[Note, the Ba’ath part = Communist party in the Middle East. Saddam, et al were really communists. People often forget this. Of course… one could say the same of so many organisations, including our own government in South Africa… who really are wolves in sheep’s clothing… Jan]

Saturday, January 22, 2005
To Russia with fear: Tough times for Ba’ath Party dictators

Geostrategy-Direct, www.geostrategy-direct.com, January 25, 2005
Syrian President Bashar Assad is scared of the United States and needs to
show some muscle fast. That’s where his friend Russian President Vladimir
Putin comes in.

As neighboring Iraq prepares for its historic election, Assad plans to
discuss the purchase of Russian long-range rockets, long- and short-range
anti-aircraft systems, anti-tank missiles and other weapons during his visit to Russia on Jan. 24.

During four days of meetings, Assad hopes to undo 15 years of neglect in
Syria’s relations with Russia in what could change the Middle East arms
balance.

What’s Assad looking for? In short, everything that money can buy.

Here’s some of the items on Assad’s shopping list: The S-400 anti-missile
defense system, the S-300PMU2 anti-aircraft system, TOR-M1 short-range
anti-aircraft system, the Iskander-E long-range rocket, surface-to-surface
missiles, the SA-18 short-range anti-aircraft missile, anti-tank weapons,
T-90 main battle tanks and upgrades for artillery.

Syria owes the former Soviet Union $11 billion, a debt that the Assad regime has refused to pay to Moscow. But officials said Putin has allowed Syria to buy weapons for cash in an effort to restore Russian influence in the Arab world following the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

Assad has decided to acquire offensive and defensive weapons this year as
part of an effort to repel any U.S. or Israeli attack. The Assad regime has assessed that U.S. forces based in Iraq would launch a major attack on Syria in 2005, perhaps during the late spring.

“There’s no objective reason to think this, but he has been heavily
influenced by the U.S. psychological warfare campaign against him,” a
Western intelligence analyst said.

But the young and inexperienced Assad is frightened. He is particularly
alarmed by what he believes are U.S. attempts to overthrow his regime.
Already, the senior echelon of the government and Ba’ath Party have been
divided into the old guard that wants a stronger alliance with Iran and
young technocrats, who want an accommodation with the United States.

As a result, Assad needs military assurances. Iran and Saudi Arabia have
chipped in about $2 billion for the weapons purchase and all Assad needs is Putin’s okay.

Some of the weapons are purely military. Take the Iskander-E. It has a range of 280 kilometers and can enable a Syrian first strike against U.S. military positions in western Iraq. There’s no equivalent to Iskander-E in NATO.

But other weapons could be meant for Syria’s terrorist allies. The most
lethal of these weapons is the SA-18. It has a range of 5.2 kilometers and
altitude of 3.5 kilometers. Assad was expected to sign a $20 million
contract for the SA-18, sought by Damascus since at least 2002.

In the hands of Iraqi insurgents, the SA-18 could turn life for the U.S.
military into hell. All U.S. aircraft would be vulnerable to the SA-18,
which has a longer range and is far more accurate than the older SA-7
system.

Already Sunni insurgents, using rocket-propelled grenades and SA-7 missiles, have downed numerous aircraft and helicopters in Iraq.

Israel has vigorously objected to Russia’s plans to sell Syria the
shoulder-fired SA-18. Israel has argued that Syria – with much larger mobile anti-aircraft batteries – does require the SA-18, and could transfer the system to the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in Lebanon or Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. With the SA-18 in the hands of terrorists, civilian aircraft flying to and from Israel could be threatened.

At this point, Putin has tried to be cautious. He wants a sale with Syria
but he doesn’t want to burn his bridges with either Israel or the United
States. The deal Putin is pushing most is for the SA-18. One proposal is for the SA-18 to be mounted on military vehicles to make it easier for Israel or the United States to trace them.

The prospect that Assad will keep the SA-18 to himself is unlikely.

Assad has drawn so close to Hizbullah that it has become a leading element
in Syria’s defense against Israeli military attack. Indeed, with Iran paying for the SA-18, Hizbullah will eventually obtain the surface-to-air missile in one form or another.