“There will have to be change in Syria, plainly,” Wolfowitz

LONDON , April 13 (IslamOnlin.net & News Agencies) – As the U.S.-led Iraq invasion is almost done, it seems Washington is getting serious about its “daily” series of threats against Syria . The pretext now is to “persuade” Israel - the U.S. protégé – to support the U.S.-drafted roadmap peace plan, a British paper said.

The United States has pledged to tackle the Syrian-backed Hizbollah group in the next phase of its “war on terror” in a move which could threaten military action against President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus , The Observer reported Sunday, April 13.

It would be part of a deal designed to entice Israel into the so-called U.S.-drafted roadmap peace package that would involve the Jewish state pulling out of the Palestinian West Bank, occupied since 1967.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that the collapse of the Iraqi regime “could” pave the way for a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and that he was ready to make some “painful” concessions to that end, Washington has promised Israel that it will take “all effective action” to cut off Syria's support for Hizbollah, sources in the Bush administration have told The Observer.

The new U.S. undertaking to Israel to deal with Hizbollah via its Syrian sponsors has been made over recent days during meetings between administration officials and Israeli diplomats in Washington .

“If you control Iraq , you can affect the Syrian and Iranian sponsorship of Hizbollah, both geographically and politically,” says Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington .

“The United States will make it very clear, quietly and publicly, that Baathist Syria may come to an end if it does not stop its support of Hizbollah,” he added. 

The U.S. undertaking dovetails into “phase three” of what President George W. Bush calls the “war on terror” and his pledge to go after all countries accused of harboring terrorists.

It also fits into calls by hawks inside and aligned to the administration who believe that wars on Afghanistan and Iraq were first stage in a wider war for American control of the region.

U.S. Hawks Fish In Troubled Waters

Hawks in and close to the Bush White House have also prepared the ground for an attack on Syria by alleging that Syria harbors the remnants of the Iraqi regime.

U.S. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld charged that senior Iraqi leaders were fleeing to Syria , which he claimed was continuing to send military assistance into Iraq .

And his deputy Paul Wolfowitz - regarded as the real architect of the Iraqi war and its aftermath - said on Thursday, April 10, that “the Syrians have been shipping killers into Iraq to try and kill Americans”, adding: “We need to think about what our policy is towards a country that harbors terrorists or harbors war criminals.”

“There will have to be change in Syria , plainly,” said Wolfowitz.

Washington intelligence sources claim that weapons of mass destruction that Saddam was alleged to have possessed were shipped to Syria after inspectors were sent by the United Nations to find them, the daily said. 

One of the chief ideologists behind the war, Richard Perle, warned Saturday, April 12, that the U.S. would be compelled to act against Syria if it emerged that weapons of mass destruction had been moved there by Saddam's fallen Iraqi regime.

Syria , for its part, frequently rejected the U.S. accusations as unfounded, arguing that the Bush administration wanted to exaggerate matters concerning the Middle East to show that the security of the United States was really in danger.