Posted on 04/13/2002 11:16:33 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Two events on Friday reshaped U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's conception of his peace mission to the Middle East: his tour of Israel's tense northern border region, which he termed "an eye opener," and the suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem just as his helicopter lifted off from the Knesset helipad only a quarter of a mile away, killing six Sabbath eve market shoppers and injuring 89.
Landing in the Israel-Lebanese border sector, he was greeted by a group of current and former generals like himself: Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon and OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen Gaby Ashkenazi.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that the briefings the visitor from Washington received covered the following developments:
Syria also has become a back door for smuggling Hezbollah and al-Qaida fighters into the West Bank through the Golan Heights as well as weapons and explosives.
In Lebanon, agents run by the senior al-Qaida operations officer, the Iranian-Lebanese terror master Imad Mughniyeh, are busy plotting terrorist strikes against U.S. and Israeli targets around the Gulf and Middle East as part of the overall campaign. Al-Qaida militants transferring from Iraq, Iran and the Gulf to Lebanon are granted free passage through Damascus. They are limited to a 12-hour stay and forbidden to use the Syrian capital's hotels.
Arafat is kept in the picture by his allies, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Hezbollah.
When the secretary of state said he had been given an eye opener, Arafat understood his allies had been handed a grave caution. From his place of siege in Ramallah, the Palestinian leader therefore produced a lukewarm, equivocal condemnation of terror – not in his voice and without mention of suicide bombers. While the White House spokesman emphasized its condemnation by referring to those terrorists as "homicide bombers," in the sense of murderers, Arafat regards them as martyrs.
The homicidal-suicidal bombing attacks will therefore go on. Israeli security is back on high alert, especially in Jerusalem, after the few days' respite granted by Israel's military operation against Palestinian cities, on guard for trouble as Israel's Independence Day approaches on Tuesday.
With the same sort of double standard, the Syrian and Iranian governments insist that they are not involved in terror.
DEBKAfile's sources report that for the first time Powell may have realized that the rapid war escalation in the Middle East has gone too far to be stopped by words and diplomacy. This acceptance will affect the Bush administration's determination to avoid its global war on terror bringing Washington into collision with the Arab world, whose leaders told Powell they did not consider Arafat's suicidal killers to be terrorists and murderers.
It is too soon to tell if Powell's change of perception is fundamental or subject to the Bush administration's policy vacillations. For now, Washington appears to have pulled away from the Arab-European efforts to rescue Arafat and his shrinking clique.
In the view of DEBKAfile's Middle East experts, therefore, whether or not the Powell-Arafat encounter in Ramallah comes off or not is of diminishing consequence given the large picture of events marching forward in the region. Washington has reshuffled its agenda and placed high up the goal of breaking – or at least fracturing – the Iran-Iraq-Syria-Palestinian alignment ranging itself as a forward bulwark against an American attack on Baghdad.
The Palestinian military line was cracked in the middle when Jenin fell to the IDF this week. Now the Hezbollah line in Lebanon comes into U.S. focus.
Sounds like a perfect interdiction mission for the IDF Air Force.
Never forget, this was how WWI began, secret military alliances. Don't be too surprised if this alliance or "axis" extends to China or North Korea as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.