The Shift Toward an Israeli-Syrian Agreement

Note from Lebanon Iznogood: The key point of this analysis is that the relationship between Syria and Israel and the convergence of their interests have always been to the detriment of Lebanon. Much of Lebanon's 40-year agony can be traced to the type of deal that Syria and Israel have had for decades over Lebanon. All highlights are ours, not the author's.

By George Friedman
April 29, 2008
From www.stratfor.com

The Middle East, already monstrously complex, grew more complex last week. First, there were strong indications that both Israel and Syria were prepared to engage in discussions on peace. That alone is startling enough. But with the indicators arising in the same week that the United States decided to reveal that the purpose behind Israel’s raid on Syria in September 2007 was to destroy a North Korean-supplied nuclear reactor, the situation becomes even more baffling.

But before we dive into the what-will-be, let us first explain how truly bizarre things have gotten. On April 8 we wrote about how a number of seemingly unconnected events were piecing themselves into a pattern that might indicate an imminent war, a sequel to the summer 2006 Lebanon conflict. This mystery in the Middle East has since matured greatly, but in an unexpected direction. Israeli-Syrian peace talks — serious Israeli-Syrian peace talks — are occurring.

First, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israeli media that Israel had been talking to the Syrians, and then that “Very clearly we want peace with the Syrians and are taking all manners of action to this end. They know what we want from them, and I know full well what they want from us.” Then Syrian President Bashar al Assad publicly acknowledged that negotiations with Syria were taking place. Later, a Syrian minister appeared on Al Jazeera and said that, “Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of international conditions, on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights to Syria.” At almost exactly the same moment, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said that, “If Israel is serious and wants peace, nothing will stop the renewal of peace talks. What made this statement really interesting was that it was made in Tehran, standing next to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, an ally of Syria whose government rejects the very concept of peace with Israel.

We would have expected the Syrians to choose another venue to make this statement, and we would have expected the Iranians to object. It didn’t happen. We waited for a blistering denial from Israel. Nothing came; all that happened was that Israeli spokesmen referred journalists to Olmert’s previous statement. Clearly something was on the table. The Turks had been pressing the Israelis to negotiate with the Syrians, and the Israelis might have been making a gesture to placate them, but the public exchanges clearly went beyond that point. This process could well fail, but it gave every appearance of being serious.

• According to the existing understanding of the region’s geopolitical structure, an Israeli-Syrian peace deal is impossible.
  The United States and Iran are locked into talks over the future of Iraq, and both regularly use their respective allies in Israel and Syria to shape those negotiations. An Israeli-Syrian peace would at the very least inconvenience American and Iranian plans.
• Any peace deal would require defanging Hezbollah. But Hezbollah is not simply a Syrian proxy with an independent streak, it is also an Iranian proxy. So long as Iran is Syria’s only real ally in the Muslim world, such a step seems inimical to Syrian interests.
• Hezbollah is also deeply entwined into the economic life of Lebanon — and in Lebanon’s drug production and distribution network — and threatening the relationship with Hezbollah would massively impact Damascus’ bottom line.
• From the other side, Syria cannot accept a peace that does not restore its control over the Golan Heights, captured during the 1967 war. Since this patch of ground overlooks some of Israel’s most densely populated regions, it seems unnatural that Israel ever would even consider such a trade.

Forget issues of Zionism or jihadism, or even simple bad blood; the reality is that any deal between Israel and Syria clashes with the strategic interests of both sides, making peace is impossible. Or is it? Talks are happening nonetheless, meaning one of two things is true: Either Olmert and Assad have lost it, or this view of reality is wrong.

Let’s reground this discussion away from what everyone — ourselves included — thinks they know and go back to the basics, namely, the geopolitical realities in which Israel and Syria exist.

Israel

Peace with Egypt and Jordan means Israel is secure on its eastern and southern frontiers. Its fundamental problem is counterinsurgency in Gaza and at times in the West Bank. Its ability to impose a military solution to this problem is limited, so it has settled for separating itself from the Palestinians and on efforts to break up the Palestinian movement into different factions. The split in the Palestinian community between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helped this strategy immensely, dividing the Palestinians geographically, ideologically, economically and politically. The deeper the intra-Palestinian conflict is, the less of a strategic threat to Israel the Palestinians can be. It is hardly a beautiful solution — and dividing the Palestinians does not reduce the security burden on Israel — but it is manageable.

Israel does not perceive Syria as a serious threat. Not only is the Syrian military a pale shadow of Israeli capability, Israel does not even consider sacrificing the Golan Heights to weakening the Israeli military meaningfully. The territory has become the pivot of public discussions, but losing it hasn’t been a real problem for Israel since the 1970s. In today’s battlefield environment, artillery on the heights would rapidly be destroyed by counter-battery fire, helicopter gunships or aircraft. Indeed, the main threat to Israel from Syria is missiles. Damascus now has one of the largest Scud missile and surface-to-surface missile arsenals in the region — and those can reach Israel from far beyond the Golan Heights regardless of where the Israeli-Syrian political border is located. Technological advances — even those from just the last decade — have minimized the need for a physical presence on that territory that was essential militarily decades ago .

The remaining threat to Israel is posed by Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a sufficient military capability to pose a limited threat to northern Israel, as was seen in the summer of 2006. Israel can engage and destroy a force in Lebanon, but the 1982-2002 Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon vividly demonstrated that the cost-benefit ratio to justify an ongoing presence simply does not make sense.

At the current time, Israel’s strategic interests are twofold. First, maintain and encourage the incipient civil war between Hamas and Fatah. The key to this is to leverage tensions between neighboring Arab states and the Palestinians. And this is easy. The Hashemite government of Jordan detests the West Bank Palestinians because more than three-quarters of the population of Jordan is Palestinian, but the Hashemite king rather likes being king. Egypt equally hates the Gaza Palestinians as Hamas’ ideological roots lie in the Muslim Brotherhood — a group whose ideology not only contributed to al Qaeda’s formation, but also that of groups who have exhibited a nasty habit of assassinating Egyptian presidents.

The second Israeli strategic interest is finding a means of neutralizing any threat from Lebanon without Israel being forced into war — or worse yet, into an occupation of Lebanon. The key to this strategy lies with the other player in this game.

Syria

Ultimately Syria only has its western border to worry about. To the east is the vast desert border with Iraq, an excellent barrier to attack for both nations. To the north are the Turks who, if they chose, could swallow Syria in a hard day’s work and be home in time for coffee. Managing that border is a political matter, not a military one.

That leaves the west. Syria does not worry too much about an Israeli invasion. It is not that Damascus thinks that Israel is incapable of such an operation — Israel would face only a slightly more complicated task of eliminating Syria than Turkey would — but that the al Assads know full well that Israel is happy with them in power. The al Assads and their fellow elites hail from the Alawite sect of Islam, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that the Sunnis consider apostate. Alawite rule in Syria essentially is secular, and the government has a historic fear of an uprising by the majority Sunnis.

The Israelis know that any overthrow of the al Assads would probably land Israel with a radical Sunni government on its northeastern frontier. From Israel’s point of view, it is far better to deal with a terrified and insecure Syrian government more concerned with maintaining internal control than a confident and popular Syrian government with the freedom to look outward.

Just as Syria’s defensive issues vis-à-vis Israel are not what they seem, neither are Syrian tools for dealing with Israel in an offensive manner as robust as most think.

Syria is not particularly comfortable with the entities that pose the largest security threats to Israel, namely, the main Palestinian factions. Damascus has never been friendly to the secular Fatah movement, with which it fought many battles in Lebanon; nor is it comfortable with the more fundamentalist Sunni Hamas. (Syria massacred its own fundamentalists during the 1980s.) So while the Syrians have dabbled in Palestinian politics, they have never favored a Palestinian state. In fact, it should be recalled that when Syria first invaded Lebanon in 1975, it was against the Palestinians and in support of Lebanese Christians.

That invasion — as well as most Syrian operations in Lebanon — was not about security, but about money. Lebanon, the descendent of Phoenicia, has always been a vibrant economic region (save when there is war). It is the terminus of trade routes from the east and south and the door to the Mediterranean basin. It is a trading and banking hub, with Beirut in particular as the economic engine of the region. Without Beirut and Lebanon, Syria is an isolated backwater. With it, Damascus is a major player.

As such, Syria’s closest ties among Israel’s foes are not with the two major indigenous Palestinian factions, but with the Shiite group Hezbollah. The Syrians have a somewhat tighter religious affinity with Hezbollah, as well as a generation of complex business dealings with the group’s leaders. But its support for Hezbollah is multifaceted, and anti-Israeli tendencies are only one aspect of the relationship. And Hezbollah is much more important to Syria as a tool for managing Damascus’ affairs in Lebanon.

The Basis of a Deal

Israel and Syria’s geopolitical interests diverge less than it might appear. By itself, Syria poses no conventional threat to Israel. Syria is dangerous only in the context of a coalition with Egypt. In 1973, fighting on two fronts, the Syrians were a threat. With Egypt neutralized now and behind the buffer in the Sinai, Syria poses no threat. As for unconventional weapons, the Israelis indicated with their bombing of the Syrian research facility in September 2007 that they know full well how — and are perfectly willing unilaterally — to take that option off Damascus’ table.

Since neither side wants a war with the other — Israel does not want to replace the Alawites, and the Alawites are not enamored of being replaced — the issue boils down to whether Israel and Syria can coordinate their interests in Lebanon. Israel has no real economic interests in Lebanon. Its primary interest is security — to make certain that forces hostile to Israel cannot use Lebanon as a base for launching attacks. Syria has no real security interests so long its economic primacy is guaranteed. And neither country wants to see an independent Palestinian state.

The issue boils down to Lebanon. In a sense, the Israelis had an accommodation with Syria over Lebanon when Israel withdrew. It ceded economic pre-eminence in Lebanon to the Syrians. In return, the Syrians controlled Hezbollah and in effect took responsibility for Israeli security in return for economic power. It was only after Syria withdrew from Lebanon under U.S. pressure that Hezbollah evolved into a threat to Israel, precipitating the 2006 conflict.

This was a point on which Israel and the United States didn’t agree. The United States, fighting in Iraq, wanted an additional lever with which to try to control Syrian support for militants fighting in Iraq. They saw Lebanon as a way to punish Syria for actions in Iraq. But the Israelis saw themselves as having to live with the consequences of that withdrawal. Israel understood that Syria’s withdrawal shifted the burden of controlling Hezbollah to Israel — something that could not be achieved without an occupation.

What appears to be under consideration between the supposed archrivals, therefore, is the restoration of the 2005 status quo in Lebanon. The Syrians would reclaim their position in Lebanon, unopposed by Israel. In return, the Syrians would control Hezbollah. For the Syrians, this has the added benefit that by controlling Hezbollah and restraining it in the south, Syria would have both additional strength on the ground in Lebanon, as well as closer economic collaboration — on more favorable terms — with Hezbollah. For Syria, Hezbollah is worth more as a puppet than as a heroic anti-Israeli force.

This is something Israel understands. In the last fight between Israel and Syria in Lebanon, there were different local allies: Israel had the South Lebanese Army. The Syrians were allied with the Christian Franjieh clan. In the end, both countries dumped their allies. Syria and Israel have permanent interests in Lebanon. They do not have permanent allies.

The Other Players

The big loser in this game, of course, would be the Lebanese. But that is more complicated than it appears. Many of the Lebanese factions — including most of the Christian clans — have close relations with the Syrians. Moreover, the period of informal Syrian occupation was a prosperous time. Lebanon is a country of businessmen and militia, sometimes the same. The stability the Syrians imposed was good for business.

The one faction that would clearly oppose this would be Hezbollah. It would be squeezed on all sides. Ideologically speaking, constrained from confronting Israel, its place in the Islamic sun would be undermined. Economically speaking, Hezbollah would be forced into less favorable economic relations with the Syrians than it enjoyed on its own. And politically speaking, Hezbollah would have the choice of fighting the Syrians (not an attractive option) or of becoming a Syrian tool. Either way, Hezbollah would have to do something in response to any rumors floating about of a Syrian deal with the Israelis. And given the quality of Syrian intelligence in these matters, key Hezbollah operatives opposed to such a deal might find themselves blown up. Perhaps they already have.

Iran will not be happy about all this. Tehran has invested a fair amount of resources in bulking up Hezbollah, and will not be pleased to see the militia shift from Syrian management to Syrian control. But in the end, what can Iran do? It cannot support Hezbollah directly, and even if it were to attempt to undermine Damascus, those Syrians most susceptible to Tehran’s Shiite-flavored entreaties are the Alawites themselves.

The other player that at the very least would be uneasy about all of this is the United States. The American view of Syria remains extremely negative, still driven by the sense that the Syrians continue to empower militants in Iraq. Certainly that aid — and that negative U.S. feeling — is not as intense as it was two years ago, but the Americans might not feel that this is the right time for such a deal. Thus, the release of the information on the Syrian reactor might well have been an attempt to throw a spoke in the wheel of the Israeli-Syrian negotiations.

That might not be necessary. Nothing disappears faster than Syrian-Israeli negotiations. In this case, however, both countries have fundamental geopolitical interests at stake. Israel wants to secure its northern frontier without committing its troops into Lebanon. The Syrians want to guarantee their access to the economic possibilities in Lebanon. Neither care about the Golan Heights. The Israelis don’t care what happens in Lebanon so long as it doesn’t explode in Israel. The Syrians don’t care what happens to the Palestinians so long as it doesn’t spread onto their turf.

Deals have been made on less. Israel and Syria are moving toward a deal that would leave a lot of players in the region — including Iran — quite unhappy. Given this deal has lots of uneasy observers, including Iran, the United States, Hezbollah, the Palestinians and others, it could blow apart with the best will in the world. And given that this is Syria and Israel, the best will isn’t exactly in abundant supply.

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Lebanon: Socialism, Resistance, and the Lords of the Idiotic People

Consider, if you will, the absurdity of the Lebanese political system as typified by the following "incident" that took place over the weekend. There is nothing more pitiful than the claims of the two dueling sides (in this case, the loyalists represented by Walid "Smiegel" Jumblatt and the opposition represented by Hassan "Sauron" Nasrallah) in the current Lebanese political establishment.

Note in passing that Jumblatt is the exact transmutation of Smiegel in the Lord of the Rings, not only because of his uncanny physical resemblance to the creature, but also because of his incessant internal struggle between good and evil, as exemplified by his constant change of positions. Meanwhile, Nasrallah is the exact rendition of the ultimate evil "Sauron" who maintains an underground army of evil-doers bent on establishing the oppressive rule of radical Islam, on keeping Lebanon from returning to its quiet pastoral "Shire-like" condition, and on killing, evicting, and maiming under the pretense of liberating and resisting.

Back to the "incident" of this weekend in Lebanon.
Part 1 - The "Socialist International" was meeting in Lebanon this year, and Walid Smiegel Jumblatt being the head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), was hosting the event.
OUTCRY No. 1: Of all the feudal leaders that run the Lebanese people like serfs and bonded idiots, no one is more feudal and archaic than Walid Smiegel Jumblatt. His "socialism" is but a veneer under which lurks one of the most reactionary feudal systems in the world today. For one, ALL DRUZE ARE SOCIALISTS - the Lebanese Socialists and members of the PSP are all of the Druze sect. No law of probability can explain this phenomenon. Second, Walid Smiegel Jumblatt lives in a CASTLE HIGH UP ON THE HILLS in the town of Mukhtara, lording it over his poor Druze serfs (and the occasional Christian peasants who escaped the massacres committed by the Socialist Druze during the 1970s and 1980s). Third, Walid Smiegel Jumblatt, contrary to the precepts of equality that subsume any claim to socialism, INHERITED HIS POWER as the Lord of the Socialist Druze upon the death of his father, formerly also the Socialist Druze Lord Kamal Bey Jumblatt, in a medieval ceremony of "Allegiance-pledging" (in Arabic: مبايعة). Fourth, Walid Smiegel Jumblatt MAKES MILLIONS a year by pilfering the treasury of the Ministry of the Refugees and Displaced of which he is in charge in the Siniora government. For 20 years, the Christian refugees who fled their villages as the Socialist Druze were massacring them have not been allowed by Walid Smiegel Jumblatt to return. Note that the bells of all the churches of the Christian towns and villages were stolen and melted for money that ended up in Walid Smiegel Jumblatt's coffers, as feudalism usually works, as taxes owed by the Druze Socialist serfs to their Lord.

Part 2 - One of the French Socialists (another degenerate group of European idiots) attending the grand event went with his camera inside Hezbollah's turf, the fortified southern suburb of Beirut, supposedly to snap photos and show his wife that he lives dangerously. Hezbollah's Orcs, super-suspicious brainless pseudo-victims of mysterious Israeli, Zionist, American, Crusader, Imperialist, Colonialist, Christian, Western, and American plots and conspiracies, quickly seized this potential spy and dragged him to their underground dungeons (where they kept former French, American and other Western "spies" in the 1980s) where they roughed him up to check if he was really a spy.
OUTCRY No. 2: First, the Lebanese State is non-existent. It has now run 7 months without a President, and it might as well run without a government or a Parliament. This alone says a lot about the nature of the State in Lebanon: It's a useless amalgam of bureaucracies that feeds off foreign aid (Paris I, II, and III) and in turn, feeds the pockets of the Feudal and Militia Lords, who use the money to maintain the allegiance of their herds. Second, given that Israel flattened the southern suburb over the bearded Hezbollah Orcs in 2006, one may understand their wounded animal anger and suspicion of flies and mosquitoes buzzing about (you never know! With nanotechnology, these insects could be carrying Israeli cameras). But this is Lebanon: Every Son of a Bitch of a politician has his newspaper, his castle, his militia, and his "territory". Like Walid Smiegel Jumblatt lording it over the Shouf mountains southeast of Beirut, Hassan Sauron Nasrallah lords it over the Bekaa Valley and the south of Lebanon, as well as over the southern suburb of Beirut where he keeps his capital. It's his turf, and no one can just wander about without prior permission, not even the government (since a year ago, Hezbollah's Orcs kidnapped two Lebanese gendarmes on suspicion of spying. He says it's to keep Israeli spies, but he has been smuggling hashish, opium and diamonds, building an arsenal of close to 30,000 long range missiles, fabricating all manner of Shiite statehood inside Lebanese statehood, planning the liberation of Jerusalem from Beirut, preparing car bombs on behalf of Iran, etc... for so long that many people have become interested in taking a look at his "evil" empire. So why is he surprised that idiots - like the French Socialist guy - and real spies try to get a glimpse?

Whereto Lebanon? There are two ways: Further down the road of religious crap, feudalism bullshit, sectarian decadence and all their accompanying servitude and decomposition (which is what George W. Bush is saying contains the seeds of Lebanon's democracy and emancipation); or away from all this dung and into secularism, reason, modernism and genuine tolerant democracy. It's a long shot, especially now that the Americans have lost their breath (4 years of commitment to a goal is asking too much of the American people, no matter how important), and the Europeans have lost their balls.

To the Lebanese people: You are really alone - like Frodo - in your quest for a peaceful, tranquil country. It's a long journey ahead, and any friend could turn into an enemy in a split second. But there should be no doubt about the goal. Unless you liberate yourselves from the Jumblatts, the Nasrallahs, the Aouns, the Hariris, the Gemayels, the Geageas, and the religions, religious bosses - Patriarchs, Mullahs, Archbishops, Muftis, Bishops, Sayyeds, Priests and Sheikhs - and the super-powerful religious orders (each with their businesses and universities) behind them; unless you take your destiny in your own hands, there is nothing to expect but more of the same: Live in poverty, destitution and war; have many children (like all poor and primitive people) so they can emigrate, earn a living and send money back to you to survive; and keep going to stupid churches and mosques and pray and pray and pray to no avail.

Hanibaal

The Islamic Dog Zawahiri Threatens Lebanon's "Crusaders"

الكلب الثاني في تنظيم القاعدة، وهو المسخ المصري الوسخ الظواهري، يهدد لبنان:
فأهلاً وسهلاً بكل كلاب القاعدة لأن لبنان سيكون مقبرة لكل ما ينبح من داخل أوكار وكهوف أفغانستان

كما وإن شرذمة كلاب حزب الله المتواجدين في لبنان والذي ينبحون من وقت إلى آخر مع إخوتهم القاعديين بإنهم يريدون أيضاً تحرير فلسطين بدماء اللبنانيين، ستلقى مصرعها كما الظواهري ومعتوهيه نفسهم

فأنبحوا وعوّوا وحرروا وقاوموا وإختبأوا في أوكاركم وكهوفكم لأنكم كالإنسان البدائي عقولكم خالية وفارغة من المادة النخاعية ومليئة بالحماقات الإلآهية البدائية المتخلفة الرجعية

السلام عليكم ورحمة داروين وبركاته

Al-Qaida's Ayman al-Zawahiri said Tuesday Lebanon will play a pivotal role in the Islamists' fight against the "Crusaders and Jews," in an audio message posted on the Internet.

"Lebanon is a Muslim frontline fort," he said. "It will have a pivotal role God willing in future battles with the Crusaders and the Jews.

"I call upon the jihadist generation in Lebanon to prepare to reach Palestine, and to banish the invading Crusader forces which are claimed to be peace keeping forces in Lebanon," he said in reference to the U.N. forces deployed along the borders with Israel.

Hanibaal

The Freedoms of Islam

Religious Freedom in Saudi Arabia
Turkish man faces death in Saudi Arabia for 'cursing God' (Wednesday, 16 April, 2008).

A Turkish barber who moved to Jeddah from southeastern Turkey more than a decade ago was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for using God's name in vain during an argument with a neighbor.
If Saad Hariri - the half-Saudi, half-Lebanese, half-witted mutant cinder block tycoon - has his way in Lebanon and decides to impose Islamic Law, then all the Christians of North Lebanon (Batroun, Shekka, Enfeh, Bsharre, Ehden etc.) will have to be sentenced to death. They pepper their conversations with such phrases as: "Kess ekht rabbek" or "Yel3an rabbek".

Fashion Freedom in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the women's spring collection was unveiled (no pun intended) over the weekend.
The colors(s) for the season span the wide range of the grey-blueish spectrum to reflect the tolerance by Islam of plurality (تعددية ) and diversity (تنوع), which makes shopping this season even more difficult given all the choices available . Note that the grey end of the spectrum develops automatically from the long exposure of the original blue to the blistering sun and oxidative effects of the polluted dust common to all major Afghan cities.




Meanwhile in Spain....
The Spanish government consists of 9 women and 8 men.
The Spanish Defense Minister, Carme Chacon, is in fact 7 months pregnant and will be visiting Spanish troops in Sunni-infested Afghanistan where women live buried under the Burqa, as well as Shiite-infested South Lebanon where Hezbollah's brand of radical Islam reigns supreme.

In addition to her generals, Chacon is accompanied on her troop inspection tour by none other than her gynecologist.

That a pregnant woman can run the Spanish Armada is a slap in the face to all backwards Muslim countries. Thank you, Espana!

Hanibaal

Lebanon: The Arab Village Idiot

For four decades, the Arabs have forced Lebanon into being the only Arab war front with Israel, while they themselves embarked on peace overtures and treaties with Israel

To the Lebanese fell the role of the village idiots. Their country burned so that Yasser Arafat could “liberate” Palestine, so that Fouad Siniora could brag about being “the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel”, so that “Arab honor” could be upheld by all the other hypocrite Lebanese Sunnis from Salim Hoss and Rafik Hariri down, and so that Hassan Nasrallah and his herd of Iranian-paid Lebanese Shiites could inflate their gonads in pride at “resisting” and drag the entire country behind them into the dirt. While the Lebanese agreed to get beaten up on the head by Israel, other Arabs like Egypt and Jordan officially made peace with the Israeli “enemy”, the Palestinians’ PLO made peace with Israel and returned to Palestine to start a country, and now in broad daylight, the Israeli Foreign Minister Livni pays a visit to Qatar and speaks at a trade and democracy convention there. Mind you, this is the tip of the iceberg. God only knows how much trade and cozy relations are being had by many other Arab countries with the “enemy”, while the idiotic Lebanese, led by Hassan Nasrallah on the Shiite side and Fouad Siniora on the Sunni side, continue to set Lebanon backwards and “resist”, “defend Arab honor” and “liberate” Palestine for the Palestinians, all at Lebanese cost in blood and treasure.

I find the position of Fouad Siniora the most hypocritical. He is the prime ally of the United States, the top (albeit newly discovered) anti-Syrian politician in the country who wants Syria (and indirectly Israel) to settle the Shebaa Farms issue with Lebanon, and supposedly is against Hezbollah’s bullshit about “resistance”, etc. Yet, he has repeatedly stated that Israel is the enemy, and that Lebanon will be the last Arab country to make peace with Israel. Why doesn’t Siniora tell the Lebanese in clear unambiguous language why he wants Lebanon “to be the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel”? Is it to reinforce the notion that Lebanon is a retarded country that cannot make its own decisions without deferring to others to “go first”? Isn’t it enough for Siniora that Sunni Egypt and Sunni Jordan have signed peace with Israel? Isn’t it enough that Qatar is entertaining all types of smart – business and technology – relations with Israel to develop itself, become the most advanced Arab country, and replace Lebanon as a center of business and tourism in the Arab world? Whom is Siniora waiting for to make peace before he does? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Why doesn’t he tell the Lebanese people what his plan is?

The hypocrisy of Lebanon’s Muslims – Sunnis and Shiites alike – regarding the issue of Palestine and Israel is causing great harm to Lebanon’s future. Having burned Lebanon through 40 years of war on the pretense of “resistance” and “liberation”, they are now letting Lebanon fall behind economically and technologically by keeping the country chained by false and obsolete slogans. Having crucified their fellow Christian Lebanese over the decades on accusations of “dealing with the enemy” – Bashir Gemayel and Abu Arz come to mind, only to name a couple – but also Miss Lebanon whom the Rafik Hariri government once arrested in the mid-1990s at Beirut Airport, accused her of “dealing with the enemy”, interrogated and persecuted her for months because alphabetical order had her standing next to Miss Israel in the pageant on television. Lebanon’s Muslims seem determined to do all they can to maintain Lebanon’s status as the idiot among the Arab countries because while they Arabs are busy modernizing and developing, they also have delegated all the valiant “resisting’ or “liberating” to the Lebanese who, brave and stupid as they are, felt some kind of moral obligation to do all the anti-Israel fighting on behalf of the Arabs, in return for a few cheers and pats on the back.

An argument that one occasionally hears from pro-Siniora Lebanese is a conspiracy theory that goes like this: Israel is behind the destruction of Lebanon because Israel is afraid of the fierce economic and technological competition that a “healthy” Lebanon could pose to Israel. Another version of that theory is that Lebanon must not normalize relations with Israel because then Israel will defeat the Lebanese economically and technologically. Therefore, like Siniora, these people argue that Lebanon must remain in a state of low-level hostilities – no peace and no war – with Israel because this is the only way the Lebanese could maintain their presumed superiority over the Israelis. Keep in mind that this superiority is only theoretical, since one does need a properly functioning country to implement and realize it. So the conundrum for the proponents of this otherwise asinine policy is that if the Lebanese engage Israel in full-fledged war, Israel wins militarily. If they engage Israel with full-fledged peace, then Israel wins economically and technologically. However, maintaining a “soft war” with Israel occasionally leads to massive destruction and setting the country backwards, which while not a good position to prove Lebanon’s superiority, it is also a comfortable position because you can always conveniently blame Israel for preventing you from fulfilling your superiority. That is how the Muslims of Lebanon have managed the country for the past 40 years: They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want Lebanon to prosper, to attract investments and tourism, to show the world the magnificence of Lebanese genius (which it did when the Christians “ruled” between the 1920s and the 1970s), but unlike the Christians, the Muslims feel they must play the idiots on behalf of all the Arabs and fight Israel, which draws enough Israeli ire every couple of years (1978, 1982, 1985, etc. up through July 2006) to keep Lebanon like a putrid decomposing pile of dung: Warm, wet, smelly, and unlivable. That’s why more Lebanese have left the country over the past few decades than there are Lebanese living in it, and they still line up by the hundreds every day at foreign embassies.

I know some Lebanese “notables” here in Boston’s Lebanese community who uphold this conspiracy theory. They are supporters of Siniora’s March 14 cedars counter-revolution who advocate never making peace with Israel. One of these notables, Mr. Ibrahim Tannous, runs a monthly newspaper called Profile News. In one of his editorials (January 2008) entitled “The Fate of the Christians: Unknown!” he postulates:

“And we do not forget that Israel always seeks to sow troubles in Lebanon because the Lebanese people are the only ones who can compete with the Jewish invasion of the Arab markets, whether in scientific, technological, or artistic superiority. This is why Israel is fighting Lebanon mercilessly.”

Another columnist of Profile News, Dr. Alfred Saad says elsewhere in the same issue:

“As for the external/foreign conspiracy, it is represented by the Syrian ambitions of annexing Lebanon and the desire of Israel for Lebanon to remain a troubled and backward country so that it [Lebanon] does not challenge Israel with its tradition of shared living and distinct democracy.”

Ultimately, Lebanon’s leaders must make their own decisions based on the interests of the country before any other cause. If making peace with Israel is good enough for Egypt and Jordan, it must be good for Lebanon, and Siniora should not wait for Syria to settle the Golan with Israel before he dares make peace with Israel. The Lebanese government of the 1970s and 1980s was paralyzed by the Muslims of Lebanon who placed higher priority on defending the Palestinians than on saving their own country. Now that the Taif Agreement gave them the ultimate power and decision-making, they have not been able to transcend the pan-Arab, pan-Islamic nationalism they cling to and continue to drag the country into a fatal dead-end. A “Lebanon-first” policy must be adopted in which Lebanon must make peace with both Israel and Syria and remove itself once and for all from the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hanibaal

US-Syria Deal on Lebanon: Then and Now

In “Who’s the boss?: The myth of a “grand bargain” over the tribunal returns", David Kenner of NOW Lebanon (http://www.nowlebanon.com) argues that a deal between the US and Syria over Lebanon - specifically on the issue of the International Tribunal that will prosecute high-ranking officials of the Syrian regime in the Hariri assassination - is not likely but just won’t go away.

Following is an excerpt from Kenner's opinion:

"At a United States Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, April 9, Senator Arlen Specter floated the idea of a grand bargain with the Syrian regime over the international tribunal. He raised the possibility of offering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad immunity from prosecution in return for an end to his support of Hezbollah and Hamas. It would be, according to Specter, “the most astounding plea bargain of all time.”

Specter claimed that he was relaying the concerns of King Abdullah II of Jordan during a recent visit to Washington. “[King Abdullah] said the item which is most on the mind of Assad is the action of the international tribunal, which could lead to his indictment,” Senator Specter told the Committee. "

One wonders what guarantees does Mr. Kenner have from the US administration that preclude such a deal between the US and Syria. After all, there is a lot at stake in the relations between the two countries, and their past is replete with deals of that nature. Here is but a sampling:

1- The 1974 ceasefire on the Golan as negotiated by Kissinger. This agreement remains in effect today.
2- The so-called "Red-Line" agreement between Syria and Israel whereby the Syrians were encouraged to invade and occupy Lebanon in 1975, provided that Syrian troops not cross the Litani river, not be closer than 20 miles to the Israeli-Lebanese border, and not fly their air force over Lebanon, while Israelis pledged not to impede Syria's takeover of Lebanon, in exchange for allowing the Israeli Air Force to fly unhindered over Lebanese air space. This agreement survived all the convulsions of the Lebanese war, including two Israeli invasions (1978 and 1982) in which both Syria and Israel refrained from attacking each other's troops.
3- The 1990 "Green Light" given by the US to Syria to finish off the last standing free Lebanese government, with Israel granting a 24-hour waiver to the Syrian air force so that the latter can attack the Lebanese government seat in Beirut. In exchange Syria joined the US-led anti-Saddam coalition during the first Gulf War.
4- The long-standing defense by the US of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon for close to three decades, by referring to it as a "presence" and as a "factor of stability".
5- The Syrian component of the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s, in which the Assad regime secured the release of the Western hostages who were held by Syria's Hezbollah and Amal allies in Lebanon, in exchange for unfreezing Iranian assets and granting Syria's ally, Iran, other similar demands.

