Word: damascus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...adamantly refuses to even recognize Israel, much less negotiate with it, ousted the late Palestinian leader's party from power. Besides angering Arab opinion, the lack of an Arab-Israeli peace process that would also address Israel's occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights has encouraged mischief-making by Damascus, which is suspected of aiding anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq and committing political assassinations in Lebanon...
Still, compared with what waits for Gates, those challenges were small. He will probably follow Baker's lead in emphasizing regional diplomacy and will support any commission proposal to open direct talks with Damascus and Tehran. But that will immediately put him at odds with Cheney. One who has worked at Gates' side says the old analyst in Gates will overrule the old ideologue. "He knows that you cannot solve this problem within the four corners of the country," said this former hand. "It's going to take a regional approach. I don't think he's going to look...
...Over the past three months, according to a knowledgeable Saudi source, Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers have been operating out of a military base on the outskirts of Damascus. The Iranian government has dispatched shipments of small arms and what appear to be missile components to this military base, according to the source. From the secret base, weapons have been shipped by truck across the border into Lebanon. Western diplomats say that the Lebanese army has posted over 8,000 troops along the border, forcing smugglers to use mountain passes instead of the heavily monitored crossing on the main Beirut-Damascus...
...Moreover, Obaid says, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are using the Iranian embassies in Damascus and Beirut as command and control centers, an allegation that was also confirmed to TIME by Israeli military sources. Obaid says there appear to be direct communications links between the Iranians and Hizballah, via Hizballah officers working inside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, and Iranian officers in the field with Hizballah fighters; in the past, some Middle East analysts have rejected the popular notion that Hizballah takes direct orders from Iran...
...that they are trying to reduce the majority in the government either by another resignation or assassination," says Ahdab. The ministerial resignations came on the eve of a cabinet discussion to endorse draft United Nations statutes for the creation of an international tribunal to judge Hariri's assassins. With Damascus widely blamed for the killing, Ahdab says the resignations of the pro-Syrian ministers were carefully timed. "They [quit] so they didn't have to ratify what came from the U.N.," he says...