Fred Kaplan's column in
Slate this morning was particularly compelling. His subject was the contrast between British Intelligence, who have apparently completely foiled the attempted London "liquid explosive" terrorist attack because of their policy of working closely with regimes associated themselves with terrorism (in this case, Pakistan), with American Intelligence and its policy of "we don't talk to terrorist states".
What was particularly interesting was the sketch of our interactions with Syrian intelligence agencies. Apparently, after 911, Syria was our most important source of useful intelligence and "probably" prevented several follow-up attacks. In 2003, Seymour Hersch interviewed Bashar Assad, who explained how he had felt it important for Syria and the US work together, because they shared common enemies, and because he wanted good relations with the US for economic reasons.
However, as the US began its build-up to the Iraq invasion, they had stopped talking to Syria; after all, Syria was probably going to be next after Iraq. And apparently, they've never resumed their prior collaboration since, in spite of every indication on the part of Assad that they would be very inerested in doing so.
The final straw for me reading the column was this gem, which is particularly poignant and relevant today:
[I]n the fall of 2002, Gen. Hassan Khalil, head of Syrian military intelligence, told Washington that, in exchange for reopened relationships, Syria would impose restrictions on the political and military actions of Hezbollah.
One can only imagine the results of this: perhaps we could not only have improved US intelligence in Iraq, thereby saving Iraqi and US lives, but could also have prevented Hezbollah's huge arms build-up, thereby staving off the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
Sigh.
Greg Shenaut