Still nothing official....but

Pretty much the first thing i do when i wake up in the morning is check all the various major national and international newspapers. Alot happens in the 8 or so hours that you sleep and because the internet is a 24 hour party much of the websites are updated and what you read last night isn't necessarily going to be front page news anymore.
Opening up the New York Times, this was the most updated story:

Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

You may remember that in early September I noted the attack by Israel on Syria was extraordinarily suspicious due to the silence from all sides of the equation. The Israeli's had a media blackout, the Syrians were making a very quiet protest, the Americans were keeping mum and there was absolutely no condemnation from any Arab state even Iran. Obviously not everyone is happy about a nuclear Syria (ditto with a nuclear Iran).
It seems that Israel is recovering it's deterrent powers since the war against Hezbollah last year. I imagine that this sort of story is one that i'll be reporting on for years to come.


What a great time to start a blog :-)

Something's goin down in Syria.

Almost 2 weeks ago an Israeli plane flew into Syria and dropped munitions. Due to my obsession compulsion with the knowing everything first and the fact that i have Drudge Report on my favorites I was the first of my friends and family to know about this and despite the fact that I consider myself very knowledgeable about Middle East issues I had no idea what was going on.
There was a complete media blackout in Israel, which would be strange in any country, but Israel is a haven of free press and there's 10 different opinions for every 2 citizens. It wasn't for a few days then things became clear. This wasn't a mistake or some screw-up by a cocky pilot rather it seems that (as of 24 Sept. 2007) Israel was making sure that Syria didn't get the bomb.
Only a few days ago i commented on the danger of Iran becoming a nuclear state, Syria would be just as dangerous.
The raid itself appears to be one of daring and audacity. From what i've pieced together from various news reports it seems that Israeli commandos, dressed as Syrian soldiers, infiltrated the target building and escaped undetected with fissionable material and then targeted the building for an air-strike. WOW!
If that was indeed true then it's a pretty amazing operation. The Syrian's appear to have been in bed with the North Koreans as several Syrian officials visited North Korea after the attack.
What's amazing isn't the reaction from the Western World. Rather the reaction, or lack thereof, from the Arab world. If Syria was indeed building a nuclear weapon it seems that no one, not even their Arab neighbors, wanted them to have it. There's been the typical condemnations from North Korea, Russia and Iran but that's it.

I'll hopefully have more over the coming days when things become clearer.
It seems that this is one of those operations for the record books