Red sirens in the Middle East
By Sami Moubayed, Asia Times, April 24, 2010
Simply put, Hezbollah does not need Scuds. The missiles are, according to military analysts, less sophisticated than the group’s current missiles, and although explosively powerful they are not very accurate. Additionally, the Scuds reportedly transferred to Hezbollah have a range of 500 kilometers and beyond. That is useless for Hezbollah, which already has all Israeli cities and towns within range of its missiles, which all fall within a 15-200 km arc.
DAMASCUS – Last week, the United States Department of State summoned a senior member of the Syrian embassy to voice its concern, saying: "The United States condemns in the strongest terms the transfer of any arms, and especially ballistic missile systems such as the Scud, from Syria to Hezbollah."
This related to an April 13 statement by Israeli President Shimon Peres that accused Syria of providing Hezbollah with Scud missiles – a claim which threatens to derail the Barack Obama administration’s recent efforts to roll back a US isolation of Syria implemented during the George W Bush administration.
There are still strong voices in Washington calling for more dialogue with Syria, despite the uproar. They cite the lack of proof to back up Israel’s claims and attach little weight to the "Scud affair".
However, Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, was drilled at a House panel two days ago over the Obama administration’s decision in February to send an ambassador to Damascus, a post that had been vacant since 2005. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, told Feltman, who has visited Damascus several times since 2009 – that he did not think this approach had "any merit at all".
The designated envoy, Robert Ford, is still awaiting confirmation by the full senate and Feltman said some senators may be reluctant to move forward with the post given doubts raised by the Scud affair about Syria’s intentions.
"It’s like they just spit right in our face," Republican Representative Dan Burton said after the meeting, calling attention to a number of Syrian moves he said were against the interests of the United States and its allies, including Israel, reported the Washington Post.
Representative Eliot Engel (Democrat-New York) and Representative Mark Kirk (Republican-Illinois) also tabled a resolution in congress calling for tightened restrictions against Syria and strict enforcement of sanctions against Hezbollah.
Syria, meanwhile, announced over the weekend that it would reopen the American School in Damascus, which was closed in 2008 after US special operations forces crossed into Syria, killing Syrian civilians near the border with Iraq. The opening is seen as a symbol that Syria appreciates that Obama carries none of the political baggage of his predecessors. For his part, the president has said nothing to date about the snowballing "Scud" crisis in the Middle East.
The Syrians are crying foul, claiming there was no arms transfer to Hezbollah and accusing Israel of fabricating the story to justify another war in the Middle East. A statement by the Syrian Embassy in the US said Israel was trumpeting the Scud affair to divert the world’s attention from the 1,600 settlements it plans to construct in Jerusalem, and from the mass deportation of Palestinian residents in the West Bank.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a former opponent but now firm ally of Hezbollah, came out in support of Syrian and Hezbollah claims during a state visit to Italy this week. Israel is using the Scud story, he noted, in a manner similar to how the US used the weapons of mass destruction case against Saddam Hussein as a prelude to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A new war between Hezbollah and Israel, Hariri believes, would spell destruction for Lebanon and spell doom for the foreign investment and political and economic stability he has promised to deliver. The Syrians certainly do not want war and nor does Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis had been hopeful that after many years of turmoil, Lebanon would finally stabilize with their ally Hariri firmly in power – particularly now he is working in full harmony with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. For his part, Hariri had already asked diplomats from Turkey, which shares a rotating seat with Lebanon on the United Nations Security Council, to shelter Hezbollah from another war with Israel.
Many in Lebanon are afraid that this is exactly the kind of pretext that Israel could be expected to create to justify a new war on Hezbollah. In November 2009, the Israeli Defense Forces claimed it seized the German ship Francop carrying 36 containers with 500 tonnes of Katyusha rockets and grenades destined for Hezbollah.
Then, as with this April, both Syria and Lebanon strongly denied the charges, claiming that Israel was using the Francop case to cover up the severe criticism it received over the UN-mandated Goldstone Report regarding the 2008-2009 war on Gaza. The repeated frequency of the accusations, however, indicates that there is more to them than simple cover-ups for Israeli malpractice.
It now seems that the accusations are an early warning that, contrary to what many believe, war is once again in the air on the Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese border. The legacy of former US secretary of state Alexander Haig – who died last month – is clear in the mind of Middle Easterners. In 1982 he warned Israel that "only an internationally recognized" provocation would justify a "proportionate retaliation" against the Palestinians in Lebanon.
That pretext came when Palestinian commandos – not the slightest bit affiliated with Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat – unsuccessfully tried to kill the Israeli ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov.
Simply put, Hezbollah does not need Scuds. The missiles are, according to military analysts, less sophisticated than the group’s current missiles, and although explosively powerful they are not very accurate. Additionally, the Scuds reportedly transferred to Hezbollah have a range of 500 kilometers and beyond. That is useless for Hezbollah, which already has all Israeli cities and towns within range of its missiles, which all fall within a 15-200 km arc.
British defense analyst Charles Heyman remarked, "Hezbollah need[s] to float like butterflies, sting like bees. They don’t need something that lumbers along like an ox." This was in reference to the bulky nature of Scud missiles, which are a handicap in guerilla warfare. Even prominent Israelis came out to challenge the Scud claims, with Uzi Rubin, an advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, saying, "What do they need Scuds for? They already have [the] Fateh-110, which has a similar range, and being a solid-fuel rocket, is far less cumbersome. Okay, so Scuds weigh a ton while the Fateh-110 is half a ton. Nothing to stop them firing two Fateh-110s."
It should be recalled that during the war of 2006, Hezbollah fired an al-Nour missile (more than six meters long with a range of 200 km) into an Israeli warship, killing several of its crew and sinking the vessel. The al-Nour is a sophisticated missile crafted by the Iranians while based on a Chinese model.
The Israelis will probably take the Scud story and shelve it until they feel confident enough to wage a new war with Lebanon, using it, the Francop story – and others – as a pretext to strike again at Hezbollah. It does not really matter whether these stories are true or not from an Israeli perspective; what matters is that they serve the ultimate target of allowing Israel to strike at a traditional enemy.
An immediate war seems increasingly difficult – given that no guarantees exist that the results of 2006, which to say the least did not satisfy Israel, will not be repeated in 2010. According to the Israelis themselves, Hezbollah emerged from 2006 stronger and better equipped than ever before – regardless of whether they had obtained Scuds or not. Nasrallah made the chances of war all the more unlikely by raising tension to new levels a few weeks ago, saying: "If you strike at Rafik al-Hariri Airport, we will strike at Ben Gurion Airport. If you hit our oil refineries, we will hit Israel’s oil refineries. If you hit our factories, we will hit yours and if you strike at our electricity plants we will hit the electricity plants in Israel."
For these reasons, war is unlikely for now – but the Scud missile story, with its many layers, is very worrying for all players in the Middle East, and primarily for Syria and Lebanon.
Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine.