Keeping a low profile after Syrian bombing made sense

Keeping a low profile after Syrian bombing made sense

Certainly the Bush administration has made mistakes in the Middle East for which it deserves criticism. But sitting on details about Israel’s bombing of what was likely a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria isn’t one of them.

Under pressure from Congress, the administration last week shared the intelligence it has on the mysterious Syrian facility that Israeli jets destroyed last September.

It was a nuclear reactor and, based on satellite images, was almost certainly built on a North Korean model and with North Korean help. The Syrians are claiming that satellite photos are fabricated, a charge that U.S. enemies will happily seize on, but there’s no good reason for the administration to provide Congress with doctored intelligence gathered about an Israeli raid.

The most surprising aspect of the attack was not that Israel or the United States was mum for seven months, it was the virtual nonreaction by Syria. After the bombing, but not before U.S. satellites could get pictures, Syria bulldozed the building’s ruins and constructed a new, larger building in its place. It is not a stretch to suggest that if Syria had not been building a nuclear facility, it would have demanded United Nations action. But, of course, before the U.N. would have acted it would have had to examine the site.

Misplaced criticism

Ironically, even now, the strongest criticism to come from the United Nations is criticism of the United States for withholding information it had on the construction of the reactor. That came from Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei also criticized Israel for bombing the alleged nuclear facility. He has said nothing about Syria, which built it, or North Korea, which made its construction possible.

“The director general deplores the fact that this information was not provided to the agency in a timely manner, in accordance with the agency’s responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enable it to verify its veracity and establish the facts,” said a statement from the IAEA. If ElBaradei had been that interested in being in the loop, he could have made an effort to inspect the ruins of the facility before Syria literally buried the evidence.

If Syria and North Korea were building a reactor in the Syrian desert that could have eventually produced plutonium, Israel has done the world a favor in destroying it.

Ironically, the bombing apparently hasn’t even worsened relations between Syria and Israel.

Turkey’s prime minister was in Damascus over the weekend trying to restart direct talks between Syria and Israel, and there is even talk anew about Israel returning the Golan Heights to Syria, 40 years after the border area was seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

Had everything everyone knew about the bombing been given immediate worldwide acknowledgement last fall, it’s unlikely there would be any talk about peace talks this spring.