The administration in Washington is being forced to address the Syrian problem for a number of reasons, first and foremost is the stream of foriegn fighters, weapons and monies flowing across the Syria-Iraq border: for the first time, Syrian policy is costing American lives on a near-daily basis. US forces are continuing to build up forces in the border region to ensure a smooth election next year as even the new government of Iraq has concerns about their Syrian neighbors.

Syrian president Bashar al-Asad took power in 2000 when his father died. He didn’t expect to take over from his father (he was trained to be an ophthalmologist) but his older brother was killed in a car accident so Dr. Bashar became heir. Although he promised economic and political reform when he took power, Bashar’s fumbling efforts have been mainly in the economic arena to date; support for terrorist organizations remains undiminished.

And what great support it is: the headquarters of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine are all in Syria. Hezbollah (an organization formed in 1982 with Iranian backing) is headquartered in Lebonon (which is under Syrian control) and has offices in Damascus. The recent earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam provided a convient method of resupplying Hezbollah: cargo planes left Syria loaded with humanitarian aid for the earthquake victims and returned loaded with weapons that were trucked to Hezbollah.

Like the French, Syria also had dealings with Saddam. In exchange for $35 million, Syria agreed to harbor Iraqi scientists and hide more than a little WMD — most of which ended up buried in Lebanon’s Bekka Valley (a theory with support from a number of sources, including weapons inspector David Kay in Congressional testimony, as well as Israeli intelligence and — at long last — the CIA).

Further proof comes from Sudan as it scrambles to appease our stern president and get economic sactions lifted: the tiny African nation has ordered Syria to remove the missles and chemical weapons that Syria has stored there. In addition, there is the recently foiled attack on Jordan with chemical weapons that came out of Syria — chemicals that must have come from Iraq as Syria does not posses the capability of producing them.

Then there is the tale of Syrian human-rights activist Nizar Nayouf who was imprisoned and severly tortured for nine years in a Syrian prison. Released in 2001 thanks to intense international pressure (including France) and a Papal visit to Syria, Nayouf was allowed to seek refuge in France where he renewed his activism.

“Refuge” in France is evidently a strange concept. Late in 2003 Nayouf was denied permission to travel to Washington where he was to appear as a speaker on the subject of how people suffer under the Ba’athist regime. As a matter of fact, Nayouf was “advised” not to speak out against the Syrian Ba’ath Party by French officials — resulting in a disturbing silencing of an important human rights voice, but a voice that would prove embarrassing to French politicians who continue to cozy up to despots.

Earlier this year, Nayouf revealed that he was in possession of three documents that he said connected Syria, France and Iraq to hidden Iraqi WMDs and to election bribery. The documents had been smuggled out of Syria at the behest of a Syrian intelligence officer. While he was being questioned by French authorities, Nayouf’s apartment was broken into and 3 CD-ROMs were stolen:

A map showing possible locations of Iraqi WMDs in Syria was purportedly among the documents taken, as well as information regarding two billion dollars that had been deposited by Saddam Hussein into a number of Syrian and Lebanese banks prior to the fall of his regime. The CDs also allegedly contained information describing the establishment of a fund for the reelection of Jacques Chirac by the deposed Iraqi regime via the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, not to mention a list of dissidents and political organizations in Syria that received funds from the intelligence apparatus stationed in the Iraqi Embassy in Paris. Colonel Heprarb, for his part, has categorically denied any DST involvement in the burglary. But clearly, as stated by Julien Dumond in Leparisian on February 5, the ?burglary? seemed suspiciously like an intelligence-gathering mission.

Clearly, Syria continues to be the terrorist nexus of the world (in fact, it is even more “terroristic” than before the liberation of Iraq as Saddam’s WMDs are now secreted around the countryside and some of his billions reside in Syrian banks). The administration knows this and has been taking steps to set up a confrontation. An examination of those steps reveals how really, really good this administration has become in handling delicate foreign affairs.

Last fall Congress passed a bipartisan initiative called the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, or SALSA. The president’s implementation of restrictions allowed by that act has been, in a word, masterful.

The somewhat strange mix of sanctions applied to date have one explicit message: here’s a little pressure but be careful — there’s more where that came from, a lot more:

Specifically, President Bush’s executive order does the following:

1. Prohibits the export of military and dual-use items to Syria, except as needed for national security purposes (a redundant provision, as such exports are already banned because Syria is on the State Department’s list of state terrorism sponsors).
2. Prohibits the export and re-export to Syria of most goods, excluding food and medicine. Bush is expected to exercise partial waivers of this ban, allowing the Department of Commerce to license exports of certain goods, such as telecom equipment (so as to promote the “free flow of information” in Syria).
3. Prohibits commercial air services between the United States and Syria by Syria-owned and controlled aircraft. Aircraft owned or chartered by the Syrian government would still be allowed to enter American airspace for official business. [Note: there are no Syrian commercial flights to America.]
4. Freezes assets and property of individuals “who are determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to be or to have been directing or otherwise significantly contributing to” Syria’s sponsorship of terrorist organizations, development of WMD, occupation of Lebanon, or efforts to undermine stability in Iraq; and prohibits US citizens from engaging in financial transactions with them.
5. Requires that US financial institutions (banks, mutual funds, etc.) severe correspondent accounts with the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria (CBS) and its Beirut-based subsidiary, the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank.

These sanctions allows US energy companies to continue to operate, but lets them know that they do so at their own risk and gives them time to disengage. More importantly, it was a gentle way to put the EU on notice that dealing with Syria is going to be just as bad an idea as it was to deal with Saddam.

The sanctions have had mixed success so far. Syria, of course, puffed up, condemned the sanctions and then said they wouldn’t affect anything — a theme echoed by Arab and European media alike. Syria followed with an agreement to reopen Fatah offices (Yasser Arafat’s private terrorist body) in Damscus.

Soon reality sank in, as evidenced by Syrian Trade and Economy Minister Ghassan Rifai’s comments about the “negative impact” the sanctions will have on the economy and that they were not “a good sign at the moment when the country is moving towards an economic opening and to attract investment.”

This month, Syria is making overtures of peace towards Israel (although the administration rightfully remains wary).

While the US is imposing sactions on Syria for continued support of terrorist organizations and the occupation of Lebanon, France is pushing the EU towards signing a major trade agreement with Syria. Britain and (surprisingly) Germany, however, are holding out for tougher language in the anti-WMD clause. This could be because of changing EU policy or to support America — but more probably is a mixture of both (Schroder has been more concilitory lately).

The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin nails it with this statement:

In light of continuing talk in America and Europe about a “trans-Atlantic divide” in Middle East policy, it is ironic that the strongest aspect of the new sanctions regime would seem to be the Bush administration’s coordination with EU governments in drafting it. The Europeans may object in principle to unilateral American sanctions on Syria, but once the Bush administration pledged to implement SALSA they moved quickly to reinforce US pressure – had the sanctions been too tough, they might have hesitated to do so.

This, of course, is precisely the kind of international finesse that Kerry and the media says that Bush is incapable of, and it is too complex and subtle for even friendly media to attempt to communicate to the American public.

To those of us who pay attention, however, it is yet one more example of why Bush absolutely must be reelected.

[Obligatory French Bashing Wrap-up]:
The French-Syrian connection has a twisted and sometimes shadowy history. There are rumors that won’t go away of “enormous” contributions to Chirac’s reelection campaign by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad (just as there is increasing proof of contributions accepted from Saddam Hussein). Continued French support of a regime that tortures political prisoners and has more than a few mass graves of its own is very troubling indeed.