In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria by Andrew Tabler

Author:Andrew Tabler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: International Relations, Presidents & Heads of State, General, Middle East, Political Science, Biography & Autobiography, History
ISBN: 9781569768433
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2011-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

6

NO VOICE LOUDER THAN THE CRY OF BATTLE

A little after 8 am on July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters fired katusha rockets from Lebanon into Israel. Simultaneously, a squad of Hezbollah fighters crossed the “blue line” from Lebanon to Israel to attack two Israeli Humvees patrolling the frontier near the town of Zar’it. Three Israelis soldiers were killed, and two were wounded and were taken by Hezbollah back over the frontier into Lebanon. Following a failed rescue attempt, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert declared the soldiers’ capture an “act of war” and ordered the Israeli air force to begin striking targets throughout Lebanon. The war between Israel and Hezbollah that analysts had been predicting for half a decade had finally broken out.

People across the Syrian capital crowded around television sets and tuned in their radios to get the latest news. After three days of bombing, Al Jazeera television reported that Israel had bombed a Syrian military installation near the Lebanese-Syrian frontier. In Damascus, people openly speculated whether Syria’s old enemy, Israel, was approaching the gates.

“Did you see the report?” Leila asked me as soon as I answered her call on my mobile. I could sense from the tone of her voice that she was panicking. “Do you think they will hit us as well?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say. Syrians and Lebanese are socially and economically joined at the hip, but following the forced withdrawal of the Syrian Army from Lebanon in April 2005, formal political relations were more distinct than at any time in the last thirty years. When it came to a Hezbollah attack on Israel, however, it all came down to what Israel considered to be the “return address.” Given Hezbollah’s strong support from both Damascus and Tehran, it was anyone’s guess who Israel would hold responsible—and when.

It wasn’t clear that Assad knew the answer either. Syria’s state-dominated media reported the Israeli attacks without official comment for the first two days, instead using statements by Russian president Vladimir Putin and random Italian communist party officials condemning the violence. On July 15, Syrian information minister Mohsen Bilal responded to the border strike with a warning: “Any Israeli aggression against Syria will be met with a firm and direct response whose timing and methods are unlimited.” Iran quickly backed Syria up, warning Israel of “unimaginable losses” if it struck Syria. Tehran added that it was only offering “spiritual and humanitarian” support to Hezbollah. The Iranian regime denied, like Syria, that Tehran supplied Hezbollah with weapons.

President Bush thought otherwise. On July 17, as Putin openly teased Bush about Washington’s “democracy agenda” at that week’s G8 Summit in Moscow, a microphone that was inadvertently left on recorded a muffled and candid conversation between Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair that would shed light on Washington’s idea of how to end the crisis. “What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit,” Bush blurted out to Blair over the lunch table.1 The question was how.

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