Is it a coincidence that the
discovery of the most powerful cyber-weapon known
to humanity, nicknamed Flame, was announced a few
days after a major (if inconclusive) round of
nuclear talks between Iran and the West? It is
harder to defend this argument if we take into
account several other major incidents that have
taken place since last Thursday.
A
gruesome massacre in Houla in Syria that is set to
inflame further the sectarian civil war, and
perhaps even to tip the scales against the Syrian
regime at the United Nations Security Council, is
another dark coincidence. It dims by far the
damning report on the Iranian nuclear program that
the International Atomic Energy Agency published
on Friday, a day after the talks in Baghdad ended.
In all, a very remarkable four-day period.
The suspiciously-timed publication of
reports by international
organizations, as well as
leaks related to the negotiations to the media,
was to be expected. There are plenty of states and
persons with access to confidential information
who are looking after their own interests and are
elbowing to get the best for themselves out of the
complex negotiations.
Israel, which is
widely thought to be the chief spoiler,
immediately comes to mind, but the intention
behind such leaks is not necessarily to derail the
talks; even Russia, which is expected to try hard
to make the negotiations succeed, would not be
beyond suspicion.
However, the
developments of the past days are not mere leaks
and publications. If this is indeed a war of
messages, some of these are written in shocking
amounts of blood, and there could hardly be a
clearer sign that the gloves are off in the Middle
East.
We could try to explain the massacre
that took place in Houla (an area near the city of
Hama in Syria, a site of a brutal massacre in 1982
and a focal point of clashes in the current
crisis) on Friday night as the work of a
pro-regime mob that did not necessarily receive
orders from high up in the regime.
The
German weekly Der Spiegel, for example, emphasized
this interpretation, by comparing the tragedy in
which at least 109 villagers, including 32
children under the age of 10, died to the Mi Lai
massacre perpetrated by a group of American
soldiers during the Vietnam war. [1]
If
unintended, the tragedy was a massive blunder for
the Syrian regime; the moment is so grave that
even a minor misstep could cost Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad his rule. However, the visibility
of the massacre - within hours, pictures of the
bodies surfaced, and within days the UN observers
in Syria were able to file reports - suggests
another story.
What is odd is that there
was no cover-up. Many reports from the past 15
months or so since the start of the unrests
describe previous atrocities perpetrated by regime
troops; according to these reports, bodies
disappeared, sites were bulldozed, and witnesses
were silenced in various ways.
Not so in
Houla. Whether or not the Syrian government
ordered the execution of the civilians, it
apparently wanted the world to know about it. Its
own story about the army being attacked by Islamic
terrorists is fairly unconvincing given the
available evidence.
There is a possibility
that the mass murder will finally lead to a more
aggressive action against Syria at the UN Security
Council, which is scheduled to discuss the matter
on Wednesday. Even Russia, which had so far
resisted blaming the Syrian regime exclusively for
the violence, condemned Assad.
"The
government bears the main responsibility for what
is going on," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov said, quoted by the Associated Press. "Any
government in any country bears responsibility for
the security of its citizens."
In a
foreboding move, 10 European countries plus the
United States expelled the top Syrian diplomats
there in protest. According to media reports, the
West is doing its best to push the Syrian
opposition to unite ahead of a new diplomatic
initiative against Assad.
Both Russian and
American officials have suggested Yemen, whose
president Ali Abdullah Saleh left earlier this
year under a deal that gave him immunity and
transferred power to his deputy, as a possible
model for a resolution of the Syrian crisis.
Most recently, this scenario reportedly
came up in a conversation between US President
Barack Obama and Russian Prime Minister Dmitri
Medvedev during the Group of 8 meeting in Chicago
two weeks ago.
This model has serious
flaws, but has kept coming up as one of very few
available options. The situation in Syria is
different from that in Yemen in many ways;
besides, the notion that the Yemen model has
succeeded was seriously challenged recently by
spiraling violence there. A week ago, a suicide
attack killed about 100 and injured hundreds more
in the capital San'aa.
On the other hand,
it still seems unrealistic that a foreign
intervention will take place in Syria in the very
near future, given the lack of appetite for such
action in the West and the formidable military
machine which the Syrian regime commands
(including sophisticated air defenses and chemical
weapons). This is what Assad is seemingly counting
on in braving the outcry; whether his calculations
will prove correct remains to be seen.
