anti-terrorism ideology cannot readily be anti-democratic, anti-freedom, and pro-terror at the same time -- which is, ironically, essentially how Conflict Theory allows the U.S. To be seen), but the ideology of the enemy, which in this case is Syria, is painted by the West in a light that does not necessarily reflect the reality.

Thus, Conflict Theory pulls together the opposing ideas in order to arrive at a better understanding of the truth or reality of a situation. As this paper has already implied, U.S. policy concerning Syria is only the tip of an iceberg -- as Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has intimated, and as the PNAC papers and President G.W. Bush himself have blatantly revealed. Yet, the Bush Administration continually relied on scare tactics, bogus intelligence, and empty nationalistic slogans to offer to the American public a justification for its opposition to Syria.

Conflict Theory is also the most logical perspective from which to perform this analysis, since one of the founders of modern Conflict Theory, C. Wright Mills was himself a critic of the military-industrial complex, which is certainly a dominant player in today's geo-politics: as Peter Hazard Knapp observes, "Mills had argued that power was becoming concentrated in the hands of the giant corporations and the Pentagon."

Again, Conflict Theory allows this paper to posit the hypothesis that the Bush Administration's conflict with Syria is part of a neo-conservative agenda within the military-industrial complex situated in the Pentagon and Oval Office to gain an American-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East -- through (among other tactics) destabilization, covert operations, false flag terrorism, media manipulation, and the pursuance of a neo-conservative ideology.

The Actors and Events

The most prominent figures in the Bush Administration were President G.W. Bush himself, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (succeeded by Robert Gates), and Secretary of State Colin Powell (succeeded by Condoleeza Rice). The major events of the Bush Administration may be identified as 9/11 retaliation; the Patriot Act; the creation of Homeland Security; Afghanistan, the hunt for Bin Laden; the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the following sanctions against Syria and Iran.

The national media trumpeted the Administration's justification for each event. It was, however, the work of independent journalists and investigators, like Joseph Wilson, former U.S. diplomat, whose op-ed in the New York Times exposed a massive misinformation campaign within the Bush Administration, which led to Scooter Libby's (Assistant to the President, among other roles) indictment on charges of leaking the covert identity of Wilson's wife CIA agent Valerie Plame (outed in retaliation for Wilson's expose).

The fact that Saddam's alleged purchase of yellow cake uranium in Niger was a total fabrication and that the evidence for WMDs in Iraq also turned out to be a myth led to Powell's resignation and replacement by Rice. Despite this hic-cup, the plan for "Middle East peace" continued -- and a very violent peace it has proven to be.

Pressure on Syria was considerably increased in the wake of Rafic Hariri's assassination. Hariri was the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, whose Syrian support had been dropped in favor of his political rival President Lahoud. Because Syria now favored his rival, "Hariri was poised to lead an anti-Syrian front in the upcoming parliamentary elections in May."

That the U.S. could not support its accusations against Syria with any evidence did not stop the International community from condemning Syria. In 2005 Patrick Buchanan outlined the power play between Syria and Israel for control of Lebanon. He made it very clear that Lebanon was just one more domino connected to Syria. But Buchanan had already been marginalized in the political world, as chairman of PNAC William Kristol proudly boasted in May 2012.

Thus, the American mainstream media, which has served as little more than a talking head for the Pentagon, gave more air time to condemnations of Syria than to any other possible perspective on the situation.

The problem with such an obviously biased interpretation of events is two-fold: it drums up support for a war that may be just or unjust (but is not debated by Congress) and simultaneously causes distrust among Americans who see the drumming as a dishonest attempt at hegemony. In other words, by stifling any conflicting opinion, the Pentagon virtually assures a conflict surge in domestic opinion (since no conflict resolution is even remotely sought). This problem is intimately related to the main force behind the White House, which is no different today than it was during the Bush Administration: it should be termed the Neo-Conservative Party, but it is roundly known today as the Republican Party. Thus, Conflict Theory is exercised in hopes of promoting conflict resolution. It will now be used to explore the other rationales for conflict with Syria that go unaired.

