# Did Israel really destroy a Syrian/Iranian military installation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 13, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994 "2007-09-13T00:52:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/1 "2007-09-13T00:52:52Z")
According to this link that may be the case: > **[Syrian Air Strike Explained?](https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/09/018445.php)** > > Last week’s strike by Israeli aircraft against a site in northern Syria has been a bit of a mystery. Possible explanations are now emerging, as reported by Ynet. Some say the target was weapo… Speculation is that it was either a weapons cache or a nuclear facility. I don’t have a firm opinion on what happened, but if we are going to debate the ethics of the strike, I’ll take the position that Israel has been provoked more than enough and this was justified retaliation. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/2 "2007-09-13T18:14:19Z")
[QUOTE=Plan B] I’ll take the position that Israel has been provoked more than enough and this was justified retaliation. [/QUOTE] I’ll not argue with you, but I’ll bump your thread. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/3 "2007-09-14T21:30:19Z")
According to Reuters, [Israel refuses to comment](http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0620459420070906?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews) – but that was a week ago. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2007, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/4 "2007-09-15T16:39:15Z")
from [the Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091402207.html) (registration required, no fee) > [@](#): > > Meanwhile, a prominent U.S. expert on the Middle East, who has interviewed Israeli participants in a mysterious raid over Syria last week, reported that the attack appears to have been linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying material from North Korea labeled as cement. > > The expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid compromising his sources, said the target of the attack appears to have been a northern Syrian facility that was labeled an agricultural research center on the Euphrates River, close to the Turkish border. Israel has kept a close eye on the facility, believing that Syria was using it to extract uranium from phosphates. > > The expert said it is not clear what the ship was carrying, but the emerging consensus in Israel was that it delivered nuclear equipment. The ship arrived Sept. 3 in the Syrian port of Tartus; the attack occurred Sept. 6 under such strict operational security that the pilots flying air cover for the attack aircraft did not know details of the mission. The pilots who conducted the attack were briefed only after they were in the air, he said. > . > . > . > . > . > Bruce Reidel, a former intelligence official at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, said, “It was a substantial Israeli operation, but I can’t get a good fix on whether the target was a nuclear thing.” He said there was “a great deal of skepticism that there’s any nuclear angle here” and instead the facility could have been related to chemical or biological weapons. > > But other sources who have been monitoring the Middle East said the attack was likely to be against a transit point for Iranian weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon I find it fascinating that the issue has been totally ignored. Not even a perfunctory condemnation at the UN. And the Syrians themselves are barely mentioning it. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/5 "2007-09-16T01:03:33Z")
My bet is that nobody’s talking because EVERYONE looks dirty if all the facts about it are out of the box. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/6 "2007-09-16T01:06:52Z")
Yeah. Either the attack never happened, or if it did it probably hit a target that was exactly what Israel said it was. If it had been a baby food factory (or even if they had time to doctor it up to look like one), Syria would be screaming to the UN, and we’d have umpteen threads here calling Israel despicable warmongers. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/7 "2007-09-16T17:03:24Z")
Another article from the Times: [Israelis ‘blew apart nuclear cache’](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2461421.ece) > [@](#): > > IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way. > … > Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country. > > Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/8 "2007-09-16T18:02:32Z")
I betcha NK was barely on speaking terms with any Muslim radicals or Ba’athist regimes when Bush included it in his 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech. By his words and deeds, he has conjured the Axis of Evil into existence. Our POTUS is a wizard! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/9 "2007-09-16T18:26:09Z")
> [@Washington Post](#): > > But other sources who have been monitoring the Middle East said the attack was likely to be against a transit point for Iranian weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon There is a slim possibility that Hezbollah was doing something so worrying that even the Syrian government didn’t like it - and allowing Israel to take it out saved everyone’s face. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/10 "2007-09-16T18:50:12Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] There is a slim possibility that Hezbollah was doing something so worrying that even the Syrian government didn’t like it - and allowing Israel to take it out saved everyone’s face. [/QUOTE] Why would Assad object to anything Hezbollah is doing, or wants to do, in Lebanon? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/11 "2007-09-16T19:02:03Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] There is a slim possibility that Hezbollah was doing something so worrying that even the Syrian government didn’t like it - and allowing Israel to take it out saved everyone’s face. [/QUOTE] Even if that were the story, they wouldn’t have allowed it to happen in Syria. In Lebanon, yes; but not on their own soil. It’s an admission of weakness. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/12 "2007-09-16T19:18:34Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I betcha NK was barely on speaking terms with any Muslim radicals or Ba’athist regimes when Bush included it in his 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech. By his words and deeds, he has conjured the Axis of Evil into existence. Our POTUS is a wizard! 🙂 [/QUOTE] How much are you betting? You’re serious about that, aren’t you? You really have such contempt for these countries that all it takes to manipulate them is for the POTUS to call them names? Imagine the possibilities that opens up for the US. How about this: GWB: The only reason Syria doesn’t wipe out Hezbollah is 'cause they’re scared! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/13 "2007-09-16T19:27:52Z")
[QUOTE=Plan B] How much are you betting? You’re serious about that, aren’t you? You really have such contempt for these countries that all it takes to manipulate them is for the POTUS to call them names? Imagine the possibilities that opens up for the US. How about this: GWB: The only reason Syria doesn’t wipe out Hezbollah is 'cause they’re scared! [/QUOTE] Oh, something else **might** have done it. But remember, the only thing Iraq, Iran and NK had in common, in 2002, was that they were all on bad terms with the U.S., for very different sets of reasons. But that was a status quo to which everyone had been accustomed for many years, and it didn’t make them friends with each other; Iran and Iraq had remained bitter enemies since 1980, and Korean Communism was, in principle, ideologically hostile to any Islamic theocracy (less so, perhaps, to Ba’athists, whose ideology is based partly on socialism). In declaring open-ended active hostility to all of them, W raised the stakes and gave them, and others similarly situated, something they never really had before: a good reason to work together against the common enemy. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/14 "2007-09-16T19:30:12Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Why would Assad object to anything Hezbollah is doing, or wants to do, in Lebanon? [/QUOTE] Uhm…how about because Hezbollah has a track record of **killing** people that get in their way? And Assad is controlling this really nice piece of real estate right next door to Lebanon? Assad would be safer raising a Bengal tiger in one of his palaces than allowing Hezbollah to grow unfettered anywhere in the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/15 "2007-09-16T20:24:14Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] W raised the stakes and gave them something they never really had before: a good reason to work together against the common enemy. [/QUOTE] In the 1990’s, Syria worked together with North Korea to buy Scud missiles. This was a full decade before W came to power.. [cite](http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/syria/syria-missile-miles.html) Bush bashing is a popular sport, but try to keep it in line with the facts. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/16 "2007-09-16T20:47:31Z")
[QUOTE=chappachula] In the 1990’s, Syria worked together with North Korea to buy Scud missiles. This was a full decade before W came to power.. [cite](http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/syria/syria-missile-miles.html) [/QUOTE] That’s by no means incredible, but there’s an awful lot of “reportedly” in it. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2007, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/17 "2007-09-16T21:35:33Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Why would Assad object to anything Hezbollah is doing, or wants to do, in Lebanon? [/QUOTE] Because he has to walk a very fine line between trying to throw the wrench in Israel’s works, while not bringing down the wrath of the Israeli armed forces on his head. Everyone knows that Syria is up to its eyeballs in Lebanon. Just what do you think would happen if, say, a dirty nuke was launched from Lebanon at Israel? Syria benefits from Israel being tied up and harassed by Hezbollah, but not from full-scale war. Syria also wants Israel to look like the bad guy. Provoke Israel just enough to prompt a retaliation that can be spun as ‘big bad Israel attacking the poor Lebanese’. If an attack agaiinst Israel is too strong, too deadly, or too threatening, world opinion shifts and suddenly Syria is taking heat from everyone. Not that I necessarily believe the particular theory that Syria looked the other way in this instance, but it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility. The article also says that the U.S. knew of the attack, because it had to give Israeli planes transponder codes so they could be identified as friendlies and not accidently shot down by the U.S. In the middle east, there is always a LOT going on below the surface that never makes the papers. On all sides. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-israel-really-destroy-a-syrian-iranian-military-installation/418994/18 "2007-09-19T01:37:29Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] In the middle east, there is always a LOT going on below the surface that never makes the papers. On all sides. [/QUOTE] This article from today’s WSJ suppors that point. Lots of theories and questions, few facts so far: [http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010619](http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010619)