Atlas Shrugs

Obama Woos State Sponsor of Terror, Syria - Lifts Ban on Air Industry

In Obama's continuing quest to slake the bloodlust of despots and dictators:

Obama. Woos Damascus by Easing Export Ban - Jay Solomon
U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell told Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Sunday that the U.S. has decided to ease sanctions on spare aircraft parts, information-technology products and telecommunications equipment, sales of which had been restricted. The move represents the latest action in a rapidly accelerating rapprochement between Washington and Damascus. While U.S. officials said Monday that the move doesn't mark a formal lifting or easing of sanctions on Damascus, the president will use his waiver authority under congressionally mandated sanctions to aid purchases of U.S. products deemed important to the welfare of the Syrian people. (Wall Street Journal)

Will Obama Bow to Syria, too?

Over at JW:

Syria has been on the list of State Sponsors of Terror since 1979. Bush removed our ambassador in 2005 because of Syria's murderous meddling in Lebanon and its support of Hamas and Hizballah -- and what has changed since then?

Another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert: "Syrian envoy: 'US lifts ban on air industry,'" from the Jerusalem Post,

What's changed? Only that their evil agenda has advanced -- an advance made possible by the sanction of the West. From March 20th: SYRIAN REACTION TO OBAMA: JIHAD CHANGED THE WORLD, NOT OBAMA

Syrian Reactions to Initial Contacts with Obama Administration: The U.S. has Capitulated to Syria and Iran; The Resistance, Not Obama, has Changed the World

• Introduction
• Syrian Reactions to Renewal of Dialogue with U.S.: Syria has No Intention of Changing Its Policy and will Continue to be Part of Resistance camp; It is the U.S. that Must Change Its Policy
• Assad's Political Advisor: "It is Time to Stop Telling Syria and Iran to Sever Their Relations with Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Other Resistance Organizations"
• Former Syrian Minister: Three Scenarios for U.S.–Syria Cooperation
• Syria's Demand for Fundamental Changes in U.S. Policy
• The U.S. has Capitulated to Syria and Iranl
• Former Syrian Minister: "We Can Not Believe that the [Obama] Administration Suddenly Discovered Moral Sentiments or Positions that Prompted the Turnaround [in Its Attitude]"
• Damascus and Tehran Are No Longer Seen as Two Separate Players
• Lebanese Columnist Writing in Teshreen: Whoever Bets on the Resistance Withdrawing from Its Decisions – Ends Up Losing Again and Again
• The Obama Administration Will Not Help Improve U.S.-Syrian Relations
• Notes

It's pathetic:

In a Teshreen article, former Syrian information minister Mahdi Dahlallah reviewed the points of agreement and controversy between Syria and the U.S., and presented several scenarios for cooperation between them:

"Syria and Washington agree on three things: on terrorism, on peace, and on weapons of mass destruction. They disagree on three things: on terrorism, on peace, and on weapons of mass destruction...

"[As for] terrorism, Syria's position is that the most significant terrorism in the region is [perpetrated by] the state of Israel, whose barbarism and brutality are beyond anything that human history has ever known. Then there is the terrorism of the groups that engage in takfir [i.e., accuse others of heresy, such as Al-Qaeda]… The foundation of [Syria's] position is a total rejection of the deliberate confusion between resistance and terrorism. The U.S., on the other hand, regards the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance as the source of terrorism, and sees anyone who supports them as responsible for terrorism. This is a fundamental difference in the positions of the two countries. However, there is agreement regarding the designation of the takfir groups – especially Al-Qaeda and its offshoots – as terrorist [organizations]…

"[Regarding the issue of] peace, Syria's position is clear. [It is in favor of a] comprehensive peace based on the [U.N. resolutions]… The U.S. must play an active and meaningful role [in this process], since Israel will not accept peace willingly, [but will agree to it] only if coerced. Washington, on the other hand, thinks that the peace agreement must be bilateral, and that its only role should be that of an impartial mediator… Washington believes that pressure must be exerted on the Arabs, but that exerting pressure on Israel is almost unthinkable…

"[Last, as for] WMDs, Syria is cognizant of Israel's dangerous nuclear arsenal, while the U.S. sees [only] Iran's so-called nuclear program. This is the greatest point of disagreement between the two sides…

"There are three practical scenarios for cooperation [between Syria and the U.S.]:

"1. Placing the bilateral relations and cooperation above the regional issues. There is no doubt that a positive atmosphere in the bilateral relations [between the U.S. and Syria] would lead to greater understanding on the regional issues. The problem is that, so far, Washington [has insisted] on linking the bilateral relations with the regional issues.(23)

"2. Agreeing that Syria should mediate between Iran and the West…

"3. A change in the U.S. position vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict (a remote possibility)."(24)

Syria's Demand for Fundamental Changes in U.S. Policy

Assad invites Obama to Damascus: Assassins, Terrorists, Honor Killers

It is increasingly clear that the US president feels at home with brutality. More and more it defines his presidency. Last week, WND ran my OpEd piece Will Obama Bow to Syria too? Apparently, he will. Watch the video; this is no accident. This is a set up. Obama was well aware of the invitation previous to Assad's spontaneity on the tarmac. There are no accidents when it comes to Obama and Islamic terror regimes.

Assad invites Obama to Damascus
Syrian President Bashar Assad has invited his American counterpart Barack Obama to a summit in Damascus. Assad told Sky News late Thursday, "We would like to welcome him in Syria, definitely. I am very clear about this." When asked whether this could happen soon, the Syrian leader replied: "That depends on him…I will ask you to convey the invitation to him."

Obama plans to huddle with the most vile regimes on earth. I am sure Obama will welcome this invitation from the State sponsor of terror. He talks of our moral authority and fundamental values.

Horrible news. Syria is Hezballah's ally, a criminal regime that executes duly elected leaders in neighboring countries. A regime that murders journalists in other countries. A country that oppresses its people and sanctions the murder of its women. Obama's latest partner in the planned genocide of the Jews. Israel's worst nightmare.

“Syria amends honour killing law”

Syria has scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences handed down to men convicted of killing female relatives they suspect of having illicit sex.

[....]

The new law replaces the existing maximum sentence of one year in jail with a minimum jail term of two years.

Justice Minister Ahmad Hamoud Younis said the change was made by the decree of President Bashar al-Assad, following a recent increase in "wife-killings... on the pretext of adultery".

The new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour "provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing".

The legislation covers any man who "unintentionally" kills his wife, sister, daughter or mother after catching her committing adultery or having unlawful sex. It also covers cases where the woman's lover is killed.

Reports say women's rights activists have given a cautious welcome to the change, with one group calling it a "small contribution to solving the problem".

Their objection remains, however, that the new law still apparently invites men to murder women if they catch them having sex or suspect them of doing so.

Obama, cozying up to Assad? Will he side with evil again? Rhetorical.

Pamela Geller, World Net Daily: Will Obama Bow to Syria, too?

Will Obama bow to Syria, too?

Exclusive: Pamela Geller predicts U.S. leadership may befriend terror sponsor

SYRIAN REACTION TO OBAMA: JIHAD CHANGED THE WORLD, NOT OBAMA

Imagine, we have to go down with this yutz.

Syrian Reactions to Initial Contacts with Obama Administration: The U.S. has Capitulated to Syria and Iran; The Resistance, Not Obama, has Changed the World

• Introduction
• Syrian Reactions to Renewal of Dialogue with U.S.: Syria has No Intention of Changing Its Policy and will Continue to be Part of Resistance camp; It is the U.S. that Must Change Its Policy
• Assad's Political Advisor: "It is Time to Stop Telling Syria and Iran to Sever Their Relations with Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Other Resistance Organizations"
• Former Syrian Minister: Three Scenarios for U.S.–Syria Cooperation
• Syria's Demand for Fundamental Changes in U.S. Policy
• The U.S. has Capitulated to Syria and Iranl
• Former Syrian Minister: "We Can Not Believe that the [Obama] Administration Suddenly Discovered Moral Sentiments or Positions that Prompted the Turnaround [in Its Attitude]"
• Damascus and Tehran Are No Longer Seen as Two Separate Players
• Lebanese Columnist Writing in Teshreen: Whoever Bets on the Resistance Withdrawing from Its Decisions – Ends Up Losing Again and Again
• The Obama Administration Will Not Help Improve U.S.-Syrian Relations
• Notes

It's to vomit from:

In a Teshreen article, former Syrian information minister Mahdi Dahlallah reviewed the points of agreement and controversy between Syria and the U.S., and presented several scenarios for cooperation between them:

"Syria and Washington agree on three things: on terrorism, on peace, and on weapons of mass destruction. They disagree on three things: on terrorism, on peace, and on weapons of mass destruction...

"[As for] terrorism, Syria's position is that the most significant terrorism in the region is [perpetrated by] the state of Israel, whose barbarism and brutality are beyond anything that human history has ever known. Then there is the terrorism of the groups that engage in takfir [i.e., accuse others of heresy, such as Al-Qaeda]… The foundation of [Syria's] position is a total rejection of the deliberate confusion between resistance and terrorism. The U.S., on the other hand, regards the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance as the source of terrorism, and sees anyone who supports them as responsible for terrorism. This is a fundamental difference in the positions of the two countries. However, there is agreement regarding the designation of the takfir groups – especially Al-Qaeda and its offshoots – as terrorist [organizations]…

"[Regarding the issue of] peace, Syria's position is clear. [It is in favor of a] comprehensive peace based on the [U.N. resolutions]… The U.S. must play an active and meaningful role [in this process], since Israel will not accept peace willingly, [but will agree to it] only if coerced. Washington, on the other hand, thinks that the peace agreement must be bilateral, and that its only role should be that of an impartial mediator… Washington believes that pressure must be exerted on the Arabs, but that exerting pressure on Israel is almost unthinkable…

"[Last, as for] WMDs, Syria is cognizant of Israel's dangerous nuclear arsenal, while the U.S. sees [only] Iran's so-called nuclear program. This is the greatest point of disagreement between the two sides…

"There are three practical scenarios for cooperation [between Syria and the U.S.]:

"1. Placing the bilateral relations and cooperation above the regional issues. There is no doubt that a positive atmosphere in the bilateral relations [between the U.S. and Syria] would lead to greater understanding on the regional issues. The problem is that, so far, Washington [has insisted] on linking the bilateral relations with the regional issues.(23)

"2. Agreeing that Syria should mediate between Iran and the West…

"3. A change in the U.S. position vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict (a remote possibility)."(24)

Syria's Demand for Fundamental Changes in U.S. Policy
Read the rest and weep at the thought of the plant in the White House.

John Bolton on Iran's Axis of Nuclear Evil

When you listen to the garbage the O-bots and the left is spouting every day, all day, Bolton is like a frickin epidural when you are nine cm dilated and 80% effaced.

Bolton weighs in on the Iranian Defector who tipped Off the U.S. on the Syria Nuke Plant.

When I read the story of this huge intelligence failure I said worriedly, "This is  frightening. No one knew? What if this brave Iranian had not come forward, and if he came forward and revealed this to the Hussein administration, would they tell Israel?

What else is Iran doing that we don't know about?"

Obscured by the daily psy-op on the American people, Bolton explains the implications of the real story here, the huge story the media refuses to investigate. Certainly, the O-bambi  is not going to, he doesn't want to piss the mullahs off.

