A strange air raid in Syria

September 19, 2007

NEAR DAWN on Sept. 6, the Israeli Air Force conducted a raid in northern Syria. It is still not clear what the Israelis hit or what they hoped to accomplish. What should be clear is that the lands from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf have become extraordinarily volatile, and there could hardly be a worse time for Syria to be provoking Israel or for Israel to be provoking Syria.

The Syrians have given their version of the incident, making it appear the Israeli planes dropped "munitions," jettisoned a fuel tank, and were chased away by Syrian air-defense. Anonymous sources have told different stories to American and British papers. One is that the raid targeted a Syrian nuclear facility hosting North Korean technicians. Another says that a nuclear facility was hit three days after a North Korean vessel delivered a suspect cargo to a Syrian port. There have also been allegations that an Iranian arms shipment bound for the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon was the objective of the operation.

Whatever the truth turns out to be, the Bush administration ought to be exercising its leverage on both capitals to back them away from actions that could lead to the outbreak of another war in the region.

Israel has kept uncharacteristically mum about this incident. As the Syrians were giving their contorted explanations, as North Korea was denouncing an incident far from its shores, and as John Bolton, the hawkish former US ambassador to the United Nations, was calling the raid "a clear message to Iran," the Israeli government was imposing a rare embargo on information. Knesset committees were deprived of briefings from the government. The Israeli media were kept in the dark and subjected to military censorship. Israeli diplomats were instructed not to say anything about the operation.

One rationale for the Israeli government's silence may be that the raid delivered a message to Syria that does not need to be expanded upon. Indeed, the floundering public responses by Syrian officials make it appear the regime of Bashar Assad does not want the world to know, or even speculate about, which target the Israeli planes were after. And North Korea's suspicious condemnation gives the impression that Pyongyang does have something at stake - if not nuclear materials or engineers, then perhaps missiles or some other military export.

Regardless, messages sent in the form of ordnance are more dangerous than the diplomatic variety. Syria and Israel are playing a game that could result in another war in Lebanon or a larger conflagration involving not only Syria and Israel but Iran as well. The United States needs to engage in hard-nosed, deal-making diplomacy, not only to end the war in Iraq but also to prevent new wars across a large arc of the Middle East and central Asia.