LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
September 6/06

Latest New from the Daily Star for September 6/2006
Annan expects siege to end Thursday
Government submits complaint on Israeli blockade to Security Council
Paris agrees to naval patrols, Turkish MPs approve troop deployment, Lebanese Army reaches Bint Jbeil
Senior security officer survives bomb attack
Siniora reaches out to build support against blockade
LBC focuses on Israeli missing since 1986
Legal expert says 1923 maps show Shebaa Farms in Lebanese territory
UNICEF floats safety lessons on water shipments
Nasrallah: Build a strong state, then discuss arms
Kuwait Airways plans resumption of Beirut flights
Phoenicia Village won't rise just yet
Foreign relief agencies get down to work in Dahiyeh
Not even war can blunt South Lebanon's charms
Ahmadinejad's latest move threatens major setbacks for his people
Israel's economy is strong, but the war took its toll
Learning Lebanon's lessons, once again-By Rami G. Khouri
Round by round: winners and losers in the post-9/11 era-By Joseph S. Nye

Ahmedinajad vows education crackdown
Investigation indicates Jordanian gunman acted alone
Olmert offers Abbas summit if soldier is freed
Latest New from Miscellaneous sources for September 6/2006
Annan expects Israel to lift Lebanon embargo within 48 hours-AP
Remote bomb strikes southern Lebanon-Globe and Mail
Bomb targets Lebanon police convoy-CNN

UN: IDF withdraw from five s.Lebanon villages-Jerusalem Post
Israel vacates positions in south Lebanon-United Press International
The Footrace to Rebuild Lebanon-New York Times
Annan taking action on Lebanon blockade-International Herald Tribune
Nasrallah: Hizbullah will not disarm-Al-Bawaba
Aziz-Saniora Talks: Pakistan Plans to Send Troops to Lebanon-Pakistan Times -

Lebanese troops move into Hezbollah bastion-Mail & Guardian Online
Annan to appoint 'secret' Middle East mediator-Scotsman
Annan Working to Lift Israeli Blockade of Lebanon-New York Times
UN ranks begin to swell in Lebanon-Christian Science Monitor
UN says Israeli pullout of Lebanon on track-Mail & Guardian Online 
Lebanese Government Seeks Control of Border-Washington Post
Lebanese Government Seeks Control of Border-Washington Post
General Lebanese Equations.By: Hazem Saghieh 05.09.06
What Next? Reflections for the Children of the Lebanon.By: Anthony Barnett 05.09.06
Annan's Role: At What Price? By: Zuheir Kseibati 05.09.06
The Danger of Iran's Petrodollar! By: Jamil Ziabi 05.09.06
Olm
ert: Fighting in Lebanon will deter Syria-Ha'aretz
Explosion in south Lebanon critically wounds Lebanese police-Calgary Sun
Turkey to vote on sending troops to Lebanon-Jerusalem Post

Kofi Annan, United Nations, Hezbollah
'Bugged' Blue Helmets dog Kofi
By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
The Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC), among others worry about the prospect of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan meeting personally with terrorist Hassan Nasrallah during his recent 11-day tour of the Middle East.
"Any meeting between Mr. Annan and Mr. Hassan Nasrallah that takes place outside the framework of Hezbollah scheduling the surrender of its weapons and abandoning its culture of hatred, violence and terror is a prelude to scuttling the efforts of the United Nations, voiding the UN resolutions of their substance, and legitimizing a fundamentalist organization," LCCC chairman Elias Bejjani and Political Adviser Charbel Barakat state in a media communique.
Given that UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), a 2000 man strong blue-helmet contingent, was discovered to have openly published what the Weekly Standard describes as "daily, real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon," anything remotely UN bears watching.
Double-dealing is hardly a new characteristic of the world's largest bureaucracy.
"Annan's words--"I think I can do business with Saddam" have never been forgotten.
"I think it's important that I come here myself to discuss with the Lebanese authorities the aftermath of the war and the measures we need to take to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and to underscore international solidarity," Annan said after being met at the airport last week by Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh.
The resolution ended 34 days of fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on August 14. It calls for deployment of 15,000 peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon and an equal number of Lebanese troops to patrol the border region when Israel withdraws.
Given UNIFIL's spying on Israel for Hezbollah, isn't that akin to sending the fox into the henhouse?
In its media communique, LCCC is specifically asking the Secretary General "to remain within the bounds of his mandate and not graft onto resolution 1701 similar mechanisms to those he employed in the oil-for-food program in Iraq."
"We draw the attention of the international community, the Arab countries, the Lebanese government and all those concerned with Lebanon to the following facts, cautions and demands: "Since the independence of Lebanon, Syria never recognized the right of Lebanon to exist as an independent sovereign State. Syria, continuously and without exception, related to Lebanon from a standpoint of superiority, hatred, envy and meanness. Syria has been, and continues to be, behind all of Lebanon's problems and crises, the big and small wars on its soil, and the suffering of its people. Syria continues to nurture outlaw organizations operating on Lebanese soil and seeks to destabilize and maintain insecurity, while holding in its prisons hundreds of Lebanese nationals who were seized illegally in Lebanon and held without due process.
"Therefore, the deployment of international forces along the borders of Lebanon with Syria to support the Lebanese Army in monitoring and interdicting the cross-border infiltration of people and the smuggling of weapons is of the utmost importance, if not the most important element in stabilizing and pacifying Lebanon. Without such a deployment, there will be no stability or security in Lebanon, the country will remain an arena for the wars of others, and its people will remain the fodder for these wars."
In the LCCC communique, Bejjani and Barakat accuse Annan of operating with his own agenda.
"Mr. Annan took the unwarranted and dubious step of declaring that the international force is not mandated with disarming Hezbollah, as if Mr. Annan is operating according to his own private agenda that includes the protection and the legitimization of the military role of the fundamentalist party.
"We strongly denounce this position which requires clarification by Mr. Annan."
Nor did Annan inspire much confidence with Israel on his Middle-East tour.
The Israeli officials with whom Annan met last week made it clear that when he travels next to Syria and Iran, two nations who have clout with Hezbollah, he should press both regimes to order the release of their two captives.
For appeasers, the rocky road seems to be getting rockier.
** Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard.
Judi can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com

Nasrallah: Hizbullah will not disarm
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
Posted: 05-09-2006 , 08:59 GMT
Hizbullah chief, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, speaking in an interview published Tuesday by the Lebanese A-Safir daily, said his group would not relinquish its missile and rocket arsenal. Nasrallah added that Hizbullah would use the weapons only if Lebanon was attacked again on a large scale by Israel.
"We have just finished the war and are in no rush to conduct operations in the (Shebba) Farms, although we withhold the right to do so. No one can send Israel reassuring messages on this matter for free," he said.
According to Nasrallah, the once legendary Israeli army "became an example of failure and embarrassment in this war. "It used everything it had, except for nuclear weapons, but failed to reach the goals it set - to destroy Hizbullah and its rocket infrastructure, and to release the two soldiers who were captured. Olmert's main success in this long and wide-ranging war was to force me into a bomb shelter," Nasrallah told the newspaper.
Regarding a future confrontation with Israel, Nasrallah said that Israel would need to consider "a thousand considerations" beforehand.
The Hizbullah leader also hailed Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. He also stated that there was room to improve Hizbullah's relations with Arab nations, especially with Saudi Arabia. Additionally, he urged all political parties in Lebanon to return and discuss a new defense strategy.© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

Bomb targets Lebanon police convoy
September 5, 2006
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BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- A remote-controlled bomb on Tuesday wounded a senior police intelligence officer who played a key role in the investigation into the slaying of a former Lebanese prime minister.
Security officials said four of the officer's aides and bodyguards were killed in the sophisticated attack in south Lebanon.
Lt. Col. Samir Shehade, deputy chief of the intelligence department in Lebanon's national police force, was taken to the Hammoud hospital in Sidon, and hospital officials said his condition was stable.
The four dead were Shehade's aides and bodyguards, and another five were wounded in the attack, which occurred as Shehade's two-vehicle police convoy drove by the village of Rmaile, near the southern port city of Sidon.
Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation that the blast was caused by a roadside bomb loaded with nails. He said it targeted the car normally driven by Shehade, who was traveling in the other vehicle at the time.
Fatfat did not say who might have been behind the attack but said it could have been aimed at Lebanese security forces, who are deploying to south Lebanon under a U.N.-brokered cease-fire deal that ended a month of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas August 14.
Lebanese army troops are supposed to deploy in the south with a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeping force as Israeli troops withdraw.
Shehade also was involved in the arrest last August of four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals in Lebanon. The four were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Security officials said Shehade was involved in the interrogation of several witnesses in the Hariri probe, including Syrian intelligence operative Husam Taher Husam.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said Shehade had received threats because of his work in the Hariri probe. Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, a prominent lawmaker in Lebanon, called the attack a terrorist act. "This is a message which we reject," he told reporters in Beirut. The roadside bomb was detonated by remote control as the convoy traveled on a highway between two bridges, said other security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. Two of Shehade's bodyguards, Chief Sgt. Wissam Harb and Chief Sgt. Chehab Aoun, were killed. Two others later died of their wounds at a hospital.
Shehade's convoy was riddled with shrapnel and TV footage showed at least one bloodied man slumped on his seat in one of the cars. Police sealed off the area and began an investigation. The Tuesday explosion came 10 days before U.N. chief investigator Serge Brammertz was to submit a report to the U.N. Security Council updating his findings on the Hariri investigation. Previous reports have implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the killing, which rocked Lebanese politics and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year-military presence.
Syria denies any role in the Hariri slaying or the subsequent bombings.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