Iran's Axis of Nuclear Evil John Bolton Wall Street Journal

While President Obama's unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn't really this week's big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector -- Iran's former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari -- disclosed Tehran's financing of Syria's nuclear weapons program. That program's centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.

At this point, it is impossible to ignore Iran's active efforts to expand, improve and conceal its nuclear weapons program in Syria while it pretends to "negotiate" with Britain, France and Germany (the "EU-3"). No amount of video messages will change this reality. The question is whether this new information about Iran will sink in, or if Washington will continue to turn a blind eye toward Iran's nuclear deceptions.

Sink in? To what?

That the Pyongyang-Damascus-Tehran nuclear axis went undetected and unacknowledged for so long is an intelligence failure of the highest magnitude. It represents a plain unwillingness to allow hard truths to overcome well-entrenched policy views disguised as intelligence findings.

Key elements of our intelligence community (IC) fought against the idea of a Syrian nuclear program for years. In mid-2003, I had a bitter struggle with several IC agencies -- news of which was leaked to the press -- concerning my testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Syrian program. Then Sen. Joe Biden made the Syria testimony an issue in my 2005 confirmation battle to become ambassador to the United Nations, alleging that I had tried to hype concern about Syria's nuclear intentions. (In fact, my testimony, in both its classified and unclassified versions, was far more anodyne than the facts warranted.)

Key IC agencies made two arguments in 2003 against the possibility of a clandestine Syrian nuclear weapons program. First, they argued that Syria lacked the scientific and technological capabilities to sustain such a program. Second, they said that Syria did not have the necessary economic resources to fund a program.

These assertions were not based on highly classified intelligence. Instead, they were personal views that some IC members developed based on public information. The intelligence that did exist -- which I thought warranted close observation of Syria, at a minimum -- the IC discounted as inconsistent with its fixed opinions. In short, theirs was not an intelligence conclusion, but a policy view presented under the guise of intelligence.

How wrong they were.

Read it all.

Iranian Defector Reportedly Tipped Off U.S. on Syria Nuke Plant

This is  frightening. No one knew? What if this brave Iranian had not come forward, and if he came forward and revealed this to the Hussein administration, would they tell Israel?

What else is Iran doing that we don't know about?

Iranian Defector Reportedly Tipped Off U.S. on Syria Nuke Plant
A retired general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, former deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asghari, who defected to the U.S. in February 2007, revealed that Iran was financing North Korean moves to make Syria into a nuclear weapons power, leading to the Israeli air strike on Sept. 6, 2007, that destroyed Syria's nearly completed Al Kabir reactor, the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported Thursday. The article was written by Hans Ruehle, former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry. "No one in the American intelligence scene had heard anything of it. And the Israelis who were immediately informed also were completely unaware," he said.
    Israel sent a 12-man commando unit in two helicopters to the site in August 2007 to take photographs and soil samples. "The analysis was conclusive that it was a North Korean-type reactor," a gas graphite model, Ruehle said. Other sources have suggested that the reactor might have been large enough to make about one nuclear weapon's worth of plutonium a year. Israel estimates that Iran paid North Korea between $$1 billion and $2 billion for the project, Ruehle said. (AP/Fox News)

PRESIDENT HUSSEIN'S AXIS OF EVIL: SYRIA ........

Dark days, my friends, as the jihad president advances a frightening agenda.
President Hussein is realigning with despots and dictators. His new friend Syria is poised to transfer Iranian mobile anti-air missiles to Lebanese Hizballah (DEBKA)

Israel's government changeover catches its armed forces on a high war alert on two fronts – its southern border with the Gaza Strip and its northern borders with Lebanon and Syria, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported Feb. 6. Iran is deeply involved in both. The northern borders may be the more flammable, our military sources report, after Israel warned Damascus, through US, Egyptian and Turkish channels, that its delivery of scores of mobile anti-air missile systems to Hizballah in Lebanon would cross a red line.

Their possession would make Hizballah the first terrorist group in the world to be armed with an independent air defense weapon system.

What makes this terrible news all the more ominous is that it seems to have been given the green light by President Hussein. This is Syria. This is the Iranian proxy country that among its "achievements" are assassinations of cabinet ministers and journalists. Lebanon could never get out from under the malevolent meddling of Syria. There was a moment - of possibility - under Bush/Rumsfeld/Bolton, when Syria was held to account and Lebanon danced the Cedar revolution, but the left and the Islamists snuffed that out.

Syria is on the State department's list of state sponsors of terror.

Obama preparing to lift sanctions against Syria World Tribune

NICOSIA — President Barack Obama has decided on a new U.S. ambassador

to Syria and is expected to lift sanctions against a nation charged with aiding Al Qaida in Iraq and secretly building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance.

Diplomatic sources said Obama, in consultation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has asked Frederic Hof to become the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since 2005. The sources said Hof, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Middle East

Policy Council, agreed to take the post, Middle East Newsline reported.

"There will be an announcement very soon," a diplomat said.

This past Monday I reported here that the U.S. Department of Commerce agreed to sell plane parts to Syria.

President Hussein has been planning this for some time. He sent his advance team out to Syria back in June 2006:

Obama Adviser Leads Delegation to Damascus Eli Lake, NY Sun, June 2006

Zbigniew Brzezinski will travel to Damascus for meetings as part of a trip Syria's official Cham News agency described as an "important sign that the end of official dialogue between Washington and Damascus has not prevented dialogue with important American intellectuals and politicians."

[..]

Mr. Brzezinski's visit to Syria, a country President Bush has accused of arming terrorists and ordering political assassinations in Lebanon, is in many ways in keeping with a theme of the Obama campaign. The Illinois senator in August said during a Democratic debate that he would be willing to meet with foreign adversaries, earning a rebuke from Senator Clinton, a Democrat of New York, who said such an approach would be "naïve."

Next up? President Hussein will sanction a nuclear weaponized Iran.

PRESIDENT HUSSEIN IS SELLING TO SYRIA, STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR

Syria is on the State department's list of state sponsors of terror. So what the hell is going on? (rhetorical)

US Will Sell Syria Plane Parts INN (hat tip Somer)

(IsraelNN.com) A Syrian paper reported Sunday that the U.S. Department of Commerce agreed to sell plane parts to Syria. The parts will be used to repair two Boeing 747s which are currently out of use in the country.

Former U.S. President Bush had forbid U.S. commerce with Syria expect for food and medicines. The Obama administration has been more lax in its approach to countries which support terrorism.

RUSSIA TO OPEN NAVAL BASES IN SYRIA, LIBYA

So, while Obambi is kissing Syria's ass, making foreign policy speeches from Damascus, and forcing Israel to turn over Jewish land to Iran's proxy state, the Russians will be building naval bases.

Obambi is on a collision course with history.

Naval Bases Planned for Libya, Syria 19 January 2009 Moscow Times (hat tip Kenny via Skandenbeg at RedState.com )

 Russia has decided to establish naval bases in Libya, Syria and Yemen within a few years, a military official said Friday, in a sign of Moscow's growing foreign policy ambitions.

"It is difficult to say how much time it will take to create the bases for our fleet in these countries, but within a few years this will be done without question," the unidentified military official told Itar-Tass.

"The political decision on this question has been taken," the official said.

A Navy spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, said it was too early to name any foreign ports that could host Russian bases.

"There are negotiations conducted with foreign governments. Such publications [on bases] may have a negative effect on the way of these talks," Nogovitsyn said, Itar-Tass reported.

Analysts have said the Syrian port of Tartus could be revived as a Russian naval base. During the Cold War, the Soviet Navy had a permanent presence in the Mediterranean, using Tartus as a supply point.

National media have reported that opening a naval base in the Libyan port of Benghazi was among the main issues discussed during Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's visit to Moscow in October last year.

RUSSIA TAKES WAR TO THE MIDDLE EAST

I am watching my daughter lose the tennis finals but I saw this come across my news ticker and I had to post it via blackberry. Russia has re-emerged from its secondary status and seized its previous standing as treacherous superpower. Anyone watching the bloody aggression in Georgia could see a new era of Soviet aggression. Israel is America's proxy in the Middle East and if recent events are any indication, friends of the US do not fare well when our balls are to the wall.

The Russians put Arafat and the PLO on the map so we know where the Ruskies stand. Terrible, all of it
.
The balance of power is shifting rapidly (for the worse) will all but eliminate an Israeli raid on Iran..

Note the words "the West awaits". Yeah, that seems to be the norm,
now, to just WAIT around while the rest of the world makes their move.
We must be taking a page from the EU playbook

Big Russian flotilla led by Admiral Kuznetsov carrier heads for Syrian port
DEBKA  Exclusive Report

OBAMA'S TEAM MEETS WITH TERROR REGIME

More sedition from Obama's jihad loving, America hating group of advisers. Heading the delegation is notorious Jew hater Zbigniew Brzezinski, of course.

Expect a group of reformers and dissidents to be rounded up and arrested which is what always happens after senior US leftards meet with these savages.

Obama Adviser Leads Delegation to Damascus Eli Lake, NY Sun hat tip rut

WASHINGTON — A foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama is scheduled to arrive in Syria today as the leader of a RAND Corp. delegation.

Zbigniew Brzezinski will travel to Damascus for meetings as part of a trip Syria's official Cham News agency described as an "important sign that the end of official dialogue between Washington and Damascus has not prevented dialogue with important American intellectuals and politicians."

An assistant to Mr. Brzezinski, Trudy Werner, told The New York Sun yesterday: "He is leading a delegation for RAND and they will be in Damascus. It is a high-level delegation and they are meeting with some high-level people in the region. There is no shortage of issues in the Middle East to discuss as I'm sure you know."

Mr. Brzezinski's visit to Syria, a country President Bush has accused of arming terrorists and ordering political assassinations in Lebanon, is in many ways in keeping with a theme of the Obama campaign. The Illinois senator in August said during a Democratic debate that he would be willing to meet with foreign adversaries, earning a rebuke from Senator Clinton, a Democrat of New York, who said such an approach would be "naïve."

On August 24, Mr. Brzezinski, a one-time national security adviser to President Carter, announced in an interview on Bloomberg's satellite news channel that he was endorsing Mr. Obama, and he has been an adviser to the campaign since.

Appeasing these asshats, empowers them. Stop funding the enemy: Democratic Stupidity on Drilling Threatens Our Economy and our security!

North Korean/Syria Nuke Plant was Plutonium

What was the axis of evil planning for with a plutonium reactor in its arsenal?  They have "spectacular" on their march to the eventual second holocaust. Condi was against removing this plutonium reactor, the damage she has done and continues to do is unquantifiable.

The Islamic jihad axis has terrible plans afoot. Bolton was right, yet again.

How could we begin to consider removing the NORKS from the state sponsors of terror list? They are the nuclear engine of Islamic jihad.

Bombed Syrian Site was Plutonium Reactor American Thinker hat tip Van

You may recall the pinpoint strike last year by the Israeli Air Force against a building in Syria that no one was willing to go on the record saying what exactly was being built there.

Today, the CIA will go before Congress and reveal the not very well kept secret that the site was a joint Syrian-North Korean nuclear reactor that would have been capable of producing plutonium:

CIA officials will tell Congress on Thursday that North Korea had been helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, a U.S. official said, a disclosure that could touch off new resistance to the administration’s plan to ease sanctions on Pyongyang.

