Decision ‘08

Egads - Am I A Conspiracy Theorist, Too?

I sure hope not - nothing bothers me more than the ability of conspiracy theorists (exhibit A: 9/11 ‘Truthers’) to grab hold of every little scrap that suits their premises, and ignore the mountains of evidence that don’t - but in this case, there is precious little evidence either way. I’m talking about that mysterious ‘incident’ of late between Israeli warplanes and Syria:

…[I]t’s more than a little telling that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz chose, in the wake of an Israeli Air Force raid on Syria on Sept. 6 dubbed “Operation Orchard,” to give front-page billing to an op-ed by John Bolton that appeared in this newspaper Aug. 31. While the article dealt mainly with the six-party talks with North Korea, Mr. Bolton also noted that “both Iran and Syria have long cooperated with North Korea on ballistic missile programs, and the prospect of cooperation on nuclear matters is not far-fetched.” He went on to wonder whether Pyongyang was using its Middle Eastern allies as safe havens for its nuclear goods while it went through a U.N. inspections process.

How plausible is this scenario? The usual suspects in the nonproliferation crowd reject it as some kind of trumped-up neocon plot. Yet based on conversations with Israeli and U.S. sources, along with evidence both positive and negative (that is, what people aren’t saying), it seems the likeliest suggested so far. That isn’t to say, however, that plenty of gaps and question marks about the operation don’t remain.

What’s beyond question is that something big went down on Sept. 6. Israeli sources had been telling me for months that their air force was intensively war-gaming attack scenarios against Syria; I assumed this was in anticipation of a second round of fighting with Hezbollah. On the morning of the raid, Israeli combat brigades in the northern Golan Heights went on high alert, reinforced by elite Maglan commando units. Most telling has been Israel’s blanket censorship of the story–unprecedented in the experience of even the most veteran Israeli reporters–which has also been extended to its ordinarily hypertalkative politicians. In a country of open secrets, this is, for once, a closed one.

The censorship helps dispose of at least one theory of the case. According to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Israel’s target was a cache of Iranian weapons destined for Hezbollah. But if that were the case, Israel would have every reason to advertise Damascus’s ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty, particularly on the eve of Lebanon’s crucial presidential election. Following the January 2002 Karine-A incident–in which Israeli frogmen intercepted an Iranian weapons shipment bound for Gaza–the government of Ariel Sharon wasted no time inviting reporters to inspect the captured merchandise. Had Orchard had a similar target, with similar results, it’s doubtful the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert–which badly needs to erase the blot of last year’s failed war–could have resisted turning it into a propaganda coup.

Something similar goes for another theory, this one from British journalist Peter Beaumont of the Observer, that the raid was in fact “a dry run for attack on Iran.” Mr. Beaumont is much taken by a report that at least one of the Israeli bombers involved in the raid dropped its fuel tanks in a Turkish field near the Syrian border.

Why Israel apparently chose to route its attack through Turkey is a nice question, given that it means a detour of more than 1,000 miles. Damascus claims the fuel tank was discarded after the planes came under Syrian anti-aircraft fire, which could be true. But if Israel is contemplating an attack on Tehran’s nuclear installations–and it is–it makes no sense to advertise the “Turkish corridor” as its likely avenue of attack.

As for the North Korean theory, evidence for it starts with Pyongyang. The raid, said one North Korean foreign ministry official quoted by China’s Xinhua news agency, was “little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security.” But who asked him, anyway? In August, the North Korean trade minister signed an agreement with Syria on “cooperation in trade and science and technology.” Last week, Andrew Semmel, the acting counterproliferation chief at the State Department, confirmed that North Korean technicians of some kind were known to be in Syria, and that Syria was “on the U.S. nuclear watch list.” And then there is yesterday’s curious news that North Korea has abruptly suspended its participation in the six-party talks, for reasons undeclared.