“Lebanese Security” Is the Pretext for the Naval Babel around Lebanon’s Shores ‎
DEBKAfile Exclusive Military Report‎
September ‎‏4‏‎, ‎‏2006‏‎, ‎‏11:37‏‎ AM (GMT‏+02:00‏‎)‎
The extraordinary buildup of European naval and military strength in and around Lebanon’s shores is way out of proportion for the task the ‎European contingents of expanded UNIFIL have undertaken: to create a buffer between Israel and Hizballah. ‎
Close investigation by DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources discloses that “Lebanese security” and peacemaking is not the object ‎of the exercise. It is linked to the general anticipation of a military clash between the United States and Israel, on one side, and Iran and ‎possibly Syria on the other, some time from now until November ‎
This expectation has brought together the greatest sea and air armada Europe has ever assembled at any point on earth since World War II: ‎two carriers with ‎‏75‏‎ fighter-bombers, spy planes and helicopters on their decks; ‎‏15‏‎ warships of various types – ‎‏7‏‎ French, ‎‏5‏‎ Italian, ‎‏2-3‏‎ Green, ‎‏3-5‏‎ German, and five American; thousands of Marines – French, Italian and German, as well as ‎‏1,800‏‎ US Marines. ‎
It is improbably billed as support for a mere ‎‏7,000‏‎ European soldiers who are deployed in Lebanon to prevent the dwindling Israeli force ‎of ‎‏4-5,000‏‎ soldiers and some ‎‏15-16,000‏‎ Hizballah militiamen from coming to blows as well as for humanitarian odd jobs. ‎
A Western military expert remarked to DEBKAfile that the European naval forces cruising off Lebanese shores are roughly ten times as ‎much as the UNIFIL contingents require as cover, especially when UNIFIL’s duties are strictly non-combat. After all, none of the UN ‎contingents will be engaged in disarming Hizballah or blocking the flow of weapons incoming from Syria and Iran. ‎
So, if not for Lebanon, what is this fine array of naval power really there for? ‎
First, according to our military sources, the European participants feel the need of a strong naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean to ‎prevent a possible Iranian-US-Israeli war igniting an Iranian long-range Shahab missile attack on Europe; second, as a deterrent to dissuade ‎Syria and Hizballah from opening a second front against American and Israel from their eastern Mediterranean coasts. ‎
Numbers alone do not do justice to the immense operational capabilities and firepower amassed opposite Lebanon. Take first the three fleet ‎flagships. ‎
From France’s nuclear-powered ‎‏38,000‏‎-ton Charles De Gaulle carrier (see insignia), ‎‏40‏‎ Rafale M fighter craft whose range is ‎‏3,340‏‎ km ‎can take off at intervals of ‎‏30‏‎ seconds. The ship also carries three E‏-2‏C Hawkeye surveillance craft. The combat control center of the French ‎carrier can handle ‎‏2,000‏‎ simultaneous targets. The carrier leads a task fore of ‎‏7‏‎ warships carrying ‎‏2,800‏‎ French Marines. ‎
Charles De Gaulle s also a floating logistics center operating water desalination plants for ‎‏15,000‏‎ men and enough food to feed an army ‎for ‎‏90‏‎ days. ‎
The USS Mount Whitney (the tallest snowcapped peak in the United States), has the most sophisticated command and control suite in the ‎world. Like the French Charles De Gaulle , it exercises command over a task force of ‎‏1,800‏‎ sailors, Marines, Air force medical and other ‎personnel serving aboard the USS Barry, the USS Trenton , HSV Swift and USNS Kanawha . ‎
Available to the fleet commander, US Vice Admiral J. “Boomer” Stufflebeem, formally titled commander of Joint Task Force Lebanon, is ‎the uniquely advanced C‏41‏‎ command and intelligence system through which he can flash intelligence data to every American commander at ‎any point between the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and Iran. USS Mount Whitney communications are described as unsurpassed ‎for the the secure transmission of data from any point to any other point in the world through HF, UHF,VHF, SHF and EHF. ‎
The third carrier joining the other two is the Italian aircraft-helicopter carrier Garibaldi , which has launch pads for vertical takeoff by ‎‏16‏‎ ‎AV‏-8‏B Harrier fighter-bombers or ‎‏18‏‎ Sikorsky SH‎‏-3‏D Seak King sea-choppers (or Italian Agusta Bell AB‏212‏‎ helicopters), designed to attack ‎submarines and missile ships. ‎
Military experts estimate that the Garibaldi currently carries ‎‏10‏‎ fighter planes and ‎‏6‏‎ helicopters. ‎
The new European naval concentration tops up the forces which permanently crowd the eastern Mediterranean: the Italian-based American ‎Sixth Fleet, some ‎‏15‏‎ small Israeli missile ships and half a dozen submarines and the NATO fleet of Canadian, British, Dutch, German, Spanish, ‎Greek and Turkish warships. They are on patrol against al Qaeda (which is estimated to deploy ‎‏45‏‎ small freighters in the Mediterranean and ‎Indian Ocean). The British have permanent air and sea bases in Cyprus. ‎
This vast force’s main weakness, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, is that it lacks a single unified command. A sudden flare-up ‎in Lebanon, Syria or Iran could throw the entire force into confusion. ‎
On paper, it has three commanders: ‎
‏1‏‎. French General Alain Pellegrini is the commander of the expanded UNIFIL ground, naval and air force in Lebanon. In February ‎‏2007‏‎, ‎he hands over to an Italian general who leads the largest of the European contingents of ‎‏3,000‏‎ men. It is hard to see France agreeing to place its ‎prestigious Charles De Gaulle flagship under non-French command. ‎
‏2‏‎. The American forces opposite Lebanese shores are under direct US command. Since the October ‎‏1993‏‎ debacle of an American peace ‎force under the UN flag in Somalia, Washington has never again placed its military under UN command. (There is no American contingent in ‎the UNIFIL ground force either.) ‎
In other words, USS Mount Whitney , while serving the European fleets as their operational and intelligence nerve center will stay under ‎the sole command of Vice Admiral Stufflebeem in all possible contingencies. ‎
‏3‏‎. Similarly, the NATO fleet will remain under NATO command, and Israel’s air and naval units will take their orders from Israeli Navy ‎Headquarters in Haifa and the General Staff in Tel Aviv. ‎
The naval Babel piling up in the eastern Mediterranean may therefore find itself at cross purposes when action is needed in an armed ‎conflict. Iran, Syria and Hizballah could be counting on this weakness as a tactical asset in their favor. ‎
 

The Danger of Iran's Petrodollar!
Jamil Ziabi Al-Hayat - 04/09/06//
Some Arab countries are trying to achieve a lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East. They are trying to rid the region of the specter of fierce wars that would divide them into colonies and settlements. These countries are willing to achieve greater development, increase the level of their citizens' welfare and maintain their security and stability. However, neighboring Iran has been, since the outbreak of the Khomeini's revolution, threatening the stability of this region which 'undergoes crises from time to time'.
Iran's ambitions do not stop at destabilization. It aims to settle in the Arab, especially the Gulf, region, hoping to export the revolution and rouse people who would support and defend it. To that end, it supports and builds armed groups. It even uses the disparity in religious doctrines in some Arab countries, such as Lebanon and most recently Yemen through Al-Hawthi group.
In Palestine, Iran is now drawing Hamas. In Iraq, it supports some Shiite groups in the southern governorates to destabilize Iraq and covertly interfere in its internal affairs. Iran is trying to drag Syria into the Iranian fold. The question then begs to be asked: do the Arab peoples accept the presence of organizations, movements and militias which operate inside their countries to destabilize the region? Do they accept these organizations even though they adopt other countries' goals and stances which are far from the aspirations of the majority and the will of the States concerned, at the price of the peoples themselves, their security and stability?
This is what Iran is doing to the region using armed groups which are in line with its sectarian policies and ideas. It makes use of some Arab attitudes and exploits the Arab street which is enraged by the US blind bias for Israel.
It has been evident that smart diplomacy is the only way to resolve conflicts rather than jumping to the term 'resistance' and its meaning. The latest Israel-Lebanon war did not end because of Hezbollah's missiles, as some people believe. It was not the Party that compelled Israel to stop bombing and shelling Lebanon. It did not force Israel to stop slaying hundreds of the Lebanese and to stop destroying the infrastructure of the Cedar country. And with the Iraqi Resistance, the tragedy of death has risen due to the increase of car bombs and explosive belts. This has furthered the burning rage and heartbreak of Sunni and Shiite fathers and mothers which portends an Iraqi civil war that will not cease unless Iran stops arming, training and providing the Shiite groups with money and equipment; and stops interfering in Iraq's internal affairs. Iran is behind the scourge on the region, while any progress in the region is the result of the diplomacy of the Arab States and the international community.
We should remember that the Arab masses, which applauded Hezbollah's adventure to which Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah later admitted to, are the same masses that, in the past, applauded Taliban and al-Qaeda for bombing the World Trade Center. They praised Saddam Hussein for occupying Kuwait. Naturally, the Arab masses are emotional and not politicized. They cannot be a realistic measure in planning moderate policies and determining attitudes. They may commend a certain party, sect or State today, and then curse them all tomorrow. Why does Iran try to appropriate the steadfastness of the Lebanese people and their heroism? Why is Iran trying to draw Syria and Hamas to its political stances?
What Iran wants from the Arab countries, especially Iraq, is not limited to political gains. It has ambitions to settle in southern Iraq, like Israel in some Palestinian territories. It may go beyond that to penetrate Iraq's social fabric to trigger sedition. Why will Iran not return the UAE islands it has been occupying since 1971?
Iran does not care much about all that. It faces the US, standing on the shoulders of the Arabs, and on account of their blood, security and stability. Iran, however, uses immoral cosmetics to beautify its true and ugly face and markets its policies in the region by buying intellectuals, media people, and people of no conscience. Many, who once deemed Iran as a criminal and enemy, are now applauding, glorifying and promoting Iran's stances. It is no surprise because the Petrodollar changes people, and Iran is generous in this aspect.
Iran's interests threaten Arab unity. Iran's intentions have become equal to the threat of Israel. Unless the Arabs stand together in word and deed, Arabism and Middle East security and stability will perish.

Israel fears war crime trials
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Three weeks after a cease-fire ended its war against Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel is increasingly worried that government officials and army officers traveling abroad may face war crimes charges over the country's actions in Lebanon. A Foreign Ministry official said a legal team is preparing to provide protection for officers and officials involved in the 34-day conflict. Some 1,200 Lebanese and 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in operations launched in Lebanon and Gaza after three Israeli soldiers were abducted in two border raids. Israel has said all its actions were legal and accused Hezbollah of hiding among civilians and targeting Israeli civilians with rocket attacks. The fighting also left 159 Israelis dead, including 39 civilians hit by rockets in Israel's northern cities. The Foreign Ministry official said the legal defense team, which includes representatives from the Justice and Defense ministries, is maintained by the government to help officials facing the possibility of war crimes charges abroad. It was first put together to deal with charges related to Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel, which insists its armed forces act within international norms and accuses its foes of inviting civilian casualties by operating within populated areas, is also warning civil servants and military officers to watch what they say about the Lebanese and Palestinian conflicts. Some talk, it fears could invite war-crimes lawsuits. A ministry memorandum issued to Israel's military and other government agencies urges officials to avoid belligerent remarks that could potentially be used to back up allegations they were complicit in excessive use of force. "The type of language now considered off-limits includes `crushing' the enemy, and `cleansing,' `leveling' or `wiping out' suspected enemy emplacements," said a source who saw the memo. The memo also censures an official who called for Israel to respond to rockets on the port city of Haifa by "getting rid of a village in Lebanon."
The memo says numerous war crimes lawsuits against Israeli officials are being prepared. It cites venues such as France, Belgium and Britain. Three Moroccan lawyers said last month they were suing Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz over the recent offensives in Lebanon and Gaza. And Israel Radio reported that a Danish lawmaker tried to have Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni detained and prosecuted during a recent visit to Copenhagen, but a request for an arrest warrant was rejected by prosecutors. Israeli fears of prosecution abroad are also based on earlier experience.
Arriving in London last year, Doron Almog, a retired general who had commanded Israeli forces in Gaza, was tipped off by an Israeli diplomat that he was about to be arrested by British authorities over a 2002 airstrike that killed a Hamas leader and 14 others, nine of them children. Almog remained on the aircraft and returned to Israel. In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced a lawsuit in Belgium over his role in a 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.  Several former Israeli army chiefs of staff have also been targeted. But none of the cases have succeeded.
Daniel Machover, a British attorney involved in attempts to prosecute Israeli officers said he knew of "at least two" teams compiling evidence in Lebanon.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS


Tehran suffers fatal arrogance
By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times
Posted on 9/4/2006 9:31:33 AM
IT appears Iran has opened three fronts in the eastern part of the Middle East and is increasing or decreasing the heat in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gulf region depending on the pressure on its nuclear program. Currently all these fronts are on high alert as Iran’s confrontation with the international community has reached a peak and the deadline for imposing sanctions and punishment has come close.
Tehran’s battlefront in Iraq extends all the way to the south. The recent firing along Kuwait’s borders with Iraq, coinciding with the visit of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Tehran and his warning to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is raising suspicions. Ahmadinejad’s choice of the Cold War language indicates Iran’s internal situation is dangerous because of its economy, which is in crisis.
With his extremist methods and by creating international and regional disputes the Iranian President is trying to divert the attention of his people from the internal crisis. This was evident when Ahmadinejad accused Gulf states of standing with the international community and threatened to burn the entire Gulf region if people of the region dared to stand in the way of Tehran’s nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad has no right to accuse Gulf states or impose his authority over them. We see his threats as a “killing arrogance,” which will eventually end him, because these cannot be considered a politically noble or a wise move. All of us remember how the Gulf states stood against the Shah of Iran when he was trying to play the role of a regional policeman. We also remember how the Ayatollah Ali Al-Khomeini’s Islamic revolution ended the Shah’s dreams.
Now Ahmadinejad wants to play the same role while trying to convince us that the Islamic Revolution in Iran was not meant to implement the aggressive and greedy policies of Tehran to expand its influence all over the Gulf. Ahmadinejad, who represents the peak of Persian ambitions, is acting the role of a regional policeman with such arrogance that he has challenged US President George Bush to a debate. The President of Iran wants to debate the issue of reforming the international system when he is incapable of reforming the system in his own country.
We say these words because Iran is an important neighboring country, which should play a cooperative role in tune with the importance of this strategic region. We don’t want Iran to become a victim of its own arrogance and meet the same fate of Japan, which was defeated in the World War II following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Iran should know even a small spark can ignite a huge fire. World War I was the result of the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince and World War II was sparked by the ambitions of Adolf Hitler.
We don’t want Ahmadinejad’s name to be included in the list of those, who caused the killing of their own people or participated in crimes against humanity. We are sorry to note that in such an important region, which is rich in oil and natural gas, some adventurous leaders are willing to jeopardize peace by accusing others of being agents without any proof. These leaders must remember arrogance is a very dangerous disease.
e-mail: ahmedjarallah@hotmail.com

