Robert Fisk
They wanted Lebanon's 'independence' - but they wanted it in France's favour
Published: 25 November 2006
I couldn't help a deep, unhealthy chuckle when I watched the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy arrive outside the wooden doors of Saint George's Maronite Cathedral in Beirut this week. A throb of applause drifted through the tens of thousands of Lebanese who had gathered for the funeral of murdered industry minister Pierre Gemayel. Here, after all, was the representative of the nation which had supported the eviction of the Syrian army last year, whose president had been a friend of the equally murdered ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, whose support in the UN Security Council was helping to set up the tribunal which will - will it, we ask ourselves in Beirut these days? - try the killers of both Hariri and Gemayel.
Douste-Blazy was aware of all this, of course, and uttered a statement of such self-serving exaggeration that even Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara would have felt jealous. "President Jacques Chirac is the best defender on earth of Lebanon's sovereignty," he proclaimed. "France is determined ... now more than ever (to) defend Lebanon's sovereignty and independence." Now I'm not sure I would want the man who once embraced Saddam Hussein as a close friend to be my greatest defender, let alone my greatest defender "on earth" - funny, isn't it, how the French can never shake off their Napoleonic self-regard - and like the doggy poo on Parisian streets, I'd certainly want to tread carefully around France's interest in Lebanon's "independence".
I hasten to add that - compared to the mendacious, utterly false, repulsively hypocritical and cancerous foreign policy of Dame Beckett of Basra - Chirac's dealings with France's former colonies and mandates are positively Christ-like in their integrity. But the Lebanon that France was to create after the First World War was to be based on the sectarian divisions which the infamous François Georges-Picot had observed earlier as a humble consul in this jewel of the old Ottoman empire, divided as it was between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims and Druze and Christian Maronites - France's favourite community and the faith of the murdered Pierre Gemayel - and the Greek Orthodox and the Greek Catholics and the Chaldeans and the rest. At that time the Maronites represented a thin majority, but emigration and their propensity for smaller families than their Muslim neighbours steadily turned the Christians into a minority which may now number 29 per cent or less.
But the French wanted the Maronites to run Lebanon and thus after independence bequeathed them the presidency. Sunni Muslims would hold the prime ministership and the Shias, who are today the largest community, would be compensated by holding the speakership of parliament. The French thus wanted Lebanon's "independence" - but they wanted it to be in France's favour.
Two problems immediately presented themselves to the Lebanese. By claiming the largest area which it was possible to rule with the tiniest majority - the Maronite religious leader of the time, Patriarch Hayek, was responsible for this - the Christians ensured that they would soon be outnumbered and thus rule their country from a position of minority power. After Irish partition, old James Craig, the founder of Northern Ireland, was a wiser bird than Hayek. From the historic province of Ulster, he ruthlessly dispensed with the three counties of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan because their Protestant communities were too small to sustain - and created a new Ulster whose six counties ensured a Protestant majority for decades to come.
The other Lebanese problem - which the people of Northern Ireland will immediately spot - is that a sectarian state, where only Maronites can be the president and where only Sunnis can be the prime minister, cannot be a modern state. Yet if you take away the sectarianism France created, Lebanon will no longer be Lebanon. The French realised all this in the same way - I suspect - as the Americans have now realised the nature of their sectarian monster in Iraq. Listen to what that great Arab historian, Albert Hourani, wrote about the experience of being a Levantine in 1946 - and apply it to Iraq. To live in such a way, Hourani wrote:
"is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to either; to be able to go through the external forms which indicate the possession of a certain nationality, religion or culture, without actually possessing it. ... It is to belong to no community and to possess nothing of one's own. It reveals itself in lostness, cynicism and despair."
Amid such geopolitical uncertainties, it is easy for westerners to see these people in the borders and colours in which we have chosen to define them. Hence all those newspaper maps of Lebanon - Shias at the bottom and on the right, the Sunnis and Druze in the middle and at the top, and the Christians uneasily wedged between Beirut and the northern Mediterranean coast. We draw the same sectarian maps of Iraq - Shias at the bottom, Sunnis in the middle (the famous "Sunni triangle" though it is not triangular at all) and Kurds at the top.
The British army adopted the same cynical colonial attitude in its cartography of Belfast. I still possess their sectarian maps of the 1970s in which Protestant areas were coloured orange (of course) and Catholic districts were green (of course) while the mixed, middle-class area around Malone Road appeared as a dull brown, the colour of a fine, dry sherry. But we do not draw these maps of our own British or American cities. I could draw a map of Bradford's ethnic districts - but we would never print it. I could draw a black-white ethnic map of Washington - but the Washington Post would never dream of publishing it.
And thus we divide the "other", while assiduously denying the "other" in ourself. This is what the French did in Lebanon, what the British did in Northern Ireland and the Americans are now doing in Iraq. In this way we maintain our homogenous power. Pierre Gemayel grew up in Bikfaya, firmly in that wedge of territory north of Beirut. Many Lebanese now fear a conflict between those who support the "democracy" to which Gemayel belonged and the Shias, the people - in every sense of the word - at the "bottom". And the French are going to ensure the country in which all these poor people are trapped remains "independent".
Quite so. And by the way, when did we ever see an ethnic map of Paris and its banlieues?
I couldn't help a deep, unhealthy chuckle when I watched the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy arrive outside the wooden doors of Saint George's Maronite Cathedral in Beirut this week. A throb of applause drifted through the tens of thousands of Lebanese who had gathered for the funeral of murdered industry minister Pierre Gemayel. Here, after all, was the representative of the nation which had supported the eviction of the Syrian army last year, whose president had been a friend of the equally murdered ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, whose support in the UN Security Council was helping to set up the tribunal which will - will it, we ask ourselves in Beirut these days? - try the killers of both Hariri and Gemayel.
Douste-Blazy was aware of all this, of course, and uttered a statement of such self-serving exaggeration that even Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara would have felt jealous. "President Jacques Chirac is the best defender on earth of Lebanon's sovereignty," he proclaimed. "France is determined ... now more than ever (to) defend Lebanon's sovereignty and independence." Now I'm not sure I would want the man who once embraced Saddam Hussein as a close friend to be my greatest defender, let alone my greatest defender "on earth" - funny, isn't it, how the French can never shake off their Napoleonic self-regard - and like the doggy poo on Parisian streets, I'd certainly want to tread carefully around France's interest in Lebanon's "independence".
I hasten to add that - compared to the mendacious, utterly false, repulsively hypocritical and cancerous foreign policy of Dame Beckett of Basra - Chirac's dealings with France's former colonies and mandates are positively Christ-like in their integrity. But the Lebanon that France was to create after the First World War was to be based on the sectarian divisions which the infamous François Georges-Picot had observed earlier as a humble consul in this jewel of the old Ottoman empire, divided as it was between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims and Druze and Christian Maronites - France's favourite community and the faith of the murdered Pierre Gemayel - and the Greek Orthodox and the Greek Catholics and the Chaldeans and the rest. At that time the Maronites represented a thin majority, but emigration and their propensity for smaller families than their Muslim neighbours steadily turned the Christians into a minority which may now number 29 per cent or less.
But the French wanted the Maronites to run Lebanon and thus after independence bequeathed them the presidency. Sunni Muslims would hold the prime ministership and the Shias, who are today the largest community, would be compensated by holding the speakership of parliament. The French thus wanted Lebanon's "independence" - but they wanted it to be in France's favour.
Two problems immediately presented themselves to the Lebanese. By claiming the largest area which it was possible to rule with the tiniest majority - the Maronite religious leader of the time, Patriarch Hayek, was responsible for this - the Christians ensured that they would soon be outnumbered and thus rule their country from a position of minority power. After Irish partition, old James Craig, the founder of Northern Ireland, was a wiser bird than Hayek. From the historic province of Ulster, he ruthlessly dispensed with the three counties of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan because their Protestant communities were too small to sustain - and created a new Ulster whose six counties ensured a Protestant majority for decades to come.
The other Lebanese problem - which the people of Northern Ireland will immediately spot - is that a sectarian state, where only Maronites can be the president and where only Sunnis can be the prime minister, cannot be a modern state. Yet if you take away the sectarianism France created, Lebanon will no longer be Lebanon. The French realised all this in the same way - I suspect - as the Americans have now realised the nature of their sectarian monster in Iraq. Listen to what that great Arab historian, Albert Hourani, wrote about the experience of being a Levantine in 1946 - and apply it to Iraq. To live in such a way, Hourani wrote:
"is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to either; to be able to go through the external forms which indicate the possession of a certain nationality, religion or culture, without actually possessing it. ... It is to belong to no community and to possess nothing of one's own. It reveals itself in lostness, cynicism and despair."
Amid such geopolitical uncertainties, it is easy for westerners to see these people in the borders and colours in which we have chosen to define them. Hence all those newspaper maps of Lebanon - Shias at the bottom and on the right, the Sunnis and Druze in the middle and at the top, and the Christians uneasily wedged between Beirut and the northern Mediterranean coast. We draw the same sectarian maps of Iraq - Shias at the bottom, Sunnis in the middle (the famous "Sunni triangle" though it is not triangular at all) and Kurds at the top.
The British army adopted the same cynical colonial attitude in its cartography of Belfast. I still possess their sectarian maps of the 1970s in which Protestant areas were coloured orange (of course) and Catholic districts were green (of course) while the mixed, middle-class area around Malone Road appeared as a dull brown, the colour of a fine, dry sherry. But we do not draw these maps of our own British or American cities. I could draw a map of Bradford's ethnic districts - but we would never print it. I could draw a black-white ethnic map of Washington - but the Washington Post would never dream of publishing it.
And thus we divide the "other", while assiduously denying the "other" in ourself. This is what the French did in Lebanon, what the British did in Northern Ireland and the Americans are now doing in Iraq. In this way we maintain our homogenous power. Pierre Gemayel grew up in Bikfaya, firmly in that wedge of territory north of Beirut. Many Lebanese now fear a conflict between those who support the "democracy" to which Gemayel belonged and the Shias, the people - in every sense of the word - at the "bottom". And the French are going to ensure the country in which all these poor people are trapped remains "independent".
Quite so. And by the way, when did we ever see an ethnic map of Paris and its banlieues?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2013319.ece
Showing posts with label Gemayel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gemayel. Show all posts
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Iraq's fate hanging on a new axis
With two of the original members of the United States' "axis of evil" - Iran and Iraq - joining with another of Washington's pariahs, Syria, a strategic alliance of startling significance is emerging. The catalyst for the new grouping is the realistic fear of the "Iraqization" of Lebanon and the "Lebanonization" of Iraq. The overriding concern, though, is Iraq, which is where the US and the new axis could find common cause.
Nov 23, 2006
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
While the US is actively exploring alternative options to salvage its intervention in Iraq, regional realities are dictating their own dynamic, not necessarily in tune with the United States' objectives. Slowly but surely, a new realignment is shaping up that is making Washington nervous - a Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus axis.
The possibility of such a "strategic alliance" being formed, to quote a headline in Tehran's conservative daily, Kayhan, is high, given this weekend's summit in Tehran that brings together the presidents of Iran, Iraq and Syria. (That's two out of three of the United States' "axis of evil" - Iran and Iraq, with the third being North Korea.) This comes at a volatile and uncertain time marked with the continuing bloodbath in Iraq, growing tension in Lebanon and the stalemated Arab-Israeli conflict.
On Tuesday, Iraq announced that it was restoring full diplomatic relations with Syria after a 26-year break, saying the move would increase cooperation on security.
The Kayhan editorial said, "America's fear of the trilateral meeting is very natural, since this alliance can translate into a new crisis for the United States at a time of the breakdown of the system of decision-making in that country." It further stated that while Iraq's deadly instability was the immediate reason for the Tehran summit, the issue of "strategic alliance" among the three countries went well beyond that.
Predictably, the US, which has been prodding both Syria and Iran to play a more constructive role in Iraq, has been lukewarm to Tehran's initiative for the trilateral meeting. Various US government spokespersons have repeated the old accusations of Iran's and Syria's "meddlings" in Iraq, with a Pentagon official claiming that some 70 to 100 foreign fighters crossed into Iraq from Syria each month.
This coincides with new reports in the Israeli and Western press on Iran's alleged al-Qaeda connections, vigorously denied by Tehran, which insists that it has itself been a victim of al-Qaeda terrorism in the past and that the Wahhabi terrorists are vehemently anti-Shi'ite.
Meanwhile, on the eve of the summit, the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, a fierce Christian and anti-Syria leader in Lebanon, has been seized on by US President George W Bush, who has pointed the finger of blame toward both Iran and Syria. This adds to the complexity of the Middle East scene wrought with multiple, simultaneous crises.
There is now a growing and realistic fear of the "Iraqization" of Lebanon and the "Lebanonization" of Iraq, with both countries descending to the depth of a bloody civil war far worse than anything now.
From the prisms of Tehran and Damascus, Israel is the only country that potentially benefits from such a nightmare scenario that they believe must be avoided at all costs. Yet the fragile truce in Lebanon may work in the United States' favor as a lever with regard to Syria and Iran with respect to Iraq, given the fact that unlike Tehran and Damascus, Washington has no intrinsic interests at stake in Lebanon.
Thus it could be that Lebanon will prove to be the Achilles' heel of the emerging axis. Clearly, the complex inter-relationships between Iraq and Lebanon require further scrutiny by strategists in both Tehran and Damascus, nowadays pressured by Washington as if they have identical interests.
Not so, and recently in his major foreign-policy speech, British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a point of referring to the divergent interests of Iran and Syria in the region. This resonates with the view of some political analysts in Tehran, such as Professor Kamran Taromi of Tehran University. He has written: "Iran may very much prefer to have stronger links to the Arabs which are neither at the mercy of the [Syrian Bashar al-]Assad regime nor constrained by Syrian interests. Iraq could provide just that."
The issue, then, is about Damascus' preparedness to enter a new strategic alliance with Iran and the Shi'ite-dominated new Iraq that would tilt the regional balance primarily in Iran's favor and likely diminish the influence of Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Syria's former ally, Egypt.
The driving forces
Tehran and Damascus agree on the hegemonic intentions behind the United States' invasion of Iraq and share fears of the US leviathan putting itself at the disposal of Israel, which pushed vigorously for the 2003 invasion through its vast network of influence-peddlers in the US. However, there are solid grounds for their present initiative toward setting new patterns in inter-regional relations, instead of passively observing the US-Israel machinations for a "greater Middle East" dominated by their particular geostrategic interests.
Doubtless, another common fear is the political and security meltdown inside Iraq, aggravating Iranian and Syrian fears of spill-over insecurity, given their porous borders with the "new Iraq" - which increasingly looks like a stateless country partitioned into the competing fiefdoms of armed factions.
In fact, Iraq's insecurity is a double-edged sword, simultaneously affording the US a weapon with which to threaten Iran and Syria, both of which, in turn, use the same insecurity and the potential for even greater insecurity against the US-led coalition forces.
Concerning the latter, the Kayhan editorial cited above poignantly states that there is little terrorism in the "nine Shi'ite provinces and five Kurdish provinces" of Iraq today, and that Muqtada al-Sadr's Medhi Army has succeeded in creating a protective ring for Baghdad's million and a half population. Another important point raised by Kayhan is: "Americans are strongly in favor of separating Iran's nuclear dossier from Iraq's security dossier, so that they can pressure Iran at one point and yet take advantage of Iran's support elsewhere. But this is not possible." This, in turn, raises another question: Does Damascus entirely share Iran's interest in linking the two issues?
The answer to this question touches on the Syria-Israel conflict and the desirability of Iranian (nuclear) support or even deterrence for Syria against Israel, which has shown absolutely no tangible sign of movement toward peace with Syria. This assumes, for the sake of argument, that one day Tehran decides to go nuclear full-force based on strategic calculations.
Consequently, irrespective of much talk of "strategic uncertainties" in the Middle East, Syria and Iran are convinced about Israel's warmongering and sub-imperialist intentions and its successful "rent-a-superpower" manipulation of the US. This drives Syria's and Iran's proactive search for new tools of deterrence and regime survival, including, but by no means limited to, their common "spoiler role" in Iraq.
But there are limits to that role for both Tehran and Damascus, which must calculate the intended and unintended consequences of runaway insecurity in Iraq spreading beyond Iraq's long borders with both neighbors.
After all, the bottom line is that Syria and Iran are of one mind with respect to the twin pillars of their Iraq policy, that is, Iraq's national unity and territorial integrity. Syria is fearful of Iraq's disintegration impacting its nearly 2 million Kurds, in light of the Syrian government's crackdown on Kurdish protesters in March 2004. This could erupt again if Iraq's Kurds reach full autonomy.
Iran, on the other hand, is rattled by the Americans' and Israelis' open support for Kurdish irredentism inside Iran, and this forms yet another common bond among Tehran, Damascus and the central government in Iraq, which has a Kurdish president (Jalal Talabani) who is due to visit Tehran shortly.
Challenges and opportunities for Tehran
As far as Tehran is concerned, the Iraq crisis is both a regional and an international crisis representing a multi-dimensional policy challenge. The visible intensification of chaos in Iraq poses a major threat to Iran's national-security interests that requires from Iran a multi-layered response at both regional and international levels.
No wonder Tehran's leaders are pushing for a multilateral approach toward the Iraq crisis as a key "damage control" measure that will, it is hoped, minimize the potential for damage and attain a better regional situation in the (near) future, instead of the currently growing quagmire.
In his recent Friday-prayers speech, Iran's former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, pointed at the irony of the US seeking Iran's support to "tow them out of the bottom" of Iraq's morass, openly wondering what incentives Iran would have to do so. A response to this question was given by James Baker, the former US secretary of state and now head of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG). In a recent meeting with Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, he reminded Iran that Iraq's crisis is also a crisis for neighboring Iran.
Reportedly the ISG will recommend direct US dialogue with Iran and Syria over Iraq, and Baker and his colleagues must now be encouraged that both countries are showing serious signs of improving relations with Iraq, reflected most vividly in Syria's initiative to normalize diplomatic relations with Baghdad after 24 years.
Thus the weekend's summit in Tehran may prove a prelude to dialogue with the US, which continues to occupy Iraq at exorbitant price and yet without any prospect of "military victory", to paraphrase US statesman Henry Kissinger.
Turning the challenge of Iraq's (in)security into an opportunity for Tehran and Damascus, a modus vivendi with the US is now a distinct possibility, although opposition will come as stern objections from Israel and the pro-Israel forces encircling the White House.
Yet irrespective of the latter, and the relentless Israeli disinformation campaign aimed at torpedoing any Western policy shift on Iran, eg, by spreading the rumors of an Iranian nuclear test per a report in the Jerusalem Post, Iran continues to push for its revised and invigorated Iraq policy based primarily on its highly intertwined Iraq and US policies.
What the US invasion of Iraq managed to do almost overnight was to turn the long-standing Iran-Iraq dispute into an extension of Iran-US relations, as a result of which today it is nearly impossible to disentangle the two issues. This is at least so as long as Iran perceives the "new Iraq" less as an independent state and more as a continuously occupied state that it must penetrate and create zones of influence both to deter the US threat and to enhance its regional standing.
"Let us not forget that the Iraq crisis today is also a crisis of American hegemony," a Tehran political analyst told this author recently, adding that a net benefit of this "double crisis" for Iran has been the absence of an invasion by the US - the augment being that in all probability the US would have invaded Iran by now had it succeeded in Iraq.
Iran's dilemma, however, is that a complete failure of the US in Iraq is not in Iran's interests either, given Iran's fear of terrorism, mass refugees and irredentism from behind its vast western borders with Iraq. Tehran and the occupying powers may have their own interests in mind, but their common fear of Iraq's collapse is what could ultimately heal their great divide.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK23Ak02.html
Nov 23, 2006
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
While the US is actively exploring alternative options to salvage its intervention in Iraq, regional realities are dictating their own dynamic, not necessarily in tune with the United States' objectives. Slowly but surely, a new realignment is shaping up that is making Washington nervous - a Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus axis.
The possibility of such a "strategic alliance" being formed, to quote a headline in Tehran's conservative daily, Kayhan, is high, given this weekend's summit in Tehran that brings together the presidents of Iran, Iraq and Syria. (That's two out of three of the United States' "axis of evil" - Iran and Iraq, with the third being North Korea.) This comes at a volatile and uncertain time marked with the continuing bloodbath in Iraq, growing tension in Lebanon and the stalemated Arab-Israeli conflict.
On Tuesday, Iraq announced that it was restoring full diplomatic relations with Syria after a 26-year break, saying the move would increase cooperation on security.
The Kayhan editorial said, "America's fear of the trilateral meeting is very natural, since this alliance can translate into a new crisis for the United States at a time of the breakdown of the system of decision-making in that country." It further stated that while Iraq's deadly instability was the immediate reason for the Tehran summit, the issue of "strategic alliance" among the three countries went well beyond that.
Predictably, the US, which has been prodding both Syria and Iran to play a more constructive role in Iraq, has been lukewarm to Tehran's initiative for the trilateral meeting. Various US government spokespersons have repeated the old accusations of Iran's and Syria's "meddlings" in Iraq, with a Pentagon official claiming that some 70 to 100 foreign fighters crossed into Iraq from Syria each month.
This coincides with new reports in the Israeli and Western press on Iran's alleged al-Qaeda connections, vigorously denied by Tehran, which insists that it has itself been a victim of al-Qaeda terrorism in the past and that the Wahhabi terrorists are vehemently anti-Shi'ite.
Meanwhile, on the eve of the summit, the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, a fierce Christian and anti-Syria leader in Lebanon, has been seized on by US President George W Bush, who has pointed the finger of blame toward both Iran and Syria. This adds to the complexity of the Middle East scene wrought with multiple, simultaneous crises.
There is now a growing and realistic fear of the "Iraqization" of Lebanon and the "Lebanonization" of Iraq, with both countries descending to the depth of a bloody civil war far worse than anything now.
From the prisms of Tehran and Damascus, Israel is the only country that potentially benefits from such a nightmare scenario that they believe must be avoided at all costs. Yet the fragile truce in Lebanon may work in the United States' favor as a lever with regard to Syria and Iran with respect to Iraq, given the fact that unlike Tehran and Damascus, Washington has no intrinsic interests at stake in Lebanon.
Thus it could be that Lebanon will prove to be the Achilles' heel of the emerging axis. Clearly, the complex inter-relationships between Iraq and Lebanon require further scrutiny by strategists in both Tehran and Damascus, nowadays pressured by Washington as if they have identical interests.
Not so, and recently in his major foreign-policy speech, British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a point of referring to the divergent interests of Iran and Syria in the region. This resonates with the view of some political analysts in Tehran, such as Professor Kamran Taromi of Tehran University. He has written: "Iran may very much prefer to have stronger links to the Arabs which are neither at the mercy of the [Syrian Bashar al-]Assad regime nor constrained by Syrian interests. Iraq could provide just that."
The issue, then, is about Damascus' preparedness to enter a new strategic alliance with Iran and the Shi'ite-dominated new Iraq that would tilt the regional balance primarily in Iran's favor and likely diminish the influence of Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Syria's former ally, Egypt.
The driving forces
Tehran and Damascus agree on the hegemonic intentions behind the United States' invasion of Iraq and share fears of the US leviathan putting itself at the disposal of Israel, which pushed vigorously for the 2003 invasion through its vast network of influence-peddlers in the US. However, there are solid grounds for their present initiative toward setting new patterns in inter-regional relations, instead of passively observing the US-Israel machinations for a "greater Middle East" dominated by their particular geostrategic interests.
Doubtless, another common fear is the political and security meltdown inside Iraq, aggravating Iranian and Syrian fears of spill-over insecurity, given their porous borders with the "new Iraq" - which increasingly looks like a stateless country partitioned into the competing fiefdoms of armed factions.
In fact, Iraq's insecurity is a double-edged sword, simultaneously affording the US a weapon with which to threaten Iran and Syria, both of which, in turn, use the same insecurity and the potential for even greater insecurity against the US-led coalition forces.
Concerning the latter, the Kayhan editorial cited above poignantly states that there is little terrorism in the "nine Shi'ite provinces and five Kurdish provinces" of Iraq today, and that Muqtada al-Sadr's Medhi Army has succeeded in creating a protective ring for Baghdad's million and a half population. Another important point raised by Kayhan is: "Americans are strongly in favor of separating Iran's nuclear dossier from Iraq's security dossier, so that they can pressure Iran at one point and yet take advantage of Iran's support elsewhere. But this is not possible." This, in turn, raises another question: Does Damascus entirely share Iran's interest in linking the two issues?
The answer to this question touches on the Syria-Israel conflict and the desirability of Iranian (nuclear) support or even deterrence for Syria against Israel, which has shown absolutely no tangible sign of movement toward peace with Syria. This assumes, for the sake of argument, that one day Tehran decides to go nuclear full-force based on strategic calculations.
Consequently, irrespective of much talk of "strategic uncertainties" in the Middle East, Syria and Iran are convinced about Israel's warmongering and sub-imperialist intentions and its successful "rent-a-superpower" manipulation of the US. This drives Syria's and Iran's proactive search for new tools of deterrence and regime survival, including, but by no means limited to, their common "spoiler role" in Iraq.
But there are limits to that role for both Tehran and Damascus, which must calculate the intended and unintended consequences of runaway insecurity in Iraq spreading beyond Iraq's long borders with both neighbors.
After all, the bottom line is that Syria and Iran are of one mind with respect to the twin pillars of their Iraq policy, that is, Iraq's national unity and territorial integrity. Syria is fearful of Iraq's disintegration impacting its nearly 2 million Kurds, in light of the Syrian government's crackdown on Kurdish protesters in March 2004. This could erupt again if Iraq's Kurds reach full autonomy.
Iran, on the other hand, is rattled by the Americans' and Israelis' open support for Kurdish irredentism inside Iran, and this forms yet another common bond among Tehran, Damascus and the central government in Iraq, which has a Kurdish president (Jalal Talabani) who is due to visit Tehran shortly.
Challenges and opportunities for Tehran
As far as Tehran is concerned, the Iraq crisis is both a regional and an international crisis representing a multi-dimensional policy challenge. The visible intensification of chaos in Iraq poses a major threat to Iran's national-security interests that requires from Iran a multi-layered response at both regional and international levels.
No wonder Tehran's leaders are pushing for a multilateral approach toward the Iraq crisis as a key "damage control" measure that will, it is hoped, minimize the potential for damage and attain a better regional situation in the (near) future, instead of the currently growing quagmire.
In his recent Friday-prayers speech, Iran's former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, pointed at the irony of the US seeking Iran's support to "tow them out of the bottom" of Iraq's morass, openly wondering what incentives Iran would have to do so. A response to this question was given by James Baker, the former US secretary of state and now head of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG). In a recent meeting with Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, he reminded Iran that Iraq's crisis is also a crisis for neighboring Iran.
Reportedly the ISG will recommend direct US dialogue with Iran and Syria over Iraq, and Baker and his colleagues must now be encouraged that both countries are showing serious signs of improving relations with Iraq, reflected most vividly in Syria's initiative to normalize diplomatic relations with Baghdad after 24 years.
Thus the weekend's summit in Tehran may prove a prelude to dialogue with the US, which continues to occupy Iraq at exorbitant price and yet without any prospect of "military victory", to paraphrase US statesman Henry Kissinger.
Turning the challenge of Iraq's (in)security into an opportunity for Tehran and Damascus, a modus vivendi with the US is now a distinct possibility, although opposition will come as stern objections from Israel and the pro-Israel forces encircling the White House.
Yet irrespective of the latter, and the relentless Israeli disinformation campaign aimed at torpedoing any Western policy shift on Iran, eg, by spreading the rumors of an Iranian nuclear test per a report in the Jerusalem Post, Iran continues to push for its revised and invigorated Iraq policy based primarily on its highly intertwined Iraq and US policies.
What the US invasion of Iraq managed to do almost overnight was to turn the long-standing Iran-Iraq dispute into an extension of Iran-US relations, as a result of which today it is nearly impossible to disentangle the two issues. This is at least so as long as Iran perceives the "new Iraq" less as an independent state and more as a continuously occupied state that it must penetrate and create zones of influence both to deter the US threat and to enhance its regional standing.
"Let us not forget that the Iraq crisis today is also a crisis of American hegemony," a Tehran political analyst told this author recently, adding that a net benefit of this "double crisis" for Iran has been the absence of an invasion by the US - the augment being that in all probability the US would have invaded Iran by now had it succeeded in Iraq.
Iran's dilemma, however, is that a complete failure of the US in Iraq is not in Iran's interests either, given Iran's fear of terrorism, mass refugees and irredentism from behind its vast western borders with Iraq. Tehran and the occupying powers may have their own interests in mind, but their common fear of Iraq's collapse is what could ultimately heal their great divide.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK23Ak02.html
Robert Fisk: Dragons of Lebanon's past emerge for Gemayel funeral
Robert Fisk
Published: 24 November 2006
Amin Gemayel wept and swooned in front of us. The tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims burst into applause before the improvised stage. Gemayel - a foppish man with little charisma when he was President of Lebanon - held up his right hand and suddenly became a symbol of nobility, still swaying on his feet, his left arm supported by the tall, far younger figure of Saad Hariri. Only two days earlier, Gemayel's MP son, Pierre, had been blasted to death by gunmen in Beirut; his body still lay in the Cathedral of St George a few metres from where we were standing. But nothing became Gemayel like his courage yesterday as he told the vast mass of Lebanese in front of him that, yes, there would be a second revolution in this country which would end only when the pro-Syrian President had been removed.
The knightly St George gave his name to the great Italianate basilica - yes, he is supposed to have slain the dragon in Beirut - but Amin Gemayel's bravery was one of the few moments of humanity on this brightly sunny, politically overcast, disturbing day. For alas, the dragons that move through the dark underworld of Lebanon's politics are still alive. One of them, the gaunt and murderous old militia leader Samir Geagea - he spent 14 years in an underground prison for blowing up a church - talked ominously of Lebanon's enemies, international and domestic. "They wanted a confrontation - so be it," he shouted.
The terrible pain of Lebanon's body politic was all too evident in the figures silhouetted in the evening light alongside the bullet-proof box from which Gemayel spoke. Gemayel himself had lost his son and, in 1982, his president-elect brother Bashir, whose baby daughter was slaughtered in a bomb explosion during the civil war.
There was Marwan Hamade, almost killed by a car bomb explosion in October 2004, and Saad Hariri, whose father Rafik's murder - in an even bigger car bomb explosion in Beirut last year - set off the first "revolution" which brought democracy to Lebanon and the withdrawal of Syrian troops. And there was Walid Jumblatt, the eloquent, nihilist Druze leader, whose father Kemal was murdered by armed men in March of 1977. And Nayla Moawad, whose president-husband, Rene, was blown to atoms by a bomb in November of 1989.
They all stood together on the sad little podium, Pierre's broken body in the basilica behind them, Rafik's burned corpse in the flowered grave beside them.
But yesterday's funeral bore some of the attributes of the Roman games, partly, I suspect, because the informality of Islam has, over the years, brushed off on the Christian Maronite Church.
Old political enemies embraced each other beside priests and sweating paramilitary police while the huge crowds applauded and roared their approval of Messrs Jumblatt and Hariri and, especially, Dr Geagea, but booed with derision Ali Hassan Khalil of the Shia Amal party and a sinister Christian ex-militiaman who once hurled his equally Christian civil war prisoners into the Mediterranean with concrete tied to their legs. They were, of course, alive at the time.
Like everything Lebanese - to misquote Evelyn Waugh - the day's pageantry was very impressive, but went on far too long. We had to listen to church music, church bells, Islamic chants, the music of Majida el-Roumi (the new Fairouz) and the tinny band of the Internal Security Forces as it whump-aad its way through the Lebanese national anthem against the thump of army helicopters. There were forests of flags, happily more Lebanese than militia-oriented and thousands and thousands of Lebanese troops, reservists, gendarmerie, riot police, interior ministry goons, traffic cops and ISF men.
All these, needless to say, to safeguard the lives of that most endangered of species, Lebanon's surviving politicians, from - so most of the crowd assumed - the assassins of Damascus.
In fact, when the bodies of Gemayel and his bodyguard, Samir Chartouni, were removed from the cathedral for burial, there were another hundred heavily armed security men standing around the coffins. If only, I couldn't help asking myself, they had been as enthusiastic to protect the occupants of the caskets when they were alive.
May Chidiac, the Christian journalist who is a harsh critic of Syria's hegemony of Lebanon and lost a leg and a hand in the bombing of her own car last year, bravely gave the crowd a blond, Academy Awards smile.
Watching the great and the good enter the basilica was a bit like spotting the stars. Grey-haired Dory Chamoun, whose militia-leader brother, Dany, was assassinated in 1990, along with his wife, Ingrid, and two of their children, Tariq and Julian. Boutros Harb and Nasib Lahoud (no relation to the hated President) and Charles Rizk, all of whom would like - heaven knows why - to be president of Lebanon when Emile Lahoud either finishes his term in the Baabda palace or is turfed out by the anger of these crowds.
"To Baabda, to Baabda," they shrieked. A march on Baabda is often threatened, not least by Dr Geagea, who does not seem to associate it with the march on Rome. But it is Lahoud who is now regarded as the unconstitutional ruler of Lebanon.
Posters demanded his dismissal - a demand made ever more harshly by Hariri and Jumblatt since Gemayel's murder - and one eloquent banner even addressed the President. "Oh Caesar of Baabda," it proclaimed, "get the hell out!" Less of a Caesar, I would have said, than an attendant lord of Damascus.
Geagea was chilling in his denunciations. "We will not accept that this government shall be changed for a government of murderers and criminals," he shouted. And since it is Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Shia Hizbollah who has been abusing the Siniora cabinet as the government of "the US ambassador" - and since it is the Shia ministers who have withdrawn from this same cabinet - one could conclude, could one not, that Dr Geagea's "murderers and criminals" were Shia.
Indeed, dwelling on his bloody wartime sins, most of which were amnestied, one has to reflect why Geagea's lads blew up the congregation of the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in 1994; the court said that he wanted to persuade Christians that Hizbollah had committed the crime.
Funny how these things come back to us. Oddly, Pierre Gemayel's murder has had exactly the same effect on Christians and Sunni Muslims; it has persuaded many of them that the Hizbollah, on Syria's behalf, committed the crime. A distressing thought.
Reaction from the Middle Eastern press
Al-Safir (Lebanon)
'It looks as if the assassination of Pierre Gemayel marks the start of a premeditated series of crimes. It also appears that a new bloody stage has started in Lebanon's modern history'
Al-Quds (pan-Arab)
'Those who planned and carried out this assassination were targeting Syria as much as they were targeting Lebanon. Indeed, they were also targeting the entire Arab region. Syria is the one that is most harmed by this repugnant crime'
Al-Mustaqbal (Lebanon)
'What kind of future awaits Lebanon in the presence of parties like Hizbollah and its allies, that promise the Lebanese a greater Tehran if it captures power, and a lesser Baghdad if it fails in this?'
Jomhuri-Ye Eslami (Iran)
'Undoubtedly this assassination was planned and carried out by the Zionist regime because the Zionists stand to gain the most from it'
Al-Ba'th (Syria)
'The new Middle East is a US-Israeli project... Political assassinations... and killings pave the way for sedition. This sedition leads to chaos, and it is chaos which allows the realisation of the project'
Milliyet (Turkey)
'The biggest danger is that the various groups in society will be dragged into civil war'
Al-Arab Al-Alamiyah (pan-Arab)
"It appears Lebanon is pre-ordained to stay a nation of tears. The assassination... has extinguished the glimmer of hope'
Amin Gemayel wept and swooned in front of us. The tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims burst into applause before the improvised stage. Gemayel - a foppish man with little charisma when he was President of Lebanon - held up his right hand and suddenly became a symbol of nobility, still swaying on his feet, his left arm supported by the tall, far younger figure of Saad Hariri. Only two days earlier, Gemayel's MP son, Pierre, had been blasted to death by gunmen in Beirut; his body still lay in the Cathedral of St George a few metres from where we were standing. But nothing became Gemayel like his courage yesterday as he told the vast mass of Lebanese in front of him that, yes, there would be a second revolution in this country which would end only when the pro-Syrian President had been removed.
The knightly St George gave his name to the great Italianate basilica - yes, he is supposed to have slain the dragon in Beirut - but Amin Gemayel's bravery was one of the few moments of humanity on this brightly sunny, politically overcast, disturbing day. For alas, the dragons that move through the dark underworld of Lebanon's politics are still alive. One of them, the gaunt and murderous old militia leader Samir Geagea - he spent 14 years in an underground prison for blowing up a church - talked ominously of Lebanon's enemies, international and domestic. "They wanted a confrontation - so be it," he shouted.
The terrible pain of Lebanon's body politic was all too evident in the figures silhouetted in the evening light alongside the bullet-proof box from which Gemayel spoke. Gemayel himself had lost his son and, in 1982, his president-elect brother Bashir, whose baby daughter was slaughtered in a bomb explosion during the civil war.
There was Marwan Hamade, almost killed by a car bomb explosion in October 2004, and Saad Hariri, whose father Rafik's murder - in an even bigger car bomb explosion in Beirut last year - set off the first "revolution" which brought democracy to Lebanon and the withdrawal of Syrian troops. And there was Walid Jumblatt, the eloquent, nihilist Druze leader, whose father Kemal was murdered by armed men in March of 1977. And Nayla Moawad, whose president-husband, Rene, was blown to atoms by a bomb in November of 1989.
They all stood together on the sad little podium, Pierre's broken body in the basilica behind them, Rafik's burned corpse in the flowered grave beside them.
But yesterday's funeral bore some of the attributes of the Roman games, partly, I suspect, because the informality of Islam has, over the years, brushed off on the Christian Maronite Church.
Old political enemies embraced each other beside priests and sweating paramilitary police while the huge crowds applauded and roared their approval of Messrs Jumblatt and Hariri and, especially, Dr Geagea, but booed with derision Ali Hassan Khalil of the Shia Amal party and a sinister Christian ex-militiaman who once hurled his equally Christian civil war prisoners into the Mediterranean with concrete tied to their legs. They were, of course, alive at the time.
Like everything Lebanese - to misquote Evelyn Waugh - the day's pageantry was very impressive, but went on far too long. We had to listen to church music, church bells, Islamic chants, the music of Majida el-Roumi (the new Fairouz) and the tinny band of the Internal Security Forces as it whump-aad its way through the Lebanese national anthem against the thump of army helicopters. There were forests of flags, happily more Lebanese than militia-oriented and thousands and thousands of Lebanese troops, reservists, gendarmerie, riot police, interior ministry goons, traffic cops and ISF men.
All these, needless to say, to safeguard the lives of that most endangered of species, Lebanon's surviving politicians, from - so most of the crowd assumed - the assassins of Damascus.
In fact, when the bodies of Gemayel and his bodyguard, Samir Chartouni, were removed from the cathedral for burial, there were another hundred heavily armed security men standing around the coffins. If only, I couldn't help asking myself, they had been as enthusiastic to protect the occupants of the caskets when they were alive.
May Chidiac, the Christian journalist who is a harsh critic of Syria's hegemony of Lebanon and lost a leg and a hand in the bombing of her own car last year, bravely gave the crowd a blond, Academy Awards smile.
Watching the great and the good enter the basilica was a bit like spotting the stars. Grey-haired Dory Chamoun, whose militia-leader brother, Dany, was assassinated in 1990, along with his wife, Ingrid, and two of their children, Tariq and Julian. Boutros Harb and Nasib Lahoud (no relation to the hated President) and Charles Rizk, all of whom would like - heaven knows why - to be president of Lebanon when Emile Lahoud either finishes his term in the Baabda palace or is turfed out by the anger of these crowds.
"To Baabda, to Baabda," they shrieked. A march on Baabda is often threatened, not least by Dr Geagea, who does not seem to associate it with the march on Rome. But it is Lahoud who is now regarded as the unconstitutional ruler of Lebanon.
Posters demanded his dismissal - a demand made ever more harshly by Hariri and Jumblatt since Gemayel's murder - and one eloquent banner even addressed the President. "Oh Caesar of Baabda," it proclaimed, "get the hell out!" Less of a Caesar, I would have said, than an attendant lord of Damascus.
Geagea was chilling in his denunciations. "We will not accept that this government shall be changed for a government of murderers and criminals," he shouted. And since it is Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Shia Hizbollah who has been abusing the Siniora cabinet as the government of "the US ambassador" - and since it is the Shia ministers who have withdrawn from this same cabinet - one could conclude, could one not, that Dr Geagea's "murderers and criminals" were Shia.
Indeed, dwelling on his bloody wartime sins, most of which were amnestied, one has to reflect why Geagea's lads blew up the congregation of the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in 1994; the court said that he wanted to persuade Christians that Hizbollah had committed the crime.
Funny how these things come back to us. Oddly, Pierre Gemayel's murder has had exactly the same effect on Christians and Sunni Muslims; it has persuaded many of them that the Hizbollah, on Syria's behalf, committed the crime. A distressing thought.
Reaction from the Middle Eastern press
Al-Safir (Lebanon)
'It looks as if the assassination of Pierre Gemayel marks the start of a premeditated series of crimes. It also appears that a new bloody stage has started in Lebanon's modern history'
Al-Quds (pan-Arab)
'Those who planned and carried out this assassination were targeting Syria as much as they were targeting Lebanon. Indeed, they were also targeting the entire Arab region. Syria is the one that is most harmed by this repugnant crime'
Al-Mustaqbal (Lebanon)
'What kind of future awaits Lebanon in the presence of parties like Hizbollah and its allies, that promise the Lebanese a greater Tehran if it captures power, and a lesser Baghdad if it fails in this?'
Jomhuri-Ye Eslami (Iran)
'Undoubtedly this assassination was planned and carried out by the Zionist regime because the Zionists stand to gain the most from it'
Al-Ba'th (Syria)
'The new Middle East is a US-Israeli project... Political assassinations... and killings pave the way for sedition. This sedition leads to chaos, and it is chaos which allows the realisation of the project'
Milliyet (Turkey)
'The biggest danger is that the various groups in society will be dragged into civil war'
Al-Arab Al-Alamiyah (pan-Arab)
"It appears Lebanon is pre-ordained to stay a nation of tears. The assassination... has extinguished the glimmer of hope'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2010016.ece
Published: 24 November 2006
Amin Gemayel wept and swooned in front of us. The tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims burst into applause before the improvised stage. Gemayel - a foppish man with little charisma when he was President of Lebanon - held up his right hand and suddenly became a symbol of nobility, still swaying on his feet, his left arm supported by the tall, far younger figure of Saad Hariri. Only two days earlier, Gemayel's MP son, Pierre, had been blasted to death by gunmen in Beirut; his body still lay in the Cathedral of St George a few metres from where we were standing. But nothing became Gemayel like his courage yesterday as he told the vast mass of Lebanese in front of him that, yes, there would be a second revolution in this country which would end only when the pro-Syrian President had been removed.
The knightly St George gave his name to the great Italianate basilica - yes, he is supposed to have slain the dragon in Beirut - but Amin Gemayel's bravery was one of the few moments of humanity on this brightly sunny, politically overcast, disturbing day. For alas, the dragons that move through the dark underworld of Lebanon's politics are still alive. One of them, the gaunt and murderous old militia leader Samir Geagea - he spent 14 years in an underground prison for blowing up a church - talked ominously of Lebanon's enemies, international and domestic. "They wanted a confrontation - so be it," he shouted.
The terrible pain of Lebanon's body politic was all too evident in the figures silhouetted in the evening light alongside the bullet-proof box from which Gemayel spoke. Gemayel himself had lost his son and, in 1982, his president-elect brother Bashir, whose baby daughter was slaughtered in a bomb explosion during the civil war.
There was Marwan Hamade, almost killed by a car bomb explosion in October 2004, and Saad Hariri, whose father Rafik's murder - in an even bigger car bomb explosion in Beirut last year - set off the first "revolution" which brought democracy to Lebanon and the withdrawal of Syrian troops. And there was Walid Jumblatt, the eloquent, nihilist Druze leader, whose father Kemal was murdered by armed men in March of 1977. And Nayla Moawad, whose president-husband, Rene, was blown to atoms by a bomb in November of 1989.
They all stood together on the sad little podium, Pierre's broken body in the basilica behind them, Rafik's burned corpse in the flowered grave beside them.
But yesterday's funeral bore some of the attributes of the Roman games, partly, I suspect, because the informality of Islam has, over the years, brushed off on the Christian Maronite Church.
Old political enemies embraced each other beside priests and sweating paramilitary police while the huge crowds applauded and roared their approval of Messrs Jumblatt and Hariri and, especially, Dr Geagea, but booed with derision Ali Hassan Khalil of the Shia Amal party and a sinister Christian ex-militiaman who once hurled his equally Christian civil war prisoners into the Mediterranean with concrete tied to their legs. They were, of course, alive at the time.
Like everything Lebanese - to misquote Evelyn Waugh - the day's pageantry was very impressive, but went on far too long. We had to listen to church music, church bells, Islamic chants, the music of Majida el-Roumi (the new Fairouz) and the tinny band of the Internal Security Forces as it whump-aad its way through the Lebanese national anthem against the thump of army helicopters. There were forests of flags, happily more Lebanese than militia-oriented and thousands and thousands of Lebanese troops, reservists, gendarmerie, riot police, interior ministry goons, traffic cops and ISF men.
All these, needless to say, to safeguard the lives of that most endangered of species, Lebanon's surviving politicians, from - so most of the crowd assumed - the assassins of Damascus.
In fact, when the bodies of Gemayel and his bodyguard, Samir Chartouni, were removed from the cathedral for burial, there were another hundred heavily armed security men standing around the coffins. If only, I couldn't help asking myself, they had been as enthusiastic to protect the occupants of the caskets when they were alive.
May Chidiac, the Christian journalist who is a harsh critic of Syria's hegemony of Lebanon and lost a leg and a hand in the bombing of her own car last year, bravely gave the crowd a blond, Academy Awards smile.
Watching the great and the good enter the basilica was a bit like spotting the stars. Grey-haired Dory Chamoun, whose militia-leader brother, Dany, was assassinated in 1990, along with his wife, Ingrid, and two of their children, Tariq and Julian. Boutros Harb and Nasib Lahoud (no relation to the hated President) and Charles Rizk, all of whom would like - heaven knows why - to be president of Lebanon when Emile Lahoud either finishes his term in the Baabda palace or is turfed out by the anger of these crowds.
"To Baabda, to Baabda," they shrieked. A march on Baabda is often threatened, not least by Dr Geagea, who does not seem to associate it with the march on Rome. But it is Lahoud who is now regarded as the unconstitutional ruler of Lebanon.
Posters demanded his dismissal - a demand made ever more harshly by Hariri and Jumblatt since Gemayel's murder - and one eloquent banner even addressed the President. "Oh Caesar of Baabda," it proclaimed, "get the hell out!" Less of a Caesar, I would have said, than an attendant lord of Damascus.
Geagea was chilling in his denunciations. "We will not accept that this government shall be changed for a government of murderers and criminals," he shouted. And since it is Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Shia Hizbollah who has been abusing the Siniora cabinet as the government of "the US ambassador" - and since it is the Shia ministers who have withdrawn from this same cabinet - one could conclude, could one not, that Dr Geagea's "murderers and criminals" were Shia.
Indeed, dwelling on his bloody wartime sins, most of which were amnestied, one has to reflect why Geagea's lads blew up the congregation of the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in 1994; the court said that he wanted to persuade Christians that Hizbollah had committed the crime.
Funny how these things come back to us. Oddly, Pierre Gemayel's murder has had exactly the same effect on Christians and Sunni Muslims; it has persuaded many of them that the Hizbollah, on Syria's behalf, committed the crime. A distressing thought.
Reaction from the Middle Eastern press
Al-Safir (Lebanon)
'It looks as if the assassination of Pierre Gemayel marks the start of a premeditated series of crimes. It also appears that a new bloody stage has started in Lebanon's modern history'
Al-Quds (pan-Arab)
'Those who planned and carried out this assassination were targeting Syria as much as they were targeting Lebanon. Indeed, they were also targeting the entire Arab region. Syria is the one that is most harmed by this repugnant crime'
Al-Mustaqbal (Lebanon)
'What kind of future awaits Lebanon in the presence of parties like Hizbollah and its allies, that promise the Lebanese a greater Tehran if it captures power, and a lesser Baghdad if it fails in this?'
Jomhuri-Ye Eslami (Iran)
'Undoubtedly this assassination was planned and carried out by the Zionist regime because the Zionists stand to gain the most from it'
Al-Ba'th (Syria)
'The new Middle East is a US-Israeli project... Political assassinations... and killings pave the way for sedition. This sedition leads to chaos, and it is chaos which allows the realisation of the project'
Milliyet (Turkey)
'The biggest danger is that the various groups in society will be dragged into civil war'
Al-Arab Al-Alamiyah (pan-Arab)
"It appears Lebanon is pre-ordained to stay a nation of tears. The assassination... has extinguished the glimmer of hope'
Amin Gemayel wept and swooned in front of us. The tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims burst into applause before the improvised stage. Gemayel - a foppish man with little charisma when he was President of Lebanon - held up his right hand and suddenly became a symbol of nobility, still swaying on his feet, his left arm supported by the tall, far younger figure of Saad Hariri. Only two days earlier, Gemayel's MP son, Pierre, had been blasted to death by gunmen in Beirut; his body still lay in the Cathedral of St George a few metres from where we were standing. But nothing became Gemayel like his courage yesterday as he told the vast mass of Lebanese in front of him that, yes, there would be a second revolution in this country which would end only when the pro-Syrian President had been removed.
The knightly St George gave his name to the great Italianate basilica - yes, he is supposed to have slain the dragon in Beirut - but Amin Gemayel's bravery was one of the few moments of humanity on this brightly sunny, politically overcast, disturbing day. For alas, the dragons that move through the dark underworld of Lebanon's politics are still alive. One of them, the gaunt and murderous old militia leader Samir Geagea - he spent 14 years in an underground prison for blowing up a church - talked ominously of Lebanon's enemies, international and domestic. "They wanted a confrontation - so be it," he shouted.
The terrible pain of Lebanon's body politic was all too evident in the figures silhouetted in the evening light alongside the bullet-proof box from which Gemayel spoke. Gemayel himself had lost his son and, in 1982, his president-elect brother Bashir, whose baby daughter was slaughtered in a bomb explosion during the civil war.
There was Marwan Hamade, almost killed by a car bomb explosion in October 2004, and Saad Hariri, whose father Rafik's murder - in an even bigger car bomb explosion in Beirut last year - set off the first "revolution" which brought democracy to Lebanon and the withdrawal of Syrian troops. And there was Walid Jumblatt, the eloquent, nihilist Druze leader, whose father Kemal was murdered by armed men in March of 1977. And Nayla Moawad, whose president-husband, Rene, was blown to atoms by a bomb in November of 1989.
They all stood together on the sad little podium, Pierre's broken body in the basilica behind them, Rafik's burned corpse in the flowered grave beside them.
But yesterday's funeral bore some of the attributes of the Roman games, partly, I suspect, because the informality of Islam has, over the years, brushed off on the Christian Maronite Church.
Old political enemies embraced each other beside priests and sweating paramilitary police while the huge crowds applauded and roared their approval of Messrs Jumblatt and Hariri and, especially, Dr Geagea, but booed with derision Ali Hassan Khalil of the Shia Amal party and a sinister Christian ex-militiaman who once hurled his equally Christian civil war prisoners into the Mediterranean with concrete tied to their legs. They were, of course, alive at the time.
Like everything Lebanese - to misquote Evelyn Waugh - the day's pageantry was very impressive, but went on far too long. We had to listen to church music, church bells, Islamic chants, the music of Majida el-Roumi (the new Fairouz) and the tinny band of the Internal Security Forces as it whump-aad its way through the Lebanese national anthem against the thump of army helicopters. There were forests of flags, happily more Lebanese than militia-oriented and thousands and thousands of Lebanese troops, reservists, gendarmerie, riot police, interior ministry goons, traffic cops and ISF men.
All these, needless to say, to safeguard the lives of that most endangered of species, Lebanon's surviving politicians, from - so most of the crowd assumed - the assassins of Damascus.
In fact, when the bodies of Gemayel and his bodyguard, Samir Chartouni, were removed from the cathedral for burial, there were another hundred heavily armed security men standing around the coffins. If only, I couldn't help asking myself, they had been as enthusiastic to protect the occupants of the caskets when they were alive.
May Chidiac, the Christian journalist who is a harsh critic of Syria's hegemony of Lebanon and lost a leg and a hand in the bombing of her own car last year, bravely gave the crowd a blond, Academy Awards smile.
Watching the great and the good enter the basilica was a bit like spotting the stars. Grey-haired Dory Chamoun, whose militia-leader brother, Dany, was assassinated in 1990, along with his wife, Ingrid, and two of their children, Tariq and Julian. Boutros Harb and Nasib Lahoud (no relation to the hated President) and Charles Rizk, all of whom would like - heaven knows why - to be president of Lebanon when Emile Lahoud either finishes his term in the Baabda palace or is turfed out by the anger of these crowds.
"To Baabda, to Baabda," they shrieked. A march on Baabda is often threatened, not least by Dr Geagea, who does not seem to associate it with the march on Rome. But it is Lahoud who is now regarded as the unconstitutional ruler of Lebanon.
Posters demanded his dismissal - a demand made ever more harshly by Hariri and Jumblatt since Gemayel's murder - and one eloquent banner even addressed the President. "Oh Caesar of Baabda," it proclaimed, "get the hell out!" Less of a Caesar, I would have said, than an attendant lord of Damascus.
Geagea was chilling in his denunciations. "We will not accept that this government shall be changed for a government of murderers and criminals," he shouted. And since it is Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Shia Hizbollah who has been abusing the Siniora cabinet as the government of "the US ambassador" - and since it is the Shia ministers who have withdrawn from this same cabinet - one could conclude, could one not, that Dr Geagea's "murderers and criminals" were Shia.
Indeed, dwelling on his bloody wartime sins, most of which were amnestied, one has to reflect why Geagea's lads blew up the congregation of the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in 1994; the court said that he wanted to persuade Christians that Hizbollah had committed the crime.
Funny how these things come back to us. Oddly, Pierre Gemayel's murder has had exactly the same effect on Christians and Sunni Muslims; it has persuaded many of them that the Hizbollah, on Syria's behalf, committed the crime. A distressing thought.
Reaction from the Middle Eastern press
Al-Safir (Lebanon)
'It looks as if the assassination of Pierre Gemayel marks the start of a premeditated series of crimes. It also appears that a new bloody stage has started in Lebanon's modern history'
Al-Quds (pan-Arab)
'Those who planned and carried out this assassination were targeting Syria as much as they were targeting Lebanon. Indeed, they were also targeting the entire Arab region. Syria is the one that is most harmed by this repugnant crime'
Al-Mustaqbal (Lebanon)
'What kind of future awaits Lebanon in the presence of parties like Hizbollah and its allies, that promise the Lebanese a greater Tehran if it captures power, and a lesser Baghdad if it fails in this?'
Jomhuri-Ye Eslami (Iran)
'Undoubtedly this assassination was planned and carried out by the Zionist regime because the Zionists stand to gain the most from it'
Al-Ba'th (Syria)
'The new Middle East is a US-Israeli project... Political assassinations... and killings pave the way for sedition. This sedition leads to chaos, and it is chaos which allows the realisation of the project'
Milliyet (Turkey)
'The biggest danger is that the various groups in society will be dragged into civil war'
Al-Arab Al-Alamiyah (pan-Arab)
"It appears Lebanon is pre-ordained to stay a nation of tears. The assassination... has extinguished the glimmer of hope'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2010016.ece
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Is Iraq connected to Pierre Gemayel assassination in Lebanon?
Before the assassination yesterday, Elaph revealed the deal made between the US and Syria, according the new site.
Syria’s foreign Minister AlMualem visit to Iraq came after “Iraq Study group” meeting with Syrian officials, for sure Syria is now in much stronger position than ever because events have proved once again the correctness of what Syria had anticipated about the American fall in the Iraqi quagmire.
AlMualem visit to Iraq would not take place if it were not coordinated with the Americans the green light them, which means that Syria is ready after a long reluctance to cooperate with the United States in Iraq and possibly in Palestinian territory.
Which means Syria is ready after a long reluctance to cooperate with the United States in Iraq and possibly in Palestinian territory.
Damascus wants to give in Iraq, in return to take elsewhere, in the Golan, and/or in Lebanon, Syrian leadership looking for the restoration of their political influence in Lebanon.
What I miss from the whole story is; with all this happening, Israel is just sitting and waiting?.
Faisal Jaloul a Lebanese political told Qudspress:Strange coincidence accompanied the assassination of the Lebanese Minister:
First: This crime comes few days after warnings from Samir Gaja that government ministers need to take caution of assassination attempts.
Two: this comes two days before the decision of the International Court on the assassination of Rafik Hariri, this means pouring more oil to ignite the fire.
Three: that it comes at a time when the opposition announced it will come to the streets, and all political solutions are blocked.
Four: that the assassination of Pierre Jamil comes in the wake of Lebanon’s independence celebrations at the time was expected to meet with the three presidents Lahoud and Siniora, Berri, means the possibility of breaking the deadlock
He said that the biggest beneficiary of the assassination is Israel.
I think the chain is completed.
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2006/11/22/is-iraq-connected-to-pierre-gemayel-assassination-in-lebanon/
Who killed Pierre Gemayel?
Maronite Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in Beirut. Needless to say, all blame immediately falls on Syria, despite the fact that such an assassination, particularly at this time, makes no sense from the Syrian point of view. Syria’s position in Lebanon hasn’t been this strong in years – it’s even stronger than when Syria still had troops in Lebanon - with the Lebanese government falling apart, and Hezbollah about to take the position it has earned as a result of its successful defense of the country (as opposed to the useless official government). Why would Syria pick this of all times to get rid of a fly speck of a botheration?
At the same time that Syrian influence is at a peak in Lebanon, Syria is about to be invited back into the world community by the American ‘wise men’, who feel they need Syrian influence to extract the United States from its Zionist-caused quagmire in Iraq. Why would the Syrians pick this, of all times, to screw themselves out of being ‘Gadhafied’ (i. e., brought back from being an international pariah; speaking of Gadhafi . . . .)? On the other hand, the Zionists are terrified that Iraq will mean that both Syria and Iran are returned to the fold. From Haaretz:
“The deadlock in the international community's diplomatic exchanges with Iran, and the American quagmire in Iraq, are transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the easier nut to crack: While Iran and global Jihad do not appear willing to reconcile with the ‘infidels,’ most of the Palestinian people are (still) interested in a diplomatic solution. Bashar Assad's pronouncements calling for renewed peace talks place the burden of proof on Israel. Syria, like the rest of the Arab League, supported the Beirut Declaration of 2002, which offers normalization with Israel in return for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines.
However, Olmert is foiling any possible progress on this track: On his way home from Los Angeles, the prime minister ‘calmed’ the reporters - and perhaps even himself - by saying there is no danger of U.S. President George W. Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The prime minister hopes the Jewish lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians.”
Olmert obviously isn’t as smart as Noam, as he apparently believes in the existence of a Lobby which Noam tells us, like Santa Claus, doesn’t exist and/or has no power. The Lobby could use a PR hand, and what better hand would there be than to assassinate a Lebanese anti-Syrian leader, and blame the whole thing on Syria? The Israeli spy rings in Lebanon are certainly capable of the assassination, and Israel, unlike Syria, has a good motive.
posted at 2:23 AM permanent link
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/11/who-killed-pierre-gemayel.html
At the same time that Syrian influence is at a peak in Lebanon, Syria is about to be invited back into the world community by the American ‘wise men’, who feel they need Syrian influence to extract the United States from its Zionist-caused quagmire in Iraq. Why would the Syrians pick this, of all times, to screw themselves out of being ‘Gadhafied’ (i. e., brought back from being an international pariah; speaking of Gadhafi . . . .)? On the other hand, the Zionists are terrified that Iraq will mean that both Syria and Iran are returned to the fold. From Haaretz:
“The deadlock in the international community's diplomatic exchanges with Iran, and the American quagmire in Iraq, are transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the easier nut to crack: While Iran and global Jihad do not appear willing to reconcile with the ‘infidels,’ most of the Palestinian people are (still) interested in a diplomatic solution. Bashar Assad's pronouncements calling for renewed peace talks place the burden of proof on Israel. Syria, like the rest of the Arab League, supported the Beirut Declaration of 2002, which offers normalization with Israel in return for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines.
However, Olmert is foiling any possible progress on this track: On his way home from Los Angeles, the prime minister ‘calmed’ the reporters - and perhaps even himself - by saying there is no danger of U.S. President George W. Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The prime minister hopes the Jewish lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians.”
Olmert obviously isn’t as smart as Noam, as he apparently believes in the existence of a Lobby which Noam tells us, like Santa Claus, doesn’t exist and/or has no power. The Lobby could use a PR hand, and what better hand would there be than to assassinate a Lebanese anti-Syrian leader, and blame the whole thing on Syria? The Israeli spy rings in Lebanon are certainly capable of the assassination, and Israel, unlike Syria, has a good motive.
posted at 2:23 AM permanent link
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/11/who-killed-pierre-gemayel.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)