World Council For The Cedars Revolution

New Series of (DID YOU KNOW!) By Tony Safa

2007-01-26T04:49:00.000-08:00

New Series of (DID YOU KNOW!) By Tony Safa

Pro Syrian group accusing March 14 of arming themselves and letting member of el Qaeeda enter Northern Lebanon.

Did you know that aside from the Lebanese-Israeli borders, Lebanon has only 1 other border, the Lebanese-Syrian borders. Since Israel borders have long been closed, geographically the ONLY possible route for weapon or terrorist groups into Lebanon is through SYRIA.

Ironically the same pro Syrian groups in Lebanon reject all effort to control the Lebanese-Syrian borders (the deployment of UNIFIL troops…)

Is it coincidence ????
Iran claimed to defeat US in Lebanon

Syria accused Lebanon government as agents serving the western world and Israel
Lahoud confirm that 8 Adar groups are the allies of Iran Syria as they share the same views and he would step down only if Aoun to take his place.

Hassan Nosralla accused the Lebanese government as American puppets calling it (the Feltman's government)

Naaiem Qasem chanting death to America in downtown Beirut and 8 Adar including Tayyar repeat after him

Aoun accused both Bush and France president of working against the Lebanese opposition 8 Adar and the Lebanese government as agents to foreign countries. Aoun also claimed that The Iranian ambassador and Syria are not getting involved in domestic Lebanese affair!!!

Tayyar MP. Nabil Naoula blamed the Lebanese government for not demanding Israel compensation after the July war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Did you know that according to United Nation Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and Hezbollah arm presence is Lebanon is illegal. in addition, the United Nation hold Hezbollah (Tayyar ally) responsible for starting the July war.

Tayyar, SSNP (Syrian Social National Party), Marada, Hezbollah... (all 8 Adar) have protested in front of the Lebanese justice system demanding the truth in Pierre gemayel investigation and all other March 14 martyrs!!

Did you know that 1 week ago the Lebanese justice system have arrested 7 members of SSNP who will be sentenced to life in prison for attempting to murder Martyr Pierre Gemeyal and his father in North Lebanon (sheka)...!!!!! in addition, the militia of Hezbollah has security areas in Lebanon where Lebanese police are not permited...

Did u know SSNP members arrested in the killing of Bachir and Pierre Gemayel !!!

Is it coincidental?
The same day the Iranian Atomic negotiator, Ali Larijani, visited Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah announced that “Saudi Arabia's efforts in Lebanon are constructive and that they “Hezbollah” are not against Paris 3”

A day after Tayyar announced: “we hope Paris 3 would be successful”.
Did you know that both Hezbollah and Tayyar have totally rejected Paris 3 up to Ali Larijani's visit to Saudi Arabia?

Hezbollah, who rejects the infidels' money, and promise to rebuild Lebanon from 'Holly money', apparently, is now accepting other currency…!!!

Tayyar, accusing the government of corruption and loyal to foreign countries, is hoping the same government get more money!!!!

Both Tayyar and Hezbollah hope what they call the unconstitutional, corrupt and Feltmen’s government gets more money!!!!

In addition, Hezbollah and Tayyar are helping the government by running an open protest in downtown Beirut shutting down business and threatening of shutting down the airport and all vital roads…

Tony Safa Independent Political Advisor

Hizballah Protests Meant to Weaken Western Resolve Against Iran, Expert Phares Says

2007-01-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

Hizballah Protests Meant to Weaken Western Resolve Against Iran, Expert Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
January 24, 2007

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Iran and Syria are funding Hizballah's "urban intimidation" campaign in Lebanon to crush the emerging democracy and weaken Western resolve to stop Iran's nuclear program, a U.S.-based expert said on Wednesday.

Lebanon was paralyzed on Tuesday by a Hizballah-led nationwide general strike and protests that blocked roads with rubble and burning tires, closing off the capital and virtually shutting down the country's international airport.

Three people were killed in violence that broke out between protestors supporting Hizballah and its allies in their attempts to bring down the government and others who support the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

Hizballah and its political allies quit the government late last year in an attempt to force it into giving Hizballah enough power to wield a veto over decisions it does not like.

The strike was called off on Tuesday night because it had achieved its purposes, a spokesman for what is being called "the opposition" was quoted as saying. But he warned of more protest actions to come.

Addressing his nation, Siniora said that the country would stand together "against intimidation" and would "confront sedition for the sake of Lebanon."

The U.S. State Department released a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" about the developments and blamed Syrian allied factions for the trouble.

"These factions are trying to use violence, threats and intimidation to impose their political will on Lebanon," said spokesman Sean McCormack.

Experts have said that Lebanon is a "microcosm" for all the conflicts in the Middle East. As such, it is on the front lines in the clash between Western pro-Democracy forces and Iranian Islamic extremist forces.

Dr. Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Cybercast News Service in an email that Hizballah has two goals in stepping up the protests, which began late last year with a sit-in by government buildings.

"The urban intimidation unleashed by Hizballah aims at blocking the airport, ports and main roads so that civil society is put under pressure," said Phares. The plan was instigated and funded by Tehran and Damascus to crush the Cedars Revolution and emerging democracy in Lebanon, he said.

The "Cedars Revolution" refers to the popular pro-Democracy movement that spontaneously came together following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri two years ago. Many Lebanese believe Syria was behind the assassination.

The movement, which includes most Lebanese Christians, Druze, Sunni and some Shiite Muslims, succeeded in forcing Syria to withdraw troops from the country that had been entrenched there for years.

In the "bigger picture," the Hizballah-led protest can be seen as a "pre-emptive strike" by the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Lebanese democracy in an attempt to weaken U.S. and European resolve to act against Iran's nuclear program, Phares said.

'Stage to stage'

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, President Bush said that during the past two years, "the enemy" had reacted fiercely to the "desire for liberty" in the Middle East, including Lebanon.

"A thinking enemy watched, ... adjusted their tactics, and in 2006, they struck back," Bush told the nation.

"In Lebanon, assassins took the life of Pierre Gemayel, a prominent participant in the Cedars Revolution. And Hizballah terrorists, with support from Syria and Iran, sowed conflict in the region and are seeking to undermine Lebanon's legitimately elected government," Bush said.

According to Phares, Hizballah has moved from "stage to stage" since the Cedar Revolution began in March 2005 as part of a strategically "well-prepared" attempt to take over the country.

The Syrian-Iranian networks in Iran launched a political assassination campaign of outspoken critics of Syrian involvement in the country. Last winter, Hizballah "faked" a dialogue with other political factions while preparing for war.

In July, Hizballah ignited a war with Israel when it abducted two Israeli soldiers and fired rockets at Israeli civilian centers in an attempt to shift pressure away from Iran and strike a blow at the Lebanese government.

Since then, Hizballah has preparing itself for war against the Lebanese government; making preparations to side with Iran if a confrontation erupts with the U.S., Europe and moderate Arab states; and concentrating on ensuring that United Nations peacekeepers are only deployed in southern Lebanon, Phares said.

United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon have not been allowed to deploy along the Syrian-Lebanese border through which they receive weapons from Iran, Israeli officials have said.

Beginning in November, Hizballah and its pro-Syrian allies launched a "terror campaign" with the assassination of Gemayel and intimidation against the government in November 2006. On Tuesday, Hizballah waged its first day of "urban terror" against Lebanese civil society and government, Phares said.

Tuesday's trouble came as French President Jacques Chirac prepared to host a donors' conference on Lebanon's behalf. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due in Paris for that conference, and a senior U.S. official said here this week that the U.S. is prepared to contribute a "considerable sum of resources" to rebuilding Lebanon. (CNSNews.com)

“…Black Tuesday: Hezbollah’s state besieges Lebanon…”

2007-01-24T16:18:00.000-08:00

“…Black Tuesday: Hezbollah’s state besieges Lebanon…”

On January 24, Al Mustaqbal, a pro-government, Hariri owned daily, said: “Yesterday is called Black Tuesday. Hezbollah’s smoke covered Lebanon and besieged the country from North to South, from the Bekaa to the coast. It turned out that the strike was nothing but a terrorist action that took the Lebanese people as hostages in the hands of the militias of Hezbollah and its affiliates…, one which burned tires, blocked the roads, smashed stores and the cars of the citizens in the name of the peaceful, democratic and civil strike which they talked about.

“Congratulations to you Hezbollah for this memorable day in which those you call the “men of Allah” proved that their primary enemy is not Israel but Lebanon with all its axes, components and free and proud people. In a few hours they managed to accomplish what Israel couldn’t in 33 days during the July war and emptied all the hatred they had in them. It is a day of victory for the Lebanese people. Congratulations to you Hezbollah on your leadership.

“This coup will remain engraved in the memories of the Lebanese people who were truly amazed by what they saw in terms of civilized [action], of courage and poise exerted by your men as they were holding the citizens hostages and preventing them from seeking their livelihood, the employees from reaching their places of work, the sick from reaching the hospitals and the children from reaching their schools. Thank you Hezbollah. It is truly the “ending” which you promised to the Lebanese people a few days ago. We only hope that it will not be the end of the beginning for Lebanon that will make January 23, 2007 like April 13, 1975.

“Thank you, the state of Hezbollah, which has “spread” in the regions and the bodies and tools of which have claimed the lives of three people in Tripoli and wounded 133 others. And finally, thank you Hezbollah, for bragging along with its affiliates about “completing their escalation step at this stage with great success”, announcing that they achieved “the desired goal”, and threatening to adopt “different forms of protest that will have a greater impact than what was adopted until this day”. Amid this climate, PM Fu’ad Al-Sanyurah assured that “we are standing together against intimidation and strife and are defending the interest of all the Lebanese”.

“He called on those partaking in the actions to “be aware of where you are wanted to be led, far from your real interest and that of the nation”. He considered in a press conference held yesterday at the Government House that “the strike has turned into practices and harassments which have exceeded all limits and brought back to mind the crisis of strife, war and tutorship”. He assured that “protesting by cutting the roads, assaulting property and threatening of continuing the escalation, is an assault against the citizens and democracy and predicts great dangers that are no secret to anyone”.

“The prime minister called for the return to dialogue in the context of the institutions and demanded the issuance of a decree to hold an extraordinary parliamentary session… In the meantime, the head of the “Democratic Gathering”, MP Walid Junblatt, said that “the issue is no longer that of besieging the Government House”. He said to Al Mustaqbal that: “Today we are witnessing the besieging of Beirut. The Beirut of Gamal Abdul Nasser and Rafik Al-Hariri. Beirut is besieged by the Syrian regime and Hezbollah and if the army doesn’t open the roads and lift the siege imposed on Beirut, I declare today that we are all detainees and are besieged in Beirut.

“Hence, I hope that the army realizes the seriousness of the siege imposed on the capital”… The March 14 Forces called upon all the Lebanese in a statement issued yesterday following their meeting “to defend their nation, their independence and freedom and to defend their legitimate government in the face of the insurrectionists who are carrying out a Syrian-Iranian plan aiming to undermine the international tribunal and its ruling in advance, as well as to undermine the Taif rule and its constitution”.

“The statement that was related by MP Wael Abu Faour from the Democratic Gathering after a meeting with PM Al-Sanuyrah at the Government House, confirmed the “determination of the March 14 Forces to protect these principles and lift the siege imposed on Beirut”. He called on the army and the security bodies to “perform their duties in this direction because if they don’t, the Lebanese people in all the regions are invited to be prepared for a historical stance to open the roads leading to the capitals”.

“In a message to the Lebanese people, the Mufti of the Republic Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Qabbani, said that: “What the country is witnessing in terms of vandalism, mayhem and the violation of security, public safety and properties has surpassed the imagination and has exceeded all the limits of public freedoms. This has started to [prefigure] serious consequences, the most dangerous of which are those affecting civil peace”… He then reiterated that: “The attempt to topple the government through the street and the besieging of Beirut through violence, threats and oppression will not be allowed to pass by that easily regardless of the price, as God is my witness”.

“The tools of the terrorist coup had started their action at the break of dawn, whereby they started unloading the sand, burning tires and placing cement obstacles, garbage containers and wrecked cars on the entrances of the capital, as well as in its streets and neighborhoods and along the coastal road in the North, the South and the Beirut-Bekaa road… In the meantime, dozens of militia elements started wrecking the cars and the shops in a barbaric way and started provoking the safe citizens, which lead to confrontations with sticks and stone in more than one region.

“While confrontations and acts of vandalism were concentrated in several Christian areas, the Maroun Ar-Ras front moved to Jdeideh, Nahr Al-Mot, Nahr Al-Kalb, Tariq Al-Jdideh, Corniche Al-Mazraa, As-Siyad roundabout, Hazmieh, Rawcheh and Shtoura where Hezbollah elements shot at supporters of the Future movement and wounded three of them…” - Al Mustaqbal, Lebanon Click here for source

“…Larijani transmitted to Riyadh Damascus’s refusal to ratify tribunal…”

2007-01-24T16:17:00.000-08:00

“…Larijani transmitted to Riyadh Damascus’s refusal to ratify tribunal…”

Al Hayat, an independent Saudi owned newspaper, reported in its January 24 issue about the latest developments in the Lebanese political situation. The newspaper wrote: “Last Friday, those calling the Saudi ambassador Abdul-Aziz Khojah were still wagering on the success of the agreement on a draft for a solution to the political crisis that would end with the signature of the major factions, whether in the government or in the opposition, to be announced in a parliamentary session to be called for by the parliamentary speaker Nabih Birri. The leaders of the majority and the Prime Minister Fu’ad Al-Sanyurah had expressed their approval of the draft to ambassador Khojah who was asked for more time by the leaders of Hezbollah, who were negotiating with him along with speaker Birri, until last Thursday night in order to convince the head of the Free Patriotic Movement General Michel Aoun to sign the draft because he had insisted on including in the draft a section promising early parliamentary elections.”

The newspaper added: “The leaders of Hezbollah had postponed their reply from Tuesday the 16th first to Thursday and then to Friday. But Hezbollah’s answer came on Friday night in the interview with the secretary general of Hezbollah Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah on the Al-Manar television. Sayyid Nasrallah placed a condition that any solution should stipulate that the program of the national unity government must include a section promising early parliamentary elections…Khojah was surprised by Nasrallah’s statements and considered that they blew the draft out of the water especially as Nasrallah’s terms were accompanied with the announcement of the protests planned by the opposition…Al Hayat followed the communications and the developments that led to the dropping of the draft. The communications had started to accelerate after the return of Hezbollah’s delegation from Saudi Arabia where it was advised by the Saudi king to open up to Al-Sanyurah and the head of Future movement MP Sa’d Al-Hariri, with ambassador Khojah tasked with helping…”

The newspaper continued: “The discussions centered on a formula that ensures the ratification of the international tribunal through a team that studies the remarks of the opposition concerning the draft statute for the tribunal which would then be ratified by an expanded government on the basis of 19 ministers for the majority, 10 for the opposition, and one neutral minister to be appointed with the approval of both teams. The final draft centered on these two principles with the agreement set to be announced in a parliamentary session after long communications away from the light between ambassador Khojah and the concerned factions between the 8th and 14th of March in which Hezbollah suggested ideas that were amended…Meanwhile, on the 15th, the secretary general of the Supreme Iranian national security council Ali Larijani ended his visit to Saudi Arabia where he had reached an agreement with its leaders about hastening the solution for the Lebanese crisis and had offered to go to Beirut to market the solution based on the 19-10-1 formula with the ruling team choosing the neutral minister out of a list of five names suggested by Birri…”

The newspaper added: “On Sunday Larijani went to Damascus where he was preceded by a delegation from the Hezbollah leadership that met with Syrian officials and then met with him. The sources announced that that the Iranian official’s communications in Damascus revealed that the Syrians rejected the draft for the agreement prepared by Khojah between the majority and the minority. He also heard some hardliner talk about the inclusion of the ratification of the tribunal in any deal…” - Al Hayat, United Kingdom
Click here for source

“Main factions in opposition present, smaller factions absent”

2007-01-24T16:16:00.000-08:00

“Main factions in opposition present, smaller factions absent”

Al Hayat, an independent Saudi owned newspaper, reported in its January 24 issue about the protest implemented by the opposition yesterday in Lebanon. The newspaper wrote: “The black smoke which hid the sky over Lebanon yesterday might be a pointer to where the general situation is going if it wasn’t replaced soon by white smoke which seems to be facing difficulties in rising especially as leaders in the opposition confirmed to Al Hayat that what happened so far is nothing compared to what will happen later on if the government and the forces of the majority insisted on closing all the doors in the face of a political settlement. But the quantities of black smoke didn’t hide the political scene of the opposition in the light of the absence of some of the forces of the opposition who contradicted their own statements about their preparations for the escalation.”

The newspaper added: “Except for the effective presence of the supporters of Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement and to a lesser degree the supporters of the Amal movement and the Al-Muradah movement headed by the ex minister Suleiman Franjiyyeh, the other forces with their varied names decided to absent themselves from this escalatory protest while yet other forces such as the Nasseri movement in Saida and the supporters of the head of the popular coalition Elie Skaf in Zahle were not able to control their areas of influence and had to back down for more than one reason. While the reasons behind the absence of Al-Tashnaq party, one of the allies of General Aoun, from the movement after it had made promises in front of its allies to participate heavily on the ground, Skaf, who had personally asked his supporters to heed the call for the general strike, made a mistake when he used some of the symbols of the previous political period to convince the owners of the shops to close down...”

The newspaper continued: “What took place on the ground throughout Lebanon revealed the weakness of these forces and their inability to drag the street along with their attitudes. The opposition will have to re-evaluate its calculations, not regarding the escalatory protests, but towards taking into account the fragility of the support of some personalities and parties that issued statements that do not befit the number of their supporters…” - Al Hayat, United Kingdom
Click here for source

“…Saudi call to Iran ends strike... & Prince Bandar heading to Tehran”

2007-01-24T16:15:00.000-08:00

“…Saudi call to Iran ends strike... & Prince Bandar heading to Tehran”

On January 24, Al Arabiya.net, a Saudi-owned online news service, reported that: “A knowledgeable source revealed that Saudi Arabia interfered to end the clashes which emerged in Lebanon due to the strike of the opposition and the blocking of the roads, according to what was reported on Al Arabiya channel on Wednesday 24-1-2007. The sources assured to Al Arabiya that a call was made by Riyadh to the Iranian government calling upon it to show more cooperation in the region, which Tehran had previously promised to do, in order to contain the serious deterioration of the situation.

“They added that Iran asked Hezbollah yesterday to end the strike which entailed the besieging of Beirut and the increase of the tensions between the conflicting parties. In the context of seeking a solution to the Lebanese crisis Saudi Monarch King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz sent Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the secretary-general of the National Security Council, to Tehran to meet with Supreme Guide Ali Khamanei. The two countries recently witnessed intensive contacts, whereby the head of the Iranian national security council, Ali Larijani, made three visits to Saudi Arabia within a short period of time, one of which was following a secret visit made by Larijani to Syria…” - Al Arabiya.net, Middle East
Click here for source

Interview Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili, Hizbullah is an Integral Part of the Iranian Intelligence Apparatus

2007-01-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

Former Hizbullah Sec-Gen: Hizbullah is an Integral Part of Iranian Intelligence; The Abduction of the Israeli Soldiers Was an 'Unsuccessful Adventure'

In an interview with the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, former Hizbullah secretary-general Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili saidthat Hizbullah was part of Iranian intelligence, and called the July 12, 2006 abduction of two Israeli soldiers, which sparked the July-August 2006 war with Israel, an "unsuccessful adventure."

The following are excerpts from the interview. [1]

Hizbullah is an Integral Part of the Iranian Intelligence Apparatus

Question: "You were formerly Hizbullah secretary-general. Is the [situation in Lebanon] within the strategic framework of Hizbullah? Does Hizbullah have an outlined and prepared plan that is being implemented today? Why do you think Hizbullah has become a source of anxiety for the Lebanese? "

Al-Tufeili: "It wasn't like this in the beginning. Hizbullah's activity was limited to resistance [operations]... But, unfortunately, the problem has developed today to the point where they have succeeded in changing Hizbullah from a resistance force into a tool to be used in [whatever] direction they want."

Question: "Does this mean that Hizbullah does not make its own decisions, and that its orders come from outside [Lebanon]?"

Al-Tufeili: "Yes, Hizbullah is a tool, and it is an integral part of the Iranian intelligence apparatus. Unfortunately, all the elements in the [Lebanese] arena have become tools, and take orders from outside [Lebanon]..."

Abducting the Soldiers Was "An Unsuccessful Adventure"
Question: "Can you see any justification for the July [2006] war after southern Lebanon was liberated in 2000?"

Al-Tufeili: "Following the abduction of the Israeli soldier [Gilad Shalit] in Gaza, and the enemy's response to that operation, [i.e.] the shelling, and the abduction of Palestinian ministers and MPs... I was amazed when Hizbullah announced that it had abducted two Israeli soldiers...

"[Israel is] an enemy we know. It has plundered our land, murdered our people, and slaughtered our children. [Was it reasonable] for us to carry out an operation like this after we have seen the response to it in Gaza and in occupied Palestine? [Was it reasonable for us to carry out such an operation] when we know that Israel attacks us, murders our children, and destroys our country [even] without us giving it excuses to do so...? I think that any sensible person could have assessed the enemy's possible response to the abduction operation... On the one hand, they [Hizbullah] are saying, 'Had we known what the reaction would be, we would not have abducted the soldiers.' On the other hand, they are giving the Israeli enemy a pretext to launch aggression against us...

"When we look at the causes of the war, there is no choice but to [admit] this. If [the war] had gotten worse, it could have led to the loss of the [entire] country... Are we allowed to destroy our country [just] so we can say that we abducted two soldiers - when we all knew what the magnitude of the Israeli response [would be]? What happened was an unsuccessful adventure, and there is no escaping the fact that those who carried it out will bear the responsibility for it..."
Iran Must Stop Using Hizbullah for Its Own Aims in Its Struggle with the West

Al-Tufeili: "[Furthermore], why was... the South [Lebanese] front the only one left burning, and why was Lebanon the only arena of bloodshed? Why weren't all fronts opened?... Why has Hizbullah become a tool [serving] individual interests that have nothing to do with the resistance? In my opinion, the issue is broader than the local [context], and is connected to the regional struggle - but it is being carried out by a local tool [i.e. Hizbullah]...

"After all that has happened, I hope that Iran will change from an element seeking its political interests in the region [into an element acting for the] liberation of Jerusalem - if Iran indeed wants to liberate Jerusalem as it claims. [It must stop] using the resistance [i.e. Hizbullah] for its own aims in its struggle with the West..."

Hizbullah is Leading the Country to Civil War

Al-Tufeili continued: "Until not long ago, the March 8 Group [a term for the Lebanese opposition] was a partner in the government, and participated in parliamentary elections.

"The March 14 [Forces] did not mislead [the Lebanese opposition]... They are openly allied with of the U.S. and France; they say openly 'We do not agree to weapons in Lebanon, except for those of the military.' They are demanding that Hizbullah hand over its arms, but in the framework of [internal Lebanese] dialogue, not by force. [They are also saying] that they want an [international] court [for the Al-Hariri assassination]. All this they said prior to the elections as well as after the elections, before they became ministers and after they became ministers.

"So where is their treason? Whom have they betrayed? Their position is clear; this is their plan, and [Hizbullah] entered into [an alliance] with them [just] for the election campaign... Yesterday, [Hizbullah] had an alliance with them, and gave the March 14 Forces a majority in parliament and in the government, and had no dispute or problems with them. [Hizbullah considered this alliance] to be for the good of the homeland.