The CIA officials will tell lawmakers that they believe the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons but was destroyed before it could do so, the U.S. official said, apparently referring to a suspicious installation in Syria that was bombed last year by Israeli warplanes.

The CIA officials also will say that though U.S. officials have had concerns for years about ties between North Korea and Syria, it was not until last year that new intelligence convinced them that the suspicious facility under construction in a remote area of Syria was a nuclear reactor, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing plans for the briefing.

By holding closed, classified briefings for members of several congressional committees, the administration will break a long silence on North Korean-Syrian nuclear cooperation and on what it knows about last year’s destruction of the Syrian facility. Nonetheless, it has been widely assumed for months that many in the administration considered the site a nuclear installation.Just what were the NoKo's up to? It appears that because their plutonium reactor was shut down by agreement with the US and China that they were looking for another site to manufacture their bomb making materials. It is doubtful they would have given Syria any of the plutonium nor helped them build a bomb. But Israel simply couldn't take that risk which is why the site was bombed.

UPDATE: Obama's anti-Israel brigade strikes again: Obama’s Radioactive Potato

CONDI OPPOSED DESTRUCTION OF JIHAD NUKE FACILITY

Hey Condappeaser, perhaps if you destabilize a a unstable region ...... you'll stabilize it. :)

Jan sent this piece and added, "She is so screwed up that she thinks a nuclear Syria is not destabilizing but stopping them is.  Anyone want to guess why America hasn’t taken on Iran’s nuclear plans?"

Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel’s attack on Syrian nuclear site  Times online

A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.

Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with “jaw-dropping” evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said.

The Sunday Times revealed two weeks ago that Israeli commandos had seized samples of nuclear material, said to be of North Korean origin, during a daring raid on a Syrian military facility to prove to the Americans that an air attack was essential.

According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.

The nuclear samples seized by ground commandos remain unidentified, but defence and intelligence sources in Washington believe they may have been connected to uranium enrichment.

Ilan Berman, a Middle East expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, said: “The consensus is that Israel struck a nuclear facility and the probability is that it was linked to enriching uranium.”

There's more .... go

SYRIA AMASSING TROOPS ON iSRAEL BORDER

War is imminent and I pray that Israel responds with everything before it's too late. Hamas, rearmed and  flush with US cash, is preparing for war from Gaza, Iran is all nuked up promising the "elimination of Israel", Hezbos on the Southern border of Israel ..... and now Syria.

War Is Talk Of Syria And Israel Benny Avni NY SUN (hat tip edge)

Reports that Syria has stepped up its military presence near Israel's northern border have sparked increasing speculation on both sides that war may be imminent. Although some Israeli politicians are advocating negotiations with President al-Assad of Syria, the Israeli army deputy chief of staff said yesterday that retaliation against any nation that launches a war against Israel, the "strongest country in the region," would be "painful."

Syria has called up its reserve units and deployed them near the Israeli border after bellicose remarks by Israeli officials spurred concerns in Damascus, a London-based Arabic-language newspaper reported yesterday. Al-Quds al-Arabi did not specify which Israeli comments raised the alarm. The newspaper reported that Syria deployed its units to the Bekaa Valley, an area it said Israel would be most likely to attack.

On the face of it, Syria may have enough of a pretext to launch a military offensive this spring. although Israeli officials have never provided confirmation, a number of press outlets have reported that Israel bombed a nascent Syrian nuclear facility in September. and next weekend Syria reportedly will release an official report on the assassination in Damascus of Hezbollah's operational commander, Imad Mughniyeh, which is likely to hold Israel responsible. However, yesterday's al-Quds report said Hezbollah, which is funded by Iran and Syria, would not retaliate over the killing of Mugniyeh, to avoid giving Israel a pretext for war. Syria and its chief ally, Iran, are not angling for a war, either, according to analysts. and with Israelis preparing for their country's 60th-anniversary celebrations in May, the public and the government are largely averse to war, as well.

Read it all.

ISRAEL ADMITS: THEY DESTROYED THE  NORKS PROVIDED NUKE BOMB FACTORY IN SYRIA

ISRAEL ADMITS: THEY DESTROYED THE NORKS PROVIDED NUKE BOMB FACTORY IN SYRIA

Finally after months of obfuscations, Israel admits the nuclear bomb making factory they took out near the Euphrates River in Syria back on September 6th was NUKES by NORKS. Why the reticence to tell freedom loving peoples the truth? Why is Olmuderer protecting the North Koreans, the Syrians and the Iranians? They promise the destruction of Israel.  Why shield their nefarious evil doings? Why not tell the folks the truth? This is a real axis of evil. North Koreans provided nuclear weapons to Islamic jihad?
John Bolton called it months ago. He was right. Again. d'oh. (check this out from October 2007: SYRIA'S NUKES: BOLTON RIGHT ALL ALONG

And why has Bush bailed on Nuclear North Korea?

Israeli Leader Confirms Syrian Nuclear Target NTI: Global Security Newswire (hat tip Josef)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared for the first time last month that an Israeli attack against Syria in September was intended to destroy a nuclear facility being built with North Korea cooperation, Asahi Shimbun reported today (see GSN, Feb. 22).

The nature of the desert target has been debated in the media, but Israeli officials had remained mum, confirming only that they had conducted the attack (see GSN, Jan. 17).

Olmert, however, provided the additional information during a Feb. 27 visit in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, according to Asahi.

“While we cannot confirm the facts, the fact that such an assertion was made at an official occasion such as a summit meeting is significant, making it highly credible,” said one Japanese Foreign Ministry official (Nanae Kurashige, Asahi Shimbun, March 31).

North Korean officials have consistently denied the accusation that they have proliferated nuclear technology (Xinhua, March 28).

Back in early March I wrote:

The Jews are not the problem. Nuclear armed Islamic regimes are the most frightening of all possible futures.

Deconstructing the utter mess we are in begins we de-nuclearizing the North Koreans. Bolton has a plan.... is anyone listening?

In the March 17th issue of the Wall Street Journal Ambassador John Bolton writes:

At a minimum, President Bush should not bequeath to the next president only the burned-out hulk of the Six-Party Talks, and countless failed and violated North Korean commitments.

David Gothard

Since they were conceived in spring 2003, the Six-Party Talks have stumbled around inconclusively. And for the last 13 months, Pyongyang has ignored, stalled, renegotiated and violated the Feb. 13, 2007 agreement.

Throughout all this "negotiation," which has mostly consisted of our government negotiating with itself, North Korea has benefited enormously. It's been spared the truly punishing sanctions that concerted international effort might have produced. In large part because of the appeasement policies of the two previous South Korean governments, Pyongyang has not felt the full impact of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) on its outward proliferation efforts. The U.S. has muzzled its criticism of North Korea's atrocious oppression of its own citizens. And, perhaps most humiliatingly of all, the U.S., in a vain effort at chasing the mirage, gave up its most effective pressure point -- the financial squeeze -- allowing Pyongyang renewed access to international markets through institutions like Banco Delta Asia.

In fact, the protracted Six-Party Talks have provided Kim Jong-il with the most precious resource of all: the time to enhance, conceal and even disperse his nuclear weapons programs. Time is nearly always on the side of the would-be proliferator, and so it has proven here. In exchange for five years of grace to North Korea, the U.S. has received precious little in return.

Pyongyang is now stonewalling yet again on its promise to disclose fully the details of its nuclear programs, including its uranium enrichment efforts and its outward proliferation. The successful Israeli military strike against a Syrian-North Korean facility on the Euphrates River last September highlighted the gravity of the regime's unwillingness to do anything serious that might restrict its nuclear option.

Nuclear arming of Islamic regimes. The worst of all possible scenarios.

President Bush should spend the next 10 months rectifying the Six-Party concessions and put North Korea back under international pressure -- efforts that would be welcomed by Japan, and South Korea's new, far more realistic President Lee Myung-bak. Here are the steps to take:

- Declare North Korea's repeated refusal to honor its commitments, especially but not exclusively concerning full disclosure of its nuclear programs, unacceptable. This is the easiest step, and the most obvious. It can happen immediately. Accept no further partial "compliance," as the State Department continuously tries to do. Make public what we know about the North's Syria project, and its uranium enrichment and missile programs, so our 2008 presidential candidates can have a fully-informed debate.

- Suspend the Six-Party Talks, and reconvene talks without North Korea. Although the talks could be jettisoned altogether, continuing them without the North allows Japan, South Korea and the U.S. to begin applying real pressure to China, the one nation with the capacity to bring Pyongyang's nuclear program to a halt. China has feared to apply such pressure, worried that it could collapse Kim Jong-il's regime altogether -- an accurate assessment of the regime's limited staying power. Nonetheless, the effect of Chinese reticence has been to preserve Kim and his nuclear program. It is vital that China know this policy is no longer viable.

- Strengthen international pressure on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Ramp up PSI cooperation with South Korea. Remind Russia of its own voluntarily-assumed obligations as a PSI core member. Remind China as well to comply with the sanctions imposed on North Korea by U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718 (which followed the North's 2006 ballistic missile and nuclear tests), and honor its other counterproliferation obligations. Tell them we will be watching with particular care, and that Chinese failure to increase pressure on North Korea will have implications in Sino-American bilateral relations. We can make this point privately to China rather that trumpet it publicly, but it should be made without ambiguity.

- Squeeze North Korea economically. Return the regime to limbo outside the international financial system, and step up action against its other illicit activities, such as trafficking in illicit narcotics and counterfeiting U.S. money. These and other "defensive measures" are nothing more than what any self-respecting nation does to protect itself, and the U.S. should never have eased up on them. Even now they can have a measurable impact on Kim Jong-il's weak and unsteady regime.

- Prepare contingency plans for humanitarian relief in the event of increased North Korean refugee flows or a regime collapse. Both China and South Korea have legitimate concerns about the burdens they would face if the North collapsed, or if increased internal economic deprivation spread instability. America and Japan should make it plain that they will fully shoulder their share of providing humanitarian supplies and assistance if either happened. Moreover, President Lee should increase pressure on Pyongyang -- by reiterating that South Korea will fully comply with its own constitution and grant full citizenship to any refugees from the North, however they make their way to the South.

Doubtless there are other steps. President Bush will not likely be able to solve the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Nonetheless, he still has time to implement policies that will allow him to leave office with the nation back on offense -- thereby affording his successor the chance to vindicate a return to the original Bush administration national security strategy.

John Bolton: It will be up to Israel to stop Iran

OT but related: Anybody know if McCain is talking to Bolton? I mean really.

 

Bipolar US Selling Syria Dual Use Tech

Why? What national interest could possible be served by arming Iran's proxy. Syria, murdered of Lebanese leaders and journalists. Syria, safe haven for Hezballah leaders. Didn't Israel take out a nuclear bomb making factory in Syria on September 6th?And btw Syria is rebuilding it's Nuclear Reactor.

This is madness.

U.S. sells Syria dual-use tech that could be used by Iran World Tribune hat tip Katherine

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has approved the sale of advanced dual-use computers to Syria

It's a major piece of equipment and is being given to an ally that could use it for military purposes as well as share it with Iran," an official said.