Critical Analysis

The actors and events that took place behind the scenes are not well-known by all -- but their contributions to the Bush Administration cannot be over-emphasized. Some of the most influential actors behind the scenes of PNAC's blueprint for U.S. intervention in the Middle East (called "Rebuilding America's Defenses") were William Kristol, Chairman of PNAC; Robert Kagan, co-founder of PNAC; Richard Perle, member of the Defense Policy Board and of PNAC; Elliot Abrams, member of Bush's National Security Council (indicted for lying to Congress during the Iran/Contra scandal) and signatory of the PNAC policy; Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense, former president of Halliburton, Vice President of the United States during the Bush Administration and signatory of the PNAC policy; Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's Undersecretary of Defense and signatory of the PNAC policy. Each of these men (and more) played a decisive role in engineering America's foreign policy in the 21st century.

As Philip Weiss reports, William Kristol not only guided PNAC (which in turn guided the Bush Administration), he also reshaped the Republican (and formerly conservative) Party to meet the agenda of the neo-conservatives: "[Kristol] is a Republican Party warlord…[boasting that] all the elements hostile to Israel inside the Republican Party were purged over the last 30 years…[stating]: 'I've encouraged that they be expelled or not welcomed into the Republican Party. I'd be happy if Ron Paul left. I was very happy when Pat Buchanan was allowed…to go off and run as a third-party candidate.'"

Meanwhile, Thomas Donnelly, principal author of PNACs "Rebuilding America's Defenses," stresses the importance of funding the military-industrial complex by lamenting that "the 1990s have been a 'decade of defense neglect.'"

The subsequent hyping of defense building fed into the media-fueled belief that national security (following 9/11) was at risk. The absurdity of a weak U.S. national security has been contradicted by nearly every alternative media outlet and independent journalist in operation today -- one of the more famous being James Corbett of Boiling Frogs Post and the Corbett Report, whose "9/11: A Conspiracy Theory" eviscerates the idea of the U.S. being caught, so to speak, "with its pants down."

The reality of the build-up to war (even before 9/11) is clearly shown by Paul O'Neill (former Treasury Secretary for the Bush Administration) -- and 9/11 provided the perfect pretext for war and the initiation of the Project for the New American Century. According to Rebecca Leung, Paul O'Neill's depiction of "what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of (his) most startling revelations: 'From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration -- eight months before Sept. 11."

O'Neill, however, simply echoes what the PNAC papers already show: a serious plan for hegemony in the Middle East, which simply needed a pretext for war.

The Bush Administration's approach to dispelling doubts about its conflict in the Middle East is adequately illustrated in its handling of conflict with Syria: accuse first, ask questions later. By depicting Assad as a totalitarian and (now) genocidal dictator, the Bush Administration (backed by the neo-conservatives) attempted to monopolize the court of public opinion. However, in attempting to crush all conflict to the outline for "Middle East peace," the U.S. has clearly shown (through sanctions, war, and the support of terrorism) that peace is not the ultimate goal, but hegemony. The fact that the Bush Administration failed to offer any real evidence to justify its invasion of Iraq or any real evidence to justify its condemnation of Syria simply opens the door for other possible interpretations for its motive in the Middle East. Israel (along with the military-industrial complex) supplies the motive; the PNAC papers supply that plan; the Pentagon supplies the means; and the media provides the justification. And yet, the alternative media (which includes independent Western journalists as well as non-Western media outlets) supplies the conflict. The U.S. faces more and more scrutiny as a result of its attempt to justify its actions. As for the Bush Administration, President Bush (and now Obama) was forced to act more and more like the kind of dictator typically condemned by Western media: acts of war, too numerous to count, were committed without the approval of Congress -- as Ron Paul has consistently shown and denounced.