U.S.-Israeli-Turkish drive for 'new order'

Fri Sep 5 11:25:10 BST 1997

**U.S.-Israeli-Turkish drive for 'new order'**

(Reprinted from the August 30, 1997 issue of the People's 
Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit. 
For subscription information see below)

By Hans Lebrecht

TEL AVIV - There are almost daily reports in the Israeli 
media of raids by the Israeli air force or army commandos 
into the "security zone" in southern Lebanon. Sometimes, in 
retaliation, Katyusha rockets, fired from Lebanese 
territory, cause damage in settlements in northern Israel.

This mini-war, at times escalated to full-scale war by 
Israel, has continued since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 
in 1982 which brought death to tens of thousands of 
Lebanese and Palestinians and hundreds of Israeli and U.S. 
army personnel. In 1985 Israel was forced to pull back, 
leaving a security zone in southern Lebanon in the hands of 
Israel.

These hostilities are pictured as a proxy war against Syria 
which still has army units in Lebanon as part of a peace-
keeping force established 1976 at the end of the civil 
strife in that country. In this way Israel and its backers 
hope to force Syria to agree to reopen peace talks without 
requiring Israel to recognize Syria's sovereignty over the 
Golan Heights .

 Just recently Syria's President Hafez el-Assad repeated 
his readiness to reopen talks with Israel at the point they 
were broken off by Israel's Government, after the previous 
government agreed in principle to recognize Syria's 
sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel demands that 
negotiations resume without regard to already agreed-upon 
points.

All this should be seen as an effort to establish a "New 
Order" in the Middle East. The long-standing strategic 
military alliance between the U.S. and Israel, now 
remodeled into a neo-colonialist weapon against the 
national liberation movements of the Arab peoples, is a 
main pillar of this policy.

This alliance has resulted in an Israeli-Turkish sub-
alliance and leaves the door open for the Hashemite Kingdom 
of Jordan to join - both aimed at isolating Syria and 
forcing it to agree to Israeli terms. Israel's special aim 
is, of course, to damage international Arab solidarity with 
the Palestinian people's just cause. Anybody looking at the 
mid-eastern map recognizes that Israel and Turkey are 
encircling Syria and Lebanon, both of which oppose the 
U.S.-dictated New Order and Israel's territorial claims.

The other opponent to Washington's designs is Iraq; small 
wonder, therefore, that the Clinton administration is blind 
to the various incursions of the Turkish army into northern 
Iraq.

The U.S., which led a needless war against Iraq in 1991 
after the Iraqi invasion into Kuwait, and continues to 
support Israel's rejectionist positions regarding the Arab 
territories, does not interfere against the aggressive 
Turkish military actions on Iraqi soil. Most certainly, the 
U.S. administration stands behind the common Israeli-
Turkish military maneuvers recently held near Syria's 
northern border, as well as naval maneuvers near Syria's 
territorial waters , heightening the already high tension 
in the area.

Turkey plans to erect 17 dams on the upper reaches of the 
Tigris and Euphrates rivers, without first consulting Syria 
and Iraq, as required by international law. Under these 
circumstances, it was only natural that Syria and Iraq bury 
old grievances and close ranks between the Ba'ath regimes 
of el-Assad and Saddam Hussein. Moreover, several voices 
have emerged among political circles in both countries 
proposing establishment of a Syrian-Iraqi-Iranian axis to 
counter the U.S.-Israeli-Turkish political-military 
alliance.

Interesting in this respect was the surprise visit to Iran 
by President el-Assad, as well as concomitant moves to open 
up towards Iraqi. Moreover, Syria has decided to go ahead 
with renewed economic trade with Iraq, notwithstanding the 
U.S. boycott. As Syrian leaders often say: "Syria gained 
its independence from colonial (French) rule in 1946, and 
it is not about to take orders from imperialist and 
colonialist rulers again, especially when it was aimed at 
harming another Arab country."

These new tendencies of rapprochement and cooperation 
between Syria and Iraq, and possibly with Iran, must be 
seen against the background of rising tensions, caused by 
Israel under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and the 
repeated accusations of the U.S. State Department, accusing 
the Syrian regime of supporting "international terrorism" 
in this way continuing sanctions against Syria and 
excluding it from normal international trade and economic 
support.

Besides reducing the danger of military aggression against 
Syria, the aim of the Syrian-Iraqi rapprochement is to 
counter Israel's pressure to force Syria into giving up all 
claims to the Golan Heights. To counter these trends 
imperiling any peaceful solutions of the Israeli-Arab 
conflict, peace forces in Israel, Palestine and the Arab 
countries, are warning of a dangerous crisis developing 
into a new Middle East war, the consequences of which 
cannot be foreseen.

What is urgently needed is a coordinated struggle of all 
progressive peace forces in the states involved, as well as 
international cooperation and solidarity with the regional 
struggle against the aggressive designs of the U.S.-
Israeli-Turkish alliance.
##30##

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