The export, disclosed by the U.S. television network Fox, was approved despite U.S. sanctions on Damascus of military and advanced dual-use systems. Syria, deemed a terrorist sponsor, has been in the same category as Iran and North Korea

Officials said the State Department has provided a license for the sale of advanced computers for a Syrian border surveillance program. They said the systems were being provided through a United Nations program that could significantly enhance Syria's military capabilities.

In 2004, President George Bush signed legislation to severely restrict technology exports to Syria, deemed a gateway of Al Qaida for the war against the U.S. military in neighboring Iraq. But the legislation allowed the president to waive sanctions on grounds of U.S. national security.

Only Half?

Ahmadinejad calling for the destruction of half of Israel. Is this perhaps a softened stance?A new kinder gentler poison dwarf?

Iranian Website: In Response to an Israeli Attack, Iran Can, With Syria's Help, Wipe Out Half of Israel MEMRI

Following reports on Israel's January 17, 2008 test of the Jericho III missile, which has a range of 4,500 km, the Iranian website Tabnak, which is affiliated with Iranian Expediency Council secretary and former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Mohsen Rezai, wrote that the missile's addition to Israel's arsenal does not change the balance of power between Israel and Iran.

The website stated that in the event of a conflict with Israel, Iran would use its strategic alliance with Syria to fire missiles at Israel from Syrian territory(1).  It also hinted that, in addition to assistance from Syria, any attack by Israel would also bring retaliation by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah(2).

Further, in an interview on Al-Jazeera TV, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the Israeli missile test, saying that "even before this missile test, the Zionist regime enjoyed this military technology, because of its support from several powers. But such measures will not improve its situation, and will not prevent its fall. The Zionist regime has lost the rationale on which its existence was based, and all nations identify it as criminal. Therefore, it will not achieve legitimacy for its existence through threats and sowing fear."(3)

The following are the main points of the Tabnak article:(4) 

"...The message to Iran from Israel's test of the new Jericho III missile is that this missile is, according to Israel, capable of travelling 4,500 km and striking any point in Iran. If these statements are true, then the Israelis have made several fundamental mistakes in sending [this] threatening message to Iran...:

"1. Iran's defense strategy towards any type of possible attack, by Israel or by the U.S., is based on [the assumption] that both are capable [of carrying out] a missile attack and an aerial attack on Iranian targets. Iran has never denied that Israel and the U.S. are capable [of carrying out] a missile or aerial attack on it.

"2. The fundamental assumption of Iran's strategy is that [even] if Israel did not have long-range missiles aimed at Iran, the U.S. would arm it with long-range strategic missiles as soon as it could.

"3. Any country determines, and deploys, its strategic missile launching system based on its geographical breadth. Accordingly, Israel automatically comes up against a difficult limitation: While Iran's area is 1,648,195 [square] km, the area of 'the regime that occupies Jerusalem' [i.e. Israel] is 26,323 [square] km, and if we subtract the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, [this area] shrinks to 20,150 [square km]. This means that [even] if Israel can fire 100 missiles a day at Iran, and hit 100 cities, Iran can [launch] thousands of missiles, and with them eradicate half of Israel. For this reason, the missile balance between the sides will end up in Iran's favor.

"4. In the event of an attack on Iran, if the Iran-Syria Joint Strategic Defense Agreement is implemented, Iran need not launch long-range missiles from its territory, [but rather] will be able to face Israel with a wave of missile attacks from [missiles with] a maximum range of 500 km, and with much higher explosive potential. At the same time, [even] if we leave out reciprocal attacks by the Islamic resistance in Lebanon [i.e. Hizbullah], Iran and Syria know very well that an attack on Iran will bring in its wake an attack on Syria, and that an attack on Syria will bring in its wake an attack on Iran – and that in both situations, the third target or the parallel [target] are the Islamic Resistance [organizations] in Lebanon and Palestine. If, prior [to such an attack], Iran employs joint defense measures, and arms itself with a missile defense system through cooperating with Syria, Israel will beyond a doubt receive a crushing response if it attacks Iran.

"5. [The placement of] Iran's missile sites is based on the doctrine of irregular warfare. Accordingly, neither Israel nor the U.S. can take out Iran's missile sites in a single surprise attack. For the same reason, Iran's strategic missile defense doctrine benefits from the advantage of [territorial] depth, particularly because Iran can use at least 400,000 square km of its territory as an effective area for aiming [its missiles] at Israel, since it has the benefit of mountainous topography, not a plain.

"6. In the past decade, Iran has focused on developing long-range missiles with a range of 3,000 km, in order to benefit from deterrent defense power in the face of any possible Israeli attack.(5)  The Israelis know that because [Iran's missiles have attained] a range of 2,500 km, they are in Iran's range of fire, and [they also know that] the shorter the missile's range, the greater its explosive power. For this reason, Iran's missiles have a very great explosive power.

"Therefore, it can be explicitly said that Israel's recent missile test, on January 17, changes Iran's missile defense balance [against Israel] not one whit, and does not impinge on a single one of its defense doctrines... For this reason, this missile test does not create a new situation or [new] result, in any arena of possible confrontation between Iran and Israel...

"Thus [it appears that] the real idea behind this Israeli missile test is psychological warfare [in order to affect] public opinion in Israel, and not psychological warfare against Iran."

HezBo IslamoSavages Crush Lebanon Democracy, Traffic in Jewish Body Parts

They got a set on 'em................. the only the the West is lacking in order to win. The Hezbos speak for Syia speak who speaks for Iran who serves their only objective  -- a world living a pax islamica. Get it?

Hizbullah Wants Veto in Lebanon - Hussein Dakroub
No president will be elected in Lebanon unless the Hizbullah-led opposition gets veto power in the future government, Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah declared Wednesday. "A solution lies in a partnership through a constitutional guarantee (and) through a veto power for the opposition," Nasrallah told Lebanese NBN television. He accused the U.S. of obstructing the presidential vote by telling its allies in the parliamentary majority not to give the opposition a veto power in any future government. (AP)

The Hezbo savages traffic in Jewish body parts. GIVE 'EM A STATE

Nasrallah: Hizbullah Has Bodies of Abducted IDF Troops - Yoav Stern

Hizbullah has in its possession the bodies of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers and has attempted to use them as part of prisoner swap negotiations, the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday. IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by Hizbullah militants in a cross-border raid into Israel that sparked the Second Lebanon War in 2006. (Ha'aretz) !

ARLEN SPECTER! PUT DOWN THAT BONG!

Specter: Syria wants peace with Israel AP
Syria's president is ready for peace with Israel, Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday after talks with the leader.

After he digests his morning mushrooms, he'll explain how the nuclear bomb making factory Israel took out on September the 6th was for peaceful purposes (yeah, a pax Islamica).

If Specter is a Republican, then I'm a Paulistinian.

UPDATE: Edward Cropper pulling some strings

SARKOZY CUTS TIES WITH SYRIA

“I will no longer maintain ties with Syria and order all my colleagues to follow suit.” We can wait no longer. Syria must stop talking and act."

Good move by Sarkozy. Very good move. Love is a good thing. Clears the mind.  Now let's keep him away fom Qaddafi :)

  France cuts relation with Syria until Lebanese president is elected Al Bawaba hat tip Rut
France will have no more contact with Syria until Damascus shows its willingness to let Lebanon end its current political deadlock and elect a new president, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday. France "will have no more contact with Syria ... until we have proof of Syrian willingness to let Lebanon appoint a president by consensus," Sarkozy told journalists following talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

France "wants a president for Lebanon," Sarkozy said, according to AFP.

 

Condi High Fives High Tech to Syria

I don't think the country can withstand another year of Condhimmi. She is off the rails. Fresh off giving the Pali Arab savages half a billion dollars today, Condangerous has okayed the transfer of high technology with military uses.  This is the same Syria that was building a nuclear bomb factory (with help from the soon to be removed from the US State dept's terror list, North Korea). The same Syria whose "fingerprints  were all over the car bomb on Dec. 11, which murdered the Lebanese army’s operations chief Gen. Francois El-HajjLock". This is the  same Syria behind all of the anti-Syrian assassinations in Lebanon.  Lock and Load has the whole thing here via Debka;

Condi OKs High Technology to Syria

The State Department has gone even further in instructing its UN mission not to veto a world body’s technological grant to Syria, for use in sophisticated surveillance equipment coming from the American Cisco Systems company. On orders from secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, the US department of commerce issued Cisco with a special export license for the equipment to be sent to Syria, in violation of Washington's owneconomic sanctions on Syria.
The routers, switches and other hi-tech items are usable for missile radar and other weaponry as well as for early warning apparatus and intelligence surveillance.

Syrian Islamazis Arabize US History

Don't you love when the Islamazis tell us about American history and what our forefathers really meant? And what Ben Franklin really intended? What does Syrian Cleric Muhammad Shit Ramadhan have to say about Haym Solomon? [Haym Solomon (or Salomon) (1740–1785) was a prime financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain. A Jew, he was born in Leszno (Lissa), Poland, the son of a rabbi.] Wikipedia

UPDATED Reference (thanks Surak :)

While supporting the national cause, Salomon also played a prominent role in the Philadelphia and national Jewish community affairs. He served as a member of he governing council of Philadelphia's Congregation Mikveh Israel. He was treasurer of Philadelphia's society for indigent travelers, and participated in the nation's first known rabbinic court of arbitration. Salomon helped lead the successful fight to repeal the test oath which barred Jews and other non-Christians from holding public office in Pennsylvania.

Within five years of his arrival in Philadelphia, Salomon advanced from penniless fugitive to respected businessman, philanthropist and defender of his people. He risked his fortune, pledged his good name and credit on behalf of the Revolution, and stood up for religious liberty. Despite financial setbacks at the end of his life, Salomon's name is forever linked to the idealism and success of the American Revolution, and to the contributions Jews have made to the cause of American freedom

 

Title of Video: Syrian Cleric Muhammad Sa'id Ramadhan Al-Bouti: Benjamin Franklin Called upon Americans to Deport Jews from the U.S. MEMRI VIDEO

Here's the transcript

Muhammad Sa'id Ramadhan Al-Bouti: We have no interest in war. We all dream about peace. But it is Israel that fans the flames of war, like Lyndon LaRouche said yesterday. I would like to conclude my speech by quoting the will that Benjamin Franklin read out loud to his American "sons" – but the sons and grandsons have torn this will to shreds.

In a speech that Benjamin Franklin delivered at the committee for the drafting of the U.S. constitution in 1789, he warned the committee, and the Americans in general, of the Jewish danger for America and the world.

While Kassams Hits Toy Factory in Sderot, Syria Slams Israel FM Livni

Low lives. Step in filth you can't get the stink off. Lay down with dogs, wake up with Syria

Syria Slams FM Livni as Kassams Fly by Hana Levi Julian and Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was roundly criticized Monday by Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister for her choice of issues on which to focus during the Annapolis conference.

Faisal Al-Mekdad made an effort, during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Damascus, to distance Syria from its participation in the summit by saying it was meant merely as a gesture of support for the concept of a just peace in the Middle East.

Al-Mekdad charged Livni with making statements that were "too vague" on the issues of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, Arab "refugees," permanent borders for a Palestinian Authority state and the status of Jerusalem. All are final-status issues that were to follow fulfillment by both Israel and the PA of the conditions detailed in the first and second phases of the American Roadmap peace plan.

