Israel's attack is a lethal step towards war in Middle East
by Robert Fisk

Israel received the Green Light. It came from what is called the Syria Accountability Act, moving through the United States Congress with the help of Israel's supporters, that will impose sanctions on Damascus for its supposed enthusiasm for "terrorism" and occupation of Lebanon.

Speaker after speaker in the past week has been warning that Syria is the new - or old, or non-existent - threat previously represented by Iraq: that it has weapons of mass destruction, that it has biological warheads, that it received Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction just before we began our illegal invasion of Iraq in March.

The Israeli lie about "thousands" of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon has been uncloaked yet again. In reality, there hasn't been an Iranian militant in Lebanon for 20 years. But who cares? The dictatorial Syrian regime - and dictatorial it most decidedly is - has to be struck after a Jenin woman lawyer, who has probably never visited Damascus in her life, blows herself and 19 innocent Israelis up in Haifa.

And why not? If America can strike Afghanistan for the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and if America can invade Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 11 September, why shouldn't Israel strike Syria?
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But no. Yesterday, we took another little lethal step along the road to Middle East war, establishing facts on the ground, proving that it's permissible to bomb the territory of Syria in the "war against terror", which President Bush has himself declared now includes Gaza.
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Will Syria reply via Lebanon?

The Lebanese-Israeli border, the traditional venue for Syria to settle scores with its arch enemy, was bracing yesterday for a possible flare-up of violence after Israeli jets bombed a Palestinian camp in Syria.
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A eulogy for the Arab state system

The Arab system has often been pronounced dead and this time it may indeed be true. What do I mean by the Arab system? Ideally, I mean a reasonably stable regional order, seemingly dedicated to Arab interests, managed by sovereign Arab states, accepted by many of its citizens and able to keep external enemies at bay, if not defeat them.

No one would recognize this as a description of today’s decimated and divided Arab world, bereft of all nationalist pride, lacking any solidarity or self-confidence, more subject to foreign domination than at any time since World War II, and at war with its own angry citizens.
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