LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 16/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1,39-56. During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled." And Mary said: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Saint Nicholas Cabasilas (c.1320-1363), Greek lay theologian
Homily on the Dormition of the Mother of God/"He lifts up the lowly"
It was right that the Virgin should be associated with her Son in all that regards our salvation. Just as she gave him a share in her flesh and blood... so she shared all his suffering and pain... She was the first to be conformed to the death of the Saviour in a death like his (Rom 6,5) and that is why, before all others, she shared his resurrection. Indeed, when the Son had shattered the tyranny of hell, hers was the happiness of seeing him risen and hearing his greeting, and she accompanied him, insofar as she was able, until his departure into heaven. After his ascension, she occupied the place among the apostles and his other disciples left empty by the Saviour... Was not this position more fitting for his mother than for any other? Yet it was necessary that this most holy soul should be separated from its most sacred body. Having left it, she was united to the soul of her Son: created light united to light without beginning. And after her body had remained some time on earth, it, too, was carried up to heaven. For indeed it was right that it should follow the same path the Saviour had traversed, that it should shine out before the living and the dead, sanctify nature in all things and then receive the place that belonged to it. And so, for a short while, the tomb gave her shelter, then heaven received this new earth, this spiritual body, our life's treasure, more worthy than the angels, more holy than the archangels. The throne was restored to the king, paradise to the tree of life, the world to the light, the tree to its fruit, the Mother to the Son: she was wholly worthy of all this since it was she who bore him. O blessed one! Who could find words to express the benefits you received from the Lord or those you poured out on all humankind?... Only on high can your wonders shine out, in that «new heaven» and «new earth» (Rev 21,1) where shines that Sun of justice (Mal 3,20) the darkness neither follows nor precedes. The Lord himself proclaims your wonders while the angels sing your praise.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
Recruiting Israeli Arabs for Terror. By P. David Hornik 15/08/08
Hezbollah ‘Five-Times’ Stronger Than It Was During Israeli War.By: W. Thomas Smith, Jr. 15/08/08
Al-Qa'ida sends its warriors from Iraq to wage 'jihad' in Lebanon. By: Robert Fisk 15/08/08
Race to ultimate arms. Al-Ahram Weekly. By: Stuart Reigeluth 15/08/08
Sister Syria.Al-Ahram Weekly. By: Lucy Fielder 15/08/08
In from the cold.Al-Ahram Weekly . By: Sami Moubayed 15/08/08
Private sector dynamism can make a success of this new opportunity. Daily Star 15/08/08
We may be near a 'cold peace' between the US and Iran-Arshin Adib-Moghaddam 15/08/08

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for August 15/08
US: Quds, Hezbollah training hit squads in Iran-The Associated Press
U.S.: Iraqi Shiite Terror Squads Receiving Training in Iran.AP
Nasrallah More Determined than Ever to Discuss Defense Strategy, Says Keeping Arms 'Secret' is Power-Naharnet
Higher Defense Council Tends to Provide Cover for Army against Terrorism-Naharnet
Hariri: It is Time for Syrian Tutelage to End-Naharnet
March 14 Alliance Finds Shortcomings in Damascus Summit-Naharnet
Graziano: Hizbullah Supports 1701 While Israel Continues to Violate It-Naharnet
MP Franjieh Calls for Declaring Tripoli Weapons-Free Area-Naharnet
Report: Iran's Elite Quds Force, Hizbullah Training Iraqi Hit Squads-Naharnet
Tension Returns to Tripoli after Highway Sniping-Naharnet
Saniora to Discuss Regional Developments with Mubarak-Naharnet
World Hails Lebanese-Syrian Agreement to Demarcate Border, Normalize Ties-Naharnet
Berri for Development Projects in the North-Naharnet
Lebanon, Syria Agree to Restart Border Demarcation, Excluding Shebaa-Naharnet
UNIFIL commander: Israel violating 1701-Jerusalem Post
Lebanon, Syria agree to demarcate borders-Daily Star
Nasrallah insists on need to discuss national defense strategy-Daily Star
World leaders laud Assad-Sleiman talks as March 14 says 'respect' key to sound ties-Daily Star
'What can a Syrian embassy in Lebanon change?'-Daily Star
Judge orders release of 15 Fatah al-Islam suspects-Daily Star
Condemnations of Tripoli blast continue to pour in from local, world leaders-Daily Star
Lebanese Cabinet to receive 2009 draft budget 'soon'-Daily Star
'No economic reform in Lebanon before polls'-Daily Star

Israel planning to kill Hezbollah leaders: Nasrallah
BEIRUT (AFP) — Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday accused Israel of seeking to eliminite the Lebanese Shiite movement's leaders, in a televised speech on the second anniversary of the summer war with Israel.
"We know you are planning to assassinate leaders of the resistance... but you do not frighten us," he said in the broadcast on the group's Al-Manar television station.
Nasrallah made no comment about Israeli charges that Hezbollah was rearming other than to say that "no one should expect us to say whether we have new weapons or not."Israel's 34-day summer war two years ago with Hezbollah resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 Lebanese civilians, a third of them children, as well as 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. The conflict destroyed more than 25,000 homes and 50,000 other buildings, notably in the country's south, before ending with a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 14, 2006.On Thursday Nasrallah likened the current Russia-Georgia conflict to what he called Israel's failure in the 2006 war sparked when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border attack. "Israel sent one if its generals... to Georgia and its unfortunate government told him to train Georgian special forces," he charged. "Relying on Israeli experts and weapons, Georgia learned why the Israeli generals failed" against Hezbollah, he said. "What happened in Georgia is a lesson to all those who take on American training for risky adventures and are then abandoned by the US," Nasrallah said of Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili. In his address the Hezbollah chief also hailed the visit to Syria, which backs his movement, by Lebanon's President Michel Sleiman, calling it "a new stage" in relations between Beirut and Damascus. He also called Wednesday's deadly bomb attack in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in which 14 people were killed -- among them nine soldiers -- "a criminal act."

Nasrallah insists on need to discuss national defense strategy
By The Daily Star
Friday, August 15, 2008
BEIRUT: Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that his group was more determined than ever to discuss a national defense strategy for Lebanon. "We insist, now more than anytime before, on the need to discuss and come up with a defense strategy for Lebanon so that we all know how we can defend our country," Nasrallah said in a televised speech to mark Hizbullah's victory in the 2006 war with Israel.
Israel launched a war on Lebanon on July 12, 2006, after Hizbullah captured two Israeli reservists in a cross-border raid. The war was ended by United Nations Resolution 1701 on August 14, 2006.
In a speech that tackled internal issues as well as the conflict with Israel, Nasrallah said a number of "challenges and delicate issues" await discussion in the upcoming dialogue sessions chaired by President Michel Sleiman. He added that the defense strategy topped the agenda of talks. "However," he said, "we informed [President] Sleiman's advisers that there are two crucial points to be discussed during dialogue meetings.""Coming up with a national strategy to rebuild the Lebanese state as well as a strategy to solve the entrenched economic and social problems are two crucial items to be discussed," he added. Nasrallah said it was high time to build "a strong, able and just" state, "and this in no way means overlooking or introducing changes to the Taif accord [which put an end to Lebanon's 1975-1990 Civil War]."He also stressed the need to come up with a strategy to repair "collapsing" economic, social and financial issues
"The economic situation in Lebanon is a total disaster," he said, adding that failing to deal with economic problems, "will lead to a total collapse of the Lebanese economy."Commenting on Sleiman's groundbreaking two-day visit to Syria on Wednesday and Thursday, Nasrallah said it was better "to consider the visit in a positive light and shun tensions.""A positive attitude will help in solving all pending matters between the two countries," Nasrallah said.
In a surprise move, the Hizbullah chief sent his greetings to Beirut and its residents. "We are no aliens to Beirut we are an integral part of the capital and we wish all the best to Beirut and its residents," he said. Nasrallah's move came in response to calls from figures of the ruling coalition, namely Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblatt, who asked Hizbullah to "greet" Beirut as a sign of reconciliation after the May 7 events.
Clashes erupted in Lebanon in May after the ruling coalition moved to dismantle a Hizbullah communications network and sacked a security official at the Rafik Hariri International Airport. The fighting, which pitted opposition fighters against pro-government gunmen, saw Hizbullah and its allies take over large swathes of West Beirut before handing control of the areas to the Lebanese army.
