The Russia-Syria Connection

FrontPageMagazine.com
By Dr. Walid Phares
March 18, 2005
 

Excerpt:

Dr. Walid Phares gave the following testimony before the U.S. Senate on the issue of Russia's arming of longtime ally Syria. We reproduce it here in full. -- The Editors.
 

I am pleased to participate in this timely hearing on the subject of Russian involvement with Syria. I shall focus my remarks upon the impact of Russian-Syrian relations on Lebanon. I am a professor of international relations, an expert on terrorism and am originally from Lebanon. I am the Secretary-General of the World Lebanese Cultural Union, and in that capacity I have just been in New York where I met seven ambassadors to the UN Security Council (Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, France, Greece, Russia, US) and the Deputy Secretary General for Middle Eastern affairs. While I am not an international lawyer, I shall draw your attention to international legal standards which I sincerely believe Russia is not meeting.

As you know, the present turmoil in Lebanon stems from the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, on February 14, 2005. Mr Hariri’s murder was, however, not a bolt from the blue. Rather, his brutal removal from the political scene followed months of threats by Syria and its proxies against Lebanese who have sought the end of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2, 2004 (UNSCR 1559/2004). The US Congress was ahead of the international community in demanding such a withdrawal through the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003.

Throughout the increasing tensions in Lebanon, Russia has stood firmly with its traditional ally in Damascus. It is clear to me that Russian influence over Syria will play a significant role in the fortunes of democracy in Lebanon and the Middle East region.

By supplying arms and diplomatic support, Russia sustains the Syrian government and the continued Syrian presence in Lebanon which is in violation of UNSCR 1559/2004. Russian arms are used to violate human rights in both Syria and Lebanon. These same Russian arms are supplied to terrorists and insurgents who attack US forces and Iraqi civilians in Iraq and who conduct terrorist operations against Israeli civilians.

As you know, the Soviet Union had a long history of support, economic, financial and military, for Syria and for Syrian-aligned terrorist groups. Russia has continued the military relationship since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, albeit on a reduced scale.

Syria depends on Russia for the supply, maintenance and spare parts for all of its major weapons systems. Although there is some indigenous manufacture of armaments, this is neither of the scale nor quality that would allow Syria to claim to have an independent arms industry.

Russian military supplies are the foundation upon which the Syrian state is built. As you know, Syria is the last remaining Ba’athist dictatorship and its sole means of influence is armed force and intimidation.

Russia, and its predecessor the Soviet Union, have supplied Syria with the following armaments that play a role in Syrian power projection: surface to air missiles, surface to surface missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers, small arms.

The surface to air missiles allow Syria to attempt to compensate for the weakness of its air force and to provide an air defense umbrella stretching beyond Syria’s borders.

The surface to surface missiles allow Syria to threaten its neighbors’ cities, as Iraq’s long range missiles did under Saddam Hussein’s regime. In addition, the suspicion that Syria has active chemical and biological weapons programs raises the concern that such missiles may be armed with non-conventional warheads.

The tanks and armored personnel carriers, along with the small arms, are the standard weapons of Ba’athist repression at both home and abroad. Small arms, in particular, have ended up in the hands of the various Syrian-aligned terrorist groups that have plagued the Middle East. For example, the large stock of arms made available to Hizbullah by Syria and Iran contains significant quantities of Russian made weapons and weapons of Russian origin made under license abroad. The same applies to the arms that Syria has passed on to other Syrian-aligned militias and terrorist groups in Lebanon such as the Syrian Ba’ath Party, the Syrian National-Social Party and the Palestinian Saika units.