"Today, [Hizbullah] is leading the country to civil war, in order to obtain a third [of the government]... If this third is so important, then [Hizbullah] must be punished, because it itself was the one who gave it to the [March 14 Forces in the first place]. If it is not important, then Hizbullah is leading us to civil war, to destruction and to the ruin of the country, for no good reason..."

I Do Not Believe Those Who Say They Are Against Civil War Yet Behave in a Way that Will Lead to Civil War

"I find no [justification] for us having reached such a situation... This is how wars begin. What we are seeing today in Lebanon is the preparation of an emotional, popular, military, media, and security climate [leading] towards a war that might break out at any moment. I don't believe anyone who says he is not interested in [civil] war, [yet] behaves in this manner. This is the behavior of someone who wants war."

"Iran is the Main Nerve in the Activity Today in Lebanon"

Referring to Syria's role in the events in Lebanon, Al-Tufeili said: "Syria is undoubtedly Iran's ally. It has undoubtedly been harmed by the March 14 Forces, and by the establishment of the [international] court. Thus, it is part of this battle; but it is not the most influential factor...

"Iran is the main nerve in the activity today in Lebanon. All Hizbullah activity [is financed] by Iranian funds. Syria has an important role, but Iran is the main and primary support of [the Lebanese opposition]. On the other side, the U.S. is supporting the March 14 Forces."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Al-Siyassa (Kuwait), December 14, 2006.

NASRALLAH IN HIS OWN WORDS!

2007-01-17T18:09:00.000-08:00

PART 1 - "WE WILL NOT ALLOW CHRISTIANS IN LEBANON"

Hidden agenda of Dictatorship Rule surfaces!

Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah Caught in a speech back in 1982 saying that HE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY CHRISTIANS TO BE IN LEBANON OR BYBLOS OR KESROUAN OR THE MIDDLE EAST, FOR THE CHRISTIANS WERE BROUGHT IN BY THE BYZANTINES TO BE A THORN IN OUR SIDE.

He calls the Christians a bunch of nighttime militant squatters that came and stole our land.

[ DOWNLOAD/LISTEN HERE ]

PART 2 - Lest we forget this story:

“It is the wish of Hezbollah to one day establish an Islamic Republic [in Lebanon] because Hezbollah believes that the establishment of an Islamic government is the only way to achieve stability in society, and it is the only way to resolve social differences, even in a society consisting of diverse minorities”. (Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an August 2006 interview with the Iranian magazine “Risalat Al-Hussein” (The Message of Al-Hussein), and as quoted in Al-Shiraa Magazine, Dec. 18, 2006).

John Hajjar from the World Council for the Cedar's Revolution, Speech at Memorial Mass

2007-01-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Liturgy mass in memory of Sheikh Pierre Gemayel and MP Gebran Tueni

Date: January 14, 2007

Place: Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon Maronite Church Hall, Boston, MA

· Welcome. My name is John Hajjar and I’m pleased that this remembrance is so well attended. I know we are all here to pay tribute to and to express our grief at the brutal assassinations of MP Gebran Tueni and Minister of Industry, Pierre Gemayel. We are also here to make a statement that those in Lebanon and we here in the vast and strong Diaspora, are committed to a free, sovereign, pluralistic and independent Lebanon. That is why these brave men gave their lives. They also gave their lives for the cause of freedom worldwide; not just in Lebanon, and, we here in the US, whether of Lebanese origin or not, give our deepest thanks for their ultimate sacrifice.

· Lebanon is now at the forefront in the war on terror. It is a war that the Lebanese are all too well accustomed. It is not a war the Lebanese chose but one that has been thrust upon them by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, rejectionist Palestinian groups and their proxies. It is a war for liberty for all mankind against those who practice brutality, intolerance and hatemongering. Into this war Tueni and Gemayel brought not their weaponry but their intellect and bravery. As the Lebanese national anthem so eloquently states; “our sword is our pen”. These men lived by this anthem and gave their lives for their belief in it. These are true patriots.

· As for the Lebanese citizens- they do not command large armies, are not in possession of advanced armaments and have no oil reserves. Their human qualities of hope, faith and love, however, far outweigh and are far more powerful than their lack of the former. These qualities were on vivid display on March 14, 2005 during the Cedars Revolution. These brave revolutionaries demonstrated to the world their love of liberty and freedom. As the great patriot James Otis stated “where Liberty is, there is my country.” Therefore, there is a kinship with all who live in liberty for whatever their nationality, there are strong and natural bonds. That is why Lebanese thrive in the free world.

· Unfortunately, there is no liberty in Lebanon. So, therefore, on March 14, the new day of hope for independence, the Lebanese, peacefully and with purpose, without wielding even the most simple weapon, made the pilgrimage to Beirut to express peacefully their disgust and outrage at what had become of their once proud nation. Through this act of bravery these otherwise ordinary citizens shook the leaders of the forces of darkness, in Dahiyeh, Ain el Helweh, Damascus and Tehran. These terror masters know that liberty, freedom and justice are their worst enemies and will, ultimately, result in their defeat. On that great day, March 14, 2005, they were trembling with fear in their hiding places knowing that their days are now numbered.

· To the forces of darkness we, the members of the Cedars Revolution and their brethren here in the great USA and the rest of the free world say, with determination and resolve, that we will be steadfast and undeterred in seeking justice for our fallen leaders who have given their lives in the cause of liberty, we will continue to struggle for the cause of peace and we will not back down until victory is ours.

Ousted Bolton puts world to rights, London Sunday Times

2007-01-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

Ousted Bolton puts world to rights
Sarah Baxter, Washington

AS America’s ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton was no tame diplomat. Armed with his feared red pen, ready to strike out waffling resolutions, he was an able and aggressive defender of US interests, but he often had to uphold policies with which he was not in tune.

“To the great chagrin of many people, I followed my instructions at the UN,” he said in his first newspaper interview since relinquishing his post. He is a free man now and eager to have his say.

Bolton engaged in tortuous negotiations over sanctions for Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programmes with little confidence they would work.

“I wouldn’t have engaged in negotiations with Iran in the first place,” he said, evidently disdainful of Britain, France and Germany’s years of reaching out to Iran. “The policy has failed. Sanctions won’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”

Bolton thinks the Bush administration would “rather find a way for diplomacy to succeed but time is running out”. He added as an afterthought, “That’s me speaking” — a rueful acknowledgment that he is no longer the voice of America.

Bolton’s disillusion with the UN is such that he would like it to face competition from other international organisations. “The choice is to fix it or go somewhere else.” He favours building up Nato as a rival in the belief that it could expand into a “caucus of democracies” — a permanent coalition of the willing.

“Fifteen years ago people said Nato would either go out of area or out of existence and now it is in Afghanistan and it is all but Nato — absent Germany and France — in Iraq,” he said. “I think Nato should go global. There is no reason why Japan and Australia shouldn’t join.”

Nato could also make room for Israel. “Why not?” he said. “It’s a European country, fundamentally. Turkey is a European country and it is further east.”

Bolton believes that Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, is wasting her time trying to restart the Middle East peace process. The Arab-Israeli conflict was “not a priority”, he added. “I don’t see linkage to Iraq, and Hamas and Fatah are in a state of civil war.”

When the walrus-moustached Bolton, 58, was appointed ambassador in August 2005, Rice was eager to give diplomacy a chance — whether on Iran, North Korea or the Middle East.

Bolton was then under-secretary of state for arms control and nuclear proliferation. He was notably belligerent on Iran, and was sent to the UN in the face of opposition from Congress, including Republican “wets”, as one of his heroes, Margaret Thatcher, might describe them. Yet his mission, defined by Rice, was to talk, not to bite.

The same politicians balked at confirming Bolton in the job after he had served at President George W Bush’s discretion for little more than a year. He toyed with the idea of hanging on as an acting ambassador, but thought better of going for a “jury-rigged” selection. So out he went last month to the evident satisfaction of his arch-enemy Sir Mark Malloch Brown, the former British UN deputy secretary-general, who departed weeks later.

“I was very pleased that I . . . could at least hold the door for him to go first,” Malloch Brown said witheringly on Channel 4 News last week. “He was only saying publicly what he had been leaking for two years,” Bolton retorted.

Malloch Brown represented everything the US ambassador detested about the United Nations and its air of superiority. Bolton famously observed the organisation could lose 10 floors without anybody noticing, irritating UN bureaucrats.

Bolton approves of Ban Ki-Moon, the new South Korean secretary-general, but advises him to “move quickly to put his stamp on his tenure” before the bureaucracy sucks him in.

In Bolton’s view, America needs to take the lead in global affairs rather than the ineffectual UN because “Who else will?” His opinion of the Foreign Office in London is not much higher than the UN. It is “European” — not a compliment.

Britain has a “fundamental choice” to make, Bolton insisted. “The real issue is whether the UK sees itself as part of a ‘little Europe’ as opposed to Atlanticist. I certainly hope the Atlanticist view will prevail.”

Now back at the American Enterprise Institute, an old perch, he has taken over the office of the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick, another outspoken UN ambassador, who was every bit as ardent a defender of the perceived national interest.

The room, with a view of the Jefferson memorial, is still sparse but he has made it his own by placing his favourite gift from colleagues, a bronzed hand-grenade inscribed with “truest Reaganaut”, on the coffee table.

One of his greatest concerns is the threat to Israel and the West posed by Iran’s nuclear programme. Regime change is “preferable” to striking Iran’s sites, he noted, but “the only course worse than the use of force is an Iran with nuclear weapons”.

The EU3 nations’ years of negotiations with Iran were not a “neutral activity”. Iran used the time to develop its mastery of uranium enrichment — as its own leaders have boasted.

“There are all kinds of ways to change the regime,” he added, citing covert and overt means to topple the theocracy. “We have an extensive diaspora of people with Iranian heritage in America who we don’t use effectively.”

Ultimately, “President Bush has said it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons and he will not accept it.” The same was true of Israel: “They consider a nuclear Iran an existential threat.”

Bolton negotiated a package of UN security council sanctions against North Korea but the pariah state, ruled by the dictator Kim Jong-il, is already preparing for another nuclear test, the US believes. “It is perfectly clear they are not going to give up nuclear weapons.” Talks involving Russia, China and Japan as well as the US have gone nowhere, he said. The only real solution, Bolton suggests, is “peaceful reunification of the (Korean) peninsula”.

Once that is sorted out, there is still the problem of what to do with Iraq. Unlike Bush, Bolton believes Iraq is already at war with itself: “The fundamental point is whether the civil war that exists is going to continue.” Bolton has often been mistaken for a neocon, but while he considers democracy preferable to other forms of government, he does not consider it America’s duty to spread it.

The shape and form of the nation is irrelevant: what matters is that Iraq is either tolerably pro-western or de-fanged. He has no regrets about the removal of Saddam Hussein; now it is up to the Iraqis if they want to engage in “fratricide”. The same goes for partition: “If the future of Iraq is to stay together, that’s fine. If not, I couldn’t care less from a strategic perspective.”

In that sense, he is the authentic voice of the pre-September 11 Bush, before the president chose spreading the “fire of freedom” as the best way to protect his country from terrorism. Will America revert to its traditional moorings? Bolton is out of the UN but he could fit in with the new conservative thinking.

Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd.

UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

2007-01-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

WITNESSES

UNITED STATES SENATE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
_________________________________________________
There will be a meeting of the Committee on
ARMED SERVICES
Friday, January 12, 2007
9:30 AM
Room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building
OPEN*
To receive testimony on Iraq.

Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense

General Peter Pace, USMC
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

* There is a possibility of a CLOSED session in S-407 ofthe Capitol, following the OPEN session.

Transcripts: US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - Hearing on National Security Threats

2007-01-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

Hearing/Meeting:
Open Hearing: Current and Projected National Security Threats

Closed

Date & Time
Thursday, January 11 2007 2:30 PM
Location
Hart-216

Witnesses & Opening Statements

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV Chairman U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Honorable John D. Negroponte Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

General Michael V. Hayden Director Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Honorable Randall M. Fort Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) Department of State

Honorable Robert S. Mueller, III Director Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)

Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples Director Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

US House Armed Services Committee on the way forward in Iraq

2007-01-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

Thursday Jan. 11, 2007, 1:00pm, 2118 Rayburn
The committee will meet to hearing testimony on the way forward in Iraq.

Witnesses:
Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense

General Peter Pace, USMC

No transcripts YET!

Bloomberg Article

Gates, Pace Say U.S. Will Review Plan If Iraqis Fail (Update3)

By Ken Fireman

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will ``revisit'' President George W. Bush's plan to send more forces to Iraq if that country's leaders fail to fulfill their responsibilities under the plan, top Defense Department leaders told lawmakers.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace said they remain confident that Iraqi leaders will follow through on commitments to provide more troops and use them evenhandedly against all violent groups.

If those pledges are not met, Gates and Pace said in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, U.S. officials will quickly pressure the Iraqis to act. If that isn't successful, the U.S. will reconsider the decision to send as many as 21,500 additional American troops, they said.

``Obviously, if the Iraqis fail to live up to their commitments,'' we will have to revisit our strategy,'' Gates told the committee.

Pace reiterated that view, while adding that early indications are that Iraqi leaders are serious about following through on their pledges. ``Everything they have said they would do, they have done,'' said Pace, a Marine general.

The two officials testified as part of a Bush administration effort to sway lawmakers who are skeptical about the plan, which Bush presented last night as an Iraqi-led crackdown on violent unrest in Baghdad with the new U.S. forces in a supporting role.

Doubts on Maliki

Committee members from both parties expressed strong doubts that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would deliver on its promises to commit three new brigades to the Baghdad operation within five weeks and to act against Shiite militias as well as Sunni insurgents.

``I just have my doubts that the Iraqis will show up,'' said Representative John McHugh, a New York Republican.

McHugh and other lawmakers pressed Gates and Pace repeatedly for details on how U.S. officials would react if such fears were realized.

Gates declined to say how long the administration would wait before reacting to an Iraqi failure. Still, he and Gates noted that U.S. officials will soon have some concrete indications about Iraqi intentions because the Maliki government has promised to fully deploy one new brigade in Baghdad by Feb. 1 and two more by Feb. 15.

``We clearly will know within a couple of months or so whether this strategy is, in fact, beginning to bear fruit,'' Gates said. ``It's going to take a while. We are at the mercy of anyone willing to strap on a bomb and blow themselves up, in terms of more bloodshed and more violence. But we will, obviously, be monitoring it.''

Positive Sign

Pace said the joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in central Baghdad earlier this week was an early favorable sign that Iraqis would live up to their promises. In that operation, he said, Iraqi forces took the lead in taking on insurgents, backed by U.S. ground forces as well as helicopters and aircraft.

Gates and Pace provided new details on the planned tempo of the U.S. buildup and said Iraqi performance would be one of the factors determining that pace.

They said U.S. ground commanders requested two new brigades for Baghdad and one for Anbar province in western Iraq to carry out the new security plan developed by U.S. and Iraqi officials. Bush has authorized five brigades for Baghdad -- more than requested -- to provide a reserve force, they said.

Gates said decisions about whether to commit some or all of those U.S. forces, and when to do so, will be made based mainly on two factors: whether Iraqi officials are keeping their commitments and the ``overall success'' of the operation on the ground.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ken Fireman in Washington at kfireman1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 11, 2007 16:27 EST SOURCE

Testimony The Honorable Condoleezza Rice, US SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

2007-01-11T16:21:00.000-08:00

Securing America’s Interests in Iraq:
The Remaining Options.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Administration’s Plan for Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, January 11, 2007

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time: 10:00 AM
Place: 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Senator Lugar's Opening Statement
Senator Biden's Opening Statement Witness

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC

House Committee on Foreign Affairs - "Briefing: Iraq" - The Honorable Condoleezza Rice

2007-01-11T04:52:00.000-08:00

Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. House of Representatives
Contact: Lynne Weil at (202) 225-5021
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Full CommitteeTom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman

You are respectfully requested to attend the following OPEN hearing of the Full Committee, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building .

Date: Thursday, January 11, 2007

Time: 2 PM

Subject: "Briefing: Iraq"

Witnesses: The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State

Transcripts

1/11/2007
Briefing: Iraq
Full Committee
The Honorable Tom Lantos,

The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice

House Committee on Foreign Affairs - "Briefing: Next Steps in the Iran Crisis"

2007-01-11T04:47:00.000-08:00

Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. House of Representatives
Contact: Lynne Weil at (202) 225-5021
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Full CommitteeTom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman

You are respectfully requested to attend the following OPEN hearing of the Full Committee, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building .

Date: Thursday, January 11, 2007

Time: 10:00 AM

Subject: "Briefing: Next Steps in the Iran Crisis"

Witnesses: The Honorable Thomas R. Pickering
Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs

The Honorable R. James Woolsey, Jr.
Former Director
Central Intelligence Agency

Transcripts

1/11/2007
Briefing: Next Steps in the Iran Crisis
Full Committee
The Honorable Tom Lantos,

The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,

The Honorable Thomas R. Pickering,

The Honorable R. James Woolsey, Jr.

“So This Is Our Victory”

2007-01-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

“So This Is Our Victory” Michael Totten

BINT JBAIL, SOUTH LEBANON – I drove to Hezbollah’s stronghold in South Lebanon to survey the devastation from the war in July, to check in on the United Nations peacekeeping force, and to talk to civilians who were used as human shields in the battle with Israel. My American journalist friend Noah Pollak from Azure Magazine in Jerusalem went with me. We went under the escort of two professional enemies of Hezbollah who work for the Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559, an NGO which closely advises the Lebanese government and the international community on the disarmament of illegal militias in Lebanon.

The two men picked us up at our hotel first thing in the morning.

Said (pronounced Sah-EED) rode up to the front door on his motorcycle. Henry arrived in his car.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Said said as he shook our hands. “Shall we go in your car?”

“If you prefer,” I said.

It was probably better that way. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah hysterically accuses Toni Nissi, the man Henry and Said work for, of heading up “the Beirut branch of the Israeli Mossad.” Best, I thought, to show up in Hezbollah’s bombed-out southern “capital” of Bint Jbail in a rental car rather than one that might be recognized.

It’s not worth taking Hezbollah’s “Mossad” accusation seriously. Nasrallah also says Prime Minister Fouad Seniora is a “Zionist hand” because he is pushing for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

“Let me drive,” Said said. “It is better. We know the best roads to take.”

Toni insisted these guys were the best. Not only do they know their way around the back roads of South Lebanon, they are battle-hardened infantry veterans of Lebanon’s civil war. I seriously doubted we would need their services as trained killers, but it was nice to have that skill set in our back pockets while venturing into the heartland of an illegal warmongering militia. Every Lebanese person I know insists Hezbollah won’t actually harm American journalists, and I believe them. It has been a while since Hezbollah has violently terrorized Western civilians in Lebanon. But the very same people strongly insisted Noah and I not go to the South by ourselves.

Normally you can drive from Beirut to the fence on the Israeli border in just over two hours. Lebanon, though, isn’t normal right now, especially not in the South. The Israeli Air Force bombed most, if not all, the bridges on the coastal highway. Reconstruction moved along quickly enough, but snarled traffic had to be re-routed around the construction sites, at times onto side roads that were too narrow and small to handle the overflow.

A bridge destroyed by the Israeli Air Force under reconstruction

“What do you think about Israel’s invasion in July?” I asked Said and Henry.

“Of course what Israel did wasn’t good,” Said said. “They only care about themselves. Hezbollah doesn’t pay taxes, so the rest of us have to pay for all the infrastructure the Israelis destroyed.”

“What do you think about Israel in general?” I said. “Aside from the war in July?”

“I have nothing against Israel,” Henry said. “They are good people and they do good for themselves. We need to make peace with everyone. They are open-minded people, but we have no way to communicate with them since the Syrians came.”

“I would love to visit the Holy Land,” Said said. “My mother went there when the border was open before 2000. It is a good place. If you want to make peace with people, you can make peace, especially with the Israelis. They just want to live in their country, so it is no problem.”

“Is UNIFIL doing much in the South?” Noah asked from the back seat.

Azure Magazine Assistant Editor Noah Pollak

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon is widely assumed to be doing little aside from impotently standing around while Hezbollah reconstitutes its weapon stocks for the next round of war.

“The multinational forces don’t have the authority to stop Hezbollah unless they are smuggling weapons out in the open,” Said said. “The Lebanese army is not taking sides because of the volatile political situation and the violent clashes taking place in Beirut.”

The Lebanese army has actually confiscated a small amount of Hezbollah’s weapons smuggled in from across the Syrian border. One of Hassan Nasrallah’s recent demands is the return of those weapons from the army, even though Hezbollah’s existence as an autonomous militia is against Lebanese and international law.

Said is right, though, that the army does not have the authority to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah is better-armed, better-trained, and overall more powerful than the army, which suffered 15 years of deliberate neglect and degradation under Syrian overlordship. Some of the army’s top officers were also installed by the Syrians, and they are still loyal to the regime in Damascus. Most important, though, are fears that the army would break apart along sectarian lines if orders to militarily disarm Hezbollah were given. The army split during the civil war, after all, and would likely do so again. More than a third of the soldiers are Shia conscripts. Many are more loyal to Hezbollah than they are to the legal authorities.

“The Lebanese army is partly controlled by Syria, not like before 1975,” Henry said. “Before 1975 the Lebanese army was pro-Western and neutral toward Israel.”

As we left the city and the suburbs behind, apartment towers were replaced on the side of the road with soft beaches and the floppy leaves of banana trees. The weather was still warm and sunny even late in the year. Lebanon, as always, looked greener than I remember it when I am away.

“How badly was the South hit in July and August?” I asked.

Said laughed and shook his head. “You will see, my friend. You will see.”

We passed through the conservative Sunni coastal city of Saida, where former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was born, and continued down along the Mediterranean toward the southern city of Tyre.

“What exactly, for the record, do you guys do in your organization?” I said.

“We advise the international community on how to implement UN Resolution 1559,” Said said. “And we try to convince Lebanon to be less conservative, more open and liberal and democratic. We try to convince the international community that most of us are not fanatics, to make Lebanon a good example for everyone. We want to live our lives as free people like you do in the US and Europe. We have a right.”

“The Hezbollah camp downtown is ugly,” Henry said. “This is not us. But it shows the world our differences. Most people think we live in a desert and ride camels and are all Muslims.”

“Hezbollah is trying to distract the world from Iran’s nuclear bomb,” Said said, “by making trouble in Lebanon, killings, dissolving the government, and so on. Can you imagine what Iran would do if they got the nuclear bomb? My God. Even right now they do what they want and don’t listen to anyone.”

A young man stood in the middle of an intersection and waved glossy pamphlets at cars. Said pulled alongside him and said something in Arabic.

“What is he handing out?” Noah said and rolled down his window.

“Hezbollah propaganda,” Henry said.

Said stepped on the accelerator.

Noah tried to grab one of the pamphlets.

“I want one of those,” he said. But the Hezbollah man kept the pamphlets tightly clutched in his fingers.

“He is selling them,” Said said, “not giving them away.”

“Oops,” Noah said. “I wasn’t trying to steal one.”

“He doesn’t care about money or propaganda,” Said said. “He is watching. This is the beginning of their territory. He reports on who is coming and what they are doing.”

Hassan Nasrallah (left) and Nabih Berri (right) announce to motorists that they are entering Hezbollah and Amal territory.

“Whenever you see something blown up from here,” Henry said, “it is because it was owned by Hezbollah people or because Hezbollah had something to do with it.”

If you’re familiar with Lebanese politics it’s obvious whose territory you’re in just by looking at roadside political adverts and posters. The Shia regions are divided between the Hezbollah and Amal parties. Amal, also known as the Movement of the Disinherited, is Hezbollah’s sometime rival and sometime ally. It’s a secular party that was founded by the Iranian cleric Moussa Sadr to advance the interests of the long-neglected and voiceless Shia, the poorest and most marginalized Lebanese sect. Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri is the chief of Amal today, and he has forged an uneasy alliance with Hezbollah and with the Syrians. Berri’s face is plastered up everywhere in Amal strongholds, and Nasrallah’s face is even more ubiquitous in Hezbollah territory. Occasionally you’ll see both Berri and Nasrallah together.

What you rarely see in either Hezbollah or Amal areas are Lebanese flags. The Sunni, Druze, and Christian parts of Lebanon are blanketed with the national cedar tree flag, as well as those of various political parties and movements. Only the Shia towns and villages are bereft of noticeable signs of patriotism.

Another striking difference between the Shia regions of Lebanon and the rest is which kind of “martyrs” are famous. Hezbollah and Amal strongholds venerate “resistance” fighters killed in battles with Israel.

You never see anything like this in the Sunni, Christian, or Druze parts of the country. Instead you’ll see portraits of more liberal and moderate Lebanese who were car-bombed by the Syrians.

A poster of Samir Kassir, journalist and activist with the Movement of the Democratic Left, murdered last year by a Syrian car bomb.

Hezbollah glorifies violence and mayhem and murder.

The severed head of an Israeli is shown held up by its hair on one of Hezbollah’s billboards

In the rest of the country you see appeals to peace and life instead.

“No War” stickers left over from the conflict in July are common in Beirut.

The “I Love Life” campaign is intended to counter Hezbollah’s warmongering and “martyrdom” culture.

A “Wage Peace” billboard in the northern suburbs of Beirut

Last year a series of billboards all over Beirut said Say No to Anger, Say No to War, and Say No to Terrorism. Hezbollah would never allow anything of the sort to be erected in their parts of Lebanon, even though I know lots of Shia who agree with those sentiments.

The majority of the people in the South are Shia, but there are some Christian, Sunni, and Druze villages, too.

“The Christians down here are cornered,” Henry said. He could have mentioned that the Sunni and Druze are, as well. “They have no freedom of movement. They only have freedom of speech inside their own villages. Outside their villages they can’t speak or talk to the press unless they leave the South.”

“They have been a long time under Hezbollah control,” Said said. “It’s the same scenario as 1975, only with different players.”

The situation is eerily much like it was in 1975 when Lebanon descended into 15 years of hell and chaos and war. Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization used South Lebanon as a launching pad for terrorist raids into Israel. The Shia who lived there were fiercely opposed to having their land used in this way for a foreigner’s war. Lebanon’s Christians also stridently opposed the use of their country as a battleground by Palestinians. But Lebanon’s Sunni community allowed and even encouraged Yasser Arafat to build himself a state-within-a-state in West Beirut. Street clashes between Christians and Palestinians sparked what eventually became a war of all-against-all that shattered the government and drew in the Syrians, the Iranians, the Americans, and the Israelis.

“Israel was surprised by the war this summer because they neglected Hezbollah after 2000,” Said said. Prime Minister Ehud Barak withdrew the Israeli occupation forces from the “security belt” in South Lebanon in 2000, and wrongly assumed the Lebanese army would take control of the area. Hezbollah moved in instead and immediately dug in for more war. “Nasrallah will go all the way now unless Seniora and Hariri surrender. Only if they surrender will Nasrallah spare them from the final solution.”

This struck me as a bit on the paranoid side. Hezbollah can almost certainly win a defensive war against fellow Lebanese, but no one is strong enough to conquer and rule the whole country.

Iran’s dead tyrant Ayatollah Khomeini lives on as a poster boy in South Lebanon

As we drove through a small village an imam screamed slogans in angry Arabic from the muezzin’s speaker atop a mosque minaret. It was a sharp contrast to what I’m used to hearing from the mosques in Beirut. There the muezzin’s call to prayer is hauntingly beautiful and genuinely spiritual, as though the muezzin himself is no longer tethered to this world. I miss the unearthly singing when I’m in Christian Beirut and when I’m at home.

“What is he saying?” I asked.

“It is about Palestine,” Said said. He listened. “He is saying If we win this fight against the Seniora conspiracy we will only have Palestine to liberate. We won’t have Israel as an obstacle.”

Shrapnel tore holes through a Hezbollah billboard

“They won’t have Israel as an obstacle?” Noah said in a bemused tone of voice.

“Ha, ha, ha, I like this guy,” Henry said.

A convoy of Lebanese army trucks headed north.
“One thing we are worried about,” Said said, “is the weakening of the South because the army has to go north. This is part of the plan.”

We ventured deeper into the South, into the steep rolling hills that make up the region known as the Upper Galilee.

“It’s beautiful here,” Noah said, and kept saying. He had never been there before. “This would be a great place for an artist’s retreat if it weren’t so dangerous.”

“Beautiful country, fanatic people,” Said said.

Most of the villages and towns were more or less intact.

We did, however, drive past the occasional damaged house or places where buildings recently stood and that now were fields of cleared rubble.

Dour-looking men stood on street corners and in the middle of intersections and carefully watched all the cars and people who entered the area.

“You see the watchers?” Said said.

“Yep,” I said. “They couldn’t be any more obvious. Can we get out and talk to people around here?”

“I do not recommend it,” Said said. “They cannot talk freely. These watchers will come up to us if we get out of the car, and they will make sure anyone who talks to us only tells us what they are supposed to say.”

Soon we reached Bint Jbail, Hezbollah’s de-facto “capital” in South Lebanon. The outskirts were mostly undamaged, but the city looks now like a donut. Downtown was almost completely demolished by air strikes and artillery.

“So this is our victory,” Said said. “This is how Hezbollah wins. Israel destroys our country while they sleep safely and soundly in theirs.”

Said parked in the center of what used to be the central market area. The four of us got out of the car. Noah and I walked around, dizzied by the extent of the 360-degree devastation.

Three severe-looking men walked up to Said and Henry.

“Who are they, who are you, and what are you doing?” said the man in charge.

“They are international reporters,” Henry said. Notice that he did not say we were American reporters. “They are here to document Israel’s destruction of our country.”

The men seemed satisfied with that answer and left us alone. Presumably they would continue to leave us alone as long as we didn’t try to interview any civilians. I was glad Henry and Said were there with us. They were the ones asked to do the explaining rather than Noah and me.

I kept snapping pictures.

“Oh man,” Noah said. “Some real pain got dropped on this place.”

The photos don’t do “justice” to the extent of the damage. The destruction was panoramic and near-absolute in the city center.

Apparently the outskirts of town were not seen as threatening by the Israelis. Most of Bint Jbail beyond downtown was unscathed.

We got back in the car. Said looked for the road to Maroun al-Ras, the next hollowed-out southern town on our itinerary. The streets, though, were confusing now that many landmarks no longer existed. Only after a few laps around town could Said re-orient himself.

“Three times on the same road, not good,” Henry said.

It looked – and felt – totalitarian in Bint Jbail. Everyone watched us. If Said was right that the locals weren’t allowed to speak freely (assuming they dissented from Nasrallah’s party line) it must feel totalitarian to people who live there as well.

I asked one of my Shia friends who grew up in Hezbollah’s dahiyeh south of Beirut what would happen if he said “I hate Hezbollah” outside his house on the street.

“I’d get my ass kicked,” he said. “No one would do that.”

We reached Maroun al-Ras only a few minutes after leaving Bint Jbail. This was the first Lebanese village seized by the Israeli Defense Forces during the war. The scene was familiar – much of the center of town had been reduced to rubble.

One site stood out, though. At the top of a hill overlooking the Israeli border stood a mostly intact mosque surrounded by panoramic destruction.

Israel may have over-reacted in July and selected targets (the milk factory, bridges in the north, etc.) that should not have been hit. But the stark scene on the hill of Maroun al-Ras demonstrated that the Israeli military did not bomb indiscriminately as many have claimed. Unlike Hezbollah, the Israelis are able to hit what they want and they don’t shoot at everything. That mosque wouldn’t be standing if they dropped bombs and artillery randomly in the villages.

“My mother is from Deir Mimas,” Said said. “In July Hezbollah brought their weapons out of the caves and valleys and into the village. My family has a small house there that was burned during the war.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Eh,” Said said. “It’s okay. It is fixed now. Anyway, at first Hezbollah fired their missiles from groves of olive trees. Then they got hit by the Israelis. So they moved into Deir Mimas because the other nearby option was Kfar Kila. Hezbollah didn’t want the Shia villages hit, so they moved into Christian villages instead.”

That sounded right. I recently saw Kfar Kila from the Israeli side. The town is literally right on the border, only twenty feet or so from the fence next to the Israeli town of Metulla. I saw no damage whatsoever in Kfar Kila – and this was one day before the end of the war – but I did hear machine gun fire in the streets ominously close to where I was standing.

The four of us arrived in the Christian village of Ein Ebel just outside Bint Jbail. A man was there waiting for us who would tell us about Hezbollah’s brutal siege of his town in July.

First we stopped for lunch, though, and ordered some pizza and sandwiches. As Said parked the car he turned the dial on the car stereo.

“Do you hear them?” he said. “Do you hear the Israelis?”

Sure enough, scratchy voices in Hebrew came through the crackling static.

“Yep,” I said. “Those are Israelis.”

“We are right next to the border,” Henry said.

We went into the restaurant. Henry and I sat at a table while we waited for food. Said hovered over us, as did Noah with his camera.

“We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now,” Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. “But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy.”

“Since 1975 we have been fighting for the free world,” Said said. “We are on the front lines. Why doesn’t the West understand this? America can withdraw from Iraq, you can go back to Oregon, but we are stuck here. We have to stay and live with what happens.”

To be continued…

Post-script: Please help support independent journalism. I have no corporate backing, and I cannot visit foreign countries and file these dispatches without your assistance.

If you would like to donate money for travel expenses and you don't want to use Pay Pal, you can send a check or money order to:

Michael Totten
P.O. Box 312
Portland, OR 97207-0312

Many thanks in advance.

All photos copyright Michael J. Totten and Noah Pollak

March 14 Forces accuse rivals of preventing solution

2007-01-09T05:21:00.001-08:00

March 14 Forces accuse rivals of preventing solution
By Maher Zeineddine
Daily Star correspondent
Tuesday, January 09, 2007

BEIRUT: Lebanon's pro-government forces accused "Hizbullah and its allies" in the opposition on Monday of hampering the government's efforts to resolve the crisis, adding that security forces would respond to the opposition's demonstrations. In response to the opposition's decision to move to "Phase 2" of its campaign to force Premier Fouad Siniora's Cabinet to step down, the March 14 Forces' follow-up committee met at the Progressive Socialist Party's headquarters in Beirut.

Former MP Fares Soueid told reporters that "in the event that the opposition's demonstrations hamper governmental and administrative work, then security and government authorities will respond."

In a statement afterward read by Soueid, the participants said that the only way to resolve the economic crisis was to agree on a reform plan and take advantage of Arab and international support.

The statement said Hizbullah and its allies were trying to "widen the scope of the demonstrations imposed on the Beirut Central District and spread it to other vital areas to paralyze the economy ... and force the Lebanese to succumb to the will of forces standing behind them."

The statement also attacked a call by the General Labor Confederation to hold a demonstration Tuesday near the Institute of Finance in protest against the Cabinet's reform plan for the Paris III donor conference.

The plan is to be forwarded to Paris III, scheduled for January 25, and includes tax reforms, as well as raising VAT rates and the full or partial sale of the mobile-phone sector by the second quarter of 2007.

"[The opposition] sent for the General Labor Confederation, the members of which were raised by the officers of the former Syrian security regime," the March 14 Forces said, adding that the GLC neither cared about the labor syndicates' concerns nor represented them.

The group's statement also alleged that the GLC was "a cover-up behind which Hizbullah and its allies operate in an effort to force Siniora's Cabinet to resign."

"The only way to resolve the financial, economic and social problems burdening the Lebanese since the period of Syrian tutelage and which deepened with the summer Israeli war, is agreeing on a reform plan that would enable Lebanon to benefit from unprecedented Arab and international support," the statement added.

The March 14 Forces also criticized the opposition for not "presenting any alternatives to resolve the country's socioeconomic problems."

The statement added that the pro-government forces "call on the Lebanese people to support the government and the economic recovery plan and to confront their plans aimed at impoverishing them."

It also urged all the Lebanese to "double your efforts at all public and private sectors in order to stress your rooted belonging to the nation and your rejection of plans targeting its sovereignty, security and economy."

Soueid added that the Paris III conference was the only means to overcome the repercussions of the summer war in 2006.

Siniora held a meeting late Monday night with ministers of his Cabinet which was still in progress when The Daily Star went to press. The meeting was held to discuss the current situation and the appropriate government response to the planned GLC strike Tuesday and the opposition's escalation of its campaign to force the government to share power or step aside.

Separately, PSP leader MP Walid Jumblatt said Monday the Paris III conference "represents a new step of the achievements of Siniora's legitimate and constitutional Cabinet."

In remarks to the PSP-affiliated Al-Anbaa newspaper, he urged Speaker Nabih Berri to "assume his political and legislative responsibilities because he is the head of Parliament, which represents all the Lebanese."

Jumblatt said "Hizbullah's 'divine victory' has cost the Lebanese $15 billion and led to destruction of 100,000 homes."

The president of the Lebanese Forces executive committee, MP Samir Geagea, said the opposition's movements would not "yield any results but would deepen the crisis."

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Geagea said the opposition was "acting like a child who starts to rebel when things at home disturb him."

He added that the GLC was formed by the former Syrian security regime.

In a radio interview Monday Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh said the GLC was formed of the "remains of the Syrian security regime in Lebanon." - With Naharnet

“Next Monday: the launch of the second stage of the opposition’s uprising”

2007-01-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

“Next Monday: the launch of the second stage of the opposition’s uprising”

Ibrahime Al-Amine, chairman of the board of directors of Al Akhbar, an independent pro-opposition newspaper, commented in the January 5 issue on the latest political developments in Lebanon. Al-Amine wrote: “The opposition embarked upon a new stage in the sharp confrontations with the ruling team. The discussions that have going on since the holidays focused on coming up with an agenda for protests that aim at tightening the stranglehold on the ruling team and for dealing with any reconciliatory initiative according to a mechanism that doesn’t allow the ruling team to waste more time especially as the opposition has become convinced that the Arab forces handling the initiatives are endorsing the point of view of the ruling team which belongs along with themselves to the ‘moderation’ camp which is supported by the United States and France. This attitude practically lays the ground for dealing differently with any future Arab movements amidst information that the forces of the 14 of March directed a request to the secretary general of the Arab League Amr Moussa to return quickly to Beirut.”

Al-Amine added: “It seems that the attention [of 14 of March forces] is focused on facilitating the Paris-3 conference which makes the 25th of the current month a target by itself for both the ruling team and the opposition. According to the information of those concerned, the discussions [among the opposition] are now based on the fact that the ruling team wants one thing only: to waste time, and the strategy of sabotaging the initiatives used by this team has its supporters outside. There are incessant reports about a role played by the ex Saudi ambassador to Washington the current head of the Saudi national security council Bandar Bin Sultan who is said to practically head the front which considers the opposition in Lebanon “as an extension of the new strategic enemy which is Iran and Syria”. The current actions of the American and French ambassadors in Beirut Jeffery Feltman and Bernard Emie fall in the context of looking for means used by the ruling team to defend itself against the opposition including attempts to revive the “Quartet Alliance” [between Hezbollah, Amal, Future movement, and the Progressive Socialist party] which provides an explanation for the newly found warmness in the relationship between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah.”

Al-Amine continued: “The visit by Hezbollah’s delegation to Saudi Arabia aroused the anger ‘of the remaining neo conservatives’ in Riyadh and Beirut which resulted first in the infamous Junblatt (the media spokesman for the American-Arab moderation campaign) interview on the Al-Arabiya channel with which he wanted to move the confrontation to another level by giving an extra dose to the issue of the international tribunal by accusing Hezbollah of being involved in the assassinations. Junblatt’s live interview on a network funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Bandar Bin Sultan’s group and his allies in the Jordanian intelligence services and the CIA, which came a few days after he called for the assassination of Bashar Al-Assad, is linked to Saudi Arabia’s attitude towards what is going on which has not been explained so far except in the context of the raging battles on the Arab scene with Junblatt being a direct member of the axis that supposes that getting rid of Syria and its allies in Lebanon is a prerequisite for guaranteeing the stability of the regime in Lebanon as well as in the other countries…”

Al-Amine added: “There were meetings up till yesterday between the poles of the opposition to prepare for laying a plan that is based on forming a committee that represents the main factions in the opposition and handles the daily coordination that guarantees that the action plan for the protest is ready before the end of this week so that it could be put before the leaders of the opposition which will be followed by drawing timetables to implement it…According to observers, the discussion is revolving around several issues: Reiterating the slogans of the opposition and moving forward in the battle to form a transitional government that would supervises early parliamentary elections. Preparing a paper by the whole opposition that focuses on the economic situation and imposes it on the agendas of the current government or any government that will rise in the future. Preparing a unified attitude regarding dealing with any local or foreign initiative to solve the crisis. Endorsing practical suggestions for union and student protests that would immobilize all the institutions of the state and focusing the movements on killing the government and not the people without stopping too long on the considerations heeded in the past period which focused on avoiding the direct confrontations. After next Monday we will be facing a different reality between the opposition and the authority.” - Al Akhbar Lebanon, Lebanon

Click here for source

“Renewal of land buyouts in Jezzine: demographic goals or commercial ones?”

2007-01-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

“Renewal of land buyouts in Jezzine: demographic goals or commercial ones?”

An Nahar, an independent pro government newspaper, reported in its January 5 issue about the latest developments in Lebanon. The newspaper wrote: “The Jezzine area is characterized with a nice geographic location between the Shouf, Biqaa, and the south. It is unique in the context of Christian demographics as the area of concentration for the largest congregation of Christian sects in the south followed by Hasbayya and Marj-El-Oyun. The Jezzine province has constituted across the past decades a symbol for coexistence between the various Lebanese sects as it is home to. Despite the sectarian and religious wars that tore Lebanon, both Christians and Muslims from various sects and its inhabitants managed to protect this uniqueness despite the Israeli occupation of the region and the divisive techniques used by the enemy in that period to spread strife didn’t succeed...”

The newspaper added: “The area of Jezzine is back in the headlines of the media these days not for security, electoral, financial, or development matter as was the usual following the liberation but for a very sensitive issue that concerns the demographic structure of this area: the mass and suspect buying of wide tracts of land in the Jezzine area that doesn’t disappear in one area before appearing in another…During the two last years, the mass purchase of land was again brought to the surface along with fears about changing the demographics of the area amidst renewed talk about settling the Palestinian refugees in Jezzine. This was compounded by confirmed reports that one of the wealthy men from outside Lebanon is buying wide areas of land and presenting incentives…”

The newspaper continued: “But today and after the recent statements by the head of Democratic Congregation MP Walid Junblatt about “mass buyouts of land in Jezzine, Alaih, Suq Al Gharb and others” by “suspect factions using false names”, the problem is worsening again as the reports state that “one of the wealthy businessmen in the Shi’i sect is buying wide tracts of land in the area stretching from the surroundings of the Darayya farm through Al-Qatrani to the Druze village of Al-Sarirah in the western Biqaa”. The same information points out that the “buyer intends to build large apartment buildings on the aforementioned lands as well as stores and gas stations and schools along with all other requirements for human settlement so that the area will turn into a self sufficient town from all the economic, social, and living angles”…” - An Nahar, Lebanon

Click here for source

“Four people arrested in Shekka”

2007-01-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

“Four people arrested in Shekka”

On January 5, Al Liwa, a Lebanese pro-government daily, reported that: “Concerned sources revealed to Al Liwa that the security bodies arrested in the last few days four people in the town of Shekka [North Lebanon] and they are Z.B Al-Kareh… who has different partisan and political loyalties, D. Harb from the Maronite town of Nahleh in the center of Batroun and who belongs to a non-Christian party organization, M. Al-Jammal, a Syria married to a Lebanese and who is known for his relation with a security official in a local organization, and M. Al-Hajj Hussein who is known for belonging to party from outside the area.

“The sources indicated that the four men are not from the town of Shekka but moved there long ago in search for jobs. The sources pointed out that there was no clear link yet between the four arrestees and those who were arrested from the Syrian Social Nationalist party, and indicated there was a complete security blackout regarding the nature of the investigations with them. They also revealed that the security bodies confiscated 120 kilograms of TNT placed in a small tunnel beneath a restaurant in the Koura area, in which the Lebanese Forces in Dunniyeh hosted a dinner about a month ago in the presence top LF officials.” - Newspaper - Middle East, Middle East

Click here for source

“Russian ambassador to UN: no suggestions to amend international tribunal”

2007-01-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

“Russian ambassador to UN: no suggestions to amend international tribunal”

Al Hayat, an independent Saudi owned newspaper, reported in its January 5 issue about the latest developments in the issue of the international tribunal to prosecute the suspects in the assassination of the ex Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri. The newspaper wrote: “The head of the Security Council for this month the Russian ambassador to the United Nations Vitali Chorkin dismissed the possibility that the issue of the international tribunal to prosecute the suspects in the assassination of the ex Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri will be out before the Security Council to issue a new resolution concerning it. Chorkin confirmed to Al Hayat that ‘there are no suggestions for the council to open the issue of the tribunal for Lebanon once again”.”

The newspaper added: “He considered that the tribunal must “play the role that it is supposed to play, i.e. not only to bring about justice but also to lay the foundation for a long term political pacification. Thus it must enjoy wide ranging political support”. He expressed his hope that the “negotiations will continue to arrive at a common ground between the various political factions”.” - Al Hayat, United Kingdom

Click here for source

“…The escalation plan of Damascus’ allies in Lebanon: isolate Beirut…”

2007-01-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

“…The escalation plan of Damascus’ allies in Lebanon: isolate Beirut…”

On January 4, Al Seyassah, an independent, anti-Syrian daily, reported that: “The Lebanese opposition forces have started to look into the escalation steps that they will adopt in the upcoming days to topple PM Fu’ad Al-Sanyurah’s government, amid calls from some poles of the opposition to act sooner than planned. Reliable Lebanese sources assured Al Seyassah that the rush of the opposition forces to carry out their plans is due to a prompt recommendation issued by Iranian President Ahmadinezhad and delivered by the Iranian embassy in Beirut to the leadership of Hezbollah last Thursday.

“This recommendation aims to make this escalation serve the confrontation plan which was started by Tehran against the sanctions that were lately imposed on it by the Security Council and the international community. The sources revealed that the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, General Michel Aoun, as well as the leader of the Marada movement, Suleiman Franjieh and his colleague, former Minister Talal Arslan, had suggested that the escalation starts on Monday, January 22… This suggestion was supported by most of Syria’s allies in Lebanon.

“According to the same sources, the escalation plan included two phases of field action, the first of which is to be implemented in areas outside of Beirut in order to cut all links with the capital through a series of protests in the North, the Kesrwan coast, the Metn, the southern suburb and the South in general. These protests will be staged on the main roads that link the governorates and the districts with the capital Beirut. This will be directly followed by the second phase which will include the staging of protests aiming to block the main roads leading to the Beirut International Airport, except for a narrow road that goes through the area of Burj Al-Barajneh in the southern suburb.

“It will also include tightening the siege around the Government House, downtown [Beirut] and the areas surrounding the ministerial headquarters, closing the main Hamra road where the Central Bank is located and the area of the Beirut Port. The escalation plan is also witnessing intensive contacts being made by opposition poles, namely Amal, Hezbollah and General Aoun’s movement, with a number of officers and elements from the Lebanese army, in order to influence them and forestall their participation in any action that will be undertaken by the army to ensure the daily action in the state facilities.

“In this regard, a list including the names of 7,000 officers and soldiers was [drawn up]. They will be asked not to report to their posts along with ministries’ and administrations’ employees who will also be asked to do the same by the opposition. The same sources revealed that the opposition poles will elude issuing a position vis-a-vis any Arab or Lebanese initiative, including that of Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and the attempts being conducted by Egypt and KSA. As for Speaker Nabih Birri’s anticipated initiative, it only aims to remove the blame and prepare for the escalation plan at the political level.

“The sources added that a ‘scenario’ was drawn to invest the outcome of this escalation that will last for days during which Lebanon will be completely paralyzed. Following that, Emile Lahoud, the president of the republic whose term was extended, will move on the basis of protecting the state and its institutions, will announce that he considers PM Fu’ad Al-Sanyurah’s government as though it has resigned and open the door before parliamentary consultations to form a new interim government whose main priority would be holding early parliamentary elections from which a national unity government will emerge according to the plan.

“The same sources stated that the March 14 forces learned about the details of this plan which was taken into consideration from the start, and specified the methods and the ways with which to confront it. In this regard, one of the poles of the March 14 movement contacted one of the opposition poles last Monday, revealed the information he had about the escalation plan and said: ‘We advise you to try your luck and we are ready to protect the legitimacy [of the state] and its institutions’.” - Al Seyassah, Kuwait

Click here for source

“What occurred in the meeting between king Abdullah & Hezbollah’s envoys?”

2007-01-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

“What occurred in the meeting between king Abdullah & Hezbollah’s envoys?”

As Safir, an independent leftist newspaper, reported in its January 4 issue about the latest political developments in the relationship between Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia. The newspaper wrote: “After a long absence, and in a remarkable coincidence, the communications started again between Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey towards the leadership of Hezbollah plus the other political factions, in power and outside it in a stark warning about the severity of the situation and the necessity of solving it as soon as possible. The visit of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fell in the same context…The Turkish advice to the Hezbollah leadership seemed similar to Egyptian and Saudi advice especially from the Saudi king Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz who received last week the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah Sheikh Na’im Qassim accompanied by the ex minister Muhammad Fneish…”

The newspaper added: “According to Arab diplomatic sources in the Saudi capital, the arrangements for the visit by the Hezbollah delegation to the kingdom started several weeks ago and was handled on the Saudi side by the head of the intelligence services and deputy head of the Mecca area prince Makrin Bin Abdul-Aziz in coordination with the king. The sources announced to As Safir that the Saudi ambassador in Beirut went to the kingdom to perform the Hajj rituals and was informed there that the arrangements are complete after which the delegation arrived where it was received by king Abdullah in a three hour meeting with the attendance of the foreign minister Sa’ud Al-Faisal, prince Makrin, and ambassador Khojah. The sources added that the meeting was characterized with intimacy, openness, and mutual anxiety over the Islamic unity and preventing the fires of sectarian strife as well as anxiety over Lebanon’s unity and its impregnability in the face of the dangers surrounding the region.”

The newspaper continued: “The sources confirmed that king Abdullah said some good words about Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah and stressed Lebanon’s dearness to his heart then he moved to discuss the general situation in the region starting with Iran and the ‘good relationship lining us [Saudis] to them’ through to the wounded Iraq and the anxiety over preserving its unity then to Palestine and the difficulties that its people are facing and the Israeli occupation. The Saudi king focused on Lebanon and stressed that the kingdom had never taken through out its history an action in the interest of a single or group of sects in Lebanon but had always, since the civil war in 1975, worked to serve the interests of all of its people, Christians and Muslims, and that today it is not taking an attitude in favour of any sect or faction but is anxious more than over Lebanon’s unity, especially the Lebanese Muslims, as it doesn’t discriminate but stands at an equal distance from all the factions…”

The newspaper added: “The Hezbollah delegation stressed its point of view towards Islamic unity as an article of faith and confirmed that Sunni Shi’i strife is a red line and that Hezbollah has always played a role even outside Lebanon in fortifying Islamic unity…” - As Safir, Lebanon

Click here for source

Iranian official: If threatened, we will use nuclear weapons

2007-01-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

Iranian official: If threatened, we will use nuclear weapons

After countless declarations of peaceful intentions of nuclear plan, Iran's chief nuclear envoy confirms fears by saying if county is threatened, situation may change
Associated Press

Iran's chief nuclear envoy Ali Larijani said on Friday that Iran is committed to the peaceful use of nuclear technology but warned the situation could change if his country is threatened.

"We oppose obtaining nuclear weapons and we will peacefully use nuclear technology under the framework of the Nonproliferation Treaty, but if we are threatened, the situation may change," He told a news conference after two days of talks in Beijing.

Iran's nuclear chief said his country has produced and stored 250 tons of the gas used as the feedstock for uranium enrichment, state-run television reported Friday.

Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Iran has kept the uranium hexaflouride gas, or UF-6, in underground tunnels at a nuclear facility in Isfahan to protect it from any possible attack.

"Today, we have produced more than 250 tons of UF-6. Should you visit Isfahan, you will see we have constructed tunnels that are almost unique in the world," State-run television quoted Aghazadeh as saying.

Larijani during press conference (Photo: Reuters)

While China has strong trade ties with oil-rich Iran, it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which voted unanimously to bar all countries from selling materials and technology to Iran that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs.

It also froze the assets of 10 Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.

'Iran will stand up to coercion'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday said international sanctions won't stop Iran from enriching uranium, vowing not to give into "Coercion," State-run television reported.

"Iran will stand up to coercion. ... All Iranians stand united to defend their nuclear rights," State-run TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Iran Nuclear Facility in Natanz (Photo: DigitalGlobe, GlobalSecurity.org)

Iran has refused to comply with international demands that it suspend uranium enrichment. It also has condemned as "Invalid" And "Illegal" a UN Security Council resolution passed last month that imposes sanctions against the Islamic Republic for refusing to halt enrichment.

"Enemies have assumed that they can prevent the progress of the Iranian nation through psychological war and issuing resolutions, but they will be defeated," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on state-run TV.

Reuters contributed to this report

“…Washington proposes to Syria ‘Last Chance’ initiative”

2007-01-02T11:59:00.001-08:00

“…Washington proposes to Syria ‘Last Chance’ initiative”

On December 21, Al Seyassah, an independent anti-Syrian daily, reported that: “Following interferences and mediations undertaken by more than one Arab capital, and following a special recommendation by the Baker-Hamilton commission to study the situation in Iraq…, Washington offered Syria what has come to be known as the Last Chance initiative, to ensure the removal of its isolation and its return to the heart of the international community.

“Al Seyassah has learned that this initiative was carried to Syrian officials at the head of whom is President Bashar Al-Assad himself, by a highly-placed Arab delegation that is usually resorted to for special and critical missions, namely in Palestine and some states of the Arab Gulf. This delegation revealed the details of the American initiative to the Syrian leadership during three visits it made to Damascus… and was directly proposed by former US State Secretary James Baker to diplomats at the Syrian Foreign Ministry, in two out of five meetings during the last couple of months. In the last few days, the New York Times alluded to these meetings.

“According to the information that Al Seyassah acquired, the special Arab delegation, and after it proposed the points in the new American initiative, made sure that Damascus understands this was its last chance. The delegation also related the advice of the head of its state to the Syrian officials, regarding the necessity to grab the opportunity and deal with it with the utmost seriousness, for dangerous repercussions will be entailed if it is missed or neglected.

“Al Seyassah has learned that the Arab delegation conveyed the relief of its country vis-a-vis Damascus’ opening of an embassy in Iraq and for specifying the movements of some of the extremist organizations’ leaders in it, whereby it considered it to be an expression of good intentions which should be followed by other steps in the context of improving the relations with the international community and the moderate Arab states. According to the information, the Last Chance initiative which was proposed to Damascus within a comprehensive basket, stipulated the following:

“1- For Syria to cut off its relations with the Iraqi resistance factions, including the Al-Qa’idah organization, prohibit their supply with any types of arms, and carry out the plan to monitor and control its border with Iraq, including ensuring the circulation of joint patrols.

“2- For Syria to stop interfering in Lebanese domestic affairs, prohibit the supply of Lebanese parties with arms and ammunition through its border, fully comply with UN resolution 1701 and seriously cooperate with the international tribunal [formed to try the perpetrators of the] assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri.

“3- In light of that, the US will hold the Madrid 2 Peace Conference between Syrian and Israeli officials thus corroborating the points which were agreed on during the Madrid 1 conference and will remove the obstacles facing the full Israeli withdrawal from the Syrian Golan after reinforcing the international emergency troops and expanding their area of operations. The US also expressed its willingness to partake in these troops.

“4- The US will also work on and encourage Arab and European states to offer urgent and comprehensive aid to Syria so that it is able to achieve its developmental plans, to enhance its national economy, reinforce its inclination toward market economy and encourage investments.

“According to the information which Al Seyassah acquired, the American administration which presented this initiative as a last chance for Syria, has informed the officials in Damascus – according to what was related by the Arab delegation – that the slogan of the peace negotiations which should take place was neither ‘land in exchange for peace’ as it is proposed by President Bashar Al-Assad, nor ‘land in exchange for security’ as it is wanted by the Israeli government, but rather ‘land in exchange for stability’. This slogan is accepted by the US, Europe and the international community.” - Al Seyassah, Kuwait

Phares and Bahbudi in the Washington Post: "Iran's People are ready for real change"

2007-01-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

Phares and Bahbudi in the Washington Post: "Iran's People are ready for real change"
By Phares Op Ed
Jan 1, 2007, 17:20

IRAN’S PEOPLE ARE READY FOR REAL CHANGE

Behrooz Bahbudi and Walid Phares

In this fifth letter to the American People, we wish to share with the readers across the world what we believe is the readiness of the Iranian People for a real change affecting the future of their country, the region and the international community. It is a fact that genuine improvement in the conditions of Iranians have not yet taken place since the imposition of a Jihadi-rooted regime in 1979, at the hands of Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini’s elite. To the contrary, the country is marching backward on all levels of public and individual lives. Between 1979 and 2007, freedom, democracy, social order, economy, environment and hopes have been collapsing irreversibly in Iran:

The middle class has collapsed; workers have lost their benefits, women stripped from the minimal rights, education gone into decline, medical standards lowered, students suppressed, artists jailed,intellectuals arrested, and minorities crushed. Iran’s dividends from its national and natural resources were wasted by the ruling elite for decades on their own pleasures, on their expansionist Jihadi agenda and on increasing the oppressive machine inside the country. Only a handful of regime supporters profited immensely from the oil and other revenue. Instead of a thriving and progressive democracy by 2007, competing with Japan and Germany, Iran is ranking among the failed states of the world, whose people are depressed and unhappy, as are the peoples of Cuba and North Korea and as was Afghanistan’s civil society under the Taliban.

Despite the many promises of enhancement made by the rulers for decades, only embitterment ensued after every so-called change from above. Iranians thought the death of Khomeini in 1989 would begin the slow march towards recovery from bloodshed and wars during the 1980s. Instead a similarly backward leadership rose to extend the Khomeinist regime, headed by Ayatollah Khamenei. Full of relentless hopes, Iranians then thought the Presidency in Iran may play the role of a Gorbachev in the USSR. But President Rafsanjani was no better than the radical Mullahs as he acted on their behalf to perpetuate the middle ages regime. People hoped that a so-called “reformist” President, Mohammed Khatemi, would save them. Iran’s majority voted him in. But nothing changed in Tehran’s state-dictatorship. Then the public was told that a so-called “modest man” Mahmoud Ahmedinijad would shake off the elite. Instead, the mad-man of the militias ascended to ultimate power, further crushing liberties, threatening world Peace with his nuclear bomb, and the region’s stability with his Terror associates of HizbAllah.

In a sum, change has not yet come to Iran from above and the country has fallen into dangerous hands. But the signs coming out of its cities and countryside are clear: People are ready for change, a real change.

Students have courageously stood up against Ahmedinijad and told him: “enough” Their photos cannot be ignored anymore. Workers have been screaming to the rulers of Tehran: “enough wars and bombs, we want jobs.” Iranians, including seculars and moderate clerics are ready to confront the Jihadi Mullahs on Iran’s sad realities.

Iranians are ready to pressure their regime to suspend all support to Terrorism: eliminating financial and military sustaining to HizbAllah in Lebanon and to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Syria and Palestine.

Instead Tehran should direct this oil revenue generated foreign aid to help the poor in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Egypt , and more urgently in Darfur. Iranians are ready to empower their women with job opportunity and Chador free policies. Females in the country are ready to leap into positions of responsibility.

Iranians are ready to empower students and youth and spend oil revenues on their schools, training, overseas exchange programs, Internet connections, and above all professional future. Iranians are ready to empower workers with higher wages, better work environment, efficient social security, health coverage and increasing rights.

Iranians are ready to empower talents in arts, cinema, television, theater, and all creative sectors of society, instead of the bleak and dark ideology of Jihadism.

Iranians are ready to welcome their brothers and sisters from exile and investments from the Diaspora instead of dispatching killers for sinister misdeeds against opposition around the world.

Iranians are ready for a radically new attitude on behalf of the United Nations to help the country free itself from the yoke of fascism, not for a UN cover up to the regime.

Iranians are ready for a new US Policy that would stand by the People and not sell out its future to the Khomeinist dictatorship. America must be ready for Iran’s people readiness to change towards better not towards worse.

We therefore call on Americans and democracies around the world to extend their support to the Iranian People in its quest for change, real change, so that they would join the world community of free societies and enjoy living in freedom and progress.

Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Behrooz Behbudi is the President of Global Unity Partnership.

© Copyright 2003 by walidphares.com

U.S. Investigations Lead to Arrests in Gemayel Assassination Case, By Andrew Cochran

2006-12-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

U.S. Investigations Lead to Arrests in Gemayel Assassination Case
By Andrew Cochran

The following article appeared in the "Alsyassa" newspaper in Lebanon last week and has been translated to English by a friend and highly reliable source. The article points to investigations in the U.S. which led to the arrests of Syrian-allied suspects in Lebanon:

"The investigation into the assassination of Pierre Gemayel led to the detection and seizure of weapons and explosives detonators and the arrest of seven of the Beirut-Syrian nationalists"

The Lebanese authorities confiscated weapons and explosives yesterday of several locations of the Syrian Social National Party, the pro-Syria in the Koura in northern Lebanon. A security source said that the raid and confiscation included locations and houses scattered in several villages in the Koura province, south-east Tripoli, most prominent Kosba, Shekka and Afessdeeq. As to the Directorate General of the Internal Security Forces assured in a statement that “the arrest of a number of people" during raids and the confiscation of weapons and explosives in Koura.

The source explained that one of its unit raided several houses in the Koura found inside "a large quantity of explosives with electric detonators used for the bombing and stopwatches to control the timing of the bombing in addition to large quantities of weapons." Authorized Lebanese security sources revealed to al-Seyassah that, during the raids on two stolen cars caches inside one of the Syrian Social National Party, working to identify their owners, have confiscated the equivalent of two truckloads of weapons.

Well aware those, the official of the SSNP Tony Mansour and his father were arrested during the raid and seized a gun inside the car of the first, and that security forces cordoned off the main party headquarters in Beirut. Meanwhile Party leader, Ali Qanso, admitted the arrest of seven official Syrian Social nationalists and the confiscation of explosives in northern Lebanon, claiming that they were kept since "the 1980s when he was involved in the resistance" against Israel.

Informed sources declared to al-Seyassah that, before 15 days, the National Security in the United States investigated Halim Hardan, student at the University of St. Louis, son of current MP Assaad Hardan, former minister and leading member of the Syrian Nationalist Party and the Canadian authorities as well, carried out investigation with one Khudor Awarka, the official Syrian National Party in Canada. Further to that, investigations took place in the United States and Canada with a number of the "Free National Current" followers which is led by MP Michel Aoun. In the outcome of these investigations, information and confessions related to the case of the assassination of MP and Minister Pierre Gemayel, has been extracted and that the American and Canadian authorities these information to the Lebanese government that used in the investigation of the assassination, and reached an important thread task brought to give the orders to raid a number of houses and warehouses belonging to the elements in the Syrian National Party in the area of Koura in North Lebanon, yesterday. (Emphasis mine.)

At a press conference held yesterday evening, Qanso said that the Internal Security Forces carried out a surprise raids on the National elements Koura, led to "the arrest of seven comrades." He assured that the confiscation of explosives and explosive devices and timing" are kept since the 1980s after ceasing the participation in the resistance against Israel ... And we kept them with us as reserve weapon for any later role in the resistance." Qanso described the confiscated weapons as "weapons of individual needed for party member due to the exposed security situation" in Lebanon. And confiscation of weapons and explosives coincides with the severe intense of political crisis in Lebanon between the parliamentary majority opposing Damascus and the opposition that includes Syrian loyalist parties, amongst them, the Syrian Social National Party.

Qanso condemned the raids and warned the security services of "excessive reckless," and threatened that "there are limits to the patience of the nationalists", without giving further details, and enrolled what has happened in the framework of the "incitement" of the opposition that, since the beginning of this month, has started an open stay-in strike to overdraw the government. Qanso denounced the "campaign of rumours trying to give the impression that there is a link between the raids and security events that took place in Lebanon."

Lebanon witnessed, in the last two years, a series of explosions and assassinations took six dignitary figures opposes Syria, notably former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri February 14, 2005, the latest Minister Pierre Gemayel on November 21.

The Lebanese militias handed over their weapons to the state after the end of the civil war (1975 - 1990) except for "Hezbollah" Shiite who retained under the title of resisting Israel."

December 29, 2006 09:55 AM

Mufti Mount Lebanon Mohammed Ali Al JooZoo - Attacks Iranian Interference in Lebanon in an attempt to topple Democratically Elected Government

2006-12-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

قال:لن أرد على ماسحي الأحذية في بلاط المخابرات السورية
مفتي جبل لبنان الشيخ الجوزو يفتح النار على حزب الله
[ ENGLISH TRANSLATION ]

صورة أرشيفية لمفتي جبل لبنان محمد على الجوزو

دبي - العربية.نت
تنشر صحيفة "روز اليوسف" المصرية "القومية" الجمعة 22 -12 -2006 حوارا لمفتي جبل لبنان محمد على الجوزو من المتوقع أن يثير ردود فعل كبيرة لما حمله من اتهامات مباشرة وخطيرة تتناول علاقة حزب الله بايران، ورواتب يقبضها شيوخ سنة لبنانيين من طهران مقابل تأييدهم للحزب، ومحاولة تغيير النظام اللبناني وهويته، وحجم النفوذ الايراني على الأراضي اللبنانية.
وفي الحوار الذي أجراه الزميل عبدالله كمال رئيس تحرير الصحيفة، وجه الجوزو انتقادات شديدة لحزب الله، معتبرا أنه يتحرك بسبب مذهبي محض، منذ اعتبر نفسه منتصرا عقب الانسحاب الاسرائيلي من جنوب لبنان عام 2000. وأن ذلك رافقه نوع من الغرور والتعالي والتحدي والاستفزاز العلني، "ووصل لمداه عام 2006".
وأضاف بأن "القرار في حزب الله له بعد مذهبي يصل إلي طهران، المرجعية لحزب الله خمينية مباشرة، وممثلها حسن نصر الله، وفي العراق عبد العزيز الحكيم، ومقتدى الصدر والسيستاني، وهو إيراني تابع للخمميني".
وقال " ليس هناك اختلاف في المرجعيات، كل الولاء للمرجعية في إيران، والصدر وحسن نصر الله، والسيستاني علي صلة بالقيادة الإيرانية، ومن هنا فإن سلطة خامئني ممتدة إلي العراق، ومن العراق إلي سوريا ثم حسن نصر الله في لبنان".
ووصف الجوزو مشايخ سنة الذين يؤيدون حزب الله، بأنهم "جميعهم يقبضون مرتباتهم من إيران من أجل أن يقفوا مع حزب الله، فإيران تدفع وبسخاء في الخارج رغم أن شعبها يعاني الفقر المدقع وهذا هو ما يطلقون عليه المال الحلال الذي يذهب إلي خارج إيران ليشتري شخصًا في مصر أو غيرها".

ننتقد تأليه حزب الله
واستطرد الجوزو "حزب الله في رأيهم ليس حزبًا بشريا وإنما حزب إلهي، وذلك يتردد في مظاهراتهم وخطبهم. أصبح هناك تقديس لدرجة التأليه، وهذه هي المدرسة التي ننتقدها".

وأضاف " نحن أمام حالة غريبة يعبر عنها مثل هذا الغرور الذي دفع حسن نصر الله إلي أنه يريد أن يسقط حكومة لبنان، مع أنه كان فيها، وله وزراء فيها فإذا كانت خائنة فأنت خائن، وإذا كانت عميلة لحكومة معينة، فأنت طوال السنين الماضية كنت تتعامل مع حكومة عميلة، وكنت صامتًا عنها لأنه كان لك وزراء فيها، وعندما جاءت المحكمة الدولية انسحبتم، كما أنكم دمرتم لبنان بسبب الخطف الذي قمت به ولبنان تأخر إلي الوراء عشرين سنة، فمن أجل أن نبني الجسور والمباني التي دمرت نحتاج إلي سنوات".
ومضى قائلا "نحن الآن نعيش علي مؤقتات، الدمار سهل، ولكن البناء صعب، والآن تأتي لتدمر لبنان اقتصاديًا نهائيًا في الاعتصام الذي تقوم به من أجل أخذ «الثلث المعطل» في الحكومة، الذي يعطل أي قرار يمكن أن يصدر في حالة عدم توقيعه، وذلك لكي تصبح لبنان دولة السلطات المعطلة، وحزب الله هو الذي يمسك ذلك كله، فهو متمسك برئيس الجمهورية لأن سوريا هي التي عينته، وهو يملك أيضًا الثلث المعطل".

فرض النفوذ الايراني
واتهم الجوزو حزب الله بأنه يطمح في أن يبسط سلطته علي لبنان، مشيرا إلى أنه سيكون هناك رفض من جهات أخرى "فإذا كان حزب الله مسلحًا فهناك جهات أخري مسيحية مسلحة من المسيحيين، ويقولون إننا نرفض ذلك".

وقال: "هناك بالفعل تغيير للنظام اللبناني وهويته، وفرض النفوذ الإيراني علي أرض لبنان، وهذا سيولد حربًا، خاصة أن المسيحيين كانوا ينتظرون خروج سوريا من لبنان، ولا يمكن أن يسمحوا لحزب الله أن يقوم بدور البديل".
وقال مفتي جبل لبنان محمد علي الجوزو في اجاباته على أسئلة "روز اليوسف" إن "التنافس فارسي عربي، والفارسي يركب موجة التشيع ولذلك هو يريد أن يشيع الناس في مناطق سنية مثل مصر والسودان.. ولبنان".
وأضاف "هم يشيعون الناس بالمال، فعندنا الآن في لبنان 15 إلى 20 شيخًا سنيا من الدرجة الثالثة، وهؤلاء يعطيهم الشيعة مرتبات بعضها تصل إلي 1500 دولار في الشهر، أما نحن فنعطي راتبًا لا يزيد علي 400 ألف ليرة لبناني وهو مرتب لا يساوي 200 دولار، والسبب أن لديهم إيران تدعمهم".
وأكد الجوزو أن "هناك 280 مؤسسة في الضاحية الجنوبية للبنان للشيعة، وإذا استعرضنا مؤسسات السنة في لبنان سنجدها تعد علي أصابع اليد، خمس أو سبع مؤسسات علي الأكثر، وأصبح الشيعة أكبر منا وأغني منا، وكل هذا من مال إيران".

السيطرة على أحياء سنية
وقال إن "الشيعة في الحرب وضعوا أيديهم علي منطقة الأوزاعي وهي منطقة سنية، فأخذوا كل أرض هذه المنطقة وبنوا عليها وأصبحت حيا شيعيا، كما وضعوا أيديهم علي حي اسمه «الجناح»، وجعلوه لهم، ووضعوا أيديهم علي طريق المطار، وعلي المؤسسات الموجودة فيه".
وأشار إلى أن "ايران تطمح إلى السيطرة علي المنطقة العربية، وهناك طموح بأن يضعوا أيديهم علي البترول في الخليج، وأن يتم تشييع المنطقة العربية، وهناك قري كاملة في سوريا تشيعت، وهذا كلام موثق" وأجاب على سؤال حول رد الفعل السوري بقوله " لا أعتقد أن أحدًا سيتصدى لذلك في سوريا".
وقال "عرفت أن القري التي حول حلب كالرقة مثلاً تشيعت بكاملها، وهذا ما قيل لي لأنني لا أذهب إلي سوريا ولا أقدر علي الذهاب هناك، وهذا كله يتم بالأموال، ولقد عرض علي شخصيًا أموال، وقيل لي سنعطيك كل ما تطلبه من أجل أن تتعاون معنا".
وأضاف "شتمني الشيعة علي قناة «المنار» لأنني أنتقدهم، ولكن لن أرد عليهم بالمستوي السوقي الذي يتبعونه، وأتي إلي أحد الزعماء المسيحيين، وكانت وسائل الإعلام موجودة فقلت لن أرد علي ماسحي الأحذية في بلاط المخابرات السورية".

لا أخاف تهديداتهم
وعن المعلومات التي تقول إنه مهدد في لبنان رد الجوزو "الأعمار بيد الله، ماذا سآخذ من الدنيا أكثر مما أخذت منها، ولن أحزن عليها إذا ماراحت.. بل سأكون قد أضأت شمعة للناس من أجل أن تفهم الواقع الذي نعيشه، فأنا مسئول بين المسلمين ومن واجبي أن أنبه الشعوب الإسلامية بالخطر المحدق بها".
وأضاف "هناك بعض الناس فتنوا وما يساعد على ذلك هو أن هناك عددا من العلماء في المناطق العربية المختلفة ليس لديهم وعي بالأبعاد السياسية، أو الأبعاد المذهبية للموضوع يتعاملون عاطفيًا مع مسألة الشيعة".

حزب الله لم يحرر شبرا
وقال إن حزب الله لم "يستطع أن يحرر ولا شبر واحد، بل ان الأرض التي كانت محتلة في الجنوب، وتحررت من قبل احتلت بعد مواجهة حزب الله الأخيرة مع إسرائيل. وجاءت الأمم المتحدة، وأصبح حزب الله بعيدًا تمامًا عن المواجهة، ولا يستطيع حتي أن يضرب صواريخ مثلما كان يفعل في الماضي، لأن القوى الدولية ستتدخل علي الفور، وعليه فنحن بما فعله حزب الله تراجعنا للخلف".
وتابع "إن الثلاثين يومًا التي يفخر حسن نصر الله أنه صمد خلالها حدثت جبريا من قرار أمريكي طلب من إسرائيل أن تطيل مدة الحرب وتضرب بالطيران من أجل أن تدمر أكبر منشآت ممكنة، هذا كله لا يعد نصرًا، النصر ليس مجرد أن أضرب صواريخ علي إسرائيل".
وقال محمد علي الجوزو إن "حزب الله ألقى بعدد من الصواريخ «5 آلاف صاروخ» علي إسرائيل، وكانت نتيجتها علي الأرض 80 قتيلاً، و120 جريحا، أما في لبنان 1200 قتيل، و4 آلاف جريح، ومليون نازح".
وتساءل: إننا في معركة سياسية، فما الداعي لأن تذكر شتائم سوقية، وحسن نصرالله نفسه أحيانًا يقول كلامًا ينسي فيه نفسه، وقد اتهمني بأني عميل أمريكي، مع أن ذلك أولى أن يقوله لإخوانه.
وأضاف أنه "قتل من حزب الله أشخاص كثيرون في معارك المواجهة، لكنه يخفي الحقائق التي تحدث علي الأرض، فلم يذكر عدد من قتل لديه، ويقول ما زال سلاحنا كما هو، وعندنا 20 ألف صاروخ، ودعنا نفترض أن هناك 20 ألف صاروخ، فبحسبة بسيطة نقول إن الخمسة آلاف صاروخ قتلت 80 يعني أن العشرين ألف صاروخ يمكن أن تقتل 400 وهو عدد لن يكون كعدد قتلانا، فلو ضرب حسن نصرالله الـ20 ألف صاروخ التي يمتلكها فلن يدمر إسرائيل، وكل ما سيفعله أن يخيف الإسرائيليين الموجودين في المستعمرات التي علي الحدود".
وقال "الخلاصة أن العامة مبهورون بأي شخص يطلق رصاصة علي إسرائيل، وحسن نصر الله ضرب لأن إسرائيل طولت الحرب فأراد أن يرمي دون دراسة عسكرية مضبوطة، لم نسمع أنه ضرب كباري أو أصاب مطارًا من المطارات أو أصاب ميناء حيفا، أو يصيب مركزًا رئيسيًا حيويا".
وتابع الجوزو "أريد أن أقول إن حسن نصرالله ضرب، ولكن ضرب في وقت سيئ، فضرب الاقتصاد اللبناني كله، دمره، وقام بعملية واختطف أسيرين ليقال إنه قام بعملية بطولية".
وردا على سؤال عن الذي سيضربه الآن حزب الله.. أجاب:" سيضرب نفسه لأنه كشف نفسه أمام العالم العربي بأن له طموحات مذهبية".

تيار شيعي ضد حزب الله
وأكد أنه ليس هناك إجماع علي حزب الله بين الشيعة "فهناك مجموعات كبيرة بين الشيعة في لبنان لا توافق علي حزب الله، وهناك الآن تيار شيعي حر، وهو تيار ظهر من مشايخ الشيعة يقولون إنهم ضد ما يفعله حزب الله، ولكن إيران لا تدفع لهم، وهناك العائلات العريقة مثل عائلة الأسعد يرفضون حزب الله، لأنهم يعتبرون أنفسهم زعماء الشيعة الحقيقيين في لبنان، وأن حزب الله ظهر في الحرب وفرض نفسه على الشيعة".
وقال "ما يحدث الآن غزو شيعي إيراني فارسي لم يستطع أن يفعله الخميني، ولكنه يتم حاليا بأيدي «حسن نصر الله ومقتدي الصدر، وعبدالعزيز الحكيم، ومحمد علي تسخيري".

تعليقات حول الموضوع

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Burning Cedars - interview with Ahlam Ghadry

2006-12-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

Burning Cedars
Will the democratic revolution in Lebanon survive the latest crisis?

An NRO Q&A

For Ahlam Ghadry, a native of Lebanon, democracy in her birthplace is a family affair. Ahlam is married to Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform Party of Syria, “a US-based Syrian opposition party to the Assad regime that has emerged as a result of September 11.” National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez recently asked Ahlam for her thoughts on the current state of democracy in Lebanon.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What ever happened to the Cedar Revolution?

Ahlam Ghadry: The Cedar Revolution is still alive, and its leaders hold on to the dream of a free, independent, and sovereign Lebanon. Their voices have been overcome by the crackle of weapons, during the July Israeli-Hezbollah war and the continuous assassinations of promising leaders of the movement, the last of whom was Minister Pierre Gemayel. As my husband said in an article in the Washington Times, Beirut is an Alamo and Fouad Siniora is the William Barrett Travis of Lebanon. Although the revolution is alive, we need Sam Houston to come to our rescue.

Lopez: What’s your affiliation with the March 14 Movement? How powerful is the movement?

Ghadry: All the Lebanese who want a free, democratic, and sovereign nation are affiliated with March 14. Personally, I believe and share their vision for the future of a free and prosperous Lebanon where all religious sects will live in peace and where Lebanese can live and work to benefit their country and stop the emigration of Lebanon’s young and promising next generation. As a Druze woman, I am particularly interested in the importance of minority women in Lebanon — an issue in which the present government is making progress, which Rafik Hariri successfully initiated.

Lopez: What will be the long-term effect of Pierre Gemayel’s assassination?

Ghadry: The assassination of Pierre Gemayel was a wake-up call to the Christian Maronites, some of whom have drifted away from the Cedar Revolution because of their leader Aoun’s affiliation with Hezbollah and his desertion of his principles. The majority of the Christian Maronites want Lebanon to be free from any Syrian or Iranian control.

The assassination was also a signal to March 14 leaders that they are not immune from assassination themselves: there is no place to hide and no one is exempt. The killers of Pierre Gemayel are one and the same (Syrian and Iranian agents) and their victims are one and the same (Lebanese who resist Syria and Iran). Pierre Gemayel represented the hope of the upcoming generation. His courage and enthusiasm were contagious, his love for Lebanon unconditional, his voice loud and clear: no compromise on the sovereignty of Lebanon. I believe Gemayel’s death has given more strength to the March 14 leaders to follow their plan for Lebanon.

Lopez: How entrenched is Hezbollah in Lebanon?

Ghadry: Hezbollah is deeply entrenched in Lebanon. It was a resistance movement that had a defined role throughout the “civil war” of the ’70s and ’80s, namely, that of controlling the south of Lebanon. And to do that it relied on Syria to be the conduit through which weapons were transported from Iran. As the last Hezbollah-Israeli war in August proved, one cannot underestimate the magnitude of the weapons arsenal that Hezbollah is still acquiring.

Besides the military role, Hezbollah has a critical political role now through its representatives in the Lebanese government. The resignation last month of their ministers in the legitimate Lebanese government, on the same day the government was to discuss and sign the Draft Resolution for the International Tribunal in the Assassination of Hariri, sent signals that they don’t want to partake in this mission; the havoc they created by calling for the downfall of Siniora’s government — claiming discrimination against the Shiia as an excuse — is still felt to this day. Hezbollah wants a Lebanese government that is controlled by a majority of pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian Lebanese politicians. And as the scene in downtown Beirut, where there are currently hundreds of Hezbollah tents, shows, Hezbollah is besieging the March 14 leaders and ministers; this is the real story, which is unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Lopez: What should Americans think of Fouad Siniora?

Ghadry: Siniora is very easy to read. Since the assassination of Hariri and as prime minister, Siniora’s message to all the Lebanese has never changed. He has been working on the revival of the economy through the Paris conferences (three meetings so far). He is always calling on all the parties to resolve issues that pertain to the national interest by means of dialogue. He is wise and patient, loyal, and patriotic, brave, and steady, willing to talk to friends and foes to find common solutions to national problems, fair and consistent, and most importantly, he is anti violence, a peaceful man who believes that we all need to talk and resolve peacefully our differences. He is irreplaceable and a target for those who still harbor grudges or are considering fomenting chaos. Americans should support Siniora in every venue they can.

Lopez: What does the current state of Lebanon mean for President George W. Bush’s “democracy project”?

Ghadry: The present state of Lebanon is a clear indication that achieving true democracy is easier said than done. President Bush’s call for democracy in the Middle East sent a clear signal to Arab reformists and to the Lebanese government that it can rely on the United States for support. We hope that we still can, because nothing will do more to suck the oxygen out of a reform movement, eager for and in need of support, than the knowledge that our greatest advocate no longer yields the power to support dissidents. The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon encouraged those with yearnings for freedom and independence to go ahead and continue their steady efforts for change; they were confident because “America supports them,” as the president said in a speech.

Unfortunately, there has been a lot of Syrian meddling in the internal affairs of Lebanon. During the 30-year span of Syrian control over Lebanon, the Syrian influence has become so entrenched in all aspects of life that though the Syrian army has left, there has been a strong continuing presence of allies of Syria in Lebanon — for example, Karami, Frenjieh, Nasrallah, and others who are willing to do anything to keep their Syrian friends happy, even if it means putting the national interest to the side and sacrificing the future of Lebanon as a free and independent country.

The new democracy that evolved in Lebanon as a result of the Hariri assassination needed support — not just words, but action. Syria is a threat to this new democracy, and its alliance with Hezbollah continues this threat. The world is watching the new democracy pay a heavy toll for the price of freedom, and the struggle is not over yet. We need to move from words to action, or the continuous threat of violence may cause the dream of Lebanese freedom to evaporate, and President Bush’s call for democracy will be rendered nothing but an echo.

Lopez: What does the current state of Lebanon mean for the region?

Ghadry: As we watch Lebanon suffer from the interference of Syria and Iran, the whole region has become a powder keg. Syria controls the northeast border, through which weapons are continuously smuggled to Hizballah. This border is so porous it’s impossible for the Lebanese to control it on their own. Syria has the upper hand in permitting weaponry to find its way to the most violent groups, and from the look of it, Syria will continue to interfere in Lebanon, in spite of the many calls by the international community to respect U.N. Resolution 1701. Assad views the application of U.N. Resolution 1559, which required Syria to evacuate its soldiers from Lebanese soil, as a defeat, and he is trying to correct it by meddling in internal Lebanese affairs — and most openly, I might add, by trying to bring down the democratically elected Siniora government.

The dream of democracy in Lebanon will always be threatened by the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Iranian militant regime of Ahmadinejad by means of their proxy, Hezbollah. As other countries in the region watch, Hezbollah is calculating [wanting to spread out further still]. Democracy in Lebanon is threatened to be strangled in its cradle, and it’s only due to the courage and resilience of the Cedar Revolution, March 14 leaders, and true patriotic Lebanese, that this dream will not be abandoned. As for the region, pro-democratic activity is key, and pragmatic support of the Siniora government will carry it the extra mile.

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National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGU0ZGQ0ZTQ1ZTM5Y2I0OGE1YThjYzBiZjZmNGZmMWI=

Syrian Miscalculations by Tariq Alhomayed, Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat

2006-12-18T08:24:00.000-08:00

Syrian Miscalculations

14/12/2006

According to Syria's ambassador to Washington, up until a few months ago, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani used a Syrian passport, which he has now handed over. Such a statement is intended to demonstrate that Damascus has helped Iraq and the Iraqis; however, I do not understand what is new about an Iraqi official carrying a non-Iraqi passport since many carry American passports and even American mobile phones!

Syria's perpetual problem lies in miscalculations. When Syrian Vice-president Farouk al Shara recently discussed the tensions that exist in Saudi-Syrian relations, he attributed it to personal reasons, saying that "We, Arabs, become angry and calm down quickly!"

Is it really a simple case of Lebanon's stability depending on a personal opinion, and Syria shifting into a disruptive state and a means of access for Iran as a result of a moment of passing anger!?

Despite Al Shara's statement, everyone is aware of the efforts of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz to help the Syrian leadership save face during the investigation into the Hariri assassination, which resulted in the transfer of Syrian officials from Beirut to Vienna for questioning. Moreover, King Abdullah insisted that the Syrian regime and its stability should not be disturbed; controlling his anger over the murder of Hariri, whose personal relationship with the king is well documented.

Syria's miscalculations are not exclusive to this, and Farouk al Shara's words remind the entire Gulf region of Syria's stance concerning the liberation of Kuwait whilst it was under the occupation of Saddam's regime. However, at that time, Syria was under the leadership of the late President Hafez al Assad, a master politician who knew how to capitalize on circumstances. Back then, with the participation of a limited number of troops, Syria settled a number of issues, including an extensive feud with Saddam's regime that lasted for over 20 years, and resulted in such animosity that both parties plotted coups, tightened their grip on Beirut and, at that time, expelled General Michel Aoun, a Syrian ally at present.

But what cards does Syria hold today?

Nowadays, Syria has lost its playing cards in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine while completely burning its card in the Golan Heights. Syria could have held the key to many complexities, nevertheless it is now an obstacle to many, the solution to which does not begin nor end in Syria.

Present-day Damascus takes pride in James Baker’s report, nonetheless, it is apparent that it has not read the report thoroughly since Baker condemns the state more then he portrays it as a possible solution. The Iraqi President's Syrian passport is more of a condemnation of misinterpretations than proof of cooperation. Syria granted a passport with one hand and hampered Iraq with the other.

Farouk al Shara's latest statements are an embodiment of Syria's miscalculations. Syria excels the most out of all Arab states in creating hostility by use of distrustful language, whilst exerting all efforts to engage in talks with Washington. And yet Syria is pleased with The Baker Report, despite the fact that the US occupation of Iraq was merely a playing card in Syria's eyes, keeping in mind that Damascus was the only Arab representative to the Security Council when it unanimously voted to apply Chapter VII to Saddam Hussein's regime and Iraq, which meant the use of force. It is Syria now that seeks negotiation with Israel.

All statements that emerge from Damascus focus on nationalism, Arabism, heroism and overused phrases that we are fed up of hearing; regrettably however, Syria is the opposite!

by Tariq Alhomayed
Tariq Alhomayed is the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, the youngest person to be appointed that position. Mr. Alhomayed has an acclaimed and distinguished career as a Journalist and has held many key positions in the field including; Assistant Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, Managing Editor of Asharq Al-Awsat in Saudi Arabia, Head of Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper's Bureau-Jeddah, Correspondent for Al - Madina Newspaper in Washington D.C. from 1998 to Aug 2000. Mr. Alhomyed has been a guest analyst and commentator on numerous news and current affair programs including: the BBC, German TV, Al Arabiya, Al- Hurra, LBC and the acclaimed Imad Live’s four-part series on terrorism and reformation in Saudi Arabia. He is also the first Journalist to conduct an interview with Osama Bin Ladin's Mother. Mr. Alhomayed holds a BA degree in Media studies from King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, and has also completed his Introductory courses towards a Master’s degree from George Washington University in Washington D.C. He is based in London.

Interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad: 'Still they have not learned that Syria does not take instructions'

2006-12-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

'Still they have not learned that Syria does not take instructions'

Monday, December 18, 2006

Interview

Editor's note: The following are excerpts of an interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad conducted by Alix Van Buren and published on Friday in the Italian daily La Repubblica.

DAMASCUS: Two years of diplomatic and economic isolation don't seem to have tarnished Syria President Bashar Assad's shine. The Baker plan, with its request that the White House revise its politics in the Middle East, has brought him back to the center of the international stage.

Van Buren: Mister President, two years ago you said America one day would come knocking on Syria's door. Was this a prophecy or a threat?

Assad: Listen, before the war in Iraq I told them: you are going to sink in the Iraqi swamp and you will need someone to extract you. Later, everything we said happened. But it was neither a prophecy nor a threat. Rather, this is what we have learned from our experience in the region. We live in this region, we know the course of the events, and it was proven that depending on military power alone will lead you nowhere. They need a vision. And many recommendations in the Baker report are in harmony with our vision.

Q: Some examples?

A: "Here is one: they need somebody to help them to formulate a vision ... Second, the report talks about the need for a comprehensive peace, linking the different issues in the region to the problem of occupation, in Palestine and the Golan Heights, as we always said before the war and now. Third, it recognizes the central role of Syria."

Q: Is Syria willing to cooperate?

A: Of course we are willing. Because we have an interest in solving the regional issues - Iraq, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Lebanon - because we, the neighboring countries, will be affected more than the others. But to cooperate it is not enough to have the will, nor are we the only players. To achieve a result you need all the regional and the international players around the table: the countries bordering Iraq and Israel, the United Nations, Europe and also China and Japan. And you need to get some agreement about the vision of the future from all these parties."

Q: Can Syria's interests coincide, at least temporarily, with those of the United States?

A: "Yes, if America is willing and honest: When they say we need a unified Iraq, when they say they need to stop the violence, we have common interests. When they mention the word 'peace,' if they are serious, we can work together on all these issues. But I doubt that Washington's perspective coincides with our own."

Q: Why, Mister President?

A: "Because the problem with this administration is that they mix dialogue with instructions. Judging by [President George W.] Bush's declarations a few days ago, they do not acknowledge reality, they do not want to admit they were wrong."

Q: So is it a matter of time? Are they going to make a gradual U-turn?

A: We don't know. Still they have not learned that Syria does not take instructions, it cannot be bossed around by others ... We do not work for others' interests. And these interests for Syria are recognizing our occupied land and the whole situation in the region. Will America recognize them? This is the main question."

Q: Bush said, "Syria knows what it must do." According to him, you must renounce your alliance with Iran, stop supporting Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Iraqi terrorism?

A: "Regarding the infiltration of terrorists in Iraq, they do not believe their own accusations when they make them ... If you ask them in private meetings, they say that Syria did a good job of stopping the infiltration of foreign fighters."

Q: Do you consider you were on the winning side in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah?

A: "... One of our principles is that if this organization represents the majority of people then we have to deal with it. The landslide victory of Hamas at the elections proved that we were right, because we stood by the majority of the Palestinian people. The same applies to Hizbullah. But there is a second aspect: We share the same problems. We all have occupied lands, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Syria. And we have the same occupier or, if we want to be honest, the same enemy."

Q: You mean Israel? Is it the eternal enemy?

A: "No, when there is peace. You can live in peace and harmony side by side, but first of all you must achieve peace."

Q: What are the main obstacles?

A: "There are no obstacles in Syria. We have the full support of the Syrian people to achieve peace because we are going to get back our land. The real question is, is Israel ready to accept peace?"

Q: [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert said the time is not yet ripe to open a dialogue with Syria, and that the Bush administration is against it too. How do you respond?

A: "This means they do not want peace. But the most important thing, as you said, is that Washington doesn't want that. This means this is a weak [Israeli] government, it allows Washington to take the decision instead ... Weak governments can make war but cannot achieve peace. Peace is much more difficult than war."

Q: Israeli military intelligence said Syria is massing ... missiles along its borders, has learned lessons from the war in Lebanon and is preparing for a military campaign. Is the intelligence correct?

A: "You know we are still in a state of war with Israel because they still occupy our land. Secondly, we have to anticipate that Israel could launch a war against Syria at any time. They say in their statements that they may think of war against Hizbullah and Syria next summer. Third, they attempted to violate our airspace several times in the past five years. They even attacked the Syrian Army. So it is not a fantasy to say that war is a possibility in our region. And it is normal to prepare yourself for such a war, and one of the ways to prepare yourself is to learn lessons from other wars, especially the neighboring wars. But that doesn't mean that 'massing missiles' is a correct description."

Q: And what about Syria rearming Hizbullah, as Israel maintains?

A: "Listen, they have satellites, they have all the UNIFIL soldiers, all their intelligence in Lebanon, of the army, of the government, while we have none in Lebanon. With all these people and means, why do they not stop the rearmament, if it is true?"

Q: Does Syria support UN Security Council Resolution 1710 on disarming Hizbullah?

A: "We have some reservations on it but we support it because we want to stop the war and we want stability in Lebanon because the Lebanese in the end are paying the price and we are going to pay the price with them. But we said it is a temporary solution. Like a cease-fire, if you do not follow it up with political action, like working for peace, it can not last long ..."

Q: On the sidelines of the G8 summit, Bush said that "all that is needed is to get Syria to get Hizbullah to quit all that s**t, and everything is over." Can you really stop Hizbullah with a wink of your eye, if we wish you to do so?

A: "No, this is an exaggeration. They want to depict Hizbullah as a Syrian or Iranian puppet. Hizbullah represents a large part of the Lebanese. They have their own interests and their own vision which we share with them. We have a dialogue with them and, of course, with many Lebanese parties. They trust Syria and because of that we can have influence. But it does not mean that if we go against their interests they will listen to Syria."

Q: Yet Bush and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora accused you attempting a "coup d'etat" against the government in Beirut through your support of Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. How do you respond?

A: "The more I hear the statements by the current US administration, the more I

am convinced that when they see something, they see it in the opposite way ... We have an interest in the stability of Lebanon, so we cannot be with one party against the other. Sharing the vision of Hizbullah does not mean supporting it against the others. We support every matter of consensus about the Lebanese. It will

take time before this

consensus emerges. Then we will support it. We want to be in the middle, always."

Q: So it is not true that you want to regain influence in Lebanon?

A: "We have influence in Lebanon, we never lost it. But that does not mean interference. Our influence does not come from a relation with a superpower. We get it from our history and our geography ... Geographically, Lebanon is surrounded by Syria, the depth of Lebanon is Syria. But it is a two-way relationship: Lebanon also has influence in Syria because of its position and its social ties."

Q: Why are you so much against the international tribunal that will try the criminals behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri?

A: "We are not against it. We have an interest in cooperating with the investigation commission to uncover the truth of the crime. But this is different from the international tribunal. First of all, they did not consult us. The tribunal is a treaty between the United Nations and the Lebanese government. We are a state, we have our Constitution and laws. And without a treaty, we cannot allow any tribunal to work in the place of our government. It is like giving up your sovereignty."

Q: Mister President, you talk about peace, about consensus. Yet one of your closest allies, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says he wants to wipe Israel off the world map. How does that fit with your quest for peace?

A: "Iranians are not against the peace process ... They

never tried to stop us from starting the peace talks, not in the past and not now. As to his words, you may read what they said in Haaretz a few days ago: 'No Palestinians. No Palestine. No Problems' ... They started this logic."

Q: So what is at the core of your alliance with Tehran?

A: "Tehran supported Syria. That's enough. The whole world wanted to isolate Syria and they stood beside us ... Iran is an important country, therefore Europe and America have to talk with it, and we have to have good relations with Iran for the stability of the region, including that of Iraq."

Q: Can Syria help stabilize Iraq?

A: "Again, we are not the only player. We can support a national Iraqi conference between the different factions with regional support ... We also resumed diplomatic relations with Iraq ... However when talking about Iraq, one must not lose sight of the larger picture. As I said, all the different issues in the region are linked to the problem of occupation. The Baker report is very clear on this point: It starts with Iraq but it ends up talking about peace ..."

Q: Is the Madrid Conference on your mind?

A: "This is the only appropriate base for the peace talks. The principle of Madrid was clear: 'land for peace.' Much was achieved during the Rabin government, and anyone who wants to start from point Zero does not want to achieve peace because it means they don't agree on things already agreed on. As to the centrality of the Palestinian issue in the Arab world, those who do not recognize it are not realistic: They will achieve nothing."

Q: Did you get positive reactions form the European envoys that came to Damascus?

A: "When we talk about Europe, it should be a bridge with the United States ... It should not limit itself, as sometimes happens, to come to our region with American ideas, to convince us. But the role of Europe is limited by the role of the United States ... and also by its own internal divisions, before the war on Iraq and now. We cannot talk about Europe as such, but rather about some players, such as the role by Italy and Spain."

Q: Do you expect positive results from the dialogue with Italy?

A: "Our relation with Italy has improved a lot with [Prime Minister Romano] Prodi ... He knows our region and understands the events very well. Sometimes Italy and Syria see things from different angles and this is normal. The other side is that he has credibility and this is very important for cooperation. But we are still at the beginning of the dialogue. It must mature, because we live in international circumstances where Italy and Syria alone are not enough, we have to move with the rest of the players, with a common vision."

Q: You are speaking again like a central actor of the international scene. Do you feel vindicated now?

A: "You must remember than a little more than one year ago America said we were irrelevant, weak, that we had no role. The latest developments have vindicated us. Actually, whoever talks about isolating Syria is isolating themselves from the region. If you look at many countries who participated in the attempts of isolating Syria, now they cannot play any constructive role."

Q: Who are you thinking about?

A: "Let's say France for example. If you talk about the peace initiative by France, Italy and Spain, we cooperate with Rome and Madrid. But not with Paris: because of their policies, because they no longer have the credibility to play such a role."

Q: Some would object that during this time there was in Syria a tightening of liberties. That civil right activists and political dissidents were imprisoned for their opinions, the most quoted case is that of Michel Kilo. How do you reply to such criticism?

A: "Firstly we don't allow anyone to interfere in our domestic issues. We know what to do, whether we do it right or wrong ... Second, Michel Kilo did not go to prison because he had a different opinion. He was tried in a normal court. He has a relation with a party in Lebanon which publicly invited the United States to attack Syria and occupy Damascus. This party is against Syria according to the law."

Q: Mister President, do you still want to open up the Syrian society to democracy?

A: "Political and economic reforms proceed in tandem. But there is an issue of priorities. Which means which one [do you] you have to focus on more? What is urgent in Syria? Poverty. This is the most important challenge. We don't say we're going to focus on the political side and not the economic but rather we look for what the people want. But in the end that is why I want to be a man of peace. When there is peace you will have prosperity in the broader sense. Economy, society, culture, all are related. So you can be a man of war or a man of peace. I have made my choice. Peace is central if you want to leave a fingerprint in the history of your country."

Interview: Elias Bejjani interviews Ahmad Al Assad

2006-12-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Interview: Elias Bejjani interviews Ahmad Al Assad

Dear, it is my pleasure to share with you distinguishable audio 37 minutes interview that Elias Bejjani conducted Dec. 15th with Ahmad Al Assaed, Chairman for the Lebanese Kafaat Movement.

Ahmad's father - Kamal Al Assad was Speaker of the Parliament in Lebanon

It is posted on the LCCC web site http://www.10452lccc.com

Press here to listen to the interview
Excerpts from the interview http://www.10452lccc.com/audionews/ahmad1.ram

Former Ambassador and Intelligence Chief interview on LBC TV

2006-12-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

Former Ambassador and Intelligence Chief interview on Lebanese TV
Kalam Al Nass, Friday December 15th, 2006

In a revealing interview - Johnny Abdo, once considered for President Lahoud's replacement - before the Syrians reinstated Lahoud, Said in an Interview on LBC the following shocking statements:

- Hizbullah doesn't want 1/3 of the Government - they want it all, this is just the first step.

- Hizbullah / Iran / Syria they don't want a Presidential election - rather they want to stall the Presidential election when this Presidents term expires - to have a state without a head - further destabilizing the government for its ripe takeover.

- March 14 forces should not negotiate with Arab League Amr Moussa and Sudan envoy - this is just giving into their demands.

- If they keep saying that the March 14 are agents and spies of America and Israel and they say they want to make a unity government with us - then how can they make a unity government with spies? Thus they must not be telling us the truth.

- There should not be any more Dialogue Discussions - The Dialogue doesn't represent Lebanon - the Parliament represents Lebanon. Everything discussed in the dialogue has to get parliaments approval anyway. If you want to discuss issues such as the tribunal then they should tell the Speaker to Open a Session of Parliament, we meet, we discuss, and then we vote on it.

- Berri was selected by Hizbullah to be speaker and all other candidates were threatened - so this is proof that their arms are being used inside Lebanon - to intimidate the Lebanese.

- Nasrallah did a lot of favors to Syria and Iran with the July War, so if needed he can ask for a favor in return - so if Nasrallah wanted to help Lebanon then he could tell Syria to stop undermining Lebanon and give us our space to solve our own problems.

- They don't want to because they gave Hizbullah weapons for a reason - they (Iran/Syria) have a Master Plan.

- Abdo said that a politician told Nasrallah - do you know that the downtown is losing 70 - 80 Million $'s a month, and Nasrallah did not give a positive response.

- Abdo said that he doesn't think Hizbullah is going to attack the Grand Serial because if they did so it would spawn the Sunni's to respond, so they will use the Christian Aoun group so as to 1. separate the Christians and 2. not challenge the Sunni's.

- Abdo said that there will be more assassinations because Iran and Syria see this as the time. He said it is revealing that the killing is towards one side only.

- Abdo asked how can this government be unconstitutional? Constitution comes from experts; it's not up to Berri or Lahoud to interpret. But, if they think it is unconstitutional then why are they on the street? Means it is constitutional. Also, he asked how can it be unconstitutional when we had democratic elections, the UN supported, the world powers support?

- Abdo said you can't trust Aoun, because he agrees on one side and then on the other side he does what is good for his own personal goals. Even in France, he said that Aoun use to agree and then do otherwise. He said - remember Aoun's war in Souk El Gharb to liberate Lebanon from the Syrians and a lot of Lebanese died and look now he is defending Syria and Iran? When he was in France he accused Syria, now if someone is assassinated and they accuse Syria he comes out in defense of Syria.

- Abdo also said that when you ask Hizbullah about Hamas Government they say that they were elected by the people and thus are constitutional, but when you ask them about Siniora's elected government they say that they are not constitutional.

Hizbullah is facing even more Shi'ite Rejection

2006-12-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

Hizbullah is facing even more Shi'ite Rejection

Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufayli - The first Secretary General of Hizbullah - In Revealing Statements on LBC

On LBC, Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 the former first secretary-general of Hezbollah, who was considered the highest religious authority in Baalbek as evident by his nomination as 'president of the envisioned Islamic Republic' in Baalbek in 1984, Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli - in a very surprising revealation said that

"Hizbullah is taking their orders directly from Iran"

And to Iran he said

"If you want to break America in Lebanon - Don't You know that America is Closer to You in Iraq then they are here in Lebanon - Thus the Conclusion is that you have other Motives for Being here in Lebanon"!!!

Senator Bill Nelson in Meeting with Assad - Assad Shows His True Colors!

2006-12-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

Senator Bill Nelson in Meeting with Assad - Assad Shows His True Colors!

Senator Bill Nelson's Message to ALL LEBANESE AMERICANS - IN NO WAY WILL LEBANON'S INDEPENDENCE BE DISCUSSED. BOTH SIDES OF CAPITOL HILL SUPPORT A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC LEBANON.

Breaking News

Senator Bill Nelson's meeting with Assad

Nelson's Visit to Damascus – Revealing, Clashes, Disagreements Showing Clear Signals that Negotiations with Syria are One Way.

Syria's arrogance and non cooperation highlighted

Reports from the region and reports from the Senator calling AP network news -the meeting did not go as smooth as once thought.

Some in the Press are describing the meeting as an utter disaster and failure, in which Syria's arrogance and non-cooperation were clearly displayed.

When the Senator said the US, and both sides of Capitol Hill - Democrats and Republicans are UNDIVIDED on its support of the Siniora government, in a Surprise move the Syrian President abruptly said that Syria flatly does not support the democratically elected government of Siniora.

Assad after the meeting called for no foreign intervention in Lebanon. This statement is shocking and reveals the true nature of negotiations with Syria. On one side Syria orders nations not to interfere with Lebanon, but while on the other side is interfering in Lebanon more than any other nation or even the Lebanese itself.

Syria withdrew its military from Lebanon last year after a successful attempts by the United States, France and the UN. But, retains an extensive amount of intelligence agents operating in the Country that have infiltrated the highest levels. These agents are clearly undermining the Democratically elected government of Lebanon. Syria, according to John Bolton and Press reports, are violating UN Resolution 1559 and 1701 by supplying arms to sides in Lebanon, and not respected Lebanon's Independence and Sovereignty. Syria also has not made any headway on opening an embassy in Lebanon and demarcating the border with Lebanon.

In an Associated Press report October 31, 2006

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, expressed concern that Syria and Iran are trying to destabilize Lebanon's democratically elected government by violating a UN arms embargo.

Bolton stressed on Monday that Syria's obligations to respect a UN arms embargo authorized by the August Security Council resolution that ended the 34-day conflict between Israel and Hezbollah "are particularly important as it is the one country other than Israel that borders Lebanon."
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In a speech to the UN Security Council, Bolton welcomed the Lebanese government's extension of its authority throughout the south of the country for the first time in almost 40 years, as well as its army's deployment along the eastern part of the UN-drawn boundary with Israel and the border with Syria.

"Despite this advance, we continue to be concerned that Syria and Iran are actively trying to destabilize the democratically elected government of Lebanon ...," he said. "We call on Syria and Iran to abide by their bligations to respect Lebanon's sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence."
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Bolton made the remarks to the closed-door council meeting on the implementation of Resolution 1559, which was adopted in September 2004 and called for the
extension of Lebanese authority throughout the south and the disarming of all militias in the country.

The Security Council said in a presidential statement at the end of the meeting that "important progress" has been made toward the implementation of Resolution 1559, particularly through the deployment of the Lebanese army in south Lebanon.

But the council also noted "with regret" that some provisions of the resolution have yet to be implemented, namely the disbanding of militias, strict respect for Lebanon's "sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence," and free and fair presidential elections "without any foreign interference and influence."

To further complicate matters - Hizbullah claims disputes with Israel over the Shebaa farms, but in reality the Lebanon's major border disputes are with Syria - in which no less then 36 areas of Lebanon are being occupied by Syria - this according to an official Lebanese Army Map.
In the Washington Post this morning the Clash of Different Minds and Approaches to Lebanon and the Region were highlighted:

"he (Senator Bill Nelson) acknowledged that he and Assad had "sharp differences" over U.S. support of the Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which Assad told Nelson he does not back, the senator said. They also had serious differences over Syria's support for Hezbollah and Hamas, which the United States considers terrorist organizations.

The Orlando Sentinel said in its edition this morning that:

"The Florida Democrat said the two clashed, though, on other Middle East issues, such as Syrian opposition to the Lebanese government."

As Nelson debriefed reporters by phone Wednesday morning from the U.S. embassy in Jordan, the White House put out a tough statement by President Bush calling for political prisoners to be released and saying "Syrians deserve a government whose legitimacy is grounded in the consent of the people, not brute force."

Nelson's office here in the United States clearly stated that the Senator wants to get this message across to All Lebanese Americans: In no way did he begin or entertain any negotiations on Lebanon’s Independence, In no way was this a meeting to negotiate away Lebanon’s future, and that the Senator clearly stated that both sides of Capital Hill supported a Free and Democratic Lebanon.

For its part the President of The United States came out in Support of Lebanon’s Freedom and Independence from foreign intervention yesterday. In a White House
Statement President Bush said the following:

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary

December 13, 2006

President's Statement on the Government of Syria

The United States supports the Syrian people's desire for democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression. Syrians deserve a government whose legitimacy
is grounded in the consent of the people, not brute force.

The Syrian regime should immediately free all political prisoners, including Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, Anwar al-Bunni, Mahmoud Issa, and Kamal Labwani. I am deeply troubled by reports that some ailing political prisoners are denied health care while others are held in cells with violent criminals.

Syria should disclose the fate and whereabouts of the many missing Lebanese citizens who "disappeared" following their arrest in Lebanon during the decades of Syrian military occupation. The Syrian regime should also cease its efforts to undermine Lebanese sovereignty by denying the Lebanese people their right to participate in the democratic process free of foreign intimidation and
interference.

The people of Syria hope for a prosperous future with greater opportunities for their children, and for a government that fights corruption, respects the rule of law, guarantees the rights of all Syrians, and works toward achieving peace in the region.

Clearly Syria does not get the message on Lebanon from the Lebanese or the International Community. And, Clearly Senator Bill Nelson is getting the Message that Negotiations with Syria is One Sided.

Editor, WCCR

IRAN NEEDS A CHANGE OF DIRECTION by Walid Phares and Behrooz Bahbudi

2006-12-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post
Sunday, December 10, 2006

IRAN NEEDS A CHANGE OF DIRECTION by Walid Phares and Behrooz Bahbudi

Iran’s President, M Mahmoud Ahmedinijad recently sent a letter to the American people explaining his views and the views of his regime regarding America, its values and US policy worldwide. We, the authors of this fourth letter to the American People, wish to respond to Tehran’s ruler and inform the public in both nations about the realities of Iran’s involvements in world crisis. We wish to create a better understanding between the American and Iranian peoples and between all Democracies and Democracy-loving societies for a better future.

On the disastrous Foreign Policy

Under President Ahmedinijad and since the so-called Khomeinist revolution, Iran’s foreign policy in the region and worldwide has been moving from one disaster to another. Instead of addressing the pressing socio-economic and cultural crisis in the country, a clan among the Mullahs grabbed power and dragged Iran into internal violence, Jihadi demagogy, destructive wars and Terrorism. The Oil revenues were diverted to buy weapons for new expansionist wars, creating HizbAllah in Lebanon and backing Terror groups worldwide. What did the regime’s foreign policy achieve for the Iranian people and for peace? Only disasters:

- The regime spent billions of dollars on acquiring weapons and equipping the Guardians of the Revolution (Pasdaran) and the Basij (regime’s militia) for the purpose of keeping the masses under oppression and intimidating neighboring countries.

- The regime sent hundreds million dollars to feed a Terrorist organization in Lebanon, endangering the country’s Shiia community and breaking its precarious community balance. Weapons were shipped to southern Lebanon to trigger bloody regional wars instead of
defending Iran’s national soil.

- The regime formed an axis with another oppressive regime in Syria, putting Iran at odds with the moderate Arab world and making Iran an associate in the brutalization of both Syrian and Lebanese Peoples.

- The regime funded Hamas and Islamic Jihad with the goal of taking over the Palestinian Authority and blocking any Peace Process between Arabs and Israel.

- The regime has since April of 2003, along with its axis partner, fueled insurrection and terror in neighboring Iraq, dragging its long oppressed Shiia community into sectarian tensions with the Sunnis and weakening the moderate and enlightened leadership of
Grand Ayatollah Sistani through the support for radical Muqtada al Sadr.

- The regime has been exporting its Terrorist foreign policy throughout the world. Argentina has indicted a number of officials in the bombings of 1993. Venezuela’s populist President, Hugo Chavez, is now the chief associate of Tehran’s rulers in his attempt to world instability.

- And worse of all, Iran’s regime and its head Ahmedinijad are challenging the world with irresponsible and dangerous nuclear projects that would bring disaster to the Iranian People and catastrophes to the region.

On the disastrous domestic policy

The regime in Tehran, and especially under Ahmedinijad, has been conducting disastrous policies towards the Iranian people, economy, cultures, and social well being. Since 1979, the overwhelming majority of Iranians, Persians and minorities alike, have been abandoned by their authorities to a miserable state of affairs. In addition to the suppression of freedoms and liberties, Iranians were deprived of the benefits of their nation’s rich resources, while a tiny ruling ideological faction lives in comfort and delusion.

The Iranian public continues to suffer from a fundamental suppression of basic rights, including political, social and cultural. The oppressive machine of the regime has physically eliminated any form of credible opposition. Political parties opposed to the Khomeinist rule are banned and their leaders executed. The country resembles Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia in the 20th century.

- Iranian women, the single largest social component of the Iranian nation, have been marginalized, suppressed and subjected to insulting status. As under the Taliban, but with cosmetics, half of the nation is obstructed from producing, expanding and creating its own talents.

- The youth of the country, generation after generation, are channeled into militarism and xenophobia instead of enabled to develop freely and constructively like their counter part around the world.

- The country’s economy is in ruin with the stretching of Iran’s oil industry into becoming a factory feeding wars and terror instead of prosperity and progress.Every sector in Iran is in decay and its socio-financial structure is in jeopardy, thanks to the Khamenei-Ahmedinijad agenda of state Jihadism, instead of social advancement.

We believe that Iran’s People deserve a better leadership and a better life, and that the region and the world deserve a better Iran. If there should be a change of direction in the Middle East it should start in Iran and with its regime.

- First, the Iranian regime should cease its intervention in Iraq and withdraw its operatives from the country.

- Second, the Iranian regime must stop its financial and military backing of HizbAllah in Lebanon, and withdraw its weapons deployed in that country. Tehran must spend the billions of dollars in aid to Mr Hassan Nasrallah on the poor people in Iran’s major cities and countryside.

- Third, the Iranian regime should eliminate all its support to international Terrorism and abrogate its military axis with the Syrian regime. It should stop its military adventures with North Korea and Venezuela, which are a threat to world peace.

- Fourth, the Iranian regime should comply with the international agreement on the nuclear industry and refrain from building a nuclear weapon.

- Fifth, the Iranian regime should reestablish democracy in Iran, accept the formation of free political parties, liberate women, and tolerate minorities’ cultures.

- Sixth, the Iranian regime should put the well being of all Iranians ahead of any state policy of aggression, expansion and intimidation.

We call on all Iranians, Middle Easterners, Americans and all democratic societies to join a global movement in support of Iran’s people in their quest to obtain the most important rights: self governance and freedom.

Dr Walid Phares Dr Behrooz Bahbudi
Senior Fellow President
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Global Unity Partnership

PS: The article is published in the paper edition only

Iraqization is right, but surrendering to fascist regimes is wrong, Walid Phares

2006-12-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Iraqization is right, but surrendering to fascist regimes is wrong
By Walid Phares, Washington DC, December 6, 2006. Mideast Newswire

In his first analysis of the the Iraq Study Group recommendations, Mideast expert Walid Phares told three media outlets in the US, Europe, and the Middle East, that "the Iraq Study Group's recommendations resemble a salad bowl. The document contains some rational suggestions that should have been adopted by the Bush Administration years ago, and also some suicidal ideas that were tested decades ago and failed miserably." Phares, a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, DC and author of Foreign Affairs best seller Future Jihad, was interviewed by Al Muharer al Arabi, Radio Free Iraq, and the Jack Ricardi radio show in the US. "These are only the first reactions to a comprehensive document; there will be a thorough analysis of the report from both American and Middle Eastern perspectives."

Phares told Al Muharer al Arabi that the global recommendation "to engage Iran and Syria's regimes positively and constructively means that they were mistreated before. My first question to the authors of the report is this: how was the United States mistreating these regimes in the past? Was asking Ahmedinejad to stop making a nuclear bomb and asking Assad of Syria to withdraw from Lebanon following a UN resolution signs of bad treatment? Were these demands wrong in their essence? Do they give Iran and Syria the right to feel victimized? If one perceives US action in this way, then all what Washington has to do is to release pressure on the Mullah to build their weapons and ask Assad to send his Army back to Lebanon" Phares added, "the public in America and the people in the region are not as naive as they were before 9/11. They will ask the hard questions when the time comes. The so-called engagement recommendation is a relic from the past and sounds like a suicidal idea. For surrendering to fascist regimes - regimes that are rejected by their own people - is utterly wrong." However on the Iraq restructuring suggestions, Phares told Radio Iraq and other radio shows that "the idea of the Iraqization process is a right one and has always received a consensus among Iraqis and Americans. General Abizaid and many others have voiced these suggestions in the past in the US and in Iraq." But Phares concluded by asking "how can we press for empowering the Iraqis on the ground on the one hand while surrendering their fate to Iran and Syria through diplomatic means on the other? That sounds like a recipe for chaos to me."