[...]

Kassam Hits Toy Factory in Sderot

Two Kassam rockets were fired by Hamas terrorists in Gaza last night (Sunday). One hit a toy factory in Sderot, causing heavy damage and sending several people to be treated for shock.  The factory's employees were told not to show up for work today, because of the severe damage.

Within the past year, Gaza terrorists have added Grad missiles to their arsenal.  The Grad's improved range places the coastal city of Ashkelon, and its several strategic facilities, within reach.

Syria Govt: Columnist in Syrian Government Daily: "Bush, Fuehrer of the 21st Century"

From the nuclear bomb making, state sponsors of terror and invitee to Annapolis.

Columnist in Syrian Government Daily: Bush – Fuehrer of the 21st Century MEMRI

    In his column in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, Ghaleb Hassan Muhammad stated that the "American empire" is about to fall, and calls President Bush "the Fuehrer of the 21stt century."

The following are excerpts from his column:(1)

"George Bush, the Fuehrer of the 21st Century, is Falling Victim to the Deadly Disease of Hubris"

"It is important to have power, but it is more important to manage it correctly and [thus] benefit from it. Even a novice to politics and international relations can see very clearly that President Bush Jr.'s escapade in Iraq is a significant turning point that will go down in history as the beginning of the fall of the great American empire.

"Though the entire tyrannical media is mobilizing in a vain attempt to present the events [in Iraq] as the complete opposite [from what they really are], [eventually] it is geography that will [have the last word]. That is what happened to the great Roman Empire, to the British Empire, and to the French empire, in the tripartite attack on Egypt in 1956... This is also what history wrote on the death certificate of the Nazi beast – the Fuehrer – who in his day held every crucial [source of] power, and relied on [this power] as he set out to destroy part of humanity and conquer the rest, so as to turn them into slaves in the service of the 'Aryan übermensch'...

"Yes, that is hubris, the deadly disease of the mighty. And now George Bush Jr. – the Fuehrer of the 21st century – is falling victim to the same deadly disease of hubris. [This is] a failure to use and manage power [wisely].

There's much more. Go.

ANNAPOLIS & SYRIA'S NUKE BOMB FACTORY

Check this out. Inside intel shows the nuclear facility Israel took out on Septmeber 6th was  not a reactor but something far more vicoous. Why is the US and Israel covering for Syria. WTF? And why is Syria going to Annapolis insisting that the Golan Heights be handed over.

America  given tacit approval to separate  talks between Israel and Syria immediately after Tuesday's Middle East summit in Annapolis, Maryland. Syria has insisted that the Israeli Golan Heights be on the table for discussion as a precondition for taking part in the summit. How can  these nuclear bomb making state sponsors of terrorism be in any position to demand anything except to plea for mercy before much needed regime change.

Even more dangerous Haaretz

All these explanations and others lead Even to believe that what was destroyed was not a nuclear reactor. If this is the case, what was the purpose of the structure?

"In my estimation this was something very nasty and vicious, and even more dangerous than a reactor," says Even. "I have no information, only an assessment, but I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely a factory for assembling the bomb."

In other words, Syria already had several kilograms of plutonium, and it was involved in building a bomb factory (the assembling of one bomb requires about four kilograms of fissionable material).

SYRIA BLOCKS FACEBOOK

Try as they might they ain't never gonna keep the big wide world out. Not forever anyway. Have they accused facebook of being part of the worldwide neocon Zionist protocols of zion Jewish conspiracy yet? Give it 5 minutes.

SYRIA BLOCKS FACEBOOK MEMRI Blog

In a move angering many, particularly young people, Syrian authorities yesterday blocked the Facebook website.

No government body has explained the meaning of the move, but observers estimate that it was motivated by fear of Israelis infiltrating the Syrian social networks being formed by site members.

Source: Al-Safir, Lebanon, November 19, 2007

US REWARDS SYRIA HIGH TECH EXPORTS

A regime that assasinates Prime Ministers, leaders, journalists and imports NUKES FROM THE NORKS. We are given our technology. We ain't that fookin stoopid. WTF are we doing?

Have you given up yet?

U.S. Licensing High-Tech Exports to Syria Under U.N. Development Program

After years of harsh talk and escalating rounds of sanctions against Syria for supporting terror and seeking weapons of mass destruction, the United States is quietly supporting a United Nations program to supply the Syrian regime with sophisticated surveillance equipment and computers to monitor its borders.

That surreptitious support emerged in the course of a FOX News investigation that began after a surprise Israeli air strike on September 6 destroyed a mysterious Syrian facility that many experts believe was a North Korean-style nuclear reactor.

The gap between the Bush Administration’s anti-Syrian rhetoric and reality emerges in the book-keeping of the $5.2 billion United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s flagship development agency, which has come under heavy fire for its improper funneling of cash to the regime of North Korean dictator and nuclear proliferator Kim Jong Il.

WTF?

This time the issue is UNDP’s ties — and those of the U.S. and the European Union — to the Baathist regime of Syrian President Bashir Assad, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. for its sponsorship of international terrorism, destabilization of Lebanon and its shipping of terrorists and weapons to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Syria’s own ties to North Korea and its clandestine attempts to gain weapons of mass destruction were dramatically underlined on Sept. 6, when Israeli Air Force F-15s blasted the secret nuclear facility.

Jumblatt: Peace with Israel Means Death to Syrian Regime

Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt: Peace with Israel Will Mean the End for the Syrian Regime MEMRI

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on November 8, 2007. To view this clip go here.

Interviewer: Is it true that when Dennis Ross asked you what should be done, you said: "If you have car bombs, send them to Syria"?

Walid Jumblatt: Correct. I said this for a simple reason. Dennis Ross asked me: "What would you think if we engaged Syria?" I said: "I would have no objection. You were a negotiator back then, and you almost reached an agreement about the Golan in Geneva." There was a disagreement with regard to a few meters on the border – not the border of the French and British mandates from 1933-34, but the status quo border from 1948. Hafez Al-Assad almost got to swim in the Sea of Galilee, but he rejected [the agreement], because the principle of peace according to U.N. Resolution 242 means the end of the Syrian regime. What does the Syrian regime do, except operate through Lebanon and Palestine, and send terrorists to Iraq? They do nothing else, but the moment they accept peace, this regime is finished. Just for your information, I once heard from a senior Syrian official, whose name I won't mention, that high-ranking officers had approached Hafez Al-Assad and said to him: Where are you leading us? We can't bear peace. When we sign peace, we are finished."

TRIAD OF EVIL MEETS, PLANS

STOP FUNDING THE JIHAD, OUR MORTAL ENEMY!

Triad of Terror: PA Terrorists Meet With Iranian FM in Damascus INN

(IsraelNN.com) Officials from Palestinian Authority terrorist factions met in Damascus Monday with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Motaki to discuss the situation in Gaza and the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Mideast summit.

According to a member of the Iranian delegation who spoke on condition of anonymity, Motaki met with Hamas deputy politburo head Moussa Abu Marzouk, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and PA officials.

SYRIA'S NUKES: BOLTON RIGHT ALL ALONG

Larwyn sent these remarks from JMF, ...."And Condi didn't fight to keep Bolton..sigh. [....]You just cannot win with these people." Frankly Larwyn, not only did Condirasha not fight to keep  Bolton, this nation's greatest weapon, but I think she secretly worked very much against him, IMAO.

"Of course, back in 2003, John Bolton raised the specter of Syria developing nukes, but was dismissed by some in the intelligence community.

Apparently, he was right all along. The progress of the site in late 2003 also raises new questions about a disagreement at the time between intelligence analysts and John R. Bolton, then the State Department's top arms control official."

I assure you I will be addressing these questions with JtotheB on the return of my radio show, Atlas on the Air, November 5th.

NY Times Faults Bush on Syrian Nuke Program Jammie Wearing Fool hat tip Larwyn

In the summer of 2003, Mr. Bolton's testimony on Capitol Hill was delayed after a dispute erupted in part over whether Syria was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. Some intelligence officials said Mr. Bolton overstated the Syrian threat.

"There was disagreement about what Syria was interested in and how much we should be monitoring it," Mr. Bolton said in an interview yesterday. "There was activity in Syria that I felt was evidence that they were trying to develop a nuclear program."

I wonder who those intelligence officials are and whether they're man enough to step up and apologize to Bolton?

Yet Another Photo of Site in Syria, Yet More Questions By WILLIAM J. BROAD and MARK MAZZETTI
The mystery surrounding the construction of what might have been a nuclear reactor in Syria deepened Friday, when a company released a satellite photo from September 2003.

UPDATE: Speaking of Bolton. Congrats are in order: Ambassador John R. Bolton to Receive Valiant Freedom Award

Quote of the Day!
 

Syria Fesses Up to NUKES

 Nuclear Proliferation among the worst of players. I wonder if this is enough confirmation for the IAEA. Nah.

Syrian Confirms Israel Destroyed Nuclear Facility INN

(IsraelNN.com) A Syrian official has now admitted that the Israeli operation on September 6 destroyed a nuclear facility.

A Syrian representative said Tuesday at the United Nations that reports that the target was a nuclear device were accurate.  Syrian officials, including President Bashar Assad had previously claimed that Israel attacked an abandoned army base or an agricultural facility.

During a meeting of the UN Disarmament Commission, the Syrian representative acknowledged that the target had been the nuclear facility. Israeli Foreign Ministry officials were also attending. He accused Israel of aggression for targeting the facility.

Blowing Wide Open

New York Times reluctantly reports with their deluded spin;

Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state. The Bush administration was divided at the time about the wisdom of Israel’s strike, American officials said, and some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature.

The attack on the reactor project has echoes of an Israeli raid more than a quarter century ago, in 1981, when Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq shortly before it was to have begun operating. That attack was officially condemned by the Reagan administration, though Israelis consider it among their military’s finest moments. In the weeks before the Iraq war, Bush administration officials said they believed that the attack set back Iraq’s nuclear ambitions by many years.

Condi's Suicide Mission

Since North Korea detonated its nuclear device, Ms. Rice has prodded Mr. Bush toward a more diplomatic approach with North Korea

So then it worked. Testing a nuclear device brought Condi to her knees.

The following article is so disturbing, it's hard to know what to think (let alone sleep at night.) Clearly thinking has been abandoned by the policy wonks driving foreign policy.

It is inconceivable to me that they are still chasing unicorns and rainbows. Holy shiite.

An Israeli Strike on Syria Kindles Debate in the U.S. NY Times hat tip Wolf

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A sharp debate is under way in the Bush administration about the significance of the Israeli intelligence that led to last month’s Israeli strike inside Syria, according to current and former American government officials.

What's to debate? To be or not to be, that is the question.

At issue is whether intelligence that Israel presented months ago to the White House — to support claims that Syria had begun early work on what could become a nuclear weapons program with help from North Korea — was conclusive enough to justify military action by Israel and a possible rethinking of American policy toward the two nations.

The debate has fractured along now-familiar fault lines, with Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative hawks in the administration portraying the Israeli intelligence as credible and arguing that it should cause the United States to reconsider its diplomatic overtures to Syria and North Korea.

By contrast, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her allies within the administration have said they do not believe that the intelligence presented so far merits any change in the American diplomatic approach.

9/11 wasn't enough for Condi.

