A STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLE: WHY THE U.S. MUST LOOK BEFORE IT LEAPS IN THE GOLAN

The Center for Security Policy
believes that a decision by the United
States to deploy American troops on the
Golan Heights as part of a prospective
Israeli agreement to surrender this
strategic ground to Syria is one that is
likely to have far-reaching and
undesirable consequences — both
for this country and for Israel. It is,
consequently, a decision that should be
taken only with great forethought and
after informed debate.

The following are considerations that
inform this assessment:

• It is entirely
  Israel’s call whether she decides
  to give up control of the Golan
  plateau and the strategic depth
  afforded by this territory.
  While U.S. equities will
  inevitably be affected if, as a
  result of doing so, Israel
  becomes vulnerable to and the
  object of renewed Arab attack,
  the United States cannot prevent
  the Jewish State from withdrawing
  from the Golan if the Israeli
  people are determined to do so.

• By the same token, it
  is entirely an American
  sovereign decision whether U.S.
  forces will be inserted onto the
  Golan Heights. The
  Israeli government — and, for
  that matter, Hafez Assad’s regime
  in Syria — may want the United
  States to do so, but it is still America’s
  call.

• Making that call is
  complicated by, among others, the
  following considerations:

  1. American
     troops have proven to be
     better targets than
     peacekeepers,
     particularly in the
     Middle East.

  2. A Golan
     deployment would put such
     troops in close proximity
     to terrorist groups with
     a known record of
     targeting U.S. nationals
     and operating out of
     Lebanon and Syria with
     support from Damascus,
     Tehran, Baghdad and
     Tripoli.

  3. Given the
     limited road network and
     infrastructure of the
     Golan, such a deployment
     could take casualties
     from a far more modest
     threat, such as
     intifada-style agitation.
     

  4. Even if one
     assumes that Assad will
     honor a peace accord with
     Israel for the duration
     of his rule — a very
     dubious assumption given
     the past record, there is
     no guarantee that his
     successor will do so.
     If not, American troops
     on the Golan could prove
     less of a disincentive to
     yet another Syrian
     armored attack against
     Israel than a serious
     impediment to the sort of
     preemptive action the
     Israelis have in the past
     been obliged to resort to
     in the absence of
     strategic depth.

  5. The massive
     demobilization of the
     U.S. military undertaken
     in recent years has left
     this country ill-prepared
     to assume the commitment
     of substantial numbers
     (e.g., a brigade) of
     heavily armed troops to a
     Golan peacekeeping
     mission. As a
     practical matter, such a
     deployment would require
     the assignment of a full
     division — one-third (or
     a brigade) in place,
     one-third standing down
     from the last deployment
     and one-third preparing
     for the next one.

     This level of
     commitment could
     represent as much as one-tenth
     of the total U.S. Army
     divisional force
     structure envisioned by
     the Clinton Pentagon’s
     Bottom-Up Review, a force
     structure already
     substantially undersized
     to meet the ostensible
     objective of two major
     regional contingencies.

     Of course, a
     less-well-defended force
     may be more easily
     managed within existing
     and projected resources.
     It would, however, be
     more vulnerable to what
     might be called the
     Lieutenant Colonel Rich
     Higgins nightmare:
     hostage-taking, torture
     and murder of lightly
     armed American service
     personnel.

  6. The experience
     with U.S. monitors in the
     Sinai is not applicable
     to a seemingly comparable
     mission on the Golan
     Heights. For one
     thing, unlike the case on
     the Golan Heights,
     American personnel in the
     Sinai do not have to live
     and operate among or even
     near an indigenous
     population. For another,
     the sheer size of the
     Sinai desert minimizes
     the risk of surprise
     attack — with or without
     American peacekeepers.
     The same cannot be said
     of the Golan once it is
     again in Syrian hands.

A Need for Informed Debate
Before It’s Too Late

These and other concerns prompt many
thoughtful national security experts to
conclude that American interests will be
badly served by a deployment of U.S.
troops on the Golan Heights. Some others
believe the risks and possible benefits
can only be evaluated on the basis of
specific plans for configuring,
equipping, fielding and backing up such
forces.

Virtually everyone can agree,
however, that such an evaluation should
occur before the United States
is committed to providing American
soldiers, either as a key
ingredient of a multilateral peacekeeping
force on the Golan or as a U.S.-only
deployment. If the experience with the
September 1993 “breakthrough”
between the Israel and the PLO is any
guide — and the Center for Security
Policy thinks it should be — once
an agreement has been unveiled, it is too
late to ask hard questions.

At that point, those insisting on
answers to the hard questions tend to be
labelled “opponents of the peace
process.” Even now, in advance of
any public U.S. pledge to contribute
peacekeeping forces and before the
Israeli government has officially
abandoned its historical position that
the Jewish State must not rely on others
for its security, that unfair charge is
being leveled at those who are skeptical
about putting U.S. troops on the Golan.

The Campaign to Deny an
Informed Debate

It is, consequently, deeply
distressing that a serious effort is
being made by some to persuade members of
the Senate — particularly those who
share the Center’s commitment to Israel
and its concern about the future of
American-Israeli ties — to block a
legislative mandate for a Pentagon study
of the possible risks and benefits of a
U.S. deployment on the Golan Heights.
Frankly, the ability of involved
individuals to rationalize their actions
is mystifying: On what grounds
can the Senate be told not even to debate
the idea of directing the Pentagon to
provide a study and of assuring that the
Congress has time to consider the results
before the nation becomes obliged to
deploy forces on the Golan?

Justifiable or not, the result of
these efforts may be to leave the Senate
unprepared for the terrible political
repercussions likely to ensue if American
service personnel start being killed in
yet another ill-conceived and poorly
understood peacekeeping mission. (It is
doubly ironic — and preposterous — that
U.S. Senators are being led to think that
a study along these lines would
constitute improper interference in the
affairs of the Israeli
government!)

The Bottom Line

Real, long-term and possibly
irreparable damage can be done to the
vital U.S.-Israeli relationship if
political expediency, rather than
principled strategic vision, is given
free rein. The Center for
Security Policy believes that neither
U.S. interests nor Israel’s will be
served — and dangerous fissures may be
created between these two allies — if
American soldiers are killed on the Golan
Heights. The lingering repercussions of
the Somali fiasco are nothing compared to
those that can be predicted to flow
should similar, to say nothing of greater,
U.S. losses be incurred on the Golan,
prompting some to say the deaths are
Israel’s fault.

The Center is strongly opposed to
efforts being made to prevent an early
and informed debate on a future U.S.
deployment on the Golan. In our opinion,
there is no valid argument against the
United States government looking before
it leaps into this proposal. The question
is thus one of when should that look
be taken. Far from the present
moment being “premature,” as
some are claiming, this may be
the last opportunity for the
sorts of candid, objective and official
assessment and informed debate that are
required.