In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [82]
Damascus prepared to put its best face forward though. In late 2004, Syrian historian Sami Moubayed and Abdulsalam Haykal, a Syrian businessman with close links to the Syrian regime, had founded Forward, an English-language magazine that, according to its website, looked at “the bright side of things.” While the magazine most definitely targeted the international community, the fact that Forward was the name of America’s most popular Jewish-American magazine showed that—despite the fact both publishers had graduated from the American University in Beirut—both remained markedly out of touch with the outside world. More worrying, however, was the magazine’s content. In its first few editions, the magazine ran essays on how Syria was the “key” to the Middle East. A regular contributor to the magazine was the Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, who wrote articles that were intensely critical of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. While Forward was nominally a competitor of Syria Today, its approach was more about public relations than actual journalism.
Rumors of an Iranian “takeover” in Damascus filled the cafés and bars of Beirut and Amman. Some referred to reports that Israeli and UN forces in southern Lebanon had uncovered extensive evidence that Damascus had openly supplied Hezbollah with antitank weapons, including RPG-29s, AT-5s, AT-13s, and AT-14s, which had been extremely effective at knocking out Israeli armor. The weapons were also used to destroy buildings in southern Lebanon that Israeli soldiers used for command and control. Other rumors of spreading Iranian influence were based on announcements in the Syrian and Iranian press of millions of dollars of Iranian investments pouring into Syria. One report from Iran’s national news agency reported that Iranian investments in Syria had topped four hundred million dollars in 2006, representing 66 percent of the total Arab investment in the country.2
To understand just how close Iran and Syria had become, I attended the Iranian embassy’s twenty-eighth anniversary celebration of the Islamic Revolution on February 8, 2007. After a quick check of our passports, Andrew Butters, correspondent for Time magazine, and I entered the embassy compound, which was decorated with beautiful cobalt-blue tiles with vine patterns.3 A press conference was under way between Syrian journalists and the Iranian ambassador to Syria Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, whose long beard, flowing robes, and white turban seemed to make him an archetypal ayatollah of the Islamic Republic. As he answered questions, I noticed that he spoke beautiful classical Arabic—something the journalists respected, if for no other reason than they didn’t have to dub the television or radio footage. Akhtari spoke about the strong relationship between Iran and Syria and boasted about the millions of dollars in projects being planned for the country. He looked keenly into the eyes of the journalists as he spoke, exuding a kind of self-confidence reminiscent of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Syrian journalists ate it up, scribbling nearly every word he said into their notebooks.
Suddenly the door to the room swung open, revealing a ruckus outside. In strutted Syrian minister of information Mohsen Bilal, the former ambassador to Spain and Syria’s chief spokesperson during the Israel-Hezbollah war. Sporting a mane of white hair and looking a bit like a retired rock star, Bilal walked over to Akhtari and shook his hand in front of the cameras. The ambassador motioned us to a square of tables, draped with bright yellow cloths reminiscent of the Hezbollah flag and heaving with platters of yellow rice and roasted chicken with pistachios.
Akhtari graciously welcomed us to the celebration as we took our seats, and he urged us to dig in. Akhtari began