“Some people think that it means that the sky is falling,” a senior administration official said. “Others say that they’re not convinced that the real intelligence poses a threat.”

Several current and former officials, as well as outside experts, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the intelligence surrounding the Israeli strike remains highly classified.

Besides Ms. Rice, officials said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was cautious about fully endorsing Israeli warnings that Syria was on a path that could lead to a nuclear weapon. Others in the Bush administration remain unconvinced that a nascent Syrian nuclear program could pose an immediate threat.

Words lose their meaning. What denotes a serious threat. Climate change?

It has long been known that North Korean scientists have aided Damascus in developing sophisticated ballistic missile technology, and there appears to be little debate that North Koreans frequently visited a site in the Syrian desert that Israeli jets attacked Sept. 6. Where officials disagree is whether the accumulated evidence points to a Syrian nuclear program that poses a significant threat to the Middle East.

Mr. Cheney and his allies have expressed unease at the decision last week by President Bush and Ms. Rice to proceed with an agreement to supply North Korea with economic aid in return for the North’s disabling its nuclear reactor. Those officials argued that the Israeli intelligence demonstrates that North Korea cannot be trusted. They also argue that the United States should be prepared to scuttle the agreement unless North Korea admits to its dealing with the Syrians.

Uh, Mr. Cheney you can color me skeptical as well.

During a breakfast meeting on Oct. 2 at the White House, Ms. Rice and her chief North Korea negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, made the case to President Bush that the United States faced a choice: to continue with the nuclear pact with North Korea as a way to bring the secretive country back into the diplomatic fold and give it the incentive to stop proliferating nuclear material; or to return to the administration’s previous strategy of isolation, which detractors say left North Korea to its own devices and led it to test a nuclear device last October.

How in G-d's name does Bush sit there with a straight face and not bark, what fookin planet are you on? Isolation or sleep with dogs? Yeah, that's a tough one.

Mr. Cheney and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, also attended the meeting, administration officials said.

Poor Cheney. You know he was vomiting. "Yes Mr President, nukes in the hands of brutal despots can be a good thing!"

The Israeli strike occurred at a particularly delicate time for American diplomatic efforts. In addition to the North Korean nuclear negotiations, the White House is also trying to engineer a regional Middle East peace conference that would work toward a comprehensive peace accord between Arabs and Israelis.

Put down the bong.

The current and former American officials said Israel presented the United States with intelligence over the summer about what it described as nuclear activity in Syria. Officials have said Israel told the White House shortly in advance of the September raid that it was prepared to carry it out, but it is not clear whether the White House took a position then about whether the attack was justified.

Israel is responsible for her own security. They can not leave the question of their survival in the hands of an irresponsible , incapable US secretary of state .

One former top Bush administration official said Israeli officials were so concerned about the threat posed by a potential Syrian nuclear program that they told the White House they could not wait past the end of the summer to strike the facility.

Freaking frightening. The bomb has to drop in order for these asshats to be sufficiently threatened.

Last week, Turkish officials traveled to Damascus to present the Syrian government with the Israeli dossier on what was believed to be a Syrian nuclear program, according to a Middle East security analyst in Washington. The analyst said that Syrian officials vigorously denied the intelligence and said that what the Israelis hit was a storage depot for strategic missiles.

That denial followed a similar denial from North Korea. Mr. Hill, the State Department’s assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, raised the Syria issue with his North Korean counterparts in talks in Beijing in late September. The North Koreans denied providing any nuclear material to Syria.

And Hill believed the NORKS? Decades of proven lies. THIS is running our foreign policy?

Publicly, Syrian officials have said Israeli jets hit an empty warehouse.

Yea, right. That's what Israel put it all on the line for. An empty warehouse, makes sense. You gotta love how the NY Slimes reports it all with a straight face.

Bruce Riedel, a veteran of the C.I.A. and the National Security Council and now a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, said that American intelligence agencies remained cautious in drawing hard conclusions about the significance of the suspicious activity at the Syrian site.

Still, Mr. Riedel said Israel would not have launched the strike in Syria if it believed Damascus was merely developing more sophisticated ballistic missiles or chemical weapons.

“Those red lines were crossed 20 years ago,” he said. “You don’t risk general war in the Middle East over an extra 100 kilometers’ range on a missile system.”

Listen, Olmert is such a pussy, you know it had to be brink time.

Another former intelligence official said Syria was attempting to develop so-called airburst capability for its ballistic missiles. Such technology would allow Syria to detonate warheads in the air to disperse the warhead’s material more widely.

Since North Korea detonated its nuclear device, Ms. Rice has prodded Mr. Bush toward a more diplomatic approach with North Korea, through talks that also include Japan, Russia, South Korea and China. Those talks led to the initial agreement last February for North Korea to shut down its nuclear reactor in exchange for fuel and food aid.

Drop nukes, get goodies!

That deal angered conservatives who believed that the Bush administration had made diplomacy toward North Korea too high a priority, at the expense of efforts to combat the spread of illicit weapons in the Middle East.

“Opposing the Israeli strike to protect the six-party talks would be a breathtaking repudiation of the administration’s own national security strategy,” said John R. Bolton, former United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Knight on white horse unnecessary. These folks are on a suicide mission.

But other current and former officials argue that the diplomatic approach is America’s best option for dealing with the question of North Korean proliferation.

“You can’t just make these decisions using the top of your spinal cord, you have to use the whole brain,” said Philip D. Zelikow, the former counselor at the State Department.

But what is your brain is so far up your ass that it is deprived of the necessary oxygen to function oxygen to function Philip?

“What other policy are we going to pursue that we think would be better?”

Surrender is not an option ya big pussy.

UPDATE: Rick Richman has a must read piece today in the NY Sun: Condi's Road map

Condi is a disgrace

It is emerging that we knew for months, months, that there was a NORK nuclear site in Syria. We stopped Israel from taking out this most dangerous of all weapons. We are pathetic. Bush has gone over to the darkside.

High Level Debate Stalled Syria Air Strike U.S. Was Concerned Over Intelligence, Stability to Region, Officials Tell ABC News

The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States.

In early July the Israelis presented the United States with satellite imagery that they said showed a nuclear facility in Syria. They had additional evidence that they said showed that some of the technology was supplied by North Korea.

One U.S. official told ABC's Martha Raddatz the material was "jaw dropping" because it raised questions as to why U.S. intelligence had not previously picked up on the facility.

Officials said that the facility had likely been there for months if not years.

"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC military consultant Tony Cordesman.

U.S. Cautious After Flawed Iraq Intelligence

A senior U.S. official said the Israelis planned to strike during the week of July 14 and in secret high-level meetings American officials argued over how to respond to the intelligence.

Some in the administration supported the Israeli action, but others, notably Sect. of State Condoleeza Rice did not. One senior official said the U.S. convinced the Israelis to "confront Syria before attacking."

Officials said they were concerned about the impact an attack on Syria would have on the region. And given the profound consequences of the flawed intelligence in Iraq, the U.S. wanted to be absolutely certain the intelligence was accurate.

Initially, administration officials convinced the Israelis to call off the July strike. But in September the Israelis feared that news of the site was about to leak and went ahead with the strike despite U.S. concerns.

The airstrike was so highly classified, President Bush refused to acknowledge it publicly even after the bombs fell.

Life in Syria: where 1930s Germany meets Borat

Israel Blackout Lifted

Bolton called it. SHOCKA!

A Crack in Israel's silence  Kansas City

In a country notorious for talkative officials, Israel's silence on a recent air raid in Syria has been an anomaly. The official blackout lasted nearly a month, but it finally ended, partially, on Tuesday.

However, the slight easing of military censorship revealed little more than indirect confirmation of the Sept. 6 raid that even Syria's leader has acknowledged.

The uncharacteristic reticence reflects Israel's concern over deepening tensions and the danger of provoking an armed conflict with its northern neighbor.

Israel's little-used military censor has taken an unusually tough line on coverage of the incident, in which Israeli jets attacked a target in Syria on Sept. 6.

The information drought in Israel is such that the censor's seemingly tiny policy change Tuesday - permitting reports of the attack without appending the world "alleged" or crediting foreign sources - was the closest thing to a confirmation Israel has issued.

The announcement was widely seen as an official admission.

"Now it can be revealed: Israel attacked in Syria," read a headline on the Web site of the Maariv newspaper.

However, the censor's office insisted this was no confirmation. It also continued to block additional details, such as the target of the attack.

Foreign media reports since the strike, many of them quoting U.S. officials, have said Israel attacked an arms shipment to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon or a nuclear or missile installation built with North Korean help. Others said the mission was an attempt to gauge Syria's air defenses.

John R. Bolton, a former senior Bush administration official, said he had heard from U.S. and Israeli sources that the target was either a joint nuclear or missile facility with North Korea. Bolton is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Syria's Nukes: Whoops... there it is

It was nuclear. Bad dah bing, bah dah boom.

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid Times Online hat tip Jerry

Also from Sarah Baxter: Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid | Israelis 'blew apart Syrian nuclear cache' | Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike | Alan Greenspan: "Blair was clearly an aide to Brown"

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Go, read it all.

More evidence of North Korean Syrian connection  hat tip Larwyn

Related: Atlas Shrugs: The Brain: Bolton on Syrian Nukes
Atlas Shrugs: Syria's Nukes 
Atlas Shrugs: LIGHTENING BOLTON BACKS PRE-EMPTION
Atlas Shrugs: Iran/Syria Chemical Weapons Accident
Atlas Shrugs: Israel Struck Syria Nuke Sites
Atlas Shrugs: BOLTON: NORK NUKES IN SYRIA
Atlas Shrugs: Syrian "Cement" = Nork Nukes
Atlas Shrugs: ISRAEL BLEW APART SYRIAN NUKEPILE
Atlas Shrugs: Deja Nuke
Atlas Shrugs: NUKE NEXUS: North Korea and Syria
AtlasShrugs: Bolton:NORK Nukes in Syria
Atlas Shrugs: srael Struck Syria Nuke Sites.
Atlas Shrugs:olton: Nuke NORK meeting "profound mistake"
Atlas Shrugs: North Korea Firing Missiles
Atlas Shrugs: The North Korea Climbdown

Quote of the Day

Sean points out this excellent quote ;

"This is something that Israel will do again," an Israeli military intelligence official tells Inquirer. "But only if the Americans continue to approach this with eyes wide shut. We would prefer them flying alongside."

Yeah Sean, you're right. I loved it.

 

Syria's Nukes

It becomes increasingly clear that we are not paying heed to Ambassador Bolton's prescient warnings. He's been dead to rights all along. This from, of all places, The New York Times (here):

Israeli Raid on Syria Fuels Debate on Weapons MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER , NY Times

American officials are now sorting through what they say are Israel’s private claims that what their jets struck was tied to nuclear weapons development, not merely to missile production. So far, American officials have been extremely cautious about endorsing the Israeli conclusion.

Syria’s efforts to bolster its missile arsenal have been a source of worry for Israel for years, especially given Syria’s track record of arming Hezbollah fighters when they clash with Israeli troops. During the summer of 2006, Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group, fired hundreds of missiles at targets inside Israel from Lebanon, surprising Israeli officials with the sophistication of its arsenal.

