01/11/2005: "US and Iraq All Set for Strike against Syria. Israel Is Braced for Hizballah Second Front"
Last Sunday, January 2, US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage performed his last major mission before stepping down in favor of Robert B. Zoellick, whom incoming secretary Condoleezza Rice has picked as her deputy. (Zoellick, currently trade representative in charge US world trade, served as deputy to secretary of state James Baker in the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.
This mission took Armitage to Damascus with nine American demands.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources published those demands for the first time in its last week’s issue:
1. Start repealing Syria’s 40-years old emergency laws. 2. Free all political prisoners from jail. 3. Abolish media censorship. 4. Initiate democratic reform. 5. Speed up economic development 6. Cut down relations with Iran. 7. Announce publicly that the disputed Shebaa Farms at the base of Mt. Hermon are former Syrian territory. This would cut the ground from under the Lebanese terrorist Hizballah’s claim that the land is Lebanese and must be “liberated” from Israeli “occupation.”
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that the Iran-sponsored Hizballah’s attack on an Israeli convoy patrolling the disputed Shebaa Farms sector, killing an Israeli officer, on Palestinian election-day, Sunday, January 9, was addressed as much to President George W. Bush as to the new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as a foretaste of what it has in store.
