YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN: CHRISTOPHER, NEWLY SEIZED WITH SYRIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TERRORISM, SENDS WARNING TO DAMASCUS

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s Washington Post
carries a stunning news item: Secretary of State Warren
Christopher has directed the U.S. ambassador to Syria,
Christopher Ross, to use language that is “unusually
blunt” “at the highest appropriate level”
to tell the Syrians that “the Clinton
Administration holds the Damascus regime responsible for
proliferating threats from Palestinian terrorist groups
against U.S. citizens and will respond to terrorist
attacks ‘in any way it deems necessary.'”

According to the Post, Christopher’s strong
message reads as follows:

“It is particularly disturbing that some of
the statements threatening the U.S. are being made by
groups and individuals based in Syria. There can be
no justification for their direct threats to American
citizens and to American interests. The groups
responsible must be in no doubt that the U.S. takes
these threats seriously and reserves the right to
respond in any way it deems necessary to terrorism
against its citizens or interests.”

What makes this statement so striking is not the fact
that the government of dictator Hafez Assad is intimately
involved in ongoing terrorist activities — particularly
those of terrorist organizations it allows to have
headquarters and training facilities on Syrian territory.
Such involvement has been reflected for years in the
State Department’s congressionally mandated list of
state-sponsors of terrorism.

Rather, the Christopher initiative is astounding
insofar as it appears, at least implicitly, to mark a
wholesale reversal on the part of the Clinton
Administration concerning Syria’s connection to
international terrorism. Indeed, it has been widely
expected that the Christopher State Department would
agree to remove Syria from its terrorist sponsors list
(and its list of drug-trafficking nations) as part of a
package deal designed to induce Assad to sign a peace
treaty with Israel. In the absence of such steps, the
Administration would be severely constrained in terms of
the financial, technological and other assistance it
might provide to Damascus. And, absent these sweeteners,
Assad may be unwilling to agree to a treaty that simply
provides for Israel’s surrender of the entirety of the
strategic Golan Heights.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy applauds
Secretary Christopher’s decision to serve notice on the
Syrians that they will be held directly responsible for
the terrorist activities of those who enjoy their
hospitality and support. As the Syrian-supported Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK) is currently engaged in operations
inimical to U.S. interests in Turkey, this notice could
be followed by actions designed to demonstrate that the
latest diplomatic message to Assad is not just another
feckless “demarchemellow.” It would be far
preferable to deter future attacks against Americans by
striking a blow to PKK bases in Syria than to be
consigned to retaliating against Hamas, the PLFP,
Hezbollah or some other Syrian-abetted organization after
it has attacked the United States and its interests.

At the very least, it is to be earnestly hoped
that the Christopher cable will put to an end any further
Clinton Administration notions that Syrian responsibility
for terrorism can be ignored — to say nothing of
concealed from the American people and their
representatives in Congress.