And North Korean engineers are long believed to have helped Syria develop a sophisticated class of Scud missiles that have a longer range and are more accurate than earlier versions. According to GlobalSecurity.org, a defense research organization, North Korea has helped Syria develop the Scud-D missile, with a range of about 435 miles.

Whether Syria is actively pursuing a nuclear program has been the subject of fierce debate in Washington for several years. The dispute was at the center of the fight in 2005 over the nomination of John R. Bolton to become ambassador to the United Nations.

At the time, several intelligence officials said they had clashed in 2002 and 2003 with Mr. Bolton, then an under secretary of state, about the extent of Syria’s unconventional weapons programs. According to the officials, Mr. Bolton wanted to include information in a public speech about a Syrian nuclear program that could not be corroborated by intelligence agencies.

In recent interviews, Mr. Bolton has suggested that the Israeli strike may have partly vindicated his view.

ASSASSINATED IN LEBANON: ANTI-SYRIA LAWMAKER AND SIX MORE

When Bolton was at the UN we would hold Syrian accountable for their assassinations of Pro Lebanon political figures and anti-Syrian cabinet ministers,  journalists. But now that Condi and Co have unleashed Islam and given them all but a free pass, the barbarians are killing without fear of reprisal. The Islamazis can kill anyone they want, murder with utter abandon and the world yawns or speaks to some ambiguous humiliation. OTOH, the mere existence  of Israel is enough to sanction countless  murders of Jews and calls for the "removal of Israel."

Islam fully intends to remove the small Christian population of Lebanon and install Islamic rule.

BOMB KILLS ANTI-SYRIAN LAWMAKER Yahoo News

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A bomb rocked a Christian suburb east of the Lebanese capital Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker and six other people, security officials said.

Antoine Ghanem is the eighth prominent anti-Syrian figure assassinated since 2005.

Ghanem, 64, a member of the right-wing Christian Phalange Party, was targeted by the bomb, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The Voice of Lebanon radio station, which is owned by the Phalange party, confirmed Ghanem's death. The identities of the others killed were not immediately known.

The attack came six days before parliament was scheduled to meet to elect a new president in a vote expected to be deeply divisive.

Three of the slain lawmakers have been from the U.S.-backed majority coalition, reducing its margin in parliament.

[...]

The assassinations of anti-Syrian figures began with former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a massive car bombing in February 2005. Syria's opponents in Lebanon have accused Damascus of being behind the killings, a claim Syria denies.

His death sparked massive protests that helped bring an end to Syria's nearly 30-year domination of Lebanon. Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in 2005, and a government led by anti-Syrian politicians was elected.

They want back in and Hezbollah is their proxy.

Since then, the government of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has been locked in a power struggle with the opposition, led by Syria's ally Hezbollah. Government supporters have accused Syria of seeking to end Saniora's slim majority in parliament by killing off lawmakers in his coalition.

After the assassination of Parliament member Walid Eido in June, many majority legislators spent the summer abroad for security reasons. Others who stayed took extra precautions.

 

LIGHTENING BOLTON BACKS PRE-EMPTION

Boltn never ceases to be the voice of reason. Never. I am telling you, he's your war time President. No logical person could make a case for nuclear terror states. Muhamed El Baradei, a muslim and John Abizaid, "the mad Arab,"can't help themselves. They are inextricably tied to the Arab world, therein lies their loyalty.

Bolton, OTOH, speaks for every freedom loving, America loving individual. He speaks for the individual. Rand would have loved him.

Bolton: U.S. backs Israeli pre-emption JTA

A former U.S. diplomat said America would back Israeli strikes against neighboring nuclear aspirants.

The United States would stand behind any pre-emptive attack by Israel on neighboring countries believed to have nuclear weapons programs, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said in an interview published Tuesday in the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot.

Bolton's remarks following Israel's alleged air raid Sept. 6 in Syria is consistent with longstanding U.S. suspicions that Damascus had received nuclear material from North Korea.

Israel has not formally commented on the incident, which has stirred speculation that a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities could be next. Bolton said such actions would find support in Washington.

"The greatest concern is to prevent Iran and other countries in the region from acquiring nuclear weapons," Bolton said. "We're talking about a clear message to Iran -- Israel has the right to self-defense --and that includes offensive operations against WMD facilities that pose a threat to Israel. The United States would justify such attacks."

Related: Osirak II? Israel's silence on Syria speaks volumes.

Iran/Syria Chemical Weapon Accident

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

'Dozens died in Syrian-Iranian chemical weapons experiment' J Post hat tip yid with lid

Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

Safe to assume Peloshia and Ellison have no comment.

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas and VX gas.

The factory was created specifically for the purposes of altering ballistic missiles to carry chemical payloads, the magazine report claimed.

Reports of the accident were circulated at the time, however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.

The report comes on the heels of criticism leveled by the Syrains at the United States, accusing it of spreading "false" claims of Syrian nuclear activity and cooperation with North Korea to excuse an alleged Israeli air incursion over the country this month.

YidwithLid has more.

UPDATE: Excellent report over at NY Post: LETHAL WMD BLAST PROOF IRAN & SYRIA ARE IN CAHOOTS

The Brain: Bolton on Syrian Nukes

Bolton: Why would N. Korea protest Syria raid?

John Bolton to Post: North Korea, Iran may have outsourced nuclear development to Syria.

Read it all at the Jerusalem Post. Hat tip Josef

Amid reports in the American media that the alleged Israeli raid into Syria 10 days ago targeted a North Korean-Syrian nuclear facility, John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that "simple logic" suggested North Korea and Iran could have outsourced nuclear development "to a country that is not under suspicion" - namely Syria. Tellingly, he added: "Why would North Korea protest an Israeli strike on Syria.

RELATED

• Syrian envoy: Israel will pay for foray
• End Syria's isolation
• Rice: US trying to stop spread of WMDs

Bolton suggested that Syria, which he said has long sought a range of weapons of mass destruction, might have agreed to provide "facilities for uranium enrichment" on its territory for two allied countries which are being closely watched for nuclear development.

Bolton spoke as American newspapers reported that the alleged IAF raid, over which Israel has maintained official silence, was aimed at a facility in northern Syria close to the Turkish border, and that the strike may have been linked to the recent arrival of a shipment from North Korea, labeled as cement, but believed by Israel to contain nuclear equipment.

[...]

Asked why Syria would take the risk of hosting part of a North Korean nuclear program, Bolton spoke of "Iranian compensation" and noted that "Syria is very aggressive in pursuing WMD capability." He said such a partnership would indeed be risky for Syria, but such risks might be considered worthwhile "when you're as aligned as seriously as Syria is with Iran."

"It's a diversion game - to carry on even when you are supposed to have halted, as in the case of North Korea. And I'd be surprised if Syria would do anything with North Korea without Iranian acquiescence," said Bolton.

Bolton noted that North Korea had cooperated in the past with both Syria and Iran, on ballistic missile development. For instance, he said, in the late 1990s, after an international outcry, he said, North Korea halted test launches of such missiles, but Iran continued testing and shared the results.

Bolton said he was also struck by the "hesitant way" in which Damascus had complained to the United Nations Security Council. "They have not pushed as hard as I know they know how to do in New York for condemnation. They have still not explained the nature of the attack. If it had been an attack on a Syrian military facility or civilians, they would have no problem explaining."

Bolton said it was still possible that Israel had been targeting an Iranian arms shipment being transported through Syria to Hizbullah, as some initial reports suggested. But he noted that Hizbullah had already heavily rearmed, and thought it unlikely that Israel would therefore resort to the "serious proposition" of an air strike in Syria to stop another such shipment.

I love that man.

Related: U.S. Official Says Syria May Have Nuclear Ties with North Korea - Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper, NY Times

See also Syria Might Be Seeking Nuclear Weapons Technology through North Korea - James Rosen
U.S. intelligence officials have developed evidence showing that North Korea is helping Syria to develop a nuclear program for weapons purposes. One source told FOX News in late August that the North Koreans had sold the Syrians a nuclear facility, most likely related to uranium enrichment. (FOX News)

    See also The Links between North Korea and Syria - Michael Sheridan
Syria possesses the biggest missile arsenal and the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the Middle East, built up over the last two decades with arms bought from North Korea. North Korea, which exploded a nuclear device in October last year, has become critical to Syria's plans to enhance and upgrade its weapons. Earlier this year, foreign diplomats who follow North Korean affairs took note of an increase in diplomatic and military visits between the tw o.

UPDATE: Glick on The Axis of Evil

ISRAEL BLEW APART SYRIAN NUKEPILE

“This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said an Israeli source. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.”

Nobody's talking about this historical event, at least not in any major way. And the Islamazis aren't screaming about Israeli aggression. Hmmmmmmm. Perhaps because they are loathe to call attention to their North Korean provided nuclear facilities. Am Yisroel chai!

Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’  Times Online

Intense speculation that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea

• A tale of two dictatorships: The links between North Korea and Syria

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.”

The Syrians were also keeping mum. “I cannot reveal the details,” said Farouk al-Sharaa, the vice-president. “All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming.” The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism. Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.

But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?

Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?

According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.

The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles

It gets better. Read it all. Oh and La Shanah tova baby!

Related: Atlas Shrugs: NUKE NEXUS: North Korea and Syria
Bolton:NORK Nukes in Syria
Israel Struck Syria Nuke Sites.
Bolton: Nuke NORK meeting "profound mistake"
North Korea Firing Missiles
The North Korea Climbdown  

 

NUKE NEXUS: North Korea and Syria

Why the NORK/IRAN/SYRIA cabal is so very dangerous in very simple terms from the Wall Street Journal oped pages here.

A nuclear-armed North Korea is dangerous enough. A North Korea that shares its nuclear technology with other bad actors is worse -- especially if the partner-state is known to be cozy with terrorists. The potential nexus between WMD and terrorism is the biggest threat to the security of the U.S. and its allies.

So reports this week in the New York Times, the Washington Post and elsewhere that North Korea may be cooperating with Syria on some sort of nuclear facility are worth taking seriously. Syria has close ties with Iran and provides sanctuary within its borders for Hezbollah, a group that the National Intelligence Estimate released in July warns may be prepared to launch terrorist attacks against the U.S. Pyongyang has a long, well-documented history of sharing missile technology with Syria, and it is all too believable that sharing nuclear knowhow could be next.

Israel is said to be the primary source of the intelligence on a North Korean-Syrian nuclear connection. But neither Israel nor the Bush Administration has commented officially on this or another mysterious event -- Israel's flyover and apparent raid last week on targets inside Syria. Given the Administration's experience with prewar intelligence on WMD in Iraq, it's understandable that it would want to have solid evidence before going public.

Meanwhile, however, the six-party talks on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program have picked up steam, with Pyongyang promising to dismantle its facilities by the end of the year and the U.S. pledging to consider such goodies as fuel aid and removing North Korea from its list of terror-sponsoring states. U.S., Russian and Chinese inspectors turned up at the Yongbyon nuclear facility this week.

If North Korea is moving its nuclear facilities to Syria -- or "merely" proliferating -- it would undermine everything at the heart of that agreement, as well as cross a long-stated American red line that Pyongyang not proliferate. Even if it is unsure of the full implications of the intelligence, the Administration has an obligation not to proceed with a nuclear deal until Pyongyang and Damascus come clean.