I’m not convinced by the available evidence that this was Osirak, Part II - but I’m not convinced that it wasn’t, either…

13 Responses to “Egads - Am I A Conspiracy Theorist, Too?”

1 peter Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Do you think that the practice of grabbing “hold of every little scrap that suits their premises, and ignore the mountains of evidence that don’t” can also be used to describe the case the administration made that there were WMD in Iraq?
2 Andy Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
I wonder what all every little scrap proved that Iraq didn’t punt its WMD to Syria for safekeeping? After all, how else could all the WMD simply evaporate when the Clinton admin used them as its pretext for regime change? Maybe Dan Rather will find out and report back to us soon.
3 Mark Says:
September 19th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
No, honestly, I don’t, because the administration’s view was shared by every major intelligence agency in the Western world. Clinton thought he had WMDs; so did France, so did England, and to some extent, so did the UN…obviously, it was a giant intelligence failure - but it was no way comparable to the willful disbelief practiced by the 9/11 ‘Truthers’…now, having said that, when there were pieces of evidence lending themselves to two interpretations, one benign, one sinister, we obviously put too much stock in the sinister - and given Saddam’s history, we perhaps were justified in doing so, wrong though we turned out to be…
4 too many steves Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 5:21 am
“Intelligence” is opinion not knowledge. There are facts, but not enough to give any more than an educated guess. Thus, those who receive this intelligence are required to make assumptions or interpretations which you accurately describe as either benign or sinister. The only appropriate interpretation for Bush (Clinton and Blair and Chirac, etc.) was the sinister one.

Given how colossally wrong the Iraq pre-war intelligence proved to be, we are best advised to take a more benign view of this North Korea/Iran/Syria scenario. Failing that, we had best gather more data to reduce the need for interpretation & assumption.
5 Peter Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 6:12 am
This raises an obvious question: what right do we have to invade a country based on an educated guess?
6 Andy Vance Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 10:36 am
the administration’s view was shared by every major intelligence agency in the Western world

Oy. This is like summarizing Ulysses as “a story about one dude’s day in Dublin.”
7 peter Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 11:06 am
It may have been shared by different intelligence agencies, but we don’t know if they had equal levels of conviction. Assigning a 55% likelihood to a scenario is far different than assigning a 95% likelihood.

We do know that El Baradei and Hans Blix did not think there was WMD, and their proximity to the situation was presumably greater than the intelligence agencies. We also now know that the CIA had access to a senior Iraqi official who told us before the war that the WMD did not exist.

More importantly, while a country may believe that Iraq had WMD, the standard to make a suspicion something which is actionable has to be far higher than educated guesswork. Anything else is nothing but recklessness.
8 Gulf Coast Bandit Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Peter: What if they were there and we did nothing? That would be just as reckless.
9 Andy Vance Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Ah yes, step 2 of Walter Lippmann’s patented Formula for Foreign Policy Success, (step one being making the complex seem simple): turn the hypothetical into the dogmatic.

Next up is turning the relative into the absolute.
10 peter Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
GCB: I don’t think so – Russia and China had nuclear weapons for years, as well as the means to deliver them and the two largest standing armies in the world. Moreover, we knew they had the bomb, because they tested it. When China developed the bomb, there were many voices which called for a preemptive strike. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and now shoppers everywhere can buy their underwear at Wal-Mart for $1.99. It would have been reckless to have invaded China, but it was prudent not to have done so.

I think the strongest argument which could have been made for the invasion was made by the Economist, which basically argued that in a post-9/11 world, the standards of proof ought to be considerably lowered. (I think the strongest argument for staying was also in the Economist, in their lead editorial last week, which basically said that regardless of the follies which led us to where we are, the least bad option is to remain for at least the immediate future). However, based on what we now know about the limitations and ambiguities of the intelligence we had at the time, in my view it was reckless to invade.
11 peter Says:
September 20th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Shout-out to Steve: still confident in your prediction of September 12 (”Keep dreaming on Sox - Yankees”)?

Only one and a half games behind….
12 too many steves Says:
September 21st, 2007 at 3:18 am
Reply to Peter: Not as. I don’t count half-games, one behind in the loss column. Good lord!
13 Stan Peterson Says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
What does North Korea have that would be of military interest to Syria.

Probably lots of radioactive waste, that can be or was manufactured into dirty bomb components. A few missile or Syrian bombs with such dirty bomb material could render downtown Tel Aviv or Jerusalem uninhabitable or economically disrupted for a long period of time.

One of the probable reasons that the Syrians have not called in the international press its that the area is intense radioactively contaminated.

One of the overlooked effect of attacking the Iranian’s uranium enrichment facilities is that they would spread lots of the radioactivity over the site making it a cleanup nightmare; and maybe even making it unfeasible to decontaminate and repair the site.