Standing on Invisible Ground
We thought we’d wait a day or two after the 15-0 Security Council vote on the Iraq resolution to see what the political price was and whether it was worth it to get “unanimity” in the Council.
Nope.
We thought we’d wait a day or two after the 15-0 Security Council vote on the Iraq resolution to see what the political price was and whether it was worth it to get “unanimity” in the Council.
Nope.
It appears the price of Syria’s vote was for Congress to shelve consideration of “The Syria Accountability Act,” introduced in the House on 18 April 2002. The bill’s preamble states that the Act is designed, “To halt Syrian support for terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon, stop its development of weapons of mass destruction, cease its illegal importation of Iraqi oil, and by so doing hold Syria accountable for the serious international security problems it has caused in the Middle East, and for other purposes.”
By providing to the U.S. bits of intelligence on terrorists it doesn’t happen to harbor, and by voting with us in the UN when it had little choice after its major sponsors – China, Russia and France – caved, Syria has managed to occupy some slip of invisible ground between, “You are with us or you are with the terrorists.”
Whatever Syria provides in the way of intelligence, it can hardly compare to the devastation caused by the terrorists it harbors and supports, and it can hardly compare to the threat it poses to Israel by virtue of its unremitting hostility coupled with missiles and non-conventional capabilities. It hardly makes up for the continued occupation of Lebanon and Syrian service as a conduit for export of the Iranian Revolution.
Under the circumstances, we could have lived with 14-1.
And Speaking of Invisible…
The President and the Secretary of Defense rightly pointed out after the Security Council vote on Iraq that inspection is not the goal, disarmament is the goal; and that the inspectors do not have the responsibility of ferreting out Iraqi weapons programs, Saddam has the responsibility of revealing them. The inspectors become important only at the moment they decide that Saddam is hiding something and know they have to find what isn’t on the list – find the hidden, find the invisible.
Unfortunately, the inspectors will be led by Hans Blix, the man who (at the IAEA in the 1980s) played a major role in allowing Iraq to develop its nuclear programs by certifying its nuclear reactors “safeguarded,” and thus of a non-military nature. His record is one of accepting what he is told by despotic leaders with no credibility (he worked in Iran as well) and preferring not to poke his nose where it isn’t invited.
Dr. Blix will likely need to be reminded – by the US, no doubt – that his job this time is to go where he will not be welcome and find what isn’t there.