Related: Bolton:NORK Nukes in Syria
Israel Struck Syria Nuke Sites.
Bolton: Nuke NORK meeting "profound mistake"
North Korea Firing Missiles
The North Korea Climbdown

Israel Struck Syria Nuke Sites

We are finding out the reason for the raid last week:

Report: Israel spots nuclear installations in Syria hat tip Michael

Washington official says Israeli surveillance shows possible Syrian nuclear installation stocked by North Korea, Israeli Arab newspaper claims target of alleged raid last week was Syrian missile base financed by Iran.

John Bolton spoke of those installations here.

I am getting reports that Israeli planes were seen entering Syria again today (not recon.) Anyone hear anything let me know.

Israel struck inside Syria: US official
Published: Wednesday, 12 September, 2007, 02:20 AM Doha Time

WASHINGTON: Israel carried out an air strike well inside Syria last week, apparently to send Damascus a message not to rearm Hezbollah in Lebanon, a US defence official said yesterday. “It wasn’t big. It was a quick strike. They were engaged by the Syrians, they dropped their ordnance and scooted out of there,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Syria warns flyovers will have tragic consequences (yeah, they'll send Kucinich back to our shores)

UPDATE: Body Parts reports: Israeli pilot apparently finds nuclear materials in Syria. The story here.

UPDATE: The NORKS are crying over their Syrian nuke installations; heh

North Korea denounces alleged Israeli attack on Syria (NY Sun)
A rare statement by Kim Jong Il's regime, which denounced Israel's incursion into Syria last week, raised speculations about a possible North Korean role in Middle East tensions.  Pyongyang rarely issues public statements about world affairs, but on Tuesday, it became the only non-Muslim country to condemn Israel, calling its alleged air operation in Syria "a very dangerous provocation." The rare statement came just as press reports from Washington said Israel had recently used its air force in an attempt to document alleged transfers of North Korean nuclear technology to Syria.  Four years ago, a former U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton — a State Department official at the time — made several references to nuclear cooperation between Syria and North Korea during a congressional briefing, said a Washington source familiar with the testimony, who asked that his name not be used.  Mr. Bolton's congressional testimony, part of which was made in a closed-door session, received little notice at the time. Later, during the prolonged confirmation hearings for the ambassadorial post at the United Nations, some of his Senate detractors accused Mr. Bolton of "distorting" intelligence data, citing his previous testimony on Syria's nuclear ties to Pyongyang.  Yesterday, an unidentified Bush administration source was quoted by the New York Times as saying that Israel now believes North Korea might be "unloading" nuclear materials in Syria. Pyongyang has reportedly promised the administration's negotiator, Christopher Hill, that by the end of this year, it would deliver on agreements made last winter. The promise, as well as a recent invitation of foreign nuclear inspectors to North Korea, indicated a faster denuclearization than previously thought. But the Bush administration official told the New York Times that "the Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left" of their nuclear program.

OT (but not): In Foiled German Terror Plot, the Detonators Came from Syria

 

BOLTON: NORK NUKES IN SYRIA

Holy shiite. Once again defender of the free world, connector of the dots, exposer the truth comes through and someone is paying attention at Haaretz no less.  Today's fresh hell? The axis of nuclear cabal.

If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times,  J. Bolton is the only man qualified to be  President  in this dangerous junction in human history. We need a war time President. He's it.

Check out Haaretz on the NORKs. They get it. Surprising for such a leftist rag.  And that's a sweet pic of J to the B.  :)

Ex-U.S. official had warned of N. Korean nuclear facilities in Syria
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, had warned in the past that Syria and Iran could provide a "safe haven" in their territory for nuclear facilities built with equipment smuggled from North Korea.

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal on August 31, Bolton wrote that, "We know that both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched."

"Whether and to what extent Iran, Syria or others might be 'safe havens' for North Korea's nuclear weapons development, or may have already participated with or benefited from it, must be made clear," he added.

North Korea is currently conducting talks with the United States and other nations regarding its nuclear program. Pyongyang is seeking the restoration of diplomatic ties with Washington and wants to be removed from the U.S. list of state-sponsors of terror, in exchange for agreeing to halt their nuclear weapons program and accept international supervision of their nuclear facilities.

In his article in the Wall Street Journal, Bolton wrote that the U.S. may accept these demands, calling such a possibility a "profound mistake." According to Bolton, the U.S. should only be willing to accept such demands if among other things North Korea offers full disclosure on its ties with other states, predominantly Iran and Syria.

On Friday, U.S. President Bush said Washington would consider signing a peace treaty with Pyongyang, should it abandon its nuclear program. He made the comments during a meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on Sunday.

RELATED: Bolton: Nuke NORK meeting "profound mistake"
Bolton on "Pyonyang Pussyfooting

BTW, everything I ever ran on Bolton is here. may take a bit to load but do it. You'll start a campaign to draft him. You'll see

UPDATE: OT but related: ThreatsWatch.Org:  RapidRecon: Syria, Hamas Edge Israel Closer To Conflict hat tip Bill 

Syria Fires on Israel

The IRIS blog is reported that - in short - Syria has declared war on Israel. They are firing in Israeli aircraft. Of course Ol Merde is playing dumb. What aircraft? What planes? But it's an act of war. And you know it was under Iran's command. Syria is Iran's proxy. Islamic Jihad is emboldened and unafraid. The West has no balls and Islam knows it. Full story here.

SYRIA FIRES ON ISRAELI AIRCRAFT [Did the asshats hit anything?]

With expectations high for a war between Syria and Israel, this is potentially big news:

Syrian air defenses opened fire on Israeli aircraft that violated Syrian airspace overnight Thursday, a Syrian military spokesman said.

The Israelis broke the sound barrier and "dropped ammunition" over deserted areas of northern Syria overnight, the spokesman was quoted by the official Syrian Arab News Agency.

There are more credible sources than the official Syrian News Agency. Tawana Brawley is one that springs to mind. Another is Matilda Who Told Lies, and was Burned to Death. The event itself was confirmed by recordings from international satellites, however.

"We warn the Israeli enemy government against this flagrant aggressive act, and retain the right to respond in an appropriate way," the Syrian spokesman said.

It was not clear if Syria was accusing the Israelis of using warplanes or some type of other aircraft like drones.

"The Israeli enemy aircraft infiltrated into the Arab Syrian territory through the northern border, coming from the Mediterranean heading toward the eastern region, breaking the sound barrier," the spokesman said. "Air defense units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage."

The IDF said that it was "not accustomed to responding to such reports."

Israel acknowledges flying over Lebanon routinely, but it is unclear how often its aircraft fly over Syria.

Reader Sam wants to know if Israel responded yet, say, by giving back the Golan. Interestingly, Israel is actually playing dumb:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said it was looking into the report.

Update: YNetNews has this useful clarification:

it was not clear what the [Syrian] spokesman meant by dropping ammunition. Warplanes sometimes drop extra fuel tanks to make the aircraft lighter and easier to maneuver.

Syria Going Ballistic

Nice work Nancy Peloshia and lest we not forget Mr Obama Hussein Clean who wants to have tea and a couple  roses of the prophet Muhammad with these savages over the bodies of the innocent dead.l

Syrian Official: War with Israel will be Ballistic INN

(IsraelNN.com) Syria sees the next war with Israel as involving missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and front-line guerilla warfare, an anonymous senior official in the Syrian Ministry of Defense told Defense News Weekly, in an interview appearing Monday. Syria prefers to avoid a direct, "classic" confrontation with Israel, he said. Instead, the next war will involve Katyusha rocket and ballistic missiles that will target strategic points in Israel, especially civilian infrastructure.

The official said that the war will not be limited to a single strike, but will be protracted in nature. "This will be a war of attrition, which the Israelis are not good at," he explained. The conflict, he said, "will be more like a war between cities than a war on the battlefield

Ahmadinejad: “This summer will see Muslim victories in the region and the defeat of our enemies!”

When war comes .................... Olmert will be (anti)leading Israel. Israel  Dark Days my dear friends. Dark indeed.

“This summer will see Muslim victories in the region and the defeat of our enemies!” – Ahmadinejad in Damascus
Debka file hat tip Jeff

The Iranian president trumpeted Iran’s intentions for the Middle East when he arrived in Damascus Thursday, July 19. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources reveal that behind the braggadocio, his conversation with Iran’s closest ally, Syrian president Bashar Assad, was acrimonious. In fact, he warned Assad he had better stop signaling his willingness for peace talks with Israel because this behavior was hampering Iran’s plans for a war this summer.

Ahmadinejad reminded Assad that Tehran had spent almost a year on detailed preparations for a summer war and would not tolerate the Syrian ruler sabotaging this effort. Assad was reminded of his huge debt to the Islamic Republic. In the last few months alone, Iran put up hundreds of millions of dollars for Syria’s arms purchases from Russia; Syria gets its oil gratis and raw materials and finished goods at subsidized prices.

Assad replied that with all due respect and appreciation for his Iranian brother’s assistance, he is obliged to look after his country’s interests, while of course cherishing his friendship with Tehran. Ahmadinejad pointed out that the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s condition for talks was the severance of Damascus’ ties with Tehran.

Far from pleasant too was the Iranian president’s conversation with Hizballah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who drove to the Syrian capital from Lebanon in a heavily secured convoy. Nasrallah, who lives in fear of any Israel attack, rarely leaves his bunker hideout. Ahmadinejad asked Tehran’s protégé to try and understand that his government was financially squeezed by its preparations for war and was therefore unable at the moment to remit the one million dollars promised to repair the war damage suffered by South Lebanon last year.

Has Olmert's Israel joined the axis of evil? hat tip eretz

While the Bush Administration concurs with Israeli support of Fatah, lawmakers of the US Congress may yet define Israel as an official sponsor of a terrorist entity. The March 2002 US government designation of Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades as a terrorist organization has not changed. Under US law, any government that aids and abets an organization defined as a terrorist entity will forfeit US foreign aid assistance, which must be approved by the US Congress.

In other words, the Israeli government, in a move to placate the US administration, may undermine its own base of support with lawmakers of the US Congress.

SYRIA BACKS CINDY SHEEHAN

If this don't beat all. Rich really rich. Over at MEMRI:

Syrian Minister of Expatriate Affairs:
Cindy Sheehan's Battle Must Continue

The announcement by leading anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan that she was leaving the Democratic Party and quitting the anti-war effort has evoked reactions from the Syrian press. Her decision was presented as proof that there is no real difference between the Democratic and Republican positions on the war in Iraq, and that the only way to effect a change in U.S. policy is to step up the Iraqi resistance and increase losses to the U.S. armed forces.

The following are excerpts from the articles:

Syrian Minister: Sheehan's Struggle is a "Battle of Truth Against Falsehood"
[...]

"I do not know whether Cindy Sheehan will rescind her decision. But I hope she will, because the battle is an important and a crucial one. It is not a battle of the American people against the [American] administration, but a battle of truth against falsehood - of those who believe in justice and human dignity against those who see the world only [in terms of] oil, wealth and hegemony...

"Cindy Sheehan took a very noble step, and she is entitled to rest, if that is what she wants. We, on the other hand, must not let her struggle come to nothing. She touched on a sensitive point that is extremely important to us as well as to her, and all the honorable people of the world must join forces and complete her mission - for the alternative is inhuman and immoral, and holds no hope for the future of peoples craving liberty, independence and dignity." [1]