Nasrallah also vowed to hold a news conference to brief the public about the details of the July prisoner swap with Israel, "as well as other issues as soon as DNA tests are completed."The July swap brought back to Lebanon five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of about 197 Lebanese and Arab fighters in exchange for the bodies of two slain Israeli soldiers. Nasrallah also said his upcoming news conference would tackle the issue of the four former security chiefs detained for alleged involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri. ddressing Israel, the Sayyed said that keeping the militant group's arsenal a "secret" is part of its battle against Israel and that his group won't be frightened by Israeli threats to attack Lebanon.
Nasrallah made a point of not disclosing whether Hizbullah now has anti-aircraft missile systems that could stand up to Israeli air raids.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other senior Israeli officials have warned in recent statements that Hizbullah has reinforced its arsenal in defiance of UN Resolution 1701."We will pursue our efforts to build a strong and capable Lebanon," Nasrallah said."As for the Israelis, I tell them go to hell!" He added. - The Daily Star

Lebanon, Syria agree to demarcate borders
Sleiman, Assad pledge to examine fate of lebanese who went missing during civil war
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Friday, August 15, 2008-Rouba Kabbara
Agence France Presse
DAMASCUS: Lebanon and Syria agreed on Thursday to take formal steps to demarcate their borders as part of a string of decisions to normalize their relations for the first time after decades of tension. The announcement came as President Michel Sleiman wrapped up a landmark two-day visit to Damascus - the first by a Lebanese president since Syria ended almost 30 years of military domination over Lebanon in April 2005.
The two countries also pledged to examine the fate of hundreds of people missing since the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War - amid claims by rights groups that around 650 people who vanished during the war are being held in Syria. Sleiman and Syrian President Bashar Assad also agreed to control their borders and curb "trafficking," it was announced at a news conference by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and Lebanese counterpart Fawzi Salloukh.
But a joint statement made no mention of weapons which Lebanon's parliamentary majority says flow across the border and are intended for Hizbullah.
Relations between Lebanon and Syria have been tense since Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive Beirut bomb attack in February 2005. Damascus has repeatedly denied responsibility, despite claims by Lebanese anti-Syrian groups that it was involved.
Assad and Sleiman agreed "on setting up diplomatic relations between the two countries at the level of ambassadors," the statement said, reiterating an announcement made at the start of Sleiman's visit on Wednesday. Salloukh said both countries will take steps next week to implement the decisions.
Syria and Lebanon have not had diplomatic ties since independence from colonial power France - Lebanon in 1943 and Syria in 1946 - but Assad and Sleiman agreed to establish relations during talks last month in Paris.
The United States cautiously welcomed the establishment of diplomatic ties between Syria and Lebanon. "One of the steps that has long been required is the establishment of a proper embassy for Syria in Lebanon and vice versa," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday.
"Now, if the Syrians will go ahead and demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria, and respect [Lebanon's] sovereignty in other ways, then this will have proved to be a very good step," she added. Lebanon and Syria said they agreed "to reactivate the work of the joint committee to demarcate the Lebanese-Syrian borders within a mechanism and a set of priorities" and would take "administrative and technical steps."
The borders are poorly delimited in certain places, particularly the Shebaa Farms, a mountainous sliver of water-rich Lebanese land at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and northern Israel. The 25-square-kilometer tract of farmland was seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war and is now claimed by Beirut with the backing of Damascus. Israel says the area is part of Syria.
Moallem insisted that Israel must end its occupation of the Shebaa Farms before the border can be marked. "It is not possible to mark the borders in Shebaa Farms as long as there is still Israeli occupation. The occupation must end," he said.
Syria and Lebanon also agreed "to activate and step up the work of the joint committee on people missing from both countries" since the Lebanese civil war, pledging to take steps capable of "reaching results as soon as possible." Joint statement issued following Sleiman-Assad talks DAMASCUS: Following is the joint statement issued on Thursday as part of efforts by Lebanon and Syria to normalize relations for the first time, as Lebanese President Michel Sleiman ended his landmark visit to Damascus.
During the official visit of Lebanese President Michel Sleiman to Syria to meet President Bashar Assad on August 13-14, 2008, the two heads of state discussed bilateral ties "thoroughly"and stressed the need to promote and develop relations in a manner that benefits both countries.
The two heads of state noted the positive developments on the Lebanese political scene especially after the Doha Agreement succeeded in preserving Lebanon's national unity, its security, and stability. The Lebanese and Syrian presidents also stressed the need to promote and encourage upcoming dialogue sessions chaired by the Lebanese president. The two heads of state highlighted their commitment to strengthen Lebanese-Syrian relations, whereby the sovereignty and independence of both countries would be respected. In order to fulfill all the aforementioned objectives the Lebanese and Syrian sides agreed on the following:
l The establishment of diplomatic relations at the level of ambassadors.
l Reactivating the work of the Lebanese-Syrian committee to demarcate the Lebanese-Syrian borders, according to a "timetable and schedule of priorities agreed upon by both sides."
l Working jointly to control the borders and fight against trafficking and all operations which breach the law. Also, working on enhancing the cooperation between the concerned authorities in Syria and Lebanon so that border control becomes swift, precise, and effective.
l Activating a joint committee to investigate cases of people missing from both countries and to put in place mechanisms likely to reach quick and conclusive results. Both countries will also closely follow up on developments concerning investigations.
l Reviewing bilateral agreements which currently exist between the two countries in an objective manner, and in light of new developments that have taken place in the two countries.
l Taking necessary measures to activate commercial exchanges and create a common economic market.

World leaders laud Assad-Sleiman talks as March 14 says 'respect' key to sound ties
By The Daily Star
Friday, August 15, 2008
BEIRUT: International and Lebanese officials welcomed on Thursday the agreements reached between Lebanon and Syria during President Michel Sleiman's meetings with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad in Damascus. Sleiman's two-day Damascus visit, which kicked off on Wednesday, was the first by a Lebanese president to Syria since the latter country's military domination over its smaller neighbor came to an end in April 2005 following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri two months earlier in Beirut.
During the visit, the two leaders agreed to take official measures to forge diplomatic ties, demarcate their borders and look into the fate of missing Lebanese who have allegedly been held in Syrian jails for decades.
In Kuwait, a Foreign Ministry official said the Gulf state "welcomes" the moves, which were in the interests of both countries, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also welcomed the agreements reached in Damascus. "The UAE welcomes the announcement issued at the end of the meetings between Presidents Assad and Sleiman that the two brotherly countries will establish diplomatic ties," WAM news agency reported Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Saif Sultan al-Aryani as saying.
In Lebanon, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora spoke on Wednesday of the need to eliminate "any misunderstanding or ambiguity from our relations with Syria."
The premier added that "such relations must be built on mutual respect, the kind that can exist only between friendly states ... If we discuss these relations honestly we can reach a solution."
Democratic Gathering MP Marwan Hamadeh told Voice of Lebanon radio on Thursday that following the establishment of diplomatic relations with Syria, "We should all cooperate to restrict weapons smuggling across the Lebanese-Syrian border."
The ruling March 14 coalition said in a statement on Wednesday that "relations between Lebanon and Syria must be based on mutual respect" and "should be nothing less than diplomatic ties between two sovereign states."
The coalition also urged Syria to probe the fate of Lebanese thought to be in Syrian prisons and to end military ties between the Syrian government and Lebanese political factions. The March 14 coalition has long accused Syria, as well as Iran, of arming and financing Hizbullah.
"Both countries should pledge not to meddle in each other's internal affairs," the statement added.
Meanwhile, Syrian newspapers on Thursday focused on the "positive atmosphere" during the first day of the Lebanese-Syrian summit.
Al-Baath newspaper said Sleiman's visit was an "exceptional one" because it aimed to normalize the relations between the two countries.