The release in Gaza of Fox News journalist Steve Centanni and camera man Olaf Wiig,
By Dr. Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 4, 2006
The release in Gaza of Fox News journalist Steve Centanni and camera man Olaf Wiig, kidnapped as of August 14 by a group calling itself "Holy Jihad Brigade" raises a number of salient issues related to the kidnapping and release:
1) "We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni told FOX News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."
Such a statement raises a number of points. First it is not unusual that Jihadists groups would force hostages to convert to Islam. But at the same time it hasn't been a systematic behavior. Over the past 25 years, Jihadist organizations, cells and captors -including al Qaida, Hezbollah, Laskar Jihad, Jemaa Islamiya, Salafi Combat group, etc have taken hostages. In many cases the Jihadists either asked the hostages or forced them to convert. But in other cases they haven't. Statistically, most hostages who have been executed were not asked to convert, while those who were released were either asked if they wished or in some cases were told that it would be better for them to do so. Obviously, hostages -especially if they weren't evangelists - would accept the conversion as a mean for securing liberation or at least physical security. But there were cases of Priests, Evangelists and Christian local leaders, who were executed after they refused to convert. These cases didn't receive the publicity received by media or secular Western citizens’ hostages. However, there were cases where hostages were released without being forced or even asked to convert.
The question emanating from these hostage-conversions is two fold: a) is it considered as legitimate one in the eyes of Islamic law? Under international law, any forced conversion under threat is null and void. Under Sharia law a similar verdict could be issued by an Islamic court who would argue that conversion by force is not acceptable (La ikrah fil deen). But Jihadi interpretation may argue that the conversion is standing with the immediate consequence that reverting back from the new religion is punishable by death. This would play a considerable role in intimidating the ex hostages, and would allow the Terrorist group to call for sanctions in the future against the journalists.
2) The group calls itself "The Holy Jihad Brigade." As in previous cases, this may not be a new organization but a name given by the kidnappers or those who ordered the kidnapping for this particular operation. There have been many names that appeared after a Terrorist operation or hostage taking and never heard from again in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, and Kenya to name few cases. A Palestinian security official told AP that "Palestinian Authorities had known the identity of the kidnappers from the start." The source said "the name was a front for local militants." While indeed the name was created as a front for a local operation, the question is who ordered it? Hamas-led Government Prime Minister Ismael Hanieh said "it is not al Qaeda, and there is no al Qaeda in Gaza." In fact al Qaeda presence exists in Gaza and it was reported in many previous reports not denied by the Hamas cabinet. However it would be less likely that al Qaeda was behind the operation because of the modus operandi of the group: Such as sending a video to al Jazeera, and as in some cases in Iraq or Pakistan, execution could have ensued. So, who could be behind the kidnapping and the release? There are strong possibilities that the Hamas organization (which is in power) could be behind the operation. Why?
3) Hamas has been complaining about the US support to Israel, but more importantly about Washington's pressures to shut down all economic support to the US-listed Terrorist organization. In many speeches by Haniya and Hamas spokespersons, they blamed the US for the "sanctions" against their Government. It is widely known in the Palestinian territories that the financial conditions of Hamas' Government is worsening, allowing their opponents in Fatah to criticize them. An unofficial hostage operation against journalists affiliated with a media network perceived as close to the US Administration and very critical of Hamas, could have been authorized by the security agencies of Hamas as a way to send a message to Washington. Haniya may not want to cut it completely with the United States yet, knowing that the Mahmoud Abbas forces can still take advantage of the situation, hence the authorization for a "local" group to perform a Jihadi-like abduction and release to send a message Westbound.
4) Another analysis takes the regional situation into account and factors in the Syrian and Iranian regimes that have a strategic alliance with Hamas with Tehran funding the group and Damascus hosting its headquarters. Requests from either one or the other regimes for such an operation in Gaza are not unlikely. Since the Tehran embassy incidents both Iran and Syria demonstrated that they do not implicate themselves in hostage taking on their own soil. For two decades at least, Jihadist groups allied to the two regimes have taken, released, and some times executed hostages in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories by proxies.
5) Is that a signal for a developing trend? It could well be. During the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, CNN and other media complained from intimidation and control of the reports by Hezbollah. And as Iran and Syria are mobilizing for confrontation with the international community over the nuclear crisis with Ahmedinijad and on the international forces with Assad, Western and international media should be careful in their planning for coverage in Jihadi controlled areas.
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Dr Walid Phares is the author of the newly released book Future Jihad. He is also a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington DC.

General Lebanese Equations
Hazem Saghieh Al-Hayat - 04/09/06//
A prominent Lebanese intellectual, Ahmed Beydoun, wrote that "those who want us to either be with Iran and Syria, or Israel and the US, do not have the self respect to be with themselves".
According to this equation, which is both moral and political, the Lebanese are supposed to give priority to the interests of Lebanon above anything else. This is not a chauvinistic call according to which patriotism means mounting aggression against or looking down on another nation. It is nothing more than claiming the right to live and the right to a small homeland. This is an almost 'natural' demand for every living human being.
But to achieve this, if we survive the current crisis, we must ensure that the current ordeal will not be repeated: we must be certain that Sayyed Nasrallah will not misjudge again, and that his 'victories' will not amount to blockading our land, sea or air. And finally, we must be sure that he will loose the ability to misjudge.
In the end, and to avert Nasrallah's 'strategic' assessments, it would be advisable to begin from where real problems begin.
No matter how long we close our eyes to and delay the issue, we will not be able to continue disregarding Lebanon's military neutrality. This is the natural and institutional conclusion of the 1949 truce, which everyone(?) says they are committed to return to.
In fact, anyone who continues to provide pretexts for Israel to destroy Lebanon in the hope of compensating with a Resistance that scuppers the 'New Middle East project' is, at best, like someone who resigns from his work and leaves his family in destitution, because he has been promised that he will win the lottery.
Nevertheless, some tiny details should be highlighted. Military neutrality between the US-Israeli and Syrian-Iranian axes does not eliminate the need for some scrutiny: Syria is the lungs of Lebanon, and there has been a strong bond between them. In spite of the current regime in Damascus, any military neutrality cannot be interpreted as emotional neutrality between Syria and any other party.
It goes without saying that a diplomatically and culturally healthy and active Lebanon can help Damascus regain the Golan Heights, if Syria really wants to. Lebanon can also help, much more than today, the Palestinian Authority establish its own State.
Lebanon now is a permanent cause for cornering Syria. It may become a cause for implicating and exposing it to an Israeli offensive, backed, of course, by the US .
On the other hand, we have seen, with a naked eye, how the outbreak of the latest war distracted attention away from the suffering in the Gaza Strip, instead of it being in the spotlight. It harmed the perpetual Iraqi tragedy by concealing it from view, despite the addition of nearly 2000 bodies to the morgue in one month.
We can also say that the majority of the Lebanese no longer have the luxury to sympathize with issues other than their own, or to condemn US policies unmindful of finding a solution to the Palestinian problem, though Israel and Hezbollah are the only beneficiaries of such heedlessness.
In addition, advocates of a relationship with Iran similar to those with Western countries have replaced facts and interests with formal equality between countries. Indeed, there are highly significant cultural and religious links between some Lebanese and Iran, however, the need of the Lebanese nation for the West's economy, education and institutional experience is unmatched by a similar need to Iran that has modest capabilities.
Only permanent war can allow this formal equality between nations. Undoubtedly, Iran can provide us with a thousand rockets in return for a university from the US and a hospital from France. It is, as we recall, a case similar to that of some Arab countries with the former Soviet Union: Whenever Arab countries moved away from war and confrontations, they moved away from the Soviet Union and approached Western countries. Lebanon, as far as every one(?) says now, intends to steer clear of the state of war and ally itself, according to Beydoun's equation, 'to itself.' Now is the moment.

