AMMAN, 14 September 2004 — The UN Security Council resolution 1559 could trigger “limited Israeli strikes” against Syria, but a US-led comprehensive war is excluded at this juncture, because such a move would “endanger the re-election chances” of President George W. Bush, prominent Arab strategists and academics said yesterday.

“I don’t think the United States will use the resolution as a pretext to launch a war on Syria, simply because very few people in the United States do think Damascus poses a danger to the US security,” Qadri Saeed, head of the military department at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Strategic Studies Center, told Arab News. “I also see extreme difficulty in arranging a new meeting of the Security Council on the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, as several powers will oppose the convening of such a session,” he said.

With a majority of nine votes, the UN Council last week adopted the resolution 1559 that calls for honoring Lebanon’s sovereignty and withdrawing all foreign forces from it within one month.

The resolution called for the presidential elections in Lebanon to be “free and transparent, according to the Lebanese constitutional rules without foreign intervention”.

It also further stated the need for “dismantling the weapons of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias” in Lebanon, an allusion to the Syria-backed fighters of Hezbollah and fundamentalist Palestinian factions.

In what appeared to be a follow-up of the resolution’s implementation, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns visited Damascus on Saturday, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad and urged Syria to “stop interference in internal Lebanese affairs”.

“I don’t think Damascus’ failure to comply with the resolution 1559 would lead to a US-led war on Syria. I believe the response would be confined to limited aerial Israeli strikes designed to punish Syria and force it to make concession to the Jewish state,” said Ghazi Rababaa, professor of political science at the University of Jordan.

“Bush realizes that opening a new front in Lebanon will exacerbate the deteriorating US military position in Iraq and, consequently, endanger his re-election chances,” hesaid. “There is a paradox in the US behavior. The United States is now trying to use the world body as a tool for cleansing the dishes when the meal is over,” he added.