Tishrin in turn said the talks led to a new stage of cooperation over common interests. Meanwhile, Al-Watan focused on the warm reception of the Lebanese president and voiced expectation of further improvements in the relations between the two countries. The Lebanese Central News Agency on Tuesday reported that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is set to visit Lebanon the day before his August 24 visit to Syria. His visit, part of a wider regional tour, is geared at gathering information about Sleiman's visit to Damascus. - The Daily Star, with AFP

Private sector dynamism can make a success of this new opportunity
By The Daily Star
Friday, August 15, 2008
Editorial
The Lebanese-Syrian agreement that emanated from the visit of President Michel Suleiman to Damascus, to establish diplomatic relations and deal with a series of very touchy bilateral issues, has been called a historic development. Well, perhaps. It is too early to anoint a declaration of intent with all the attributes of a historic deed, because the true dimensions of the deed's lasting impact will only be known in the months and years ahead. We hope that historic consequences will follow, but for now the most accurate way to describe this moment is to call it an opportunity for a new beginning in what has been an erratic and often troubled relationship going back many decades.
The best antidote to mediocrity, disappointment or failure ahead is to make sure that movement toward a truly mutually beneficial new relationship between Syria and Lebanon is not left in the hands of the two governments. Some very good and talented individuals work as public servants and officials in both countries, but their combined track record in the business of bilateral relations has been dismal. The moment demands that others step forward to assist and complement the governments in their moves to learn the lessons of past missteps, identify truly mutual national interests, and work diligently to achieve the results that both people deserve.
The private sector and professional associations in particular must step forward now quickly and decisively to offer their expertise, shape the new relationships that must develop, and provide mechanisms for fast progress on all fronts, especially business and economics. Banks, financial institutions, trade unions and associations of manufacturers, industrialists, lawyers, doctors, engineers and others like them have an opportunity now to give substance and legitimacy to the new relationships that should define Syrian-Lebanese ties. The two countries should be seen as a market of some 25 million people eager to produce and consume, and to trade and intermediate. A more liberal Syrian economy that is in the making - and that will open up faster after implementing the association agreement with the European Union - represents tremendous new opportunities for Lebanon's gifted traders. Syrian-Lebanese joint ventures have limitless potential when they scan the horizon of wealthy markets in the immediate neighborhood. The potential for tourism alone, when both countries combine their assets in an era of peace and stability, is staggering to contemplate.
Now is the moment for the private sector and professional associations to prove that they can succeed in promoting rising living standards, which usually act as a foundation for resolution of political conflicts and other tensions. Lebanese officials and public figures have been calling for years for a special relationship with Syria based on equal and sovereign rights; now they have their chance to show how such a unique relationship would operate for the benefit of both peoples.
If the promise of a better life is not fulfilled for both peoples, however, it would not be surprising to see a resurgence of those quarters in both countries that see Syrian dominance over both lands as a natural condition. If the business and private sectors can help foster growing economies, rising living standards and expanding opportunities for all, the politicians would quickly follow. In the past, business and professional sectors allowed themselves meekly to follow the erratic rule of politicians, leaving both countries mired in the legacy of stagnation, violence and stress that is their common ugly heritage. Now is the chance for the business and professional sectors to lead the way into a new era of stability, growth, prosperity, greater equity and new opportunities - and that, indeed, would be historic.

We may be near a 'cold peace' between the US and Iran
By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
Daily Star
Friday, August 15, 2008
There is a discernible progression in the rapprochement between the United States and Iran, even during the presidency of George W. Bush. This progression was forced upon the Bush administration by the emerging new regional order in Western Asia and North Africa and the reshuffling of world politics toward a "post-imperial" era. Let me sketch a few signposts of these developments in the following paragraphs.
It has been one of the rather more salient effects of Bush's ill-fated invasion of Iraq that the United States has lost its power to push and shove states, much less societies, toward accepting the "war on terror" as a global reality. Today, the US cannot enforce its legitimacy as the universal "Leviathan" anymore. The country's short indulgence in the "unipolar transition moment," the period immediately after the demise of the Soviet Union, is over. If it could attack Iraq without a clear international mandate; if it could turn a terrorist attack on its soil into a global war, then nobody is safe.
States and societies, especially in the wider Arab and Muslim worlds, feel compelled to protect themselves from this penetrative source of instability, not least because governments are increasingly scrutinized by assertive civil societies from Cairo to Riyadh. These have made it that much more difficult for authoritarian states to favor regime survival over national interest. Incidentally, this is why US presidential candidate Barack Obama constantly stresses the necessity to repackage the American brand. What he is trying to do, in essence, is to reposition the United States in world politics, not in order to pacify its foreign policy but to re-appropriate the country's diplomatic power to legitimate future adventures. This is meant to make it easier for the allies of the US to re-navigate toward an explicitly pro-American position.
So does it really matter if it is the erudite liberal or the macho neoconservative who enforces the universal "embrace" of the idea of America? It does, in one very significant way: today, the neocons' ability to pool diplomatic power to legitimate aggression is minimized. The slick, charismatic liberal who looks and speaks as if he understands the despair of the voiceless, on the other side, may get the benefit of the doubt.
This brings us to the logic behind the Bush administration's decision to let Undersecretary of State William Burns join envoys from France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany in talks with Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Neoconservative supporters of aggression against Iran (and the wider Muslim world) such as Michael Rubin, Patrick Clawson, Michael Ledeen and John Bolton, all of them neatly organized in the American Enterprise Institute and all of them huffing and puffing about the possibility that there could be a peaceful solution to the current standoff, are right. What they allegorically call the "policy of appeasement" was forced upon the Bush administration by a range of interdependent developments in world politics, some of them rather novel.
There were the many signals made by Europe, Russia and China, that they will not tolerate yet another war in Western Asia. There was the systematic protest of the Arab and Muslim world about the unresolved conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan. In the US there has been the containment of the "Israel lobby" brought about by a bold and honest assessment of its disastrous impact on US foreign policies. Then there is the influence Iran exerts in the places the Bush administration wants to push ideologically and politically toward a pro-American and pro-Israeli direction, especially Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, but also Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. There is the transnational appeal of the "liberal-Islamic" narrative that many Muslims are increasingly habilitating as an alternative to the "American" counter-narrative and there is increasingly global and organized anti-war movement that continues to pre-empt the myths and lies concocted to lure us into conflicts. Finally, there is the structural crisis in the world economy exacerbated by the high oil price.
To those factors we may add two additional ones that indicate why the ideologues mentioned above are now shouting from the margins rather than from within the White House. First is the professional and realistic assessment of Iran's capabilities and intentions by the US intelligence and defense establishment. Thus far they have resisted efforts, concocted by the anti-Iranian cabal under the auspices of US Vice President Dick Cheney, to lure them into the war campaign. And secondly, they have met resistance in the opposition to war expressed through the functioning organs of US (and Israeli) civil society.
Taken together, these factors have yielded this moment of "cold peace" between Iran and the United States. They obliged the Bush administration to adopt a rational approach. Iran and the region have narrowly escaped yet another disaster. A cold peace between the countries, characterized by diplomatic scuffles rather than military threats, may ensue. A sigh of relief? We cannot afford it. Rest assured that the next campaign to persuade us that war and sanctions are inevitable is around the corner.
**Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is the author of "Iran in World Politics: The Question of the Islamic Republic." This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.

In from the cold
Al-Ahram Weekly
By: Sami Moubayed
After years of isolation Syrian diplomacy is suddenly scoring successes, writes Sami Moubayed
The Doha Agreement, hammered out between warring Lebanese factions last May, seemed tailor-made to suit Syria. Although the Syrians did not go to Qatar, the deal had Syrian fingerprints all over it. Damascus succeeded in securing the Baabda Palace for a pro-Syrian officer, Michel Suleiman and the Hizbullah-led opposition was given greater representation, and veto-power, in the Lebanese government. Doha, though, did not come at no cost. Eighty-two people were killed on the streets of Beirut during internal fighting, and part of the agreement was that the Syrians open an embassy in Beirut.
President Suleiman was in Syria this week to discuss the exchange of embassies with Bashar Al-Assad. The Syrians are reported to be eager to start the diplomatic exchange process, one of the conditions set by French President Nicolas Sarkozy before he visits Damascus.
Sarkozy is due in Syria on 4-5 September. He already hosted Al-Assad in Paris in mid-July, infuriating many in Beirut, Riyadh and Washington. The Syrians have embraced the French initiative, calling on Sarkozy to play a role in indirect peace talks with Israel and appointing an ambassador to Paris, a post that had been vacant since 2005.