What Next? Reflections for the Children of the Lebanon
Anthony Barnett Al-Hayat - 04/09/06//
Nearly five years after the 'Axis of Evil' speech, the thing that continues to annoy is how President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and now Israeli spokesmen, claim to be the ones who are opposing terrorism. Anyone who does not support them, they suggest, is soft and permissive of bin Laden and copy-cat gangs of violent fundamentalists.
If I had a great deal of money, I would take Bush and Blair to court for aiding and abetting terrorism. They were warned that their so-called 'War on Terrorism' would make things worse. And it has. It makes them fellow perpetrators of the current disasters.
Indeed, when I learnt at the start of the recent conflict that an Israeli general had said on television that it would turn back the clock twenty years on the Lebanon, I thought this guy is threatening collective punishment on an entire nation for a guerrilla incident. It is the kind of outrageous thing retired generals say. I was confident he would be officially repudiated and told to zip his mouth. But no, it turns out he was Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, the Chief of Staff directly in charge of the campaign that aerially bombed power stations, water plants and factories. One definition of terrorism is precisely that it attempts to deliver collective punishment.
The word "disproportionate" is code for a deep revulsion over such behaviour - behaviour that makes it seem that Israel believes it has the right to impose on any society which touches or challenges it what it has already imposed upon Palestine.
No great wisdom is needed to see that such a strategy dooms all sides to destruction, perhaps within a generation. Opposition to it, to Bush, Blair, Halutz and their approach of "making war on terror", stems from a confidence that there is a better, more effective and lasting way of frustrating terrorism, a way that also protects human rights, democracy and justice from their hands. It is an opposition shared by large numbers in the established democracies, in many of them a clear majority. Most people around the world have been wiser than the occupants of the White House and 10 Downing Street. This is an important democratic resource to hold onto in the coming months and maybe years.
II
The masters of the West are not only fighting terrorism the wrong way, they are screwing up on their own terms. The invasion of Iraq was misconceived, but having done it, it would have been far better if the US had at least succeeded, as it might have, in helping Iraq become the democracy that its people wanted at the time. Instead, it turned itself into an occupying force, apparently trusting no one.
The New York Times ran a telling article on 16 August. It said that a classified report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency recorded that the number of explosive devices in Iraq had risen from 1,454 in January to 2,625 in July (of which 1,666 exploded and 959 were discovered before they went off). The number of Americans killed dropped from 42 to 38, thanks to better armor. This may have encouraged an impression that the only story in Iraq today is a "slide towards civil war". But in fact 70 percent of the explosions were directed against the American-led military force. The number of Americans wounded "soared, to 518 in July from 287 in January". But the most important part of the story was not the US military's assessment of the growing reach and effectiveness of its opponents. It is worth quoting the paragraphs in full - they came quietly at the end:
"…some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials were beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq's democratically elected government might not survive.
"Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy," said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.
"Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect," the expert said, "but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy."
What does mean it, to "plan" for democracy not "surviving". The mixture of active and passive should arouse suspicion. If the White House is "considering alternatives" to democracy, could it be something on the lines of "Better our dictator than their's"? But wasn't this the very reason why the US supported Saddam Hussein against Iran in the first place, when Donald Rumsfeld went to meet and shake the bad man's hand in 1983? Democracy was the last but also the best reason for the invasion. If Iraq's elected government is replaced by an alternative at the instigation of the White House then America's defeat will be complete.
III
America has been defeated - not just the Rumsfeld strategy, or President Bush. His successor will not be able to pick up the phone and say "Hey, it was them not me, let's move on" and expect a return to the status quo ante bellum of US hegemony. America itself, its state and its system of government is undergoing a defeat. The more it denies this, the greater the danger to us all.
It is a moral defeat, from Guantanamo to the Manichaean unilateralism of good against evil. It is a constitutional defeat for a system that permitted Bush to steal an election and whose courts are only slowly establishing fundamental rights but doing so under a barrage from the right. It is a democratic defeat because the politics which permitted it is based on a financially suborned, gerrymandered, often uncheckable, low-turnout voting system that threatens to reduce suffrage in the USA to government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich - while it invades countries abroad in the name of democratic self-rule. It is a defeat for its media that misleads and misjudges. A defeat for its political class which as a whole has lost the capacity to oppose. And soon, from all accounts, America is also about to suffer an economic defeat on a global scale. Above all, perhaps, it is a defeat for American intelligence in every sense of that word.
IV
Have we been here before? The Defeat of America is the title of a book of essays written in the early seventies by the distinguished American historian Henry Steele Commager. In it he wrote, "Why do we find it so hard to accept this elementary lesson of history, that some wars are so deeply immoral that they must be lost, that the war in Vietnam is one of these wars and that those who resist it are the truest patriots?"
We should beware of simplistic comparisons. 'Vietnam' was more an epoch than an episode, longer even than the ten years of maximum conflict from 1965-75. With hindsight it also includes Watergate, the opening to China, the US bombing of Cambodia, the frustration of Nixon and Kissinger's war plan in Vietnam itself, and then Nixon's ejection from office in the face of certain impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanours against the United States, as he set out to subvert an election and then covered up his role, as part of his and Kissinger's attempt to create an imperial Presidency.
Already at least two major differences can be seen between that war and Iraq. In Vietnam America's defeat meant there was a worthy and deserved victor - the Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh's communists. They were promptly punished for their triumph, by Pol Pot's attacks and above all by the Chinese (whose doomed and stultifying one-party system they still share). Nonetheless, they were the leaders of the original national and anti-colonial revolution. They had no quarrel with the United States and launched no attack upon it. In Iraq by contrast there is no opposition that can attract support. It is a defeat that brings only further defeat.
Second, in its defeat America could celebrate itself. As Commager puts it in his conclusion, the Constitution was "vindicated". The courts stood firm. The press, the so-called fourth estate, held up its head with pride as it exposed Nixon against ferocious pressure and did not blink. Opposition to the war removed President Johnson. The system itself removed Nixon. A renewal of the American political system as a democracy took place in the wake of the disastrous engagement in Indochina.
This domestic achievement was undone. America's liberal triumph in the Cold War masked the roll-back of the liberal gains made thanks to the constitution in the aftermath of Vietnam. In the quarter century from the US forced evacuation of Saigon in 1975 to the presidential election of 2000, the US media was suborned, its commitment to basic objectivity undone. A relentless effort to impeach Clinton for denying a sexual liaison under oath had as its real target the constitution itself. The triviality of the issue showed that the Republicans accepted only the technicality and not the gravity of the charges against Nixon. A constitutional system designed to provide impartial protection was hollowed out and made an instrument for partisanship (nominations to the Supreme Court being a perfect example).
The way was thus prepared for the Bush/Cheney attempt to recreate the imperial Presidency that had proved beyond Nixon's reach.
V
9/11 offered them the opportunity. They took it extremely well. The important thing about 9/11 is what happened on 9/12. It was less the attack that will come to define what the burning towers stand for, than what was then made it.
The rest of world said, "We are all Americans".
What we meant was we had all been bombed and attacked and lost innocents and we identified with and supported Americans against this appalling assault. (Paradoxically, even those who callously cheered at 9/11 did so because they welcomed Yankee imperialism being humiliated and hurt like them.) There was a profound and justified sense of a need for solidarity. Geopolitically, the international system as a whole backed the invasion of Afghanistan for harbouring Osama bin Laden.
It was a never-to-be-repeated opportunity for the United States to create around itself an alliance of sympathy. We can be sure such an alliance would have dealt effectively with terrorism on the basis of shared judicial procedures, bringing the rule of law to the world in a new fashion, as well as further isolating and soon undermining regimes like those of Saddam.
The generous reaching out to the United States was also challenge. Implicit in the offer was that America accept that it is a country like other countries, each special, each capable of being hurt, in need of alliances, having to participate in relationships it could not simply dictate. What a fantastic moment, what a wonderful opportunity.
Thanks to Bush and Cheney the USA told the rest of the world to fuck off.
(Only Tony Blair then stepped forward to say "fuck me".)
Bush and Cheney declared war and assumed war-time powers. They threw alliances to the wind, they formulated a new national security doctrine authorising preventative attack, they mobilised their military against a global 'axis of evil', they asserted that if you were not with them you were with the terrorists, they initiated illegal bugging and interception within America on a scale even Nixon could hardly have dreamt of.
Why did they do this? To fight terrorism, when every serious expert warned that an invasion of Iraq was just what bin Laden wanted? To secure control of oil supplies? To spread democracy (from the creators of Guantanamo and Abu Graib)? Looking back over the arguments about America's international strategy over the last five years and its supposed Neo-Conservative nature, perhaps the explanation is that they did not care about or take any serious interest at all in the rest of the world.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were recruited as young men into Nixon's 1969 White House. They surely dreamt of revenge for Watergate. 9/11 offered a wonderful opportunity for just this, and they unleashed an assault upon the political and constitutional system which had made Watergate possible. This would explain the sense of coup which accompanied Bush's declaration of "war" and the "cabal" like nature of the group that implemented it. More important, it would mean that the motives driving America's post-9/11 foreign policy have been fundamentally domestic, using policy towards the rest of the world as a means of achieving ends within the United States.
The verbiage of neo-conservatism provided a useful cover but was never the 'doctrine' of Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld. This was an illusion of intellectuals occupationally prone to the narcissistic belief that their words matter even for those who seldom read. Bush and his assistants did not seek to rule America in order to shape the world. When, thanks to 9/11, they declared a world-shaping policy, they did so in order to rule America all the better.
As domestic policy the Bush/Cheney strategy proved itself a brilliant success. It had already mobilised the money, built the churches and fixed the media. With these assets in hand they used 9/11 to appeal to a deep aspect of American nationalism that they understood and felt at home with (and whose history and nature has been brilliantly dissected by Anatol Lieven). Politicians who have the capacity to mobilize and reshape a nationalism are genuine leaders - at home. This was where they were smart, not stupid, and how they came to be more than just a cabal.
VI
And abroad? "What you call unilateralism I call leadership", John Bolton once said, before he became UN Ambassador to the United Nations. The White House creates reality. It declares victory in advance - because this is what works with its voters. Which is why the only event to significantly damage Bush has been Hurricane Katrina, whose reality outspun the President's team.
Israel has been an example, perhaps even an inspiration to them in the creation of realities. The influence of the Israeli lobby in the United States, now reinforced by Rapture evangelism and its fantastical, apocalyptic obsession with the Holy Land, is said to exercise too great an influence in Washington. But perhaps what has really hypnotised American leaders since 1967 is Israel's success. This mainstreams with America's 'winner takes all' political culture. Israel's failure to create the reality it desired in the Lebanon is therefore especially dangerous for it as the US is not the best ally for those who really need it.
In Hizbullah Israel has finally created an enemy worthy of itself. The war it has just waged against it in the Lebanon proved not to be a continuation of the others Israel has fought since 1948. For all the pan-Arab talk, these were, Fred Halliday has pointed out, comparatively local engagements. Now, he argues, two great regional forces are redefining the Middle East, both born in 1979. In February that year the Iranian revolution lit the torch of Shia fundamentalism, in October the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan initiated the US arming of Sunni mujahadin, of whom the most notable was Osama bin Laden. Today, both currents have condensed onto Israel's conquest of Palestine, and the conflict over Israel's borders really has become regional.
Therefore, Israel has to make a deal if it is to flourish as more than a besieged outpost . One reason, it can now be seen, is technical. The Katyusha rockets that Hizbullah fired at Israel were old-fashioned, kinetic devices stuffed with ball-bearings that belong to the analogue age. Soon an inexpensive global positioning system will be replacing some of those passive metal balls. Sooner or later do-it-yourself drones, with contour-hugging devices to get under radar, will be constructed, easily capable of making a long-range, one-way journey, even from a suburb of Amman or Cairo. Fear will return to Tel Aviv undermining its commercial life. What is a wall? It is a defensive barrier designed for explosives to be flown over.
But only a culture and a human network, not technology, assembles, hides, and fires such devices. Previously, defeating Israel meant shouting Allah Akbar, while firing an AK-47 into the air, wasting ordinance, risking wounding your own people and giving Israel intelligence. Now it is now cool to be Hiz, to wear heavy-duty spectacles, speak slowly, not show off and never be photographed.
There is only one way to 'defeat' such a movement. In so far as its grievances are genuine, these must be addressed. It must be welcomed (whatever the gritting of teeth) into a legitimate representative process where it can be held to account for the authority it exercises. In this way it also becomes itself and ceases to be a puppet of others.
How is this possible if, as with Hizbullah, it is committed to the annihilation of Israel? Well, only when there is a secure Palestinian state with a leadership that insists on a ceasefire and tells its allies not to fire on Tel Aviv because it desires peace not war. A Palestine that looks forward and sees a life for itself as a country is the precondition for politically isolating and then disarming those who want to wipe Israel of the map. Without this Israel will never be secure. Hence the unbelievable folly of spurning a Hamas offer of a ceasefire when it won the elections in Palestine, the starting point for such a process.
VII
In this era of international petitions, what should a global patriot call for? There are two immediate conflicts. One is against the terrorist networks inspired by al-Qaida. They need to be arrested and they can be. It is not a war, but nor is it a conflict that can be lost if that means terrorists immolating themselves with nuclear devices. The second is the 'war on terror'. This should be abandoned. It is making terrorism worse by playing their game.
At the heart of this "war" is the centre of the so-called axis-of-evil, Iran, now the most likely candidate for further escalation by the Bush/Cheney White House as it continues to try and "define reality" for its domestic purposes. Nothing is more likely to undermine the fundamentalists of Tehran than diplomatic recognition, trade and tourism. They may be able to do the enrichment of uranium but they can't do the enrichment of their own people.
Will the reality-shock of this year's Lebanon war make the leaders of Israel and America see sense? I'm told not. That it is too late. Israel's conclusion after Lebanon is that it has to stay in the West Bank and further impose itself unilaterally, is merely a gloomy confirmation that all is lost. For the settlements are a misnamed, they not a fixed point. They either grow or shrink. To keep them is to expand them, and to expand them is to further the illegal and inhuman expropriation of Palestine. It means the parties to the conflict will never be able to find it in themselves to engage in the agreements and mutual recognition they need. In which case the outcome will eventually be nuclear war over Jerusalem while the Chinese and Indians rub their hands in disbelief.
I refuse to believe this.
But what is the alternative, what other direction is there that can set in motion a different momentum? In an important and deeply responsible critique of the Bush foreign policy, to be published at the end of September, Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman call for an inclusive regional conference over Iraq (with America dropping its childish refusal to talk directly with Iran) and for Israel and Palestine to be given accession status for full membership of the European Union. To the latter suggestion we should now add the Lebanon as well.

