Israel's Syrian Air Strike Was Aimed at Iran

Until late October, the accepted explanation about the Sept. 6 Israeli air strike in Syria, constructed in a series of press leaks from U.S. officials, was that it was prompted by dramatic satellite intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear facility with help from North Korea.

But new satellite evidence has discredited that narrative, suggesting a more plausible explanation for the strike: that it was a calculated effort by Israel and the United States to convince Iran that its nuclear facilities could be attacked as well.

The narrative promoted by neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration began to unravel in late October with the release by a private company of a series of satellite images showing that the same square, multistory building that was hit by Israeli planes Sept. 6 had been present on the site four years earlier. Although the building appears to be somewhat farther along in the August 2007 image, it showed that the only major new developments at the site since September 2003 were what appears to be a pumping station on the Euphrates and a smaller secondary structure.

Media reports based on leaks from administration officials had suggested that the presence of a water pump indicated that the building must have been a nuclear reactor. But Jeffrey Lewis, a specialist on nuclear technology at the New America Foundation, pointed out in an interview with IPS that the existence of a water pump cannot be taken as evidence of the purpose of the building, since other kinds of industrial buildings would also need to pump water. More...