The French U-turn is based on Europe's conviction, not shared by the US, that nothing can be achieved in Lebanon without dealing with Damascus. Most European capitals now believe that the only result of isolating the Syrians has been to empower groups like Hizbullah and Hamas. The Americans, more interested in Iraq and Iran than Lebanon, have yet to reach the same conclusion.
As one French official put it: "The Americans start off their day with a lot of good intentions vis-à-vis Lebanon. By mid- day, however, they get swamped with so many foreign policy issues that Lebanon is put on the backburner. By evening Lebanon gets pushed off the list in favour of Iraq and Iran."
The Syrians understood this well and decided to build upon it.
Since 2005 Syria has been telling the world that if it is able to destabilise Lebanon and Iraq it can -- by extension -- help stabilise both. European dignitaries -- including EU Chief Negotiator Javier Solana in March 2007 -- began visiting Damascus. The Americans remained reluctant to acknowledge that in order to get results in Iraq they had to talk to either Syria or Iran, though two feeble attempts were made in April and May 2007. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the White House, visited Syria, sending shockwaves throughout Iran, and then Condoleezza Rice met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mouallem. Nothing came of either attempt though Tehran was furious that Syria's options, which seemed so limited in 2005, turned out not to be so limited after all.
Syria has always insisted its friendship with Iran will not be affected by opening up to the rest of the world. The Iranians were critical of November's Annapolis Conference but Syria sent a delegation anyway, saying restoring the Golan Heights through a peace process was its priority. Washington responded by not vetoing Syrian-Israeli peace talks, as it did in 2003, when George W Bush said that Syria was a "weak country" that must wait for all other regional issues to be resolved before it re-engaged in peace talks. There is now a fear among the US administration that talks between Syria and Israel are going too well (Jimmy Carter has said that 85 per cent has already been finalised) and that peace might be ready before the end of 2008. If the Americans refuse to endorse the process the Syrians will have to wait until Bush leaves the White House in 2009, in which case non-state players will likely take the law into their own hands and work to try and wreck any Syrian-Israeli agreement.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the perception of Syria began to change and Damascus embarked on its rehabilitation from problem-maker to problem-solver. It is not that long ago that Syria enjoyed strong ties with, among others, the US, Great Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt, yet these seemed to evaporate overnight and Damascus was left with only Iran.
Ties with Iran are neither new nor born of the crisis in 2005. That the two countries disagree on a variety of issues, not least relating to secularism, autonomy, and theocracy in Iraq, led the West to think that driving a wedge between them would be easy. They were mistaken. Damascus knew it would be madness to abandon Iran for a US-led Western world that was calling for regime change in Syria.
Some in the Arab world thought they could benefit from Syrian influence in Tehran and that Damascus might convince the Iranians to moderate their behaviour. Syria was more reasonable than Tehran, they argued, and did not have a history of anti-Americanism. That Syria helped release 15 British sailors captured by Iran in 2007 and secure the freedom of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in Palestine reinforced the notion that it was important to keep a back-channel open to radical non-state players in the Middle East, and that the channel went through Damascus. Which goes a long way to explaining why Al-Assad, after meeting with Sarkozy in Paris, showed up in Tehran last week, no doubt to discuss ways of finding a solution to Iran's ongoing nuclear problem with the international community.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post during the 2006 war in Lebanon, former US secretary of state Warren Christopher recalled how he twice asked for the assistance of then Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad to calm the situation in Lebanon. "We never knew exactly what the Syrians did, but clearly Hizbullah responded to their direction," he wrote.
It is exactly what the Europeans want from Syria today. They do not know exactly what the Syrians will do but they know that Syria can influence Hizbullah, Hamas and Iran. (see
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Sister Syria
By: Lucy Fielder
Al-Ahram Weekly.
The Lebanese president's historic visit to Syria this week is expected to herald diplomatic relations after a period of unprecedented crises, Lucy Fielder reports from Beirut
Establishing diplomatic ties is top on the agenda of a summit between President Michel Suleiman and his counterpart Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus this week. Since independence more than 60 years ago, the two countries have not exchanged ambassadors; Syria always arguing they were too close to need them. Such a step would mark the end to an unprecedented estrangement between Damascus and Beirut during more than three years of crisis.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem expressed his country's determination to establish diplomatic relations when he invited Suleiman in late July. Announced relations will be welcome to Lebanese, many of whom have long accused Syria of refusing to recognise their sovereignty.
"I think this will be largely symbolic," said Syria-based political analyst Andrew Tabler. "The visit is supposed to clear the way for Lebanon and Syria to establish an embassy in each others' capitals and that will take care of one aspect of relations and bring Lebanon and Syria in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1680." Other issues will take longer, he said.
The May 2006 UN resolution called on Syria to respond to a Lebanese government request to establish diplomatic relations and delineate the shared border. Syria slammed it as interference.
Former army chief Suleiman, who was elected in May 2008 after a six-month vacuum at the Baabda Palace, has good relations with the Syrian leadership, but unlike his pro-Syrian predecessor, came to power as a consensus candidate with broad backing.
His election, as well as the appointment of a national unity cabinet that gives Syrian-backed Hizbullah and its allies a veto- wielding third of seats, marked the end of a political schism that split Lebanese society and exploded into violence in May. Hizbullah took over parts of west Beirut and other pockets of Lebanon with its allies. As the world stood aside, the deadlock was broken, for now, paving the way for this week's rapprochement.
Lebanon and Syria have been intertwined since decades before Syria intervened in Lebanon a year into its 1975-1990 Civil War to prevent the defeat of the Maronite Christian side. Troops remained after the civil war ended and the tentacles of political and economic influence grew. Until Washington stepped up pressure on Syria during 2004, it officially referred to Syria's domination of Lebanon as a "presence", at first encouraging it as a stabilising force.
But the extension of former president Emile Lahoud's mandate in late 2004 under Syrian pressure galvanised a fledgling organised opposition to Damascus's role as kingmaker. Former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination, blamed by many in Lebanon and the West on Syria, detonated the charge, triggering a tidal wave of international and domestic pressure. Syria pulled out its soldiers and ubiquitous intelligence services in May and June 2005.
Since then, the anti-Syrian rhetoric of the US-backed "14 March" movement, which held the parliamentary majority and dominated the government, was harsh. Formal diplomatic relations would be a key stage in ending Syria's isolation, following a warming of ties with France and likely triggering a return to the Arab fold after disputes with Egypt and Saudi Arabia that largely focussed on Lebanon.
Diplomatic links were a historically sensitive issue. "Some in Syria feel that many areas of Lebanon were lost to them when Lebanon was established and always wanted to get them back," Tabler said.
French mandate powers carved out the state of Greater Lebanon in 1920 by adding swathes of historic Syria to mainly Maronite Christian Mount Lebanon. Syria and Lebanon became independent in 1943, but the border was never formally delineated. Border demarcation is on the agenda this week, but likely to require detailed talks.
Most contentious is the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a strategic and water-rich pocket where Syria, Israel and Lebanon meet. Hizbullah has long cited Shebaa as a key reason for it to keep its weapons arsenal. As domestic pressure for disarmament has grown, so have calls for a "diplomatic solution" to the status of Shebaa from the resistance movement's critics, who hope to remove one pretext for its armed status.
When the United Nations drew up the Blue Line following Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000, it put Shebaa Farms on the Syrian side of the border. But both Damascus and Lebanon say they are Lebanese and therefore Israel's pullout was incomplete. The United Nations has expressed willingness to reopen the file. "Nothing prevents the demarcation of the Lebanese-Syrian borders, that is if border demarcation is a must," Al-Muallem told reporters on his July visit to Beirut, adding that the Shebaa problem was one of Israeli occupation, not a bilateral dispute. Shebaa aside, policing the remote, rugged border and preventing already rife smuggling is likely to be easier said than done, particularly with many villages -- and families -- straddling the line.
Another issue that has come under the spotlight east of the border is the fate of hundreds of Lebanese who went missing after detention by Syrian troops, local militias or Lebanese security forces during the period of Syrian dominance. Many of their relatives believe their loved ones are still jailed in Syria. Al-Muallem said a joint Syrian-Lebanese committee of judges would work on the issue. Syria denies holding the Lebanese.