The European Union is a machinery for creating peace where there was war. This was its initial impulse with respect to France and Germany. The Northern Ireland peace agreement was made possible and underpinned by the fact that both the UK and the Irish Republic were in the Union. Europe has a responsibility towards all three small countries on the Eastern Mediterranean. None, it could be said, are fully viable on their own, but the EU is also purpose built to protect vulnerable small states. Membership would provide the secular framework necessary for religious societies to live in peace with each other. It would secure full political and human rights in them all in a way that would be credible and legitimate. The EU's critics often argue that it purpose is to become a 'super-state' that threatens the nations its encompasses. In fact the Union has rescued its member nation states from fratricide and permits their revival in a context of shared sovereignty and peace. Given what we have just witnessed we are entitled to ask, if not this what next?
Dedicated to Saqi Books and Dar al Saqi whose warehouse in South Beirut was twice hit by bombs, 23 August 2006
*Original English

Annan's Role: At What Price?
Zuheir Kseibati Al-Hayat - 04/09/06//
At the Syrian stop off of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's tour of the region, he made a significant breakthrough in internationalizing the solution of the Lebanese-Israeli front by declaring President Bashar al-Assad's approval of Resolution 1701. This means that Damascus has accepted the Roadmap to end the conflict on this front, after having strongly opposed it. Indeed, the Resolution practically deprives Syria of influencing the Lebanese course, and concludes the final chapter of separating the Lebanese and Syrian courses.
Moreover, if the Resolution is implemented, this will put Lebanon under the international political umbrella. It will also mean the separation of the Iranian and Lebanese courses through the disruption of Tehran's ability to stir the front with Israel, as Iran was one of the tools that forcibly aggravated the regional role of this front.
When Annan announced the Syrian 'surprise', he seemed as though he was reaping the fruit of a 'reverse' in Damascus' policy, which incessantly rejected its regional role being diagnosed with the disease of 'isolation'. However, is it really a 'reverse' in policy, or is it an attempt to break the isolation via the UN, after Washington had insisted on not opening the door to dialogue with Syria, and, instead, it takes small steps that it promises and implements piecemeal?
It is clear that Annan's report on al-Assad first means that Damascus is ready to repeat the experiment of complying with US demands to control the Syrian-Iraqi border, despite its disappointment regarding Washington's insistence on not paying the price of compliance. In the case of Lebanon after the Israeli war, the price or the Syrian demand is to invest in Resolution 1701, which stresses that the required objective of the Roadmap to put an end to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's missiles is a comprehensive, inclusive peace that does not change according to the internal equations of its countries. Damascus explicitly announced that it wants negotiations with Israel at this point. This means that it insists on negotiating with the Jewish State, which has not yet dealt with the results of its war on Lebanon. Militarily, Israel has not determined a buffer zone in the South void of Hezbollah's rockets; and politically, it has not yet contained the anger it faces at home, as it has not been able to claim victory thus far, except in terms of destruction.
Damascus now faces Israeli reluctance. Neither Ehud Olmert nor his political opponents see a need to abandon the occupation of the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria without any Lebanese or Palestinian cards, and especially without Iranian cards, at a time when the Americans and Israelis talk about the 'Syrian card in Tehran's hands'.
Damascus is like Tehran, which importunes from a different position: the position of power after making headway in its nuclear program. Now it reiterates its willingness to negotiate with the Americans. The Iranians see an opportunity at the height of tension with the Security Council, while the Syrians see an opportunity at the height of the internationalization of all Lebanese files.
In fact, the Americans, like the Israelis, consider the current stage an exceptional golden opportunity under the umbrella of an international consensus on more pressure on Syria and Iran to change their roles. For the confrontation now moves toward changing the maps of the region and reaching a final resolution. Kurdistan's flag is hoisted in northern Iraq, that is, the countdown for the division of this country has started, and a resolution for internationalizing Darfur launches a kind of conflict that may end in the division of Sudan.
As for the final map of Lebanon, Syria remains at the heart of the confrontation with the Americans and the UN, so long as its acceptance of border demarcation excludes the Shebaa Farms, and its stance toward Fouad Siniora's government puts off normalization between Beirut and Damascus until the government is toppled! This view is shared by a large group in Lebanon. The details also point out that it took several months for Damascus' response to Washington's insistence on controlling the Iraqi-Syrian border. Regardless of the possibilities whether the Lebanese government will accept the Syrian offer of joint military patrols along the border to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah and Palestinian factions, that is, to revive the military cooperation between the two countries; the decisive criterion of the sponsors of Resolution 1701 (the US and France) is that Damascus should quickly demarcate the border, establish diplomatic relations with Beirut during the Siniora government, and alter the political discourse directed to its figureheads. Some Lebanese believe that this discourse has been instigated to pounce on Beirut when the opportunity arises.
Syria may consider that the understanding with Annan is the beginning to break French-American inflexibility, which has been strengthened by international legitimacy through Resolution 1701. It may consider this understanding as the beginning of an opportunity it can seize before the noose tightens around the neck of its ally, Iran. However, the perplexing question is: what is in America's other hand? Is it Lebanon and dismantling courses in order to reach Syria at any price?

