The United States, battling a prisoner abuse scandal and insurgency in Iraq, could not have chosen a worse time to slap new sanctions on Syria, Arabs said Wednesday.  

Many warned that the sanctions, welcomed only by Syria's arch-foe Israel, would fuel anger against America.

"If they are having such trouble in Iraq, they should at least calm down Iraq's neighbors," said Mohamed al-Sayed Said of Egypt's al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

"Whoever is ruling Syria would be foolish not to try harder to embarrass the Americans in Iraq. Anyone seeing his regime so severely undermined and humiliated would have no option but to try and spoil it for the Americans in Iraq."

Labeling Syria "an unusual and extraordinary threat," US President Bush Tuesday signed an order imposing sanctions long in the pipeline on Damascus for backing anti-Israeli groups and allowing anti-American insurgents to cross the Syrian border into Iraq.

Damascus has repeatedly said the sanctions would only harm the handful of American firms in Syria and would not persuade it to end backing for groups it defends as legitimate resistance.

Many Arabs said the widely expected move was the latest in a series of Middle East policy mistakes driven by Washington's blind bias toward Israel, the only country in the region to welcome the sanctions.

"This is an important decision that proves, once again, the resolve of the United States to wage all-out war -- not just against terrorist groups, but also against the countries that harbor them," the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement.

But Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group called the sanctions a "big badge of honor" for Syria if they sought to punish its backer for resisting Israeli occupation and American domination.

No effect

The sanctions ban exports except for food and medicine, freeze assets of Syrians and Syrian entities suspected of links to terror or weapons of mass destruction and ban Syrian flights to and from the United States.

Bush will consider further sanctions unless Damascus ends its support for anti-Israeli militant groups such as Hizbollah and the Islamist Palestinian Hamas, pulls its troops out of Lebanon, ends development of forbidden weapons and cooperates fully with US-led efforts to stabilize Iraq.

"(The sanctions) are only going to increase tension in the region, and we have enough of that," said Kuwaiti Islamist parliamentarian Nasser al-Sane.

"Because Syria is an Arab country there's going to be an Arab reaction sympathetic to Syria, because its a member of the Arab family this is only going to increase the conflict."

Damascus, which bitterly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, has described the sanctions as "unjust and unwarranted."

It says it has done its best to control the border but would still pursue a policy of "dialogue" with Washington.

"When they say the Syrians should be more careful about the border, they forget to mention that they (the Americans) are on the other side. Why aren't they doing a better job?" an Arab League official said.

"I don't think this is the right approach. The right approach is through dialogue, especially since they have recently indicated they have seen the Syrians cooperate."

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, whose country is under heavy political and military influence from Syria, said the sanctions were "wrong in both content and timing" and were further proof that Washington pandered to Israeli interests.

"This decision poses the question of whether the series of mistakes the American administration is committing in the region will lead to more tensions, escalation and feelings of injustice on the Arab side," he said in a statement.

Some dismissed the sanctions as little more than symbolic, given Washington's economic and political ties with Damascus.

"The American pressure on Syria is a long-term plan and this is part of it," said Saudi political analyst Abdullah al-Otaibi.

"US image in the Middle East is already bad," said another Gulf analyst. "It just solidifies the Arab conviction that Israel is running the show in the Middle East."

(China Daily May 13, 2004)