Ghazi Aad, head of Support for Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE), said this was the first time Damascus had allowed the issue to be raised. "We're not expecting much, to be honest, but it's a positive first step," he said. SOLIDE has 600 names of what it calls "victims of enforced disappearance" in Syria, gathered from families. "We know for sure there are Lebanese still alive in Syrian prisons," Aad said, referring to testimony from former detainees. He called for a full investigation. Another bone of contention is the fate of bilateral agreements and bodies. The anti-Syrian 14 March camp wants the Syrian- Lebanese Higher Council that has administered relations scrapped, as well as the 1991 Pact of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination under which it was established. In a July interview with Syria's semi-official Al-Watan newspaper, the head of the Higher Council, Nasri Khouri, said he did not expect detailed discussions at the summit, but that it would kick-start protracted talks to hammer out the issues. He said the council would endure and coordinate with the embassies.
Khouri noted there were about 22 bilateral agreements standing, mostly signed in the early to mid-1990s. Analysts say the tariff cuts and regulations of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, which came into effect in 2005, have largely superseded those pacts in practice.
"It will be interesting to see whether the embassies take on some of those duties," Tabler said. "I don't think the bilateral agreements will be interrupted, but probably actually facilitated, since there will actually be an office to go to."
Economic links between the two countries were mutually beneficial, Tabler said, with Lebanon dependant on Syria as both a market for its agricultural goods and a transit route for produce to reach the Arab Gulf. At periods of heightened tension in the past few years, columns of trucks clogged the no-man's land at the Syrian border for weeks on
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Race to ultimate arms
Al-Ahram Weekly
By: Stuart Reigeluth
The region is experiencing the largest and fastest arms race in the world, and it's going nuclear, writes Stuart Reigeluth
'Israel's inability to win battles with popular resistance groups has led to new US arms shipments. After the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, the Hebrew state launched a five-year military improvement plan. Costing $60 billion, the "Tefen 2012" project will modernise and replenish existing Israeli army stocks with hundreds of Stryker combat vehicles, squadrons of new F-35 Join Strike Fighters, several Littoral Combat warships, as well as more missiles and Merkava tanks'
The balance of power is shifting in the Middle East. Iran is the great winner of the US occupation of Iraq, and Persian power has been incrementally extending into Syria and the Gulf countries. Congruently, Israeli influence appears to have diminished since the failure of the Camp David II negotiations in 2000 between Israel and the Palestinians. That same year, Israel withdrew unilaterally from South Lebanon, a last resort gesture repeated in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005. The Lebanese Hizbullah and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) went from being Islamic militias to elected state actors, both strongly supported by Iran. Meanwhile, Arab "moderates" maintained a call for comprehensive peace with Israel via the 22- member Arab League initiative in Beirut in 2002, revived in Riyadh in 2007. Israel did not answer. In this region where security is synonymous with stability, the present arms race is nothing new, but now there will soon be two nuclear powers. Besides doomsday scenarios of apocalyptic warfare, the answer to how this protracted conflict will continue and possibly end can be found in its origins.
CONFLICT PAST AND PRESENT: In the Book of Judges, the Bible relates how Samson, an Israelite warrior endowed with supernatural power, was enticed by Delilah, a Philistine woman, to reveal the secret of his strength. When she shaves his locks, the Philistines capture and blind him. In his final rage for revenge, Samson pushes over two pillars and topples a temple in Gaza, killing himself and thousands of Philistines. This was the first act of suicide-sacrifice. Then, the Philistines had iron weapons and prevented the Israelites from having blacksmiths for they were afraid that the Hebrews would make swords or spears (Samuel I, 13:19). Now, Israel has the technological edge over its Arab-Muslim neighbours, and works to prevent them from acquiring the means to compete militarily. As Iran contests Israel's regional hegemony, a new war of deterrence is developing by proxies again, but with much higher stakes. Based on the precedent of Samson's sacrifice in Gaza, Israel called its nuclear programme the "Samson Option", developed to deter principally and possibly destroy the enemy, but also potentially to self- annihilate.
Israel's rise to regional hegemony was the result of Zionism's adroit ability to acquire superpower support, both prior to and after the Holocaust of World War II -- a tragedy that embedded strong sympathies for the Jews in the Western psyche. Simultaneously, European colonial powers appointed Arab strongmen to secure access to the lucrative energy resource of oil. As European colonialism gasped and Arab nationalism surged, a bipolar world emerged in which US and Soviet spheres of influence clashed at fault- lines such as the Middle East and across Central Asia: the 19th century "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian Britain for control of natural resources prolonged into the 20th century between capitalist US and communist Soviet allies and proxies. Israel became the most powerful US ally in the Middle East; an alliance reinforced by the events of 11 September 2001, and a new Cold War emerged with a "Green Curtain" stretching across the Arab-Muslim world and surrounding an increasingly irascible and irresponsive Iran.
The current Western standoff with Iran is about maintaining Israel's nuclear supremacy in the region. In 1949, shortly after self-proclaiming statehood, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, launched a nuclear programme that the United States did not endorse. However, during the last vestiges of European colonialism, France and Great Britain attempted to recuperate a toehold in the Middle East and wanted to punish the pan-Arab leader of Egypt, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, for nationalising the Suez Canal in 1952. In 1954, France agreed to help Israel develop nuclear power. In the process, an alliance was built to stop Nasser and other radical regimes, and in 1956 Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula along with France and Great Britain.
The trilateral invasion was rapidly revoked by the Soviet and US superpowers, but Israel won nuclear research information and material promises for its participation. France sent hundreds of technicians plus a 24-megawatt nuclear reactor it helped build in 1958 in Dimona, located in the Negev Desert. Israel concealed its nuclear development programme from the US by saying that the Dimona reactor was a textile factory, a water-pumping station and then a desalination plant. By the mid-1960s, Israel was extracting plutonium and even contemplated a nuclear test on its Arab neighbours prior to the June 1967 war. The test was averted, but terminal deterrence -- the original conception of the "Samson Option" -- was established. Israel now has an estimated arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads.
THE RACE BEGINS: As with Samson, Israel's military strength has become a liability rather than an asset because it has instigated nuclear and arms build-up by its neighbours. Largely responding to Israel's nuclear power, as well as to openings in Iraq and the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Iran has used the argument that if they have the bomb, then why not us? With the façade of developing nuclear energy for civilian purposes, Iran has launched an ambitious uranium enrichment programme, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly expanded from 3,500 operational centrifuges to a projected 9,000 at the Natanz nuclear plant. Experts agree that this amount of centrifuges is beyond what is needed for civilian purposes.
Islamic Iran began its nuclear programme in 1985, modelling its development on Pakistan's P-1 centrifuge design, and subsequently developed its own new IR-2 (Iranian second generation) centrifuges with updated technology. An estimated 1,200 IR-2s are needed to make one nuclear weapon. It is an irony of power politics that the United States endorsed exploring a nuclear project in Iran under the Shah, and helped overthrow Mossadegh's democratic government in 1952 to install a regional strongman. The Shah died in exile and the nuclear project eventually backfired.
Though Iran is estimated to be a few years away from being able to make nuclear weapons, the Persian potential has caused a ripple effect across the region. The race is on: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and others, all seek the same nuclear standing. While pre- emptive strikes or arms deals are usually used for containment, the US already signed a nuclear energy deal with Bahrain in March 2008, following France's bilateral accord with the UAE in January 2008 to provide a four billion euro nuclear reactor for the Emirates civilian energy programme. A month later, the state- owned French company, Areva, signed separate agreements for 84 million euros to assist with energy for the largest man-made island project in Dubai. The UAE also agreed to allow a permanent French military base near Abu Dhabi comprising of an initial 500 troops. Endorsing so openly the US enterprise in the Middle East, France appears to be replacing Great Britain as the primary transatlantic ally. Apart from its "surge" to 165,000 troops in Iraq, the US also has an additional 40,000 troops in other bases around the Gulf, namely in Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Convinced by the United States that Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait was an imminent territorial threat to the holiest lands of Islam, Saudi Arabia accepted the US offer to defend the kingdom against Saddam Hussein. The US military presence at the very heart of the Dar Al-Islam (House of Islam) increased foreign access to oil and control of the OPEC cartel, and revived comparisons to the Crusader occupation, capitalised on by the renegade Saud relative, Osama Bin Laden, culminating 10 years later in the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks of 11 September 2001. Fearful of the overflow from the 2003 US-led war on Iraq and to show allegiance to the war on terror, Saudi Arabia moved to erect an electric fence around the perimeter of its kingdom to thwart the passage of insurgents as well as to crush any internal dissent. As before, billion dollar portions of the colossal oil revenues are invested in buying US military material to protect the regime from Islamic groups. Tremendous arms deals are being struck in parallel to the nuclear race. Both of which go back some decades.
