US embassy cable - 05DHAKA1114

UNCLAS DHAKA 001114 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR I/FW, B/G, IIP/G/NEA-SA, B/VOA/N (BANGLA SERVICE) STATE 
FOR SA/PAB, SA/PPD (LSCENSNY, SSTRYKER), SA/RA, INR/R/MR, 
AND PASS TO USAID FOR ANE/ASIA/SA/B (WJOHNSON) 
CINCPAC FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR, J51 (MAJ TURNER), J45 
(MAJ NICHOLLS) 
USARPAC FOR APOP-IM (MAJ HEDRICK) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KMDR, OIIP, OPRC, KPAO, PREL, ETRD, PTER, ASEC, BG, OCII 
SUBJECT: Media Reaction: Syria;Dhaka 
 
 
Summary: A columnist of the Daily Star says that the blatant 
manner in which president Bush is exploiting Hariri's 
assassination leaves no doubt that he regards it as an 
opportunity for him to act as judge, jury and executioner. 
 
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Syria 
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"Syria: In The Line of Fire" 
English daily "The Daily Star" op-ed opines (03/14/05): 
Henry Kissinger had once famously remarked that there 
couldn't be a war in the Middle East without Egypt and no 
peace without Syria. When in the wake of Oslo process -- and 
Madrid Peace Conference before that -- Israel's Arab 
neighbors fell in line with the US-Israeli designs one after 
another, Syria stood defiant to the fake peace process 
initiated and brokered by Israel's western patrons led by 
the United States. It was obviously a disappointment for a 
sullen superpower intoxicated with unparalleled power as 
well as a roadblock to her scheme to turn Israel into a 
regional hegemony and fulfill the latter's dream of 
achieving a 'greater Israel' stretching from the Nile to the 
Euphrates. Ever since Washington's neo conservatives wanted 
to enact their favorite gambit -- a regime change in Syria - 
- to find a compliant leader before they put in their game 
plan in one of the endgames in redrawing the region's 
politico strategic map. The late president Assad during his 
30 years' rule refused to submit to the west's threats and 
demands and insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal from 
the Golan Heights before any peace could be agreed upon. His 
son Basher is equally a hard nut. 
 
A Syrian exile Farid Gadhri (like Iraq's Chalabi) already 
came handy for a regime change. Gadhri has since been 
lobbying for the pending 'Syria Liberation Act', which would 
involve the Bush Administration to commit to undertake 
regime change in Damascus. 
 
Now Mr. Rafik Hariri's killing in Lebanon has come as a 
Godsend opportunity for the hawks in the US administration 
in increasing pressure on Syria whose inveterate opposition 
to Israel has earned her the distinction of 'unusual and 
extraordinary threat'. 
 
The blatant manner in which president Bush is exploiting 
Hariri's assassination leaves one in no doubt that he 
regards it as an opportunity for him to act as a judge, jury 
and an executioner. More so when Syria has 15,000 of her 
troops stationed in Lebanon. Although the troops were 
dispatched there at the request of then Lebanese President 
the nationalist elements of the country resent their 
presence in Lebanon. 
 
Syria is suddenly in the dock facing the accusations of 
supporting terrorism, pursuing weapons of mass destruction, 
being in complicity with Iran, supporting Iraqi insurgents 
and now of the assassination of Mr. Hariri. The statements 
of King Abdullah of Jordan and President Ghazi Al-Yawer of 
Iraq claiming that 'foreign fighters are coming across the 
Syrian border that have been trained in Syria' have been 
given wide publicity in US media. 
The ominous developments obtaining with regard to Syria 
clearly suggest that neocons have Syria as their immediate 
target. 
 
Bush's reelection is regarded by the cabal surrounding him 
as an endorsement of their policy of truculent unilateralism 
and in the right of Israel to their Biblical boundaries, 
which they are keen to redraw. In the meantime they give 
damn to the fact "that never in history" -- according to 
Schlesinger, Kennedy's national security adviser -- "has the 
republic been so unpopular abroad, so mistrusted, feared, 
even hated." 
 
Thomas