In a previous interview with Radio Free Iraq few days before the release of the report, Dr Phares said: "many ideas and suggestions are on the table, but one matter should be clear: there shouldn't be a return of dictatorship to Iraq and a return of Syrian occupation in Lebanon. On the other hand, inserting US forces within Iraqi forces should have been the initial plan. Listen to the interview in Arabic here Radio Free Iraq

EDUCATION VERSUS JIHAD, Cover Story – HS Today November 2006 Vol. 3, No.11, By Walid Phares

2006-12-05T08:28:00.000-08:00

Friends, please find a special study, titled "Education versus Jihad," published as this month's cover story of HS Today, the monthly Magazine, Homeland Security Today. It summarizes my thoughts on the real battle in America's War on Terror and the recommendations I make to the US Government, both Administration and Congress - Walid Phares.

EDUCATION VERSUS JIHAD

Knowledge provides strategic depth for America and the West against the jihadist onslaught, argues the author, and there are specific steps we must take to protect the homeland.

Cover Story – HS Today November 2006 Vol. 3, No.11

By Walid Phares

In the few hours following the terrorist attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, media in the United States began looking for answers. The very first series of questions asked by all was indicative of the state of mind of most Americans: “Why do they hate us?” Five years later, as we analyze the conflict from a homeland security and war on terrorism perspective, and probably years from now, when historians have had enough time to contemplate it, the bigger question regarding the 9/11 attacks will be: “Why didn’t Americans know?” Indeed, as I argued in my book Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America and the West, one of the most dramatic failures of US strategic defense against Al Qaeda on Sept. 11 and against the jihadist war against America during the 1990s was that neither the government nor the public knew they were at war and that a terrorist declaration of war had been in effect against America for years.

The central conclusion of the 9/11 Commission’s examination of the failure was that “Americans had a failure of imagination”—meaning that even if the US was better equipped technologically and more alert on intelligence levels, something was missing in the US resistance to terrorism. The commission was unable to comprehend why analysts, decision makers and leaders—even as information about fragments of threats poured in— didn’t conclude that there was an Al Qaeda offensive and, more dangerously, that a global jihadist war had been mobilizing forces around the world and within the West against democracies, in general, and America, in particular. One of the commissioners, during the summer 2004 hearings, asked repeatedly: “Why didn’t the US government acknowledge that a war was declared in 1996 and in 1998 against America?”

Many US leaders and commentators after him added: Why hadn’t we declared war back at them, before the attacks took place, if, indeed, the jihadists have been on the offensive for a decade?

These and other questions continue to haunt US counterterrorism strategists, legislators, security planners, academic researchers and, obviously, citizens at large. The weight of this inquiry is increasing, as the public knows that 9/11 wasn’t a single event in America’s history but, unfortunately and dramatically, a single benchmark in a series of past and future attacks and offensives against US interests worldwide and, more importantly, the national security of the homeland.

The eyes and ears of the American public and international public opinion have been absorbing the escalation of violence in acts and rhetoric by the various jihadist groups worldwide— from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Madrid to London—over the past five years since the Manhattan massacre. The speeches by Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and, lately, their American product, Adam Gadahn, as well as the fiery declarations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, if anything have showed that radical Islamists, regimes and organizations are massing resources to further attack not only the US presence overseas but, more worrisomely, America’s homeland.

Thus, with all this pressure on the country’s national security and its economic and demographic future, answering the basic questions since 9/11 becomes crucial. More and more of these fundamental questions are still lingering over matters related to homeland security, foreign policy, counterterrorism and justice: After “why do they hate us?” another question has been raised in the debate: “Who are they?”

Indeed, as we watch Al Qaeda undergoing a metamorphosis from a regime-protected network in Afghanistan to a landless web of branches around the world, the US and Europe are increasingly encountering a second-generation Al Qaeda and, even beyond it, what governments are now identifying as “homegrown” jihadists.

This troubling development of the enemy of 2001 into a hybrid of new shades of terrorists in 2006 is not really due to the changing nature of the threat but to the initial misunderstanding of its nature by Americans and democracies in general. For it is clear to connoisseurs of jihadism that mutation is one of its essential characteristics. It should also be understood that, given its ideology and history, jihadism, far from being a mere emotional reaction to American or other foreign policies, “is” by itself a movement with goals, strategies and changing tactics.
Unfortunately, most Americans weren’t enabled to absorb the basics of their rising enemy so that they could prepare, mobilize and win. But beyond the 911 Commission’s conclusion of a “failure in imagination,” I have argued, and continue to argue that the initial and structural failure of understanding is in western and, specifically, American education.

Here is why:

CULTURAL INABILITY

If you look at all incidents that involved intercepting, interpreting and learning about terrorism directed against America— specifically, the jihadist type—throughout the decade that preceded 911, you’ll realize that, in most cases, both overseas and domestically a black hole dominated the decision making process regarding both preemption of jihadism and consequences of falling to do so.

In 1993, the US government treated the Twin Towers attacks as “a police operation” with criminal ramifications, not as an operation by a worldwide jihadist movement. This gave the enemy eight years to prepare future attacks. In 1996, the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the war fatwa issued by Bin Laden were treated as matters of foreign policy.
In 1998, Al Qaeda’s second declaration of war and the subsequent attacks against the embassies in Africa were treated as terror strikes, but not as a war of ideas followed by a war of terror. After the failed attempt to attack airliners over the Pacific (the “Bojinka” plot) and the millennium conspiracies, came the USS Cole attack. During these years of jihadist offensives, the government was advised by experts and academics who dismissed jihadism as a threat and recommended the opposite of a US War on Terror—i.e., a demobilization of the forces facing this specific ideology.

But more dismaying was the fact that the public was not informed of the threats against the homeland, precisely because the classrooms, the backbone of the nation’s future, were misinformed and the talents graduating year after year were deprived of the right to learn about the threat and, therefore, to serve their government and nation proportionally to the menace.

American graduates of Middle East studies, history and security studies weren’t equipped with the right knowledge. Hence, their final professional destinations suffered from this miseducation. If one reviews the curriculum in place between 1980 (when Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran) and 2001 (when Bin Laden attacked America), one can see an inexplicable and immense hole in teaching students about the roots, development, rise, logic, strategies, tactics, methodologies and literature of the movements that targeted the US during those two decades. It was an educational breach of historical dimension. Why did it happen?

THE WAR ON US EDUCATION: 1980s-1 990s

One of the major results of the 1973 oil crisis was the rise of a determination by many oil producing regimes that the West, in general, and the United States, in particular, “understand” the greater Middle East, the Arab and the Muslim world and, accordingly, design its policies toward those regimes and ideologies on the basis of this “understanding.”

As a result, millions of dollars were invested in American and European educational institutions as a way to “foster” this understanding. But instead of fostering an objective understanding or spreading impartial knowledge, the growing influence of Wahabism, an extreme form of Islam, and other such ideologies on the nation’s campuses played a dangerous role: Because of the ideological nature of the donors, the financed programs followed the guidelines of the donor regimes and organizations, which obviously narrowed research and teaching to issues remote from the major historical crisis in the region, other than the modern Arab-Israeli conflict. It removed all serious attention to the rise of Islamism, jihadism and even Baathism, as well as the deep ethnic and religious conflicts and the mass abuse of human rights in that part of the world.

A careful review of curricula and research projects established within the US educational system, both public and private, since the 1980s stunningly reveals that American classrooms were deprived of knowledge on social, historical, ethnic and ideological movements rising to challenge the United States. Moreover, as I taught comparative studies for over a decade and lectured on many campuses in the 1990s, I came to realize that defense, strategic and security studies were heavily influenced by “regional” studies when it came to identifying the backgrounds of international terrorist movements emerging from the greater Middle East and penetrating western societies. History and Middle Eastern studies had been corrupted by Wahabi and other funding with an impact on political science, international relations and, ultimately, defense and security studies across the land.

A thorough review of the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Middle East Studies Association of America, the International Studies Association, the Middle East Institute and other professional education associations, of the hundreds of books, publications, articles, talks and research grants distributed by Ivy League universities and other colleges lead to only one conclusion: The gap is immense. There are no traces of the roots of jihadism and its long-term objectives against democracies and the United States. Instead, prominent scholars produced an enormous amount of literature precisely deflecting scholars and students away from the most serious issues related to American defense and security after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The “hole” was so vast and the “deflection” (not to use the term “deception”) so wide that a systemic problem strode the field producing waves of effects into the professional worlds of the media and policy. An academic lobotomy led to an incapacitation of the public learning process about the national security threat and created a cultural crisis in perception. In short, if one isn’t taught about the political thinking of the enemy and his ideological objectives in the classroom, where else would one catch up?

MOLLIFICATION OF NATIONAL PERCEPTION

With this systemic crisis inside America’s educational system expanding during the 199 Os, a “mollification” of the national perception of the threat began. Deprived of the basic data and information about the terrorist threat, citizens were at the mercy of the elites’ debates. The latter, during the years leading to 9/11, were increasingly apologetic toward America’s most lethal enemies: Salafist and Khomeinist jihadists.

Despite the series of attacks, speeches and visible moves of radical jihadists worldwide, US national perception was blurred by the academic and educational deflection. Jihadism, for example, was described by leading “specialists,” many of whom have advised media and government for years, as a “theological experiment and spiritual phenomenon.”

Those who spread the doctrine of jihadism in America during the 1 990s had no counter check from the public or government, while even a minimal manifestation of Nazism, anti- Semitism or domestic violent racism was quickly countered. Clearly, Americans never lacked for imagination, but they were deprived of the necessary information.

THE WAR OF IDEAS AND DERAILMENT
OF NATIONAL ANALYSIS

When historians analyze the War on Terror in the near future, they will most likely look back at the war of ideas preceding 9/11 and understand the role academia played as a central battlefield leading to the weakening and defeat of the country, before it rose back in resistance. For if the fields of foreign policy, regional studies and international relations teaching—the most sensitive feeders for security and defense decision-making—were obsolete in identifying the “enemy,” all that is left to national security is the last shield, which is the hope that intelligence and counterterrorism sensors can catch the raiders at the doors or beyond the gates. And that’s what didn’t occur in 1993, 1998 and 2001.The terror offensive against America was preceded by a War of Ideas, blurring the eyes of the nation.

"Derailing National Analysis"

If intellectual blurring starts in classrooms, it soon reaches the newsrooms and, eventually, the intelligence rooms and war rooms. If young Americans are mistaught the ideology, political culture and intentions of the enemy while at school and in college, once graduated, they will carry this misperception with them as they find jobs and are recruited in all the layers of national analysis. Students enter the media, legislative research, security, intelligence, foreign policy, justice, think tanks and other sectors crucial for national decision making at the bottom levels and rise up to the ultimate positions.

By failing students in the classrooms, the educational system caused a national analysis failure: Media failed to report terrorism as it should have, impacting government’s various levels of policymaking; intelligence analysis, deprived of cultural understanding, saw the data but couldn’t put the bigger picture together; courts couldn’t process the concepts of terrorism beyond criminality; and, ultimately, both the legislative and executive branches were denied sound advice on the war already in progress against the country.

In conclusion, the failure in education led to a derailment of national analysis.

REACTION TO 911: HOMELAND SECURITY

The public and the political leadership had to react to 9111 by sheer instinct, both overseas and domestically, rather than rely on knowledgeable analysis. The War on Terror’s first counteroffensive took down the Taliban regime from Afghanistan. The second counteroffensive brought down Saddarn Hussein, but not without generating a severe and continuing debate on the Iraq war at home and internationally.

Here again, the past systemic educational crisis of the 1980s and 1990s deprived the public and even politicians from solid ground on which to engage in an educated discussion on Iraq, Al Qaeda, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and beyond. Even though Americans have deep instincts regarding the “intentions” of the enemy, they surely rely on the expert elite to provide the objective and raw education and information about the foe—in this case, the totalitarian forces and the jihadists, in particular. That is the first current problem.

The second problem has to do with internal national security. Also by sheer instinct, America rushed to establish its Department of Homeland Security, a vital organ in the defense of the nation: The 19 perpetrators of 9/11, but also the dirty bomb maker; the Virginia palnt ball gang; the American fighters with Al Qaeda and the various US-born jihadists have all penetrated American national defense or been raised and tralned inside the homeland.

As detailed in Future Jihad, in one of the most extreme scenarios—parts of which are now coming to fruition—future jihads will launch as a result of the growth of the jihadist ideology inside the United States and a subsequent recruitment to action. Clearly, more jihadist terror is to be expected—not less—if only because the doctrinal factory is still working, with greater technological resources at its command.

Hence, the essence of homeland security resides in its ability to mobilize the public and its talents and isolate the wouldbe terrorists before they become actual terrorists and strike.

EDUCATION AND US HOMELAND SECURITY

As a result of the situation I have described, it is crucial for US homeland security to operate with a full understanding of the ideology and strategies of the terrorists, particularly those publicly threatening this nation and other democracies-the jihadist terrorists. But in order to win the War on Terror within the national territory, homeland security must be able to count on the public and its resources and talents. To make the point again: The real field of resistance to terror is in the wider national and local communities.
Isolation of the menace of terrorism starts within society. A more enlightened classroom will provide a more equipped society. Also, a more readied public will better understand and assist the ethnic communities struggling against terrorism. Instead of leaving extremists to take leadership of vulnerable communities, a better-educated liberal and anti-terrorist youth can help mobilize against it. On a national scale, Americans should be educated to identify the ideology instead of relying on negative ethnic stereotypes.
As a result of that intellectual empowerment, society could be the first line of defense against infiltration, penetration and potential urban warfare by the terrorists.

COUNTERING JIHADISM IN COURTS

The legal system is perhaps the most sensitive segment of the national resistance to jihadism. From the top of the pyramid to its bottom, tribunals, judges, defense lawyers, prosecutors and, more importantly, juries are critical to establishing a fair but educated processing of the terror cases as they arise.

Experienced in bringing expertise to courts in terrorism cases, I was able to pin down the weaknesses during the processing of jihadist-related material. Regardless of the procedural mishaps of the prosecution or the out-of-court maneuvers of defense lawyers, the fact is that lack of education has tripped up at least four of the players: the prosecution, the defense, the judges and—especially—the juries.

How can the latter, formed out of ordinary citizens, understand the content of jihadist material if they weren’t exposed to it while in school? How can citizens fathom the jihadist tactics such as taqiya (simulation of identity and behavior) if they were not exposed to it before? In fact, how can the juries reflect on basic concepts such as jihad against the infidels and genocidal attitudes? And how can they distinguish between committed radicals and law-breaking individuals uninterested in ideologies? Last but not least, as to the debate on monitoring terrorists within the country and civil liberties, educated and specialized judges are the real answer to the problem. But that basic education, so crucial to the judge’s thinking process, must start years earlier.

A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR: COUNTERTERRORISM EDUCATION

I strongly recommend rapid-pace reform of a specific segment of national education in the United States, with comparable application in other democracies around the world, in order to prepare society and national governments for better intellectual resistance to terrorism. These recommendations constitute a strategic plan for a national counterterrorism education:

1. Embrace the right of people to have access to a comprehensive education about the threat that has been and is facing the nation. That right is inalienable and universal. All citizens, not only those volunteering for the front lines, have the right to receive this education by the appropriate means and the most qualified parties.

2. Prepare the younger segment of the population for the global threat of terrorism as early as the cognitive process allows, with the help of qualified psychologists. A carefully structured program in homeland security has to be established to gradually prepare the students for national shocks, dramatic development and identification of threats. On the identity of the threat, middle and high school social studies classrooms should be introduced to the history and evolution of the enemy’s ideas. The objective is to enable teachers to answer students’ questions arising from the media and social environment.

3. Initiate the most dramatic reform at the level of colleges and universities so that courses on the War on Terror and home-land security are made available and integrated into concentrations, certificate and degree programs in these two fields.

4. Explain the roots of terrorism through courses in disciplines and fields crucial to the learning process regarding the War on Terror and homeland security, particularly courses in history, political science, international relations, comparative studies and all relevant cross-disciplinary fields. The explanations must include different perspectives, so that students are better prepared for a global understanding of the threat.

5. Significantly reform the field of Middle East studies, starting with a program protected from militant and ideological funding and relying on a balanced teaching of the region, its various problems, crises, identities, trends and ideologies. A sub-research field in jihadism studies must be established to serve as a focus for the study and analysis of the various movements related to jihadist terror doctrines.

6. Equip public libraries and institutions with adequate learning material focusing on the history and evolution of the terrorist threat, but also on the collective emergency efforts expected from the public to prevent or respond to terror attacks.

7. Initiate another series of measures to address one of the most severe problems in the United States: the spread of “terror apologist culture” through the publicly owned or dedicated media. Congress must rapidly request a comprehensive reform of the public media as a prelude to reforming public education. The Public Broadcasting Service, C- Span and National Public Radio must undergo a significant change in content and focus to provide balanced material regarding the terror threat. This reform is owed to the public as part of its right to reliable information related to the crucial issues of security and survival.

8. Direct federal grants related to national security and foreign affairs toward providing support to educational projects, non-governmental organizations, private think tanks, publications and other efforts aimed at educating and informing the public on these issues.

9. Broadcast and publish for societies worldwide information about democracy and pluralism to combat terrorist ideologies. Congressionally funded Al Hurra TV and Radio Sawa should also be able to air special educational programs regarding these topics.

It is a fact that America’s homeland security is highly dependent on the US educational system. Terrorists use knowledge to harm this nation and other democracies in the name of their ideology. And knowledge is what Americans and other civil societies need to resist terrorism and reach a secure and peaceful end to this ongoing conflict.

***********
WALID PHARES is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the director of its Future Terrorism Project. He is also a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy and a professor of comparative politics. He is the author of Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies aqainst America, published by Palgrave/McMillan, New York and London, November 2005. An international paperback version, Terrorist Strategies against the West, has just been released. Phares@walidphares.com

Phares Op Ed: HizbAllah's Offensive in Lebanon: Day Three

2006-12-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

Phares Op Ed: HizbAllah's Offensive in Lebanon: Day Three
By Phares Op Ed
Dec 3, 2006, 22:49

HizbAllah's offensive in Lebanon: Day Three
Walid Phares

On the third day of HizbAllah's campaign to takeover the Lebanese Government, more sectors from civil society began to rise. But they weren't rising with the pro-Iranian militia in as much as they were rising to oppose its move. However on the other hand, it was further noticed that a number of Western media increased their support to Nasrallah's organization.

From Saturday late night into the early hours of the morning, more incursions by HizbAllah's elements were signaled inside the traditional Sunni West Beirut. A battle with rocks took place in many streets leaving a number of wounded and one HizbAllah militiaman dead. The Iranian-backed militants staged their "thrusts" into Sunni areas from their launching pad in the "protest" areas in downtown, commonly described as the "coup d'Etat" basis. According to sources in the Lebanese Army, the gradual "coup" is taking place with a minute preparation coordinated by the Iranian embassy in Beirut. A "War room," including HizbAllah, Syrian intelligence, President Lahoud's secret services, Baath Party, Syrian National-Socialists and representatives from General Michel Aoun's group, is directing the campaign.

On the political level, the single most important development is the decision made by the March 14 movement and the Cedars Revolution leaders to "move the headquarters of the Government to Mount Lebanon if the Syro-Iranian militias would overrun the Prime Minister's office." Such a decision means that the Seniora cabinet and the leaders of the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon will resist the onslaught of HizbAllah's forces and would eventually call on the people to oppose the coup d'Etat. In Washington and Paris, Governmental sources said that bringing down the Government outside the Parliament is a red line. In New York, the Security Council members, particularly the US and French delegations have clearly signified their rejection of a violent crumbling of a democratically elected cabinet. This view is widely shared by the majority of Arab moderate countries, including Egypt, Jordan and Morocco.

A new development occurred overseas as the leaders of the Lebanese Diaspora declared their "rejection of HizbAllah's aggression against Lebanon's civil society," as they signed a joint declaration published by multiple web sites as well as as-Siyassa and al Muharer. Joe Baini, the Sydney-based President of the World Council of Cedars Revolution said "we're 12 million Lebanese in 32 countries and we are the numeric overwhelming majority of the Lebanese people." In a letter addressed to the Lebanese Diaspora, Baini said "we are warning Iran and Syria not to interfere in Lebanese affairs, and we are warning HizbAllah not to clash with the Lebanese people. We, the overseas majority of Lebanese, who maintain the economic lifeline to Lebanon, will not accept the Terror action by a minority of radicals who take their orders from Tehran and Damascus." It is to note that the "Lebanese lobby", as it is known worldwide played a critical role in the calling for and making of UNSCR 1559 in 2004, which ordered Syria to withdrawal from the country and asked HizbAllah to disarm.

In the battlefield of media, more indications are developing about the HizbAllah propaganda influence. Media watchers out of Lebanon and overseas have noticed the circulation of "stories" by a support network to the pro-Iranian organization, attempting to depict the developments in Lebanon as taking place between a militant group and a Government backed by militias. This war of ideas, launched by the "War room" in Beirut, is financed –according to leaders from the Cedars Revolution- by "huge amount of Iranian Petro-dollars." Roger Azzam, an NGO activist in Lebanon said "the treasury of the Islamic Republic in Tehran is fully open for this battle." Azzam said "millions of dollars have been allocated to feed all needs such as establishing a new TV station in Lebanon and taking care of media people both in Lebanon and worldwide. The Iranians we hear have hired PR companies around the world to win the public opinion battle." In Canada, the chairman of the Lebanese Human Rights committee said "we see some of the HizbAllah propaganda influence even here." Elias Bejjani indicated for example an article in the Globe and Mail daily in Toronto which title is revealing: "West help Lebanon build militia to fight HezbAllah." Mark McKinnon, the author of the article, wrote that the Internal Security Forces (ISF) is a "militia," backed by the United States, France and Arab countries. The journalist, according to Lebanese Bloggers, was trying to "sneak a new twist in the ongoing conflict in Lebanon: that is to portray the Lebanese regular police as a militia equivalent to the Terror group HizbAllah." In fact the article said: "Critics charge that the force is dominated by Sunnis, and that its real purpose is to defend the government of Mr. Siniora, a Sunni, against the growing power of the country's large Shia population." Toni Nissi, an NGO leader working on implementing UN resolutions, said "the article is a piece of propaganda aiming at creating a mindset worldwide that a civil war is in the making between Shiia and Sunnis in Lebanon, just to make the point that democracy can't work in this country." Nissi said the ISF existed for decades, this is Lebanon's internal security force; and indeed it is its duty to defend the people and the Government against the Terrorists of HizbAllah. "We're stunned that Canadian newspapers want to equate legal authorities with Terrorism."

On another front, next steps by HizbAllah may include the introduction of Syrian intelligence in the covert operations battle against the Government. Sources in the Lebanese army told Cedars Revolution leaders that "hundreds of armed elements have been crossing the international borders between Syria and Lebanon with sophisticated individual weapons." Lebanese and Arab newspapers said over the week end that dozens of trucks have crossed the borders and headed to HizbAllah's bases in southern Beirut and the Bekaa valley. "All indicate, said Walid Jumblat, the Socialist Druse leader, "that the Iranians and the Syrians are staging a coup."