TRADING POLITICS FOR ARMS: Regardless of how useful fighter jets may be for combating insurgents, the projected sale in 2006 of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia by the British company BAE Systems seemed unprecedented. Reaching 15 billion euros, this was but the latest part of the Al-Yamamah deal pending from Thatcher's era in the 1980s. In December 2006, former UK prime minister Tony Blair said arming Saudi Arabia was in the national security interest because "innocent British lives were at risk", and pressured the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to drop charges for the sale of Hawk and Tornado jets plus other military material in 1985 to Saudi Arabia, the largest British arms deal ever of $86 billion. Blair's veto of the SFO was also a first in British history, but in April 2008, the case for allegations of bribery by BAE was opened again. Saudi Prince Bandar, former ambassador to the United States and son of the Crown Prince Sultan, is suspected of embezzling an Airbus plane in connection to the deal, plus $2 billion used to buy property in the US.
As BAE, affiliated to the British Defence Ministry, tried to escape the corruption allegations, the US became suspicious, blocked the deal and detained BAE officials. Mega-multinational companies have not taken over, yet. And if they do, then the US would rather use their own to maintain monopoly over the arms trade in the Middle East. Selling weapons is not only incredibly lucrative, it creates military interoperability between US forces and those of the purchasing country. These business transactions are accompanied by a logistical maintenance and training package that ensure a 10-20 year relationship that helps build bilateral accords to reinforce regional alliances. This explains the $20 billion US arms deal with "moderate" Sunni Arab states announced in August 2007. Saudi Arabia gets the largest portion, but Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and the five emirates also get their share for the next 10 years.
These massive arms deals came in preparation to the Annapolis conference (November 2007), which propounded to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. Concerns for Israel's qualitative military advantage spurred the US to increase its military package to Israel by 25 per cent to $30 billion over the next 10 years. Israel maintains its regional military hegemony, and the US can continue to buttress its Sunni allies with new technology such as the Joint Direct Attack Munitions kits (JDAMs) to Saudi Arabia, which can provide satellite-guided weapons for the F-15 Strike Eagle jets purchased from the US in the 1990s. As both US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated in Jeddah: "There is nothing new here". They were correct about the arms deals, and nuclear power aspirations.
Dependence on natural gas and petrol has become more expensive as prices continue to rise to unprecedented levels after the 2003 war on Iraq. Egypt, for example, is seeking to diversify its energy sources and has created a higher council for energy to explore how to obtain 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, such as solar, wind and nuclear energy. Since the 1940s, Egyptian scientists have explored how to develop nuclear potential, particularly at the research centre in Inshas, just north of Cairo. Inshas was also where Arab heads of state met in May 1946 and resolved that Palestine must remain Arab and that Zionism constituted a threat to Palestine and other Arab states. Zionism won the 1948 Palestine War, and in 1967 Israel obliterated neighbouring Arab armies and terminated Nasser's pan-Arab movement, thus postponing Egypt's nuclear aspirations. However, now, Russia is the primary tender providing fuel to Egypt to restart its power plant. Russia also agreed in 2005 to supply low-enriched uranium fuel for the light-water nuclear reactor near Bushehr in southern Iran for the next 10 years.
REGIONAL ASYMMETRY: Iran's nuclear development programme is perceived as an existential threat to Israel, and has not been stopped by diplomacy. A US proposal to internationalise and turn Iran's enrichment activities into a multilateral programme has gone unanswered, and High Representative of the EU Javier Solana failed to negotiate a cessation of Iran's uranium enrichment programme. The EU is not taken seriously in power politics because the Europeans are perceived in the Middle East as implementing US foreign policy. From the two civilian European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) missions in the Palestinian territories, for border management (EUBAM-Rafah) and for police reform (EUPOL-COPPS), to the rule of law mission in Iraq (EUJUST-LEX), to another police reform mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL- Afghanistan), the soft EU security sector reform strategy is conveniently complementing hard US military power.
As a prelude to where these synergies are headed, battalions of Palestinian presidential guards and national security forces are being trained at the Jordan International Police Training College (JIPTC), east of Amman -- the same base used by the United States to train the Iraqi police. And solidifying US influence with EU corroboration across the region from the Mediterranean to the Arabian/Persian Gulf and beyond is but an introduction to the report due out at the time of writing (June 2008) about how Israel-Palestine can fit into a regional security structure. The report in question is under the supervision of General James Jones, former supreme allied commander of NATO for Europe, who also co-chaired the Afghanistan Study Group Report and was appointed in the immediate aftermath of Annapolis by Secretary Rice as US special envoy for Middle East security.
However, the EU's position alongside the US has mollified Israeli and neo-con policies. In Lebanon, leading EU member states such as Spain and Italy avoided placing the mandate of the strengthened UNIFIL-2 under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would have granted them permission to fire at will and to disarm Lebanese militias by force. Marking points for Europe, UNIFIL-2 ended the Israeli naval siege of Lebanon and helped calm the south. The few arms the US sent the Lebanese Armed Forces were positive in that Lebanon needs to acquire the ability to enforce its sovereignty, but US pressure on Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora to dismiss the head security officer at the Beirut airport and to dismantle Hizbullah's telecommunications system was a clear affront aimed at disarming the Shia politico-militant group, which responded in May 2008 by taking over Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, just as Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007 when the US backed attempts by Fatah's strongman, Mohamed Dahlan, to control the border crossings of the Strip.
Parallels between Palestine and Lebanon abound: both Islamic movements have called for reconciliation with their secular counterparts to form national unity governments; both have been denied and branded as Iranian proxies; both claimed victory for firing rockets relentlessly during Israeli onslaughts, and both won democratic representation in their respective elections. Both are rearming and upgrading their missiles: Hizbullah has longer range Fajr Katyusha missiles with Tel Aviv in its sights, while Hamas now has upgraded its home-made Qassam rockets to Grad-level, with higher precision to hit Ashkelon and beyond for the first time in the spring of 2008. Both Islamic movements, the Shia Hizbullah and the Sunni Hamas, share a common willingness to die for their cause: death at the price of ending Israeli occupation in Palestine and Lebanon, not to mention Islamic groups waged against US military presence in Iraq.
Israel's inability to win these asymmetric battles with popular resistance groups has led to new US arms shipments. After the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, the Hebrew state launched a five-year military improvement plan. Costing $60 billion, the "Tefen 2012" project will modernise and replenish existing Israeli army stocks with hundreds of Stryker combat vehicles, squadrons of new F-35 Join Strike Fighters, several Littoral Combat warships, as well as more missiles and Merkava tanks. Additionally, while the US-funded Arrow system is meant to intercept long-range ballistic missiles from Iran, Israel is also developing medium-to-short range defence systems called "David's Sling" and "Iron Cap" to intercept Fajr-Katyushas from Lebanon and Grad-Qassams from Gaza. Israel, like Egypt, also continues to receive free excess defence articles (EDA), surplus US weapons, and has surpassed Great Britain as the fourth largest arms exporter in the world with main markets in China and India.
