Might as right

WALID AL-MOALLEM, Syrian Foreign Minister, described the U.S. attack as a terrorist aggression.-ANDREW WINNING/REUTERS

The U.S. military attack on Syria to flush out terrorists receives worldwide condemnation.

THE raid by the United States military inside Syria on October 26, which led to the killing of eight civilians, has raised the political temperature in West Asia. Carried out by American Special Operations forces a week before the presidential election in the U.S., the raid is the most serious violation of Syrias sovereignty since the occupation of Iraq five years ago. The U.S. authorities have told the media that one Iraqi militant was killed in the operation. U.S. intelligence officials said that the target of the early morning helicopter attack was Abu Ghadiya, whom they described as the most prominent smuggler of Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq.

The Syrian government insists that all those killed were innocent civilians, four of them children. The countrys leading newspaper, Tshirin, described the incident as cold-blooded murder.

The timing of the raid surprised observers. Washington has praised Damascus in recent months for its help in stopping resistance groups and Arab fighters from crossing into Iraq through the long and porous border between Iraq and Syria. General David Petraeus, until recently the top U.S. commander in Iraq, had said that the inflow of foreign fighters had dwindled. Syria has taken steps to reduce the flow of foreign fighters through its borders with Iraq, he said in December 2007.

The American raid also comes at a time when Syria is engaged in delicate behind-the-scenes negotiations with Israel. Turkey has used its good offices to broker the talks. Syria now has significantly improved relations with European governments. President Basher al Assad has been feted in recent months in several Western capitals. Ian Black, writing in The Guardian, described the American attack as a final vengeful lunge against a country that others are now wooing but which still attracts profound hostility in Washington.

Surprisingly, India seems to have condoned the American act of aggression. The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that the scourge of terrorism affects many nations around the world. While this must elicit decisive responses, when such actions result in the death of innocent civilians, they defeat the very objective of the intervention.

Syria itself has been subjected to terrorist attacks by jehadi groups. A recent suicide bombing in Damascus claimed 17 lives. Senior Syrian officials and Arab resistance heroes have been assassinated in the past one year under mysterious circumstances.

Syria reacted strongly to the attack. A similar incident of violation of its sovereignty took place last year Israeli jets bombed a site in the Syrian desert on the claim that a nuclear reactor was being constructed there with North Korean help.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking to the media in London where he was on an official visit, described the U.S. attack as a criminal and terrorist aggression. He said that the Bush administration followed the policy of cowboys.

Syria has said that it will cease to cooperate with the U.S. along the border with Iraq until the latter apologises for the raid and promises to desist from further cross-border incursions.

A report in the official Syrian news agency in the first week of November indicated that Syria had significantly scaled down the policing of its borders. It had deployed 10,000 troops to guard the 650-km-long border with Iraq. These troops, who guarded the border with Israel earlier, were re-deployed on American request.

The Syrian government has also ordered the U.S. Embassy in Damascus to close the American Cultural Centre and the American school. The school, one of the oldest in the region, was opened in 1956 when John Foster Dulles was the U.S. Secretary of State.

Syria has provided footage on the civilian deaths and the destruction of property. It has withdrawn its envoys from Washington and Baghdad in protest against the attack. There have been huge anti-U.S. demonstrations in Damascus. Walid al-Moallem told the media in Damascus in the first week of November that his country would resort to more painful measures if the U.S. does not give an official explanation for the attack.

Syria, he said, had only implemented introductory measures and warned that it retained the option of escalating its responses. The country had constructed new observation towers and control centres to stop militants and smugglers from crossing into Iraq.

Syria has other reasons to feel cheated by the West. As a result of the American occupation, Syria has had to take in an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. A stable Iraq is of utmost importance to Syria. With this goal in view, Iraq has been engaging all political formations in Iraq in talks. In July, Syria hosted a meeting of technical border security experts representing countries of the region and the U.S. In early October, it sent an ambassador to Baghdad after a gap of more than 26 years, indicating an improvement in bilateral relations. In November, top Syrian, Iraqi and American officials were supposed to meet and discuss problems relating to Iraqs security.

The U.S. commando raid in Syria has been similar to the raids that are being routinely conducted inside Pakistani territory. A senior U.S. official told the American media after the attack on Syria that as targets present themselves, and are identified they become more and more at risk. Just like in Pakistan, there will be steps taken to deal with it.

Observers have noted that the cross-border raids undertaken by the U.S. forces, in blatant violation of the sovereignty of the countries involved, have only increased as President George W. Bush gets ready to demit office. Bush had, in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September, emphasised once again the right of the U.S. to launch pre-emptive strikes. He said that we have an obligation to prevent our territory from being used as a sanctuary for terrorism and proliferation and human trafficking and organised crime.

Bush apparently hopes to set a precedent for his successor to emulate. Before the recent cross-border attacks, Washington did not bother even to inform the host countries. The Iraqi government, after initially keeping quiet, has criticised the U.S. for the attack on Syria. It had no other option since all major political parties in the country, cutting across the sectarian divide, had issued strong statements condemning the attack. The Iraqi government rejects U.S. aircraft bombarding posts inside Syria. The Constitution does not allow Iraq to be used as a staging ground to attack neighbouring countries, said a government spokesman the day after the attack. Iraqs government has now introduced a specific clause in the proposed security deal with the U.S. that would disallow U.S. forces from using Iraqi territory to launch attacks against its neighbours.

Indications are that pre-emptive strikes will continue. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama repeatedly stated on the campaign trail that he would not hesitate to despatch American troops to root out the Taliban and Al Qaeda from their sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

Close allies of the U.S., like Israel and Colombia, have been practising the Bush doctrine for some time now. Colombia killed a top Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leader inside Ecuadorian territory this year, leading to a diplomatic crisis in the region.

If recent statements are anything to go by, the Indian government seems to be supporting pre-emptive strikes and hot pursuits across borders in the so-called war against terrorism. Some analysts are of the opinion that the recent U.S. raid will give Israel yet another pretext to attack Syria. Israel can now argue that an attack on Syria is justified to stop the supply of arms to the Hizbollah in Lebanon.

The violation of Syrian sovereignty has been criticised in most capitals save a few. Professor Richard Falk of Princeton University, New Jersey, who is an expert on international law, described the attack as a serious violation of international law.

He emphasised that international law only allowed the use of violence in self-defence. He said that the Bush administration had unilaterally expanded the scope of the right of self-defence. This is a suspension of the rule of law in the name of counter-insurgency or homeland security. It is an extension of executive authority and the imperial presidency, he told the website Truthout.

American commentators also point out inherent flaws in using the law of self-defence to authorise military attacks. They underline the fact that in both Iraq and Afghanistan, America is the aggressor, and not the defender. They emphasise that the Iraqi and Afghan people never attacked the U.S. It was the U.S. that invaded the two countries. More importantly, the U.N. Charter, to which the U.S. is a signatory, makes attacks on sovereign countries illegal.