Just as importantly, the massacre and the
ensuing diplomatic scandal threaten to interfere
also with the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran
and the West within the framework of P5+1 (the US,
Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany).
During the talks last week, Iran reportedly tried
hard to insert Syria into the conversation; most
analysts are unanimous that the Iranian regime
sees the developments in its closest Arab ally a
key part in its regional strategy, as intricately
linked to the progress of its nuclear program.
In this context, speculation has long
existed that Iran might dump Assad if the latter's
fortunes became completely untenable, and perhaps
seek to replace him with somebody else from his
own regime. Incidentally, this sounds very much
like the Yemen model, and it is not inconceivable
that it was mentioned, if not during the nuclear
discussions last week, at least during the
back-channel talks that preceded them.
While this is still in the realm of
speculation, it could be that Assad's actions were
a message to his patrons in Tehran as much as a
brazen act of defiance toward the West. By
igniting a full-blown sectarian civil war,
moreover, he would burn all bridges between the
different communities inside the country and
inextricably tie his personal fortunes to those of
his regime and his sect. He would bury the Yemen
model once and for all.
If this was
Assad's message to Tehran, there are indications
it was received. According to British daily The
Guardian, a top Iranian general admitted over the
weekend that Iranian forces operated in Syria on
the side of the regime. [2] We could interpret
this as a strong statement of support for Assad,
designed to reassure him, but also to remind him
of his dependence on Tehran.
Right on the
heels of this intrigue came the announcement by
Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky that it had
discovered a new "malicious program" whose
"complexity and functionality ... exceed those of
all other cyber-menaces known to date." The New
York Times reported on Tuesday that the virus
called Flame had infected the computers of
high-ranking Iranian officials, that it was
apparently designed to collect sensitive data, and
that it had been created any time between two and
five years ago.
Most fingers point to
Israel, and even the Israeli deputy prime minister
hinted in an interview that this may be the case.
An Israeli security firm told the Israeli daily
Ha'aretz, "The Flame computer virus not only stole
large quantities of information from various
Iranian government agencies, but apparently even
disrupted its oil exports by shutting down oil
terminals ..." [3]
It is hard to say
exactly what the significance of the discovery is,
but experts agree it is likely enormous.
Flame is about 20 times larger than its
apparent predecessor, Stuxnet, which was
discovered two years ago and was dubbed the first
cyber-weapon in human history. It reportedly uses
a similar encryption algorithm to hide parts of
its code, and we can expect it to take at least as
long to decode it and to understand what exactly
it does. In the case of Stuxnet, it took months.
Still, a successful new cyber attack on
the Iranian nuclear program could push the time
frame for an Israeli or American attack on the
Islamic Republic further into the future.
We can expect more revelations and
intrigues in the next weeks; as it turned out, the
IAEA report last week, which claimed that Iran had
increased its stocks of low-enriched uranium
significantly, was just the preamble. Reports and
rumors circulate about issues as diverse as
Iranian penetration of media in Afghanistan,
Iranian involvement in the smuggling of Iraqi oil,
and the mystery unreported deaths of high-ranking
Iranian military officials.
Iran's enemies
have weaknesses of their own, while third-party
actors have their own interests to stir the
proverbial pot. Russia comes to mind: it may well
try to extract concessions on the controversial
North Atlantic Treaty Organization anti-missile
shield in Europe (among other issues) from the US
in exchange as part of the mediation process. Even
a legitimate pretext for this can be found. After
all, the claim goes that the shield is designed to
counter the Iranian missile threat.
What
looks like a long and nasty diplomatic process is
unfolding. On the up side, the many intrigues
seemingly confirm that the negotiations between
Iran and its opponents are seriously underway.
This means - or at least should mean, barring
surprises - that a war is not immediately on the
agenda.
On the other hand, the fundamental
problems remain, and are only getting worse. This
is true of the rifts between Iran and the West,
which would be grave even without the Iranian
nuclear program; it is even more true of the civil
war in Syria. Given the nature of the
developments, it is very hard to be optimistic for
the longer term.
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