As the "David's Sling" allusion insinuates, Israel is under attack from a Philistine-like Goliath, which justifies pre-emptive measure to strike its foes. Similar to summer 2006, when the Israelis attempted to annihilate Hizbullah, they also struck at Syria to eliminate its secret nuclear reactor in September 2007. Israel was once again amassing troops along the Golan Heights, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made known to Damascus through the Arab League that Israel would downscale its forces. The following day, the Israel air force raided the code-named "Al-Kibar" nuclear plant in northern Syria, supposedly provided with North Korean material and in collaboration with AQ Khan who created Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Despite probable propaganda, the goal appeared the same as when Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak plant in 1981: thwart possible nuclear parity. In 2004, Israel refused to disclose its nuclear capacity to the International Atomic Energy Agency, but in 2006, Olmert implicitly admitted that Israel has nuclear arms and that Iran's manoeuvring is intended to acquire the same capacity. As Iran continues to be sanctioned for its nuclear development activities, in April 2008, Israel signed another nuclear agreement with the United States to upgrade safety and technology at Dimona.
Previous to the Israeli strike in northern Syria, President Ahmadinejad visited Damascus in July 2007 resulting in a supposed $1 billion arms deal from Tehran to Syria, which included surface-to-surface missiles, as well as anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems from Russia and North Korea. Fearing the veracity of this shipment, or attempting to break the "Shia Crescent", Olmert opened peace talks with Syria via Turkey in May 2008. But peace will not annul or even diminish Iran's regional influence. It is simply too late. Iran already occupies parts of Iraq, plus three UAE islands, enjoys strong economic ties with the Arab Gulf and Syria, and supports Hizbullah and Hamas as stingers against Israel.
As the respective take-overs of Lebanon and Gaza depicted, the reshuffling of political power in the Middle East, massive arms injections, US army troops stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and US Navy ships in the Mediterranean and outside Iran's territorial waters are throwing oil on the fire but will not deter Persian power. Based on its use of pre-emptive war, Israel may very well be the first to drop the bomb. Remember Samson: "The dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." (Judges, 16:30)
WANT TO KNOW MORE? For an Israeli account of its "deep existential insecurity" and how having nuclear power does not eradicate that feeling, see David Grossman, Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson. For evidence that the current president of Israel, Shimon Peres, proposed a nuclear test to restore a higher degree of deterrence with Israel's neighbours, and how Israel even considered using the West Bank for more nuclear reactors, see Tom Segev, 1967, Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East.
On the synergies between US foreign policy to "divide and rule" in the Middle East and Israel's regional hegemony, see Jonathan Cook, Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East. For insights into US strategy to bulk Israel while buttressing "moderate" Arab allies against Iran's nuclear "extremism", see "Chain Reaction: Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East", a report to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate.
For a convincing argument on reviving disarmament and preventing proliferation, see Weapons of Terror, Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Hezbollah ‘Five-Times’ Stronger Than It Was During Israeli WarPrint This
W. Thomas Smith, Jr.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.889/pub_detail.asp
In terms of weaponry, strategic and political positioning, and its ever-expanding international reach; Hezbollah is “five times more capable today,” than it was at the beginning of the July 2006 war with Israel: A fact, according to experts, that prompted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to tell his troops during a Tuesday morning tour of positions along the Golan Heights, "It's not for nothing that we're training here."
Not for nothing indeed. Poised just over the border in south Lebanon is Hezbollah; a Lebanon-based Shiia terrorist army, organized somewhat on the Taliban model, heavily funded and equipped by Iran and operationally supported by both Iran and Syria.
Hezbollah has strengthened its strategic positions across Lebanon in recent months. And in recent weeks, its military training and posturing has increased in regions of the country far beyond its traditionally recognized southern defenses (below the Litani River) and Al Dahiyeh (Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold near the airport).
Worse, Hezbollah’s newfound political power – literally forced on the government at the point of a gun after Hezbollah turned its weapons on the Lebanese citizenry in May 2008 – has enabled the terrorist group to both maintain its private militia status (including its possession of military grade weapons and a massive private telecommunications system) and position itself as a “legitimate” arm of the Lebanese Defense apparatus. And the West – including the virtually impotent United Nations forces in Lebanon – has done absolutely nothing to prevent any of it.
All of this – accomplished despite the will of the pro-democracy majority in Lebanon – has emboldened Hezbollah, and created an environment wherein the terrorist group now feels comfortable openly-flexing its muscle in areas of Lebanon that suggest ominous plans for that country’s future.
Since the attacks in May, eye-witnesses and open-sources from Arab-language newspapers have reported an increasing number of Hezbollah paramilitary exercises – scouting, navigating, night operations – many of those exercises being conducted provocatively close to Christian areas of Lebanon, and along-or-near strategically vital roads that pass through the mountains between the coast and the Bekaa Valley to the Syrian border.
For instance, in the months before and weeks since the May attacks, Hezbollah and Pasdaran (Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) fighters – according to more than one independent source – have conducted small military exercises in the area around the town of Jezzine, east of Sidon.
“Reports about this have been limited because journalists either don’t fully recognize the strategic significance or they are afraid of Hezbollah,” says Col. Charbel Barakat (Lebanese Army, ret.), a former infantry brigade commander who today directs the office of counterterrorism for the pro-democracy World Council of the Cedars Revolution. “Almost no Western journalists have reported this, and only a few Lebanese have.”
Further north in the Sannine mountains west of Zahle, Hezbollah has reportedly set up guided-missile batteries and early-warning radar. Civilian hikers unfortunate enough to venture into this area reportedly have been detained, held, and interrogated for several hours by Hezbollah militiamen.
Also in recent weeks, Hezbollah and Pasdaran reportedly have been observed training and setting up temporary outposts in the Aqura area on the road between Aqura and Baalbeck – and the security teams surrounding the exercise zone in one instance were reportedly wearing Lebanon Internal Security Forces (ISF) uniforms, though the ISF according to our sources denied they had policemen in the area at that time.
Aqura is key, because it is along the east-to-west road from Aqura to the coast that in a future war, Hezbollah plans to cut the country’s largest Christian area in half. In such an attack – similar to what Hezbollah has previously done in Druze areas of the western Bekaa – Hezbollah fighters would knife through the Christian area, accessing pre-staged weapons and ammunition from the Shiia villages of Lasa, Almat, Ras Osta, and Kafr Salah which are located along (or fairly close to) the Aqura-to-Jbail trek.
“Hezbollah is establishing layered-defenses north of the Litani, in the southern and central Bekaa, and they have reinforced their presence in southern Beirut.” says Dr. Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “They also have created new positions in Mount Lebanon and in the far north near the highest peak of the Cedars mountains. Which means technically, Hezbollah – which means Iran – controls the highest ground in the region south of Turkey.”
Strategic positioning is behind Hezbollah’s activity: Controlling as much of the commanding high-ground as possible and being positioned to cut roads and divide-and-isolate Sunni, Druze, and Christian areas in the event of war.
“Hezbollah knows that he who controls the mountains – consequently the mountain passes – controls all of Lebanon,” says Barakat. “Hezbollah is also telling itself, ‘I am afraid the Israelis will attack me north of the Litani (so I will strengthen those positions above the Litani) and I am not allowed to have my weapons and missiles south of the Litani, so I will move them north.’”
Like the Israelis, Hezbollah is not simply training for “nothing.” Unlike the Israelis – who train solely to defend their state – the ultimate goals of Hezbollah are to control as much of Lebanon as possible, further the aims of the Iranian Revolution, and generally export terror.
What makes Hezbollah particularly scary today is the organization’s increasing political clout, the attempt in some circles to whitewash who-and-what they are, and as Phares says, “Hezbollah today is five-times more capable militarily than it was during the July 2006 war.”
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com.

Al-Qa'ida sends its warriors from Iraq to wage 'jihad' in Lebanon
By: Robert Fisk: Time Independent
Friday, 15 August 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-alqaida-sends-its-warriors-from-iraq-to-wage-jihad-in-lebanon-897557.html
Abdullah got it about right. Picking his fingernails in the ticket office of the local bus station, he lowered his eyes. He had seen everything; the severed arms and legs of Lebanese soldiers, the still uniformed but headless infantryman slumped out of the window of the minibus round the corner, and the bodies of all the little people who die when bombs go off here: the old man who sold sandwiches to the troops, the lemonade salesman, the child who polished shoes. All dead, of course. "Collateral damage" to the man who left the bomb in a bag on the pavement at 7.45am on Wednesday. "We think it was either Fatah al-Islam or some unknown forces," Abdullah said. "Why do you ask?"
