Puzzling Evidence: The Syrian Nuclear Mystery

The media has largely ignored one of the most intriguing foreign affairs story in recent memory - the raid, by Israel, on Syria on September 6th. And the media deserves at least a partial free pass, since the factual details of the story are so slim, and they amount to simply that: There was (we think) a raid, by Israel, on Syria.

Other news organizations have added a few curious details. The Syrian very loudly complained that Israeli jets invaded their airspace - then suddenly became very silent on the matter. The Israel public is very happy, to the extent they know what actually happened, and Ehud Barack's approval ratings, which were previously quite low, showed a noticeable uptick. And, the most relevant item - the North Koreans have apparently been doing some kind of business with Syria - and a vessel from DPRK purportedly containing "cement" was unloading only days before the attack.

And here's some physics for dummies - myself included, I actually had to confirm this with a bona fide physicist - one way to hide the radiological signature of fissile material is to surround it with, you guessed it, cement.

With all of the above taken into consideration - here's the big question: Why are all of the key governments (D.C., Damascus, Pyongyang, Tel Aviv) - so darn quiet about what actually went down on 6 September? Hasn't somebody been given cause to go public with some kind of outrage? The president was asked about this repeatedly during his recent conference, and he more or less cut off the question, and refused to answer.

But there's another potential clue today from the UK Times Online. Instead of the average, swoop down and bomb them to bits style raid, sources have suggested that what actually took place was Israeli commandos took possession of the nuclear material itself - which would be a very, very smart thing (albeit astonishingly brave) to do. It's easy to argue about a smoking crater - and to claim that it was a baby formula facility, when both parties know that it was making biological agents. The game, from that point forward, is public preception. But if the Israelis got their hands on the goods, well then they have hardcore proof.

And not only that - they have a certain type of forensics. They can tell how far along the North Koreans are in their refinement capability - possibly even the method they are using. They can also tell what type of ore has been used to produce the nuclear material. And all of this leads to very specific intelligence on who is supplying these renegade countries with the raw goods necessary for proliferation - it's a certifiable "chain of custody" for dirty, rotten international badness - and a smoking gun to boot.

There are many, many other questions of course, and since the story has been criminally underreported so far, we can only guess how long it will be before the public has answers. Let's hope some ambitious journalist (or more likely, blogger) is pushing hard.

Tags: Syria, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, Israel