Much energy has been expended in attempting to block Iran's seemingly inexorable drive toward acquiring nuclear weapons. But there is growing concern that all this activity has merely served to mask a potentially more sinister, more dangerous development: The acquisition of nuclear weapons by Syria, perhaps with the assistance of its Iranian ally. On May 11, US President George W. Bush triggered the implementation of a basket of sanctions against the regime of Bashar Assad that had been approved by Congress six months earlier. Bush cited Syria's support for terrorism, its military presence in Lebanon, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and its actions to undermine US efforts to stabilize and reconstruct Iraq. Such activities, declared Bush, are "sufficiently grave to constitute a threat to the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the United States." While the Bush administration might have been prompted to act against Damascus because it is blatantly facilitating the entry into Iraq of terrorists who are intent on attacking US forces, there might have been another reason for Washington's attempt to contain the Assad regime. Alarm bells are now ringing in Washington and some European capitals over reports that Syria might have acquired gas centrifuges, which would provide Damascus with the ability to produce enriched uranium for the development of nuclear weapons...
With Washington breathing down Syria's neck, one might have expected the conciliatory message from Lantos to be enthusiastically embraced. It wasn't.
One reason for Syria's obduracy could be that it is pursuing an objective that it believes will turn the tables on America. Damascus might have traveled farther down the road to acquiring nuclear weapons than anyone had previously dared to guess. If Syria has indeed made progress in the nuclear field, it almost certainly occurred via the clandestine nuclear network that was established by renegade scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is revered in his native Pakistan as the Father of the Islamic Bomb. The nuclear supermarket that the Khan network operated over more than a decade covered a huge stage, from Asia to Europe and the Middle East.