Why indeed. Fatah al-Islam is a Salafist version of Sunni Islam, a weird al-Qa'ida satellite which held out against the Lebanese army in the Palestinian Nahr el-Bared camp north of here last year at the cost of 400 deaths and the flight of 40,000 civilians. Most Lebanese concluded that they were implanted in Lebanon's soil by Syria.
But Wednesday's bomb in Lebanon's second city, the ancient crusader port of the Chateau de Saint Gilles, disfigured by massive unemployment and grotesque advertising hoardings, was of Iraqi proportions: 15 dead, nine of them Lebanese soldiers, and 50 wounded.
Gunfire crackled like broken matchsticks across Tripoli yesterday as the local "martyrs" were buried. Most had been queuing for buses to the south, alongside the usual bus drivers – six of them – sipping coffee on the pavement. One of their number, Kasser Chebli, who had turned up as usual and begun to drink his morning coffee, woke up in hospital, minus one leg. On the streets, the printed funeral notes told their own story.
"The Martyr Mohamed Mustapha Mrai," it said in beautifully printed Arabic script above an army identity photo of the young man. "The martyr who died in the Tripoli bomb," the funerary notice added.
But who were Abdullah's "other forces"? A walk down Syria Street – and yes, that really is the name of this shattered, burnt- out, bullet-spattered thoroughfare – provides a few terrifying clues. It divides the large Sunni district of Tripoli from the tiny Alawite community. The Sunnis are generally loyal to Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated ex-prime minister whose Future Movement now forms part of the government in Lebanon.
The Alawis are, as the saying goes, an "offshoot" of Shia Islam and are close to Syria for a very obvious reason: President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is an Alawi and so are most of the powerful men in Syria.
The soldiers murdered in Wednesday's bomb were members of a large military force deployed after Sunni-Alawi sectarian gunbattles had killed 22 Lebanese and wounded another 68 in June and July alone. The battles still continue.
Syria Street is a shameful place of ethnic cleansing, of burnt-out apartments and smashed shops, of fear and unemployment. "Don't stand here any longer because you can be shot from the top of the side road," Rabih al-Badawi quietly informed me as we inspected the wreckage.
Rabih's business card says he is in "General Trading" – he is a Sunni and he sells lavatory fitings – but his "trading" took a blow this summer when he refused to pay protection money to local gangs. He takes me through his upper offices, carbonised, trashed, looted, his remaining windows starred with bullet holes. Outside, bullets crackle in the hot afternoon. It's like a return to the old Beirut of the war.
"Look at these shops," Rabih tells me as we stroll down Syria Street with a grotesque display of self-confidence. "This is Alawi-owned. Bullet holes in the door. This is Alawi. The same. These are Sunni shops: all burnt out."
Was all this, perhaps, the work of Abdullah's "unknown forces"? "I think this is the work of weapons' dealers," Rabih replies at once. "They want to sell guns. So here everyone needs a gun because everyone is frightened. So the place has filled up with guns. The army does nothing. Why not? Don't they know the names of the gangs? Don't they know who is behind this?"
I take a drive round the corner to the slums of the little Alawi community, and there is Ahmed Saadedin, sipping coffee opposite another row of "martyrs" pictures, this time of Alawis, who says, correctly, that at least 9,000 Alawi refugees have fled their homes here.
"The violence started after Hariri's assassination," Ahmed says. "When Syria's forces were here, all Lebanon enjoyed security." Which – if you forget the presence of 40,000 Syrian troops, two Israeli invasions and a 15-year civil war – is an absolutely correct statement.
The truth is that Tripoli has slunk back into the civil war, block after block of gaunt, workless homes in which the Salafists and the "al-Islamists" and the haunted young men who have returned from their "jihad" against the Americans in Iraq now nestle and ponder a dangerous, frightening future amid these disgraceful battles.
In Tripoli, the fears of every Lebanese are brought to fulfillment; it's the cold fear of those "outside forces" that roam throughout the Middle East.
Lebanon's bitter legacy
Independent from French rule since 1943, Lebanon has four million people made up of numerous religious groups. The 15-year civil war ended in 1990, but the country is still deeply unstable. The worst violence since the civil war erupted in 2006 when a month-long war broke out with Israel. When President Emile Lahoud's term finished in November 2007, the dispute over his successor led to a six-month power vacuum. Finally, in May, the former army chief Michel Suleiman was chosen as President, and on Tuesday a new cabinet was approved by MPs. The country has been shaken by political assassinations since the February 2005 killing of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The role of Syria, which withdrew its troops in 2005 after 29 years, has been a source of conflict. But this week Lebanon and Syria agreed to establish diplomatic relations.

Recruiting Israeli Arabs for Terror
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com
Friday, August 15, 2008
Information has come to light about an Israeli Arab who was arrested last month at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport after a return flight from Germany. Khaled Kashkoush, 29, comes from the village of Qalansuwa in central Israel and had been studying medicine for some years in Göttingen, Germany. His arrest was initially reported in Spiegel Online International.
Kashkoush has admitted during interrogation that while in Germany he was recruited by Hezbollah agents. In 2002 he made contact with Hisham Hassan, a Lebanese doctor who is also head of the German branch of the Orphaned Children Project Lebanon. That organization, in turn, raises funds for the Lebanese Martyr Institute—part of Hezbollah’s civilian network in Lebanon.
The Martyr Institute, which supports the families of Hezbollah terrorists killed during operations, spreads Khomeinist ideology both in Lebanon and abroad, and raises funds for Hezbollah, works similarly to the Iranian Shahid Foundation. In 2007 the U.S. Treasury Department declared the Shahid Foundation illegal and the FBI raided and closed its U.S. branch, known as the Goodwill Charitable Organization, in Dearborn, Michigan.
Kashkoush met every two weeks with Dr. Hassan and also helped him administer the Orphaned Children Project. After three years Dr. Hassan put Kashkoush in contact with a Lebanese called “Rami” who turned out to be the senior Hezbollah recruiter Muhammad Hashem, well known to Israeli security.
Hashem gave Kashkoush a total of 13,000 euros. In return Kashkoush was supposed to provide information about Israeli nationals studying abroad who might be potential Hezbollah recruits, and to try and find work in an Israeli hospital so he could gather information about security personnel or soldiers being treated there. At one of their meetings Hashem also gave Kashkoush a map of the latter’s home village, Qalansuwa, that had been downloaded from Google Earth and asked him to locate buildings there.
According to Spiegel Online International’s report, Kashkoush was aiming to get a job at Rambam Hospital in the Israeli city of Haifa before being nabbed at the airport. Kashkoush and his handler, Hashem, had apparently been in touch only via unregistered cellphone and email.
The case is deeply troubling to Israeli security because it fits into a pattern where Hezbollah and other terror organizations have been using Israeli Arabs as a pool for recruits. Although in the cases of three terror attacks by Israeli Arabs in Jerusalem this year no clear links to organizations seem yet to have been found, also this year two Israeli Arabs have been indicted for passing information on strategic sites to Al Qaeda and six more have been arrested for allegedly setting up an Al Qaeda-affiliated network and plotting to shoot down President Bush’s helicopter while he was visiting Israel.
Hezbollah, for its part, particularly exploits the fact that Israeli Arabs can easily be contacted and recruited while abroad, of which Kashkoush’s case is a classic instance. Israel, thus, gets the worst of all worlds: while frequently being slandered as an “apartheid state” it grants its Arab minority full freedoms that the global jihad movement, and a small but increasing number of Israeli Arabs themselves, exploit to Israel’s detriment.
And making life still harder for Israel is the fact that in Europe particularly, Hezbollah can operate freely because it’s not defined as a terrorist organization. Given that Hezbollah is responsible, among countless other acts, for blowing up the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in 1983, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994, and in 2006 for killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers on Israeli territory while firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians, the fact that Europe does not classify it as terrorist may seem astonishing.
European countries claim to fear, though, that doing so would harm prospects for Middle East peace talks. European countries also, of course, have lucrative commercial ties with Hezbollah’s patron Iran.
In other words, the Israeli security services have their work cut out for them. In the case of Khaled Kashkoush they appear to have succeeded. Since—as in other Western countries—they’re the main or even only thing that stands between normal life and catastrophe, one hopes they’ll keep working very hard.
**P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.