'Replicating' and Cleaning Gaza
Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 04/09/06//
The causes of the deadlock in the internal Palestinian situation are many. The foremost of these reasons is the ongoing Israeli war machine operating in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and seeking to destroy, abduct and kill. This, however, places the Palestinians, with their different categories, before the dilemma of squaring up to this killing machine. The causes also include the political siege, which has tightened on the government, as its members are now in Israeli prisons because they belong to Hamas. There is also the conflict between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, over how to face the persistent Israeli aggression, lift the siege imposed on the government and the Palestinians, and reach bases for resolving internal disputes.
In the darkness of the deadlock, the Palestinian situation takes a further step toward a serious unavoidable slide. However, what is more serious than potential internal fighting, the circumstances of which are available to cause it to explode, is the eruption of poverty in the face of all the Palestinian leaderships. This also includes the transition of the situation for the Palestinians, from simply a conflict over power, disbursement of funds, and negotiations with Israel, to how to provide a means of livelihood at present, an issue that is becoming complicated.
If the current strikes in the governmental bodies, protesting against the living standards and non-payment of salaries, may be used in conflicts between Fatah and Hamas, then this does not rule out that the political and financial blockade, since the Islamic movement came to power, is increasingly putting pressure on the residents of the autonomous areas. The solution is to exert effort to lift the siege, through consensus on the regulatory and political methodology that can open the way for the restoration of a normal economic situation in the Palestinian territories, and preserve the political right to establish an independent State.
While a possible internal Palestinian agreement loomed on the horizon through agreement on the prisoners' document, Israeli soldier Shalit was kidnapped at Karam Salem checkpoint, thereby reshuffling the cards in a serious way, and once more giving the Israeli war machine free rein in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented manner of unilateral withdrawal. This stalemate, which curbs reaching a solution to the problem, raises questions about the reasons that they were created. This also places Hamas and other related factions in the face of the key issue that it has not responded to so far, since its decision to participate in the legislative elections and the victory in these elections. Moreover, a series of disagreements, and sometimes paradoxes, took place between what the government was saying and what was happening on the ground.
The EU conditions for lifting the embargo are well-known. Internal Palestinian negotiations took place for weeks to reach consensus on the formula of the prisoners' document. During these weeks, tension and confrontations, suffering, unemployment and poverty rates increased. At a time when the Arab League (AL), backed unanimously by its members, is trying to refer to the Security Council the foundations of a comprehensive solution with Israel, statements made by Hamas' leadership confirm its intent to 'replicate' Hezbollah's experiment in the Gaza Strip. Regardless of the success of Arab efforts in the Security Council, and the fundamental difference between southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, the intention to 'replicate' the experiment, which does not have any chance of practical implementation, reflects a clear effort to obstruct Arab efforts.
However, while Palestinian trade unions and government officials are determined to go on strike in protest of not receiving salaries, Haniya regards the situation as a maneuver by Fatah, and instead of the workers on strike doing it, he rolls up his sleeves to clean Gaza streets.
In both cases, Hamas has not shown any practical or real concern for the context of the events. As someone trying to cure a chronic illness with sedatives, or trying to treat the common cold with surgery. Palestinian reality requires many things, certainly not including the destruction of the Arab Peace Initiative, established on the basis of the Arab League move toward the world. Nor does it require Haniya to personally clean the Gaza Strip's streets.

Senior security officer survives bomb attack
Roadside blasts kill 4 bodyguards near sidon

By Rym Ghazal and Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
BEIRUT/SIDON: Two roadside bombs went off outside the Southern city of Sidon Tuesday, killing four bodyguards of a senior Lebanese intelligence officer and wounding four others, including the officer.
Lieutenant Colonel Samir Shehade holds a senior post in the Interior Ministry's intelligence branch and played a leading role in Lebanon's investigation into the February 14, 2005, assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The incident came on the eve of the arrival of UN chief Kofi Annan's legal adviser, Nicolas Michel, who will discuss with Lebanese officials the formation of an international court to try Hariri's killers.
Tuesday's attack was the first bombing since May 26, when a leader of the Palestinian faction Islamic Jihad and his brother were killed in Sidon by a bomb planted in their car.
According to police reports, two bombs exploded simultaneously at around 10 a.m. Tuesday as two cars carrying Shehade and his companions passed through the coastal village of Rmeileh, near the Southern port town of Sidon, on their way to intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
Witnesses told The Daily Star that despite the fact that Shehade had been pulled out of the car with shrapnel wounds all over his body, he was "conscious and seemed in control." Shehade was taken to the Hammoud Hospital in Sidon and is currently under the protection of security officers.
Acting Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat told The Daily Star that Shehade was in a "stable and good condition."
"There were two bombs placed 4 meters from each other that appear to have been triggered simultaneously by remote control," the minister said.
Sergeant Wissam Harb, one of the intelligence officer's bodyguards, was killed instantly in the blast. Three other bodyguards, Sergeant Chehab Hassan Aoun, First Sergeant Namir Yassin and First Sergeant Omar Hajj Shehade, were seriously wounded and later died in hospital.
The wounded, in addition to Shehade, were identified as First Sergeant Zaher Qadeh, army soldier Jihad al-Dabit and Ahmad Rabeeh, an engineer working on nearby roadworks.
Asked whether the latest bombing could be linked to a series of attacks dating back to October 2004, Fatfat said: "No, this one was different. It was more professional and seems to be an isolated incident." Police reports said Shehade was traveling in a white "decoy" Nissan Pathfinder followed by a black Pathfinder. The black Nissan suffered a direct hit, killing all passengers.
During a news conference held after an emergency meet-ing with his security chiefs, Fatfat said the attack was "a message targeting the security apparatus that has been making great progress in the past year" into Hariri's murder.
Shehade had been coordinating with the UN investigation commission probing Hariri's assassination and was directly involved in the arrests of the four former heads of the country's security apparatus currently awaiting trial in the 2005 murder.
He also interrogated a discredited Syrian witness, Husam Taher Husam.
Fatfat speculated that the attack could be linked to the report due out next Friday from the UN probe's lead investigator, Serge Brammertz.
"We have to be careful not to turn this incident into a political campaign," he said.
"I refuse to make any accusations at this point, especially given the sensitive period Lebanon is going through after the war," Fatfat added.
However, the acting interior minister said preventing "infiltration" during the recent war with Israel had been difficult and spoke of the "difficulty of dealing with arms outside of the Palestinian refugee camps." Fatfat repeatedly said the attack had nothing to do with Hizbullah.
"Security officials, especially those in intelligence, are under constant threat and have been targeted in the past," he added.
Holding up two pieces of shrapnel from the crime scene, Fatfat said the two bombs were filled with "hundreds of pieces of shrapnel" and had been "locally produced and carried out with great precision."
"Luck saved Shehade," the minister added.
Security sources reported a series of arrests of Palestinian and Syrian nationals at the bomb site who had been selling lottery tickets, a claim dismissed by Fatfat.
"No arrests have been made. Only witnesses' testimonies have been taken," he said.
In addition to the Hariri file, security sources said that Shehade had recently been threatened over his handling of a file on Al-Qaeda suspects in Lebanon. The intelligence officer had taped the threats, made by Syrian officials and Al-Qaeda members, they added.
Security sources also dismissed any links to a similar attack on December 12, 2005, that killed prominent journalist and MP Gebran Tueni. Both incidents involved roadside bombs, the sources said, but very different devices.