One must always look at the US-Syria relation from the standpoint of the ultimate interest of the US in the region, namely Israel's security. There is very little that Syria has to offer the US, except to make a deal with Israel over the Golan and largely bring an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict, with a definite Israeli advantage in the final deal. That is the only carrot that Syria has dangled for more than three decades before the nose of a credulous and often naive US foreign policy, with nothing to show for after all those years, except further complicating and exacerbating an ultimate resolution and destroying Lebanon in the process.

Right now, what will the US do if Bashar Assad turns around and offers Israel everything it has been demanding for a deal on the Golan (future borders on the Syrian side of Lake Tiberias, a demilitarized Golan, monitoring posts in Syrian territory, etc.), in exchange for some leniency, amnesty, or other deal on the International Tribunal? What will the US do if Syria drops its support of Hezbollah and pushes forward for the election of a Lebanese president, in exchange for a deal on the Tribunal? Better yet, what if Bashar Assad pulls a Qaddafi-like surrender in which he totally jumps ship from the rejectionist-resistance-anti-US camp and into the pro-Western camp, in exchange for all the afore-listed goodies? Will the US say: “No. Sorry, we have to continue with the Tribunal”, which may take a decade before it issues a first conviction, by which time conditions would be so different as to make the whole Tribunal moot and obsolete. These and other scenarios are very likely, especially if a Democrat makes it to the White House come next November.

If Mr. Kenner is relying solely on statements by Secretary Rice to safely state that there is no chance for a Syrian-US deal over Lebanon, then this is simply naive, ignorant and wishful thinking that is likely to lead to much disappointment in the not so distant future.

Hanibaal

J’accuse

The incompetence of the West is bewildering when it comes to securing a solution to the Lebanese problem, after all the European and Arab mediation attempts, after all the threats and inducements, after decades of dispatching UN forces under innumerable UN resolutions, and after the Lebanese people went to the streets in the millions to demand a final solution to their decades-old torment.

After all this, it is time to point the finger at the real culprit in this mess: All those who sold Lebanon to Syria for more than 30 years before pretending to have changed course as they do today supposedly having seen the light in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the 2005 assassination of their top poodle Rafik Hariri. After sealing a Syrian-Israeli ceasefire on the Golan in 1974 (a ceasefire which has lasted till today), then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger turned Syria loose on Lebanon in an attempt by US foreign policymakers to create in it a war crucible where Palestinians could takeover and turn their resistance away from Israel, and where Syria could achieve its long-held dream of annexing Lebanon, thus turning its attention away from Israel too. After engineering this destabilization of Lebanon via Syria as a master proxy orchestrating, in turn, a pleiotropy of sub-proxies like the PLO, the National Movement (a ratatouille of militias and groups that included the Lebanese Left, Islamists, pan-Arab nationalists and associated Palestinian groups) and today Hezbollah, the US, Europe, Israel and the Arabs then subscribed to a programmed destruction of Lebanon which they referred to during three full decades as a “stabilization” of Lebanon by Syria. In short, the West, Israel and the Arabs played the arsonist-firemen game in Lebanon: Destabilize, then send Syria to stabilize.

History cannot forget that the US encouraged and sustained Syria as the preeminent interlocutor on behalf of a muzzled and crushed Lebanon and a legal guardian of a retarded Lebanon throughout those decades, even while Syria and its proxies were kidnapping, killing, hijacking, bombing and shelling. In the State Department’s lingo of all those years, the Syrians were a “presence” not an occupation, and that “presence” was a “factor of stability”. Lebanon was always excluded from Middle East negotiations, since Syria was allowed to speak on behalf of Lebanon. Lebanon was an object of the negotiations, but never a participant. Even on those occasional interludes when Lebanon briefly managed to escape the Syria yoke – as in May 1983 when it negotiated a peace treaty with Israel – the West easily gave in to Syria to scuttle the effort and plunge Lebanon back into violence and a tighter Syrian grip. When Syria’s proxy Hezbollah bombed the Multi-National Force in October 1983, the US and its allies readily fled like rabbits. The charade culminated in the 1990 Taif Agreement that forced an unrepresentative Lebanese Parliament to amend the Lebanese constitution and transform the political structure from what was a less than ideal, though functional, system into the disastrous and completely dysfunctional three-headed system that is on display today.

From a strong presidential-parliamentary system, the Lebanese system was degraded to a tri-presidential system where the President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament have all equal powers (and each insists on being called “President”). From an unwritten word-of-honor National Pact that distributed the three seats to the three largest communities, not on demographic criteria as is widely believed but as an act of mutual recognition by both Christians and Muslims of their inborn diversity and common destiny, the Taif Agreement consolidated the sectarian division of power and made Lebanon a sectarian monster that just doesn’t work. Today’s crisis is plain evidence to that transformation. The country has been unable to elect a President for several months now. The Prime Minister – “President” Siniora - is a lame duck who runs half a government over a corrupt administration that cannot even meet the basic needs of the population. And the Speaker of Parliament – “President Berri” – has hijacked Parliament and reduced the legislative body to his own person. He has shut down Parliament and does not allow the MPs to meet and conduct legislative business. This is what the Taif Agreement has done to Lebanon.

The intractability of the Lebanese problem today is directly traced to that gigantic act of treason by the community of nations against one of its oldest, yet weakest, members, a monumental failure of political consistency between principle and action. Not only was Lebanon a beacon of democracy up through the early 1970s in an ocean of theocracies and dictatorships, but the West – mainly the US and a Left-leaning Europe – persisted in their submission to the oil-rich Arabs and indulged in the character assassination of Lebanon: A jungle, a country of many tribes, an artificial entity, an ungovernable mess, etc. Even today, there are some – like Robert Fisk of the Independent – who continue to challenge the right of Lebanon to exist as an independent nation by continuously drilling the point that Lebanon was torn off by France from Syria in the early 1920s, oblivious to the fact this very same argument can be made about every Middle Eastern and African country. The inevitable dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire into all the states in existence today is somehow forgotten when idiots like Fisk speak about Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, and all the countries that emerged in the Middle East and Africa with the end of European – including Turkish Ottoman – colonialism. For some reason, only Lebanon is cited as the artificial product of that dismemberment in a manner that belittles the country and justifies the crimes perpetrated by Syria – with the support of the West – against its neighbor.

The West – with the US in the lead – stands accused today of the state of affairs to which Lebanon has arrived after more than 30 years of this monumental failure of international politics. Nothing explains the incompetence or the unwillingness of the international community to go the extra mile to finally extricate Lebanon from the turmoil of the Arab-Israeli-Iranian cesspit. When Saddam Hussein used the same Baathist argument (that Syria uses vis-à-vis Lebanon) against Kuwait, he was kicked out within months by the international community. But in Lebanon, the victim is blamed. Not only was Kosovo protected by NATO and the West, it was deliberately torn off from Serbia, supposedly to protect the Moslem Albanians from the savage Serbs. The West assembled an expeditionary force that allowed the secession of East Timor’s 200,000 people from Indonesia’s 250 million population and into a country made up of half a tiny island out of the thousands of islands that make up the Indonesian archipelago. But the help that Lebanon received during close to four decades was never sufficient to cross the threshold of enabling a definitive solution to take hold. All the measures taken were half-ass short-term solutions that continued to pile new problems on top of older problems, rendering a resolution almost insurmountable. If Hezbollah is today sitting on 30,000 long range missiles and rockets, it is because Syria was given custody of Lebanon by the West between 1975 and 2005. Even today when everyone is lashing out at Syria for destabilizing Lebanon, there are no planes policing Lebanese skies against the movement of arms and murderers across the Lebanese-Syrian border. For 30 years, Israeli jets flew thousands of times over Lebanon and bombed Lebanon repeatedly back into the Stone Age. Yet, Israel was very careful never to fly over Syrian territory and only bombed targets inside Syria only twice by Israeli jets only twice, both times were after 2005: One against an abandoned Palestinian training camp, and the second time against a suspected nuclear site. If Syria was “forced” to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in 2005 under international pressure, why can’t it be forced today – with the same international instruments of pressure used then – to stop arming Hezbollah, to stop bombing and assassinating people in Lebanon, to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon, to settle the border dispute over the Shebaa Farms, to finally recognize Lebanon’s right to exist as an independent nation, and to dissociate Lebanon from the issue of the Golan (Israel-Syria) or the Palestinian-Israeli problem?

There is no answer to explain the failures of the West in Lebanon and its collusion with the Arabs against Lebanon, except to invoke some sort of conspiracy. There has to be a reason why Lebanon’s suffering has been allowed to continue to this day since the early 1970s. There has to be an objective behind allowing a founding member of the UN, a land of coexistence between the otherwise “clashing civilizations”, to disintegrate and collapse as it has. Could it be that the West is indeed colluding with both Arabs and Israel to finish off Lebanon and make it a substitute homeland for the Palestinians, like Henry Kissinger had wanted back in 1974?

Hanibaal

Lebanon: Oh Summertime and the living is risky!

[Translation]:

Asharqia Chamber [of commerce]
Number: 719/102/36100/B
Date: March 17, 2008 A.D.

The Honorable Messrs. the Businessmen,

Peace be upon you and God's Mercy and Blessings,

The Asharqia Chamber extends its warmest greetings and wishes to inform you of its receipt of a letter from His Royal Highness the Governor of Asharqiya Province, number 8R/2507, dated 3/1/1429 A.H. [March 9, 2008 A.D.] concerning the issuance of Royal Decree number 900/MB, dated 2/4/1429 A.H. [February 12, 2008, A.D.] requiring to direct Saudi families against traveling to Lebanon during this coming summer vacation.
Please take note and disseminate where required.

Respectfully,

The Secretary General
[Signed and dated]
Your brother, Adnan Bin Abdallah Al-Naeem

cc: B. T. H. / M.3.H. / 3. M. S.
--------------------------------
Note: The fact that the Saudis at the highest level of government are telling their people not to go to Lebanon this summer means that the US-Saudi-Hariri-March 14 chain of command is aware of upcoming trouble. Shouldn't the Lebanese government of PM Siniora (who is an operative of the Kingdom of Saudi Hariria in Lebanon) be similarly advising all those Lebanese flying to Beirut this summer not to go?
Hanibaal

Syria the Enemy Sister

The Lebanese people are not a very imaginative bunch. In spite of their atomized divisions - it's been said that each Lebanese is a party unto him/herself - the Lebanese generally herd themselves like sheep behind the two trends that happen at any given time to divide and define the political landscape in their country.

For instance, under the Syrian occupation, you had on one side the "Taif" people - those who rallied behind the Syrian occupier and made gobs of money ripping the Lebanese people off by colluding and paying the occupier (Rafik Hairi, Michel Murr, Hezbollah, Amine Gemayel, the Kornet Shahwan crowd, Nabih Berri, Walid Jumblatt), and who spent two decades justifying and rationalizing to the Lebanese people why they have agreed to work with the Syrian occupation - and on the other side, you had all the "others", variously tagged as pro-Israeli, pro-Zionists, pro-Americans, anti-Arab, traitors, insignificant and irrelevant etc... (Samir Geagea who after colluding with the Syrians was thrown in jail by the pro-Syrians listed above, Michel Aoun exiled in Paris, Etienne Sacre a.k.a Abu-Arz who remains to this date the only Lebanese statesman worthy of this description and who remains in exile after he spent a lifetime fighting the Syrians and the Palestinians without ever colluding with anyone or betraying any principle).

Today, three years after the end of the Syrian occupation, politicians in Lebanon are still labeled as "pro-Syrian" or "anti-Syrian", and everyone is supposed to take one side or the other. No one seems to understand that there are a myriad of other ways of engaging the complicated Lebanese question without reference to Syria. All those who were pro-Syrian and anti-American between 1975 and 2005 are today anti-Syrian and pro-American, except perhaps Nabih Berri and Hassan Nasrallah who have remained pro-Syrian. Conversely, those who were anti-Syrian (and they were few because they were either exiled, killed or jailed) are today pro-Syrian as in the case of Michel Aoun.

Those among the Lebanese who do not fit the dichotomy of pro- or anti-Syrian are not taken seriously by the Lebanese press which is far from being independent since every newspaper or media channel is owned by one of the political protagonists. Which is why you never hear Abu Arz, for example, on any of the Lebanese media even though his positions are the most independent, the most neutral, yet very aggressive and very patriotic. Ultimately, there is no money involved with people like Abu Arz, and so there is no one to buy and sell, and the Lebanese lose "interest" when there is no money. In the anti-Syrian camp, Hariri buys everyone into the camp, and in the pro-Syrian camp, Iran's oil money pays everyone to be in.

On a related vein, virtually all Lebanese politicians agree that Israel is the enemy. Even crimes which everyone knows are made in Syria, the reflex is to first accuse Israel. Why? Because it costs these politicians nothing to say that Israel is the enemy, even though deep down they are convinced that Israel is not the threat they make it to be, nor do the Lebanese people really care whether Israel is or is not an enemy. The fact is, and everyone knows this fact, over the four decades of Syrian and Palestinian intervention since the late 1960s and early 1970s, balanced by the Israeli counter-intervention in Lebanon, the Syrian, Palestinian, and Arab contribution to the demise of Lebanon has been by far greater and much more harmful and destructive than its Israeli counterpart.

Even today, assholes like Siniora, Hariri, and Jumblatt - whose own lives are under imminent threat by the Syrian regime - continue to refer to Israel as the "Israeli enemy" and to Syria as the "sister". The two hundred thousand Lebanese who died during the Syrian custody of Lebanon, the siege of entire cities by the Syrian army, the Palestinian massacres of Christian towns and villages, the Christian massacres of Palestinian camps, the Shiite massacres of Palestinian camps, the Shiite infighting between Amal and Hezbollah, the Christian infighting between Gemayel's Kataeb and Chamoun's Ahrar, or the bloody battles between Aoun and Geagea, the kidnapping, maiming, mutilating, cold-blooded killings on religious identity basis, the sniping, the disappearances, the thousands who went missing in Syria's prisons and torture chambers, none of these atrocities are ever mentioned today by the Lebanese themselves as reasons to label others as the "enemy".

The Lebanese celebrate every year the 1996 killing of 100 civilians in the southern village of Cana by an Israeli bomb, and use it to drill over and over the "inimical" character of the Zionist entity. Yet, everyone glosses over the 1976 massacre of 500 civilians -not by a bomb, but with machetes, bayonets, knives, rape, mutilation, hanging, shooting of parents before their children's eyes, etc. - by Yasser Arafat's PLO fighters in the peaceful - but isolated - Christian town of Damour, barely a stone's throw from Walid Jumblatt's castle at Mukhtara in the Shouf. Similarly, no one ever mentions anymore the 1977 massacre of 200 Christians, again in Jumblatt's Shouf district, huddled in the church of their village of Maasser El-Shouf after Jumblatt's own Druze barbarians vented their anger at Syria's assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, Walid's father. And the list is too long to enumerate, but the point is made.

The notion of "enemy" in the barbaric Arab Islamic societies of today are based on crude us versus them mentality. It does not matter who killed who and why. What matters is the tribal/genetic/religious degree of closeness. Because of their Jewishness, Israelis are very foreign. Because of their Christian identity, the Lebanese Christians are also treated as enemies (Check the letter sent to this blog by Eehab Taliani - a Hariri supporter from Edmonton in Canada - to get a sense of the tribalism and barbarism of these people).

The real enemy of Lebanon is the most artificial country of the Middle East, Syria which deserves the title of "Baathist enemy entity". It is en entity because Syria was carved out from the Ottoman Empire after World War I as a patchwork of very disparate elements by colluding English and French mandatory powers: Kurds in the northeast, Armenians and Christians in the northwest, Alawis along the Syrian Mediterranean Coast, Druze in the Hauran, Jabal El-Druze and the Golan, and the isolated Sunni cities of Hama, Homs and Damascus. Syria is no more a homogeneous nation than Lebanon or Israel are.

The Baathist enemy entity has never recognized Lebanon's right to exist. Since 1943, it has continued to refuse to exchange embassies and diplomats between the two countries. Of the 64 years since the 1943 independence, Syria has militarily directly occupied and ruled Lebanon for at least 30 years (from 1975 to 2005), almost half the country's age. Who among the Lebanese can reasonably continue to call Israel the "Zionist enemy" and Syria the "sister"?

Hanibaal

The Age of Political Decay

We can understand that Syria seeks to obstruct solutions in Lebanon that are incompatible with its interests with the objective of regaining its hegemony there. We can understand that Syria tries to use the Lebanese arena to improve its own political position and eliminate the regional and international isolation imposed on its regime, or that it deliberately ignites the security situation in Lebanon in the hope of avoiding the International Tribunal which now hangs over its head like the Sword of Damocles.

We also can understand that the Arabs be divided and have a disagreement on the issue of Lebanon, or that they be fighting over the spoils of its demise since they covet its prime geopolitical position in the region.

Similarly we understand the keen interest of Western countries in Lebanon, since it is the only model of democracy in this bleak part of the world and the launching pad for the New Middle East project, and we certainly welcome this concern. We understand very well that all the external players seek to secure their interests in Lebanon, each from the narrow angle of their own interests.

However, what we do not understand is the position of the political bosses at home which is utterly antagonistic to the Lebanese interest, and their persistent efforts at destroying their country with their own hands, with their eyes wide open, through their deep divisions, their excessive egotism and their blind subservience to outsiders, and their aborting of each and every rescue solution that is made available to them.

In support of this argument is the fact that all external mediations that have successively been attempted for more than one and a half year are but a loud condemnation of both parties to the conflict in the loyalist and opposition camps. No one in the world, no matter how mighty, can prevent the leaders of Lebanon from reaching a specific agreement, should they decide to uphold minimum standards of patriotism and ethical conduct, and are determined to find common ground between them and to liberate their decision-making from the grip of outside forces.

But what hope is there from leaders who breathe with borrowed lungs, fight with the swords of their neighbors, sing the praises of other countries, and turn their own country into a fertile battleground for foreign interventions and where others settle their scores? This is truly the age of political decay.

We accuse the political leaders of Lebanon of perpetrating the assassination of the country willfully, deliberately and with premeditation. We demand that they be tried and prosecuted before Lebanese or international courts, and failing this, before the court of the Lebanese people. Otherwise, the court of history will be their judge.

Abu Arz

April 4, 2008