- DAMASCUS (R) -- Syria's state
press said on Thursday US ambitions to oust Iraq's government were part
of a plan to strengthen Israel by creating puppet regimes in the Middle
East, and could include attacking Syria and Lebanon.
- The comments came as US national security adviser, Condoleezza
Rice, said Washington had not decided the particulars of toppling Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein, but that leaving him in power to get weapons
of mass destruction was not an option.
An editorial in the Al Thawra daily said any US strike on Iraq was part
of a plan to reshuffle the region and restore dominance that Washington's
ally Israel had lost over the course of a Palestinian uprising against
occupation.
ãPicking Iraq as a theatre for... US military action is a bid to
remake the region by forcing states to choose: Either join the US bandwagon,
get in line with its hypocrisies and oppression... or regime change on
the pretext that they threaten US policy, interests and regional security,ä
it said.
ãWashington's intervention via Iraq, it is hoped, will ease the
plight of Israel and enable it to regain its instrumental regional role
after being wrapped up in its security dilemma and challenge to its military,
which can no longer do anything about the martyrdom operations.ä
Syria is among the most vocal critics of any US military action against
Iraq, with which it is rehabilitating diplomatic ties and expanding economic
cooperation which Britain alleges include a trade in Iraqi oil that violates
UN sanctions.
US President George W. Bush has also demanded Syria cut its support for
Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad that carry out suicide attacks,
and the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas who helped end Israel's 22-year occupation
of south Lebanon.
Since the withdrawal Hizbollah has periodically clashed with Israeli troops
in an occupied border zone, a front which the official Al Baath daily said
could give Israel a pretext to join a US military campaign in the region.
"There is a scenario which has not received the attention it deserves,
which begins with aggression against Lebanon, then Syria, then Iraq later"
it said.
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- Friday-Saturday, August 16-17, 2002
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