Legal expert says 1923 maps show Shebaa Farms in Lebanese territory
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
BEIRUT: The United Nations is interested in reaching an agreement between Lebanon and Syria on the Shebaa Farms, UN political affairs representative Julie Tetar said Tuesday. Tetar's comments came during a meeting about the disputed territory held at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut.
During the discussion, legal expert Shafik Masri highlighted the fact that the Lebanese Constitution adopted border lines approved by the French and British parties in 1923.
"According to those lines, the Shebaa Farms are part of the Lebanese region of Hasbaya," Masri said.
"International law stipulates that two major criteria are needed to prove the state's sovereignty over a certain area: intention and will from one side and a true practice of sovereignty on the other. The Lebanese state had been dealing with the Shebaa Farms continuously since 1926 ... According to international law, the Syrian approval conveyed by some officials is enough, on the condition that it is approved by the Lebanese government."
Organized by the Antelias Cultural Movement and the office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Lebanon, the meeting was attended by representatives from the German, Greek and Saudi Arabian embassies, as well as several political and academic figures.
FES was founded in 1925 as a political legacy of Germany's first democratically elected president, Friedrich Ebert. The Lebanese office was established in 1968 and is dedicated to "developing and strengthening democratic structures at the political and social levels."
- The Daily Star

Nasrallah: Build a strong state, then discuss arms
Resistance chief says his party has been 'filling a governmental vacuum'

Daily Star staff
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
BEIRUT: Lebanon will be one step closer to resolving the issue of Hizbullah's arms once a strong government capable of protecting the people makes its presence felt, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says.
In an interview with As-Safir published Tuesday, the resistance leader said Hizbullah had "filled a governmental vacuum," but vowed that once "a strong and steadfast government capable of providing guarantees and protecting the people is established, then this could constitute a step toward determining the fate of Hizbullah's arms." Nasrallah said it should be a "national priority" to preserve the resistance's recent victory over the Israeli forces, but cautioned against a "premeditated" plan to "tarnish the image of victory gradually by means of provocation until it is permanently destroyed."
He said it was the responsibility of "all Lebanese who consider themselves partners in this victory" to guard this victory against potential ruin from "confessional, political and sectarian corridors."
"The Israeli Army that was considered a legend has turned into a model of failure, loss and confusion," he added.
Nasrallah said that despite Israel's powerful arsenal, the Jewish state failed to achieve its declared goals during the 34-day war: specifically the destruction of the resistance, its military infrastructure and arsenal, and unconditional recovery of two soldiers captured on July 12.
Asked if Israel would resume its attacks on Lebanon, Nasrallah said: "This step would take a long time, although I am not able to deny the possibility of another war."
"However, if Israel were to launch an operation against Lebanon, it would now think twice [before doing so], especially if the internal Lebanese arena becomes secure with the deployment of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL and if the arms of the resistance that vanquished Israel remain untouched," he added.Asked whether the resistance would continue to fight for the occupied Shebaa Farms, Nasrallah said now was not the time for military operations.
"We have just emerged from a war and we are not in a rush to carry out operations in the Farms, but recovering them remains our right and no one should provide free security guarantees to Israel," he added.
There will be no armed resistance south of the Litani River, he said, stressing that the Lebanese Army would be responsible for countering any Israeli violations of Lebanon's sovereignty once it is deployed along the border.
Hizbullah would then content itself with "backing up" the army, he added.
The resistance will maintain its arsenal of rockets, he said, "as it did between 1996 and 2006." But he vowed that the weaponry would not be used "except in the case of vast military aggression against Lebanon."
His party would have "no problems" with the army or UNIFIL troops because "the resistance is honest, disciplined and cherishes its commitments," Nasrallah said. "The government was clear when it tasked the army with defending the country and not disarming the resistance, spying on it or raiding the hideouts where it stores its weapons," he added.
Nasrallah called for the resumption of the national dialogue to discuss and formulate a national defense strategy "based on the latest experience of war with Israel." He said Hizbullah was open to mending ties with Arab states that had been critical of the party during the war, notably Saudi Arabia. "Time will prove that Hizbullah was the biggest movement toward independence in Lebanon's history," he said.
Nasrallah denied allegations that he was presenting himself as a leader of the Arab and Islamic nation, or Lebanon, and praised the roles of Sunni religious leaders throughout the Arab world that had "succeeded in consolidating the Islamic arena and thwarting attempts of confessional division."
He also thanked President Emile Lahoud, Premier Fouad Siniora and Speaker Nabih Berri for their support, adding that he had also maintained contact with MP Saad Hariri. Nasrallah said he was also open to re-establishing contacts with MP Walid Jumblatt, his most vocal critic, and highlighted his party's bond with MP Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. - The Daily Star

Learning Lebanon's lessons, once again
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Lebanon is in the peculiar situation of having to rebuild after the 34-day war between Hizbullah and Israel while it is still in the process of rebuilding after the 15-year-long Civil War of 1975-90. Will this time around be different, and not lead to another war in a few years? Will the political balance between Lebanon's 18 officially recognized confessional and sectarian groups regain sufficient equilibrium and stability to drive a long-term economic revival anchored in serious political reform?
To find out, I went to the person who had literally written the book on this subject. By coincidence, as the latest war broke out I had been completing a recently published book about war and economics in Lebanon by the respected Lebanese economist and American University of Beirut professor Samir Makdisi, who also once served as minister of national economy in 1992.
I asked him if this summer's war had caused him to reconsider any of his conclusions from the Civil War experience. He said that this war, and the political events that had preceded it, only reconfirmed the central thesis of his book: that balancing the needs of all citizens in Lebanon's multi-confessional system requires serious political reforms that can generate better governance and a new political culture; these in turn would allow Lebanon to tackle the significant challenges it faces in fields like environmental degradation, debt, unemployment, corruption, public sector inefficiency, and shortcomings in urban and rural planning, to name only the most obvious.
Makdisi's book, "The Lessons of Lebanon: the economics of war and development" (I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 2004) provides a valuable combination of political and economic analyses of Lebanon before, during and after the Civil War years. The dual focus on technical issues of finance, trade, regulatory systems, exchange rates and growth, alongside the larger social and political context of Lebanon in the half-century from the 1950s to 2000, is especially useful now - because Lebanon's post-war capacity to overcome adversity again relies heavily on progress on both the economic and political fronts.
Makdisi's prognosis is mixed. In his book, he notes that sectarianism locally and constant foreign influences were two reasons why Lebanon's central government never achieved the sort of diligence that is so evident in the private sector and civil society in this country. After the Civil War, these factors led to "the absence of a coherent long-term national policy that focused on the public good."
"Whatever its merits," he wrote, "the finely tuned sharing of political power among Lebanon's religious communities is inherently discriminatory." He called the political system a "constrained" democracy that is imbued with potential instability. This inherently unstable system always required external hands to stabilize it, the most recent one being Syria until last year.
The consequence of such a system is "an unstable political equilibrium" that will continue to prevail unless its underlying reasons are properly addressed. Among the consequences of this, he wrote a few years ago, are two things we have since witnessed in recent years: many talented young Lebanese will leave the country to find work abroad, and a system that swings between stable and unstable periods will always need external hands to balance it.
The post-Taif era "has not witnessed the creation of genuine political stability or, for that matter, better governance," he wrote, adding presciently that "open national dialogue on how to resolve major political and economic issues ... which seeks broad political consensus has not been a Lebanese tradition."
I asked him if the national dialogue that was launched earlier this year by the speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, corrected this flawed legacy. He replied that the dialogue may not have made major gains because it was conducted by leaders who had vested interests in the "consociational democracy" system as it has long operated - sharing the spoils among sectarian groups according to established patterns of weight and influence.
The national dialogue will succeed only when it does what the Europeans did in the 1980s - bring in others in society (private sector leaders, academics, technocrats, activists) whose expertise can help generate a truly new system that is at once more stable, equitable, prosperous and sustainable, he said.
The events of the past two years confirm many of the key points Makdisi makes in his book. These are more relevant than ever today, as Lebanon once again faces the reality that successfully rebuilding economically demands a parallel political reconfiguration.
"One lesson of this year's war," he told me, "is that Lebanon cannot be totally at the mercy of outside powers, whether from the East or the West, or else we risk inviting civil war again. We must work for a new political understanding that acknowledges the dangers of external interference. Iraq sadly is a good example of what can happen when solutions are imposed from the outside."
What should the Lebanese do now, as rebuilding defines the land once again? He replied that, "our response should be a greater effort to manage our readjusted sectarian and confessional system in the short run, so that in the long run it moves toward a truly secular, liberal, and democratic political system. Such a system must safeguard the rights of all citizens equally, and not sacrifice the public interest for private interests."
Sensible thoughts, from a seasoned son of the land itself.
**Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary in THE DAILY STAR.