Dr Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of Future Jihad. Phares@walidphares.com

Phares Op Ed: "HizbAllah's Offensive in Lebanon: Day Two"

2006-12-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

Phares Op Ed: "HizbAllah's Offensive in Lebanon: Day Two"
By Phares Op Ed
Dec 3, 2006, 01:29

HizbAllah's Offensive in Lebanon: Day Two
By Walid Phares

In its second day, HizbAllah’s offensive in Lebanon against the democratically elected Government has maintained pressures on various levels. Following are the main axis of activities:

HizbAllah’s deployment

By mid week end, several thousands of HizbAllah’s members, cadres and officers have settled inside downtown Beirut, surrounding the Prime Minister’s office. The militia erected dozens of tents in a military fashion, with 30 fighters in each tent. Sources from the Lebanese Army described the “deployment” of the tents as a bivouac-maneuvering of about three brigades, “clearly following the Iranian military code,” said the sources. By late Saturday evening early Sunday morning, the Lebanese Army was able to move a number of these tents to the sides opening a path to the Government building.

However, security sources noted that HizbAllah’s units are positioning themselves in several circles around the center of Beirut. There are no weapons apparent but according to observers, the “demonstrators” can be armed in less than three hours and “become” the equivalent of half a “division” in the downtown area and close to a division inside Sunni Beirut.

Sunni resistance begins

In the early hours of Saturday through the first hours of Sunday, several incidents took place between HizbAllah’s cells moving into several neighborhoods in mostly Sunni West Beirut, and between local Sunni youth. In most of these urban clashes, with clubs and stones, HizbAllah’s members withdrew to their quarters in downtown and the southern suburbs. Observers believe these incidents were a sort of testing on behalf of HizbAllah’s military command to assess the level of “popular resistance” against its stretching inside Muslim Beirut. It is to note that Sunni areas have been displaying more opposition to Nasrallah’s militia in more than one area. More noticeably in the Eastern Bekaa where entire villages such as Kamed al Lawz and surrounding areas have erupted in small demonstrations against the pro-Iranian coalition. Also in Tripoli, and despite the presence of some solid pro-Syrian Sunni influence, anti-HizbAllah manifestations are taking place.

Shiite moderates appear

Interestingly, more moderate Shiite voices are emerging against Nasrallah’s power and in support of the Lebanese Government and its supporters. In addition to the prominent Shiite Mufti of Tyre Ali al Amine, the spiritual leader of the Shiites in Jabal Amel, core of south Lebanon’s community, a newly formed “Free Shiite Coalition” led by the intrepid Sheikh Mohammed al Haj Hassan is calling on the Shiites to rejects the “orders by Ahmedinijad to wreck havoc in Lebanon.” In a strong speech aired worldwide on internet Saturday night, Sheikh called on the international community to assist the Lebanese people against the terror threat, HizbAllah. This is the boldest call by a Shiia cleric against Iran’s influence in Lebanon. Sunni spiritual leaders have already voiced their opposition to the “Syro-Iranian aggression” against the Government. Lebanon’s national Mufti Mohammed Rashid Qabbani extended his support to the Cedars Revolution backed Seniora Government yesterday and insisted on praying inside the Prime Minister’s office while HizbAllah was encircling the government building. On his part the Mufti of Mount Lebanon, Mohamed Ali al Juzu attacked Hassan Nasrallah accusing him of taking orders from Iran and targeting the independence of Lebanon.

Next HizbAllah’s moves

The latest information released by the Lebanese security sources and published in the Arab press on Sunday morning, and detailed by the Kuwaiti daily as Siyassa says HizbAllah was planning on shutting down Beirut airport, possibly its port and large segments of the basic public services such as electricity and water. A memo sent by Nasrallah to his supporters inside the security and police forces asked them to withdraw and join the ranks of the “movement against the Government.”

Media tilting noted

On the media level, the campaign unleashed by HizbAllah widened on al Manar TV and was supported by Syria’s press and audiovisual as well as Iran’s. Al Jazeera is backing the crumbling of the Lebanese Government by “projecting” that the cabinet will fall, despite indicators that the popular majority in Lebanon backs it. But the most interesting development is the gradual editorial twist in most of the news agencies distributing information around the world indirectly towards HizbAllah. In fact, the choice of words in the reports issued by Reuters, AP and UPI indicates that they are increasingly portraying the HizbAllah’s campaign as “an opposition movement against a Government refusing to accept its demands.” These mother ships of international media, that feeds thousands of newspapers and audiovisual networks around the world, have for example pushed the number of the demonstrators as “close to 800,000 persons,” or as they put it “one quarter of Lebanon’s population.” While in reality, researchers in Lebanon, measuring the space these demonstrations took place in, cannot absorb more than 250,000 persons. A quarter of a million people is a large number but compared to the 1.5 million people gathered by the Cedars Revolution indicates clearly to social demographers, that HizbAllah, with the support of Syria, Iran, the radical Palestinians, cannot muster a popular support greater than one sixth of the majority. But many sectors in the international media are tilting towards producing pro-HizbAllah’s trends. A reporter for Time wrote that “what he saw was a reverse of the Cedars Revolution,” using words uttered by the organizers of the pro-Iranian move. “It is not so difficult to understand,” said a human rights activist in Beirut, “HizbAllah has done a great job in influencing many correspondents on the ground. With Iranian logistics, its operatives can provide all what a journalist can dream of. Unfortunately also,” said the NGO observer, “many HizbAllah media cadres have found their way into being recruited by some media. You wouldn’t believe where these infiltrations have reached,” he said. Bloggers in Beirut have begun to monitor the HizbAllah’s penetration of international media as the reporting has been drifting towards promoting the pro-Iranian militia.

Lebanese facing alone

As the third day of the offensive begins, HizbAllah and its allied are bracing for bolder moves to take over the Lebanese Government. Out of Egypt, President Mubarak warned from more dramatic steps HizbAllah would take, leading to a blood shed. In New York, US ambassador Bolton warned from a Terror war against Lebanon. And in Beirut, the unarmed civil society of the country fears the worse: Being left with a democratically elected cabinet they are proud of, they feel they are facing, alone, the world’s most dangerous Terror forces: the combined power of Ahmedinijad, Assad and Nasrallah

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Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of Future Jihad. He was one of the architects of UNSCR 1559.

HizbAllah offensive in Lebanon: Day One

2006-12-02T05:33:00.000-08:00

HizbAllah offensive in Lebanon: Day One
By Walid Phares

After serious warnings delivered by HezbAllah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah since early November, the generalized offensive to bring down the Cedars Revolution-backed Government has begun. As of the early hours of Friday December 1, 2006, thousands of HizbAllah members and pro-Syrian militants took the streets of Beirut, hurdling from all Lebanese areas. The demonstrators started a series of sit-ins around the offices of Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and in other surrounding neighborhoods and public places to “suffocate the cabinet into resignation or collapse” as Lebanese sources said. Following are bullet points to be updated as events will develop:

HizbAllah’s “army”

HizbAllah has mobilized all its membership as well as all persons on payrolls of the organization and in the various bureaucracies controlled by the pro-Iranian militia. In addition, the entire pro-Syrian movements in the country such as the Baath, National-Socialist Syrian Party, and politicians such as Michel Aoun, Omar Karame, Sleiman Frangieh and others. Added to this list, pro-Syrian and Jihadi elements from the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. And since the Lebanese-Syrian borders haven't been sealed by a multinational force, loads of buses carrying members of the Syrian Baath, have been crossing the international frontier to join the anti-Government rally. The total number of the participants would be calculated as equivalent to the pro-Syrian March 8, 2005 demonstration led by HizbAllah then plus an undetermined number of Palestinian and Syrian elements. And since General Aoun shifted from the Cedars Revolution to an open alliance with HizbAllah few months ago, a number of his hard-core followers are expected to join the crowd.

HizbAllah’s objectives

The political objectives of the "offensive" is to paralyze the Fuad Seniora Government from performing the following tasks: One, is to block the passing of the international tribunal (in the Hariri assassination) law in the Lebanese Parliament in the next two weeks. The Syrian-Iaranian strategy is to block the meetings of the Lebanese cabinet and the Lebanese legislative assembly for as long as needed to crumble this bill. Two, is to force the Seniora cabinet to resign or to accept the inclusion of pro-Syrian ministers so that any decision to disarm HizbAllah would be killed inside the Government. Three, is to crumble the UNSCR 1559 and the relations between Lebanon and the United Nations in general and the US and France in particular. In short a return of the Syrian-Iranian domination in Lebanon.

Media tactics

The media campaign by HizbAllah and its allies worldwide focuses on portraying the "battle" as one between an "opposition" and a "Government," while in reality it is between an Iranian-backed militia receiving $300 millions annually and has about 20,000 missile on the one hand and a democratically selected Government by a democratically elected Parliament in which HizbAllah and its allies are a minority. And to break up he international unity behind the Cedars Revolution, the "axis" is directing its operatives and supporters worldwide to state that the demonstrations are "anti-American," and when possible anti-Bush. While in reality the US legislation known as "Syrian accountability act" was launched by Democrats in 2003, and that the UNSCR 1559 was initiated by France and that the international investigation missions were headed by a German then a Belgian judges, nevertheless the "architects" of the Syro-Iranian "offensive" in Lebanon want the international media to use the words "anti-American" protests instead of pro-Syrian or pro-Iranian moves. Indeed the war of words will determine how the events will be framed in the next few days and weeks. For many in the international media elite haven't yet "digested" the fact that the Cedars Revolution has risen without an American support in money or military aid. And that the Lebanese democracy movement is genuinely indigenous, with left wing and right wing united against a "foreign occupier," the Syrians, and an Iranian-supported Terror organization, HizbAllah. But this “oil” influenced network of “pens” inside many news distribution rooms is attempting desperately to force the slogan “anti-American demonstration" as a way to break the international unity behind Lebanese democracy and dubbing the Cedars Revolution as “American” while portraying HizbAllah as a regular “opposition” group.

The “ground” objectives

The longer aim of these movements however is to perform a penetration by HizbAllah and other pro-Syrian forces inside the areas under the control of the Lebanese government. According to inside sources, between five to ten thousand HizbAllah fighters have been mobilized to “organize the security of the demonstrators.” This means that the equivalent of one "Iranian division" will be entering Beirut from the southern suburb and deploying in downtown and in areas adjacent to the strategic Damascus road. In addition elements from the radical SSNP (the Greater Syria National-Socialist movement), who are believed to have been behind a number of political assassinations, as well as hundreds of Syrian special forces camouflaged as supporters of HizbAllah are already inside the city. According to security in Lebanon, all roads leading into Beirut with the exception of the north will be under the control of these “forces.” The regular Lebanese Army has received orders by its commander to deploy between the “demonstrators” and the official buildings. While the “core” of the Army follows the institution significant numbers of troops and many officers are either HizbAllah members or follow its instructions. Hence, according to Lebanese Army officers (names not to be disclosed) “when and if the time will come, no one will really know how many will join the Iranian-Syrian axis against the Government.”

For now, the HizbAllah offensive has begun: The infantry has moved in unarmed, yet..

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Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy. He is the author of Future Jihad: Terrorist strategies against the West. Dr Phares was one of the architects of UNSCR 1559. Phares@walidphares.com

Secretary Condoleezza Rice Interview With Saad Sillawi of Al Arabiya TV

2006-12-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

Interview With Saad Sillawi of Al Arabiya TV

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Dead Sea, Jordan
December 1, 2006

QUESTION: Are you willing to talk about Iraq with the Iranian and the Syrian in the future?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the Iraqis are talking to their neighbors and that's wholly appropriate that they should talk to their neighbors. Their President was just in Iran, the Syrians were just in Baghdad to establish diplomatic relations. We have the International Compact which all of those states are part of the International Compact for Iraq. But let's not be confused, the fact is it's not the lack of contact with Syria and Iran, it's the lack of action on the part of Syria and Iran to support Iraq rather than to destabilize Iraq.

We have talked to the Syrians many times in the past about what needs to be done, about cutting off the flow of foreign fighters, terrorists from Syrian territory into Iraq. We have talked to them about the importance of supporting this Iraqi Government, but the Iraqis are in the lead here on --

QUESTION: One last question about Lebanon. Also you said you're supporting the Siniora government and at the same time, you lift all the air forces from the American workers in Israel to, you know, destroy Lebanon and the Lebanese. Today the Lebanese in the streets, they are -- the oppositions are in the streets against the Siniora government. So what's your comment?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah. Well, first of all, the opponents of the Siniora government, many of whom have foreign sponsors in Syria and Iran, are in the streets. But the Siniora supporters were in the streets a few days ago. And so let's not forget how much support there is in Lebanon for the Siniora government. The United States is also, I personally and the President, very actively involved in getting a ceasefire that has led to an extraordinary circumstance in Lebanon: Lebanon's forces deployed throughout the country; Lebanese in control of their own future; and foreign, but this time United Nations, forces there helping the Lebanese to secure their sovereignty. So yes, the war is a terrible thing.

QUESTION: So you are not afraid from a war in Lebanon, a secular war in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: We believe that these people, whether they're in the Palestinians territories, in Lebanon or in Iraq, want a unified future and we are determined to help them to get that democratic and peaceful future.

December 1, 2006, State Department Daily Press Briefing - Lebanon

2006-12-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

Daily Press Briefing
Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
December 1, 2006

December--12/01/06

INDEX:
LEBANON

Demonstrations in Beirut / Stability and Situation in Lebanon
US Contacts with Lebanese Government Officials
US Committed to Supporting Lebanon’s Democratic Government

TRANSCRIPT:

12:41 p.m. EST

MR. CASEY: Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. TGIF, happy Friday. Don't have any opening statements or announcements for you, so I guess we can go right to your questions.

QUESTION: Well, let me try you on the massive, hundreds of thousands of protestors in Beirut calling for the resignation of the Western-backed government. I don't see any indication yet of violence, but it's a very strong turnout. Does this meet the U.S. test of peaceful assembly?

MR. CASEY: Well, Barry, certainly we'll be watching these events closely throughout the day, but we do remain very concerned that Hezbollah and its allies with support from Syria and the Iranian Government are continuing to work to destabilize Lebanon. That's a point that we've made before and continue to be concerned about. The demonstrations, as you know, are aimed at toppling Lebanon's legitimate and democratically elected government. And certainly threats of intimidation or violence isn't something that I think anyone would consider democratic or a constitutional mechanism for changing government.

We, as you know, are committed to supporting Lebanon's democratic government. Prime Minister Siniora and his team as it rebuilds and establishes Lebanon's sovereignty. That includes through the implementation of resolution 1701 and other measures, 1559, as well. But again, I think what we want to see is things proceed in a way that is peaceful, that is democratic and that doesn't resort to threats of intimidation or threats of violence. And certainly with things like the assassination of Pierre Gemayel and other kinds of events, it's clear that there is a pattern of intimidation and efforts at intimidation of those forces aligned with Lebanon's democratically elected government.

QUESTION: Has the U.S. been in touch with the beleaguered Prime Minister with some expression of support or whatever?

MR. CASEY: Well, I know we've had a number of conversations with Lebanese Government officials certainly today on the part of our ambassador. I'm not aware of any phone calls the Secretary might or might not have made simply because she's not here in town. But our support for him, for his government and more importantly, for the Lebanese people and their efforts to overcome the legacy of 30 years of Syrian domination and occupation are firm and well known and we think that's not just a U.S. position, but that's a position broadly at the international community.

QUESTION: A quick question. That conversation, was the ambassador able to get through this crowd or you mean a telephone conversation?

MR. CASEY: I know the ambassador has called members of the government today. I'm not aware that they've had any actual physical meetings.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: Yes. Back in Lebanon, is the U.S. doing anything extra regarding the situation in Lebanon, any measures or things are as usual?

MR. CASEY: Well, again, Samir, I think as you've heard us say before, we are supportive of the efforts of Prime Minister Siniora to help develop Lebanon's democratic institutions on behalf of its people. We are working with the international community to see that UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and 1701 are implemented. We are doing what we can to make sure that a clear message is sent to outside actors that intimidation and the use of violence is not acceptable. And we will continue to be working with our partners in the international community to be able to support the Lebanese Government again as they move forward not only to carry out their plans and their actions, but to do that for the benefit of the Lebanese people who elected them and put them in office in the first place.

Dr Landis imputed to Professor Walid Phares things he hasn’t said or wrote

2006-11-29T15:12:00.000-08:00

Dr Landis imputed to Professor Walid Phares things he hasn’t said or wrote

1) Landis wrote that “Phares is a main proponent of a school of thought he defined as “I want regime change in Syria crowd.” There are no statements in Phares articles and the one Landis posted that quotes Phares on this. Landis invented it.

2) Landis wrote: “They argue that Syria is a third rate power that can be swatted away with one hand if only Washington has the will and is not duped by the realists.”Phares never used these words in any of his articles that we’ve read. The terminology used by Landis seems to be his not the ones of the scholar he criticizes.

3) The most erroneous imputed quote is the following: “They do not advocate a Lebanese solution to the assassinations other than to develop militias and fight.” I read and re-read the article posted and other articles and again, found nothing of the sort. Landis is simply inventing sentences and words. Phares never mentioned militias anywhere. He has been one of the main architectsof UNSCR 1559 and the call to send multinational troops to disarm the militias not to create ones.

Unfortunately Dr Landis went on a non-academic pro-Syrian advocacy track as he invented words in imputed them to other scholars. If you listen to Radio Damascus and al Manar TV commentaries you’d find the same types of comments.

Tom HarbSecretary General of the Committee for UN 1559e-mail: sg1559@un1559.org

INTERVIEW WITH DR WALID PHARES ON RADIO MASHREQ ON THE ATTEMTPS TO ASSASSINATE THE CEDARS REVOLUTION

2006-11-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

INTERVIEW WITH DR WALID PHARES ON RADIO MASHREQ

ON THE ATTEMTPS TO ASSASSINATE THE CEDARS REVOLUTION

[ AUDIO LINK ]

اذاعة المشرق نشرة الاخبار 28/11/2006
· كبير الباحثين في مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديمقراطيات في العالم البروفسور وليد فارس يعتبر ان اغتيال الشيخ بيار الجميل هو جزء من عملية اغتيال لثورة الارز التي اخرجت الجيش السوري البعثي مهزوما من الاراضي اللبنانية .
اذاعة المشرق نشرة الاخبار 28/11/2006
وجه البروفسور وليد فارس كبير الباحثين في مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديمقراطيات في العالم ومقرها واشنطن في اطار برنامج لبنان سيدا حرا مستقلا عبر اثير اذاعة المشرق تعازيه الحارة للشعب اللبناني ولـ آل الجميل باغتيال الوزير الشهيد النائب بيار الجميل مؤكدا ان التاريخ يحفظ التضحيات , وقال ان بيار الجميل كان يمثل ما تبقى من قدرات للمقاومة اللبنانية المدنية بوجه محور الفاشية محور ما يمكن ان يسميه المؤرخون في المستقبل محور الشر اذا كان للشر كيان فلسفي سياسي هو النظام الايراني نظام الملالي التوسعي والنظام السوري برئاسة الاسد المحتل سابقا للبنان والذي لا يزال يرهب المجتمع المدني اللبناني ويرعبه وطبعا من لف لفهم وهو حليفهم في لبنان وامتداد لهم , هذا المحور لا يزال يعمل على ضرب القيادات والشخصيات والمفكرين والصحافيين الذين يمثلون الشعب اللبناني بكل اطيافه // واكد الدكتور فارس ان الشعب افرز يوم 14 اذار بداية ثورة الارز وليست نهايتها لان هذه الثورة لم تختصر بيوم واحد فهي بدات قبل 14 اذار 2005 واستمرت بعده وهي مستمرة تارة بتظاهرات ومسيرات ضخمة وطورا باشكال عدة // واعتبر فارس ان اغتيال الشيخ بيار الجميل ليس اغتيال ليوم انه جزء من عملية اغتيال لثورة الارز منذ ان خرج الجيش السوري البعثي مهزوما من الاراضي اللبنانية في نيسان 2005 وبعدما نجح اللوبي اللبناني البطل ايضا في اقناع مراكز القرار الدولية في صيف 2004 بضرورة اصدار قرار من مجلس الامن يدعو سوريا الى سحب قواتها من لبنان // واكد الدكتور فارس ان ما يحاول النظام السوري فعله هو ضرب مستقبل ثورة الارز عبر قتل قيادييها من اجل الاستيلاء على الحكم في لبنان وتحويل هذا البلد الى الجزء الثالث من المحور الخميني البعثي وكما يسعى الى اقناع الحكومة اللبنانية بعدم الموافقة على المحكمة الدولية لانه يعتبر ان تحرير لبنان سوف يؤدي الى تحرير الشعب السوري وسيكون بداية لتحرير شعوب المنطقة بما فيها الشعب الايراني ونبه فارس الى ان مطالبة امين عام حزب الله حسن نصر الله بحكومة وحدة وطنية بعد رفض هكذا حكومة على مدى 16 عاما الغاية منه تعطيل كل القرارات الدولية مؤكدا ان نصر الله وحزبه شنا حربا اقليمية من دون سبب ومن دون اي قرار من قبل الحكومة اللبانية في تموز الماضي بهدف ضرب السلام بشكل عام ولاسقاط الحكومة واقامة حكومة ائتلاف مكانها بين حلفاء سوريا وايران // ومن هنا نؤكد ضرورة استمرار ثورة الارز التي لا تضم الاكثرية فقط من الشعب اللبناني فهناك ايضا الاغتراب اللبناني كله الذي يؤيدها وهو 14 مليون مغترب اذا اضفناها الى الثلاث ملايين الموجودة في لبنان يعني ان ثورة الارز تشكل تسعين بالمئة من الشعب اللبناني//هذا وتستمعون الى نص الرسالة كاملا عند الساعة العاشرة والنصف من قبل ظهر يوم غد الاربعاء وفي كل وقت على شبكة الانترنت في موقع المشرق دوت اورغ.
= = = = = ==

Phares comments on Hassan Nasrallah speech - "DISARM TO JOIN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS"

2006-11-20T05:03:00.000-08:00

Phares comments on Hassan Nasrallah speech

"DISARM TO JOIN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS"

Washington, DC, November 19, 2006

Commenting on the speech by Hezbollah's leader today, Professor Walid Phares, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies made the following remarks to Mashreq Radio and the daily as Siyassa.

First: M Nasrallah asked the Lebanese Government to either form a so-called "national unity government" or to resign and organize early legislative elections. Otherwise, M Nasrallah will wage a campaign of streets protests to bring down the Seniora cabinet. In fact, if Hezbollah's leader wishes to make a massive change in the democratic political process in Lebanon, he will have to call for an all out halting to this process as is, and go back to square one. For if Hezbollah has accepted the process back in May 2005, and obtained seats in the Parliament and the Government, then withdrew, it means that he has been using this process. If they believe the process must stop, then Hezbollah should hold an emergency congress and declare the following:

1) Disband the militia and remit its weapons to the UNIFIL and the Lebanese army in implementation of UNSCR 1559 and 1701

2) Severe its military and security ties with the Syrian and Iranian regimes

3) Stop receiving illegal money from the Iranian Government

4) Release its Lebanese prisoners and give an account for the Lebanese persons it kidnapped during the War.

When this is performed, then the Lebanese Government, and after the resignation of the pro-Syrian President of the Republic, should call for legislative elections and all political forces would participate, but without the power and influence of weapons and foreign illegal money.

Second: M Nasrallah said the previous pro-Syrian cabinet had allowed demonstrations to take place back in February 2005, and that the Lebanese Army allowed free demonstrations to move forward. M Nasrallah should be reminded that the Syrian occupation, through its controlled regime then, suppressed the Lebanese masses and instructed the Lebanese security forces to stop any popular gathering. It is only when thousands of young people marched to downtown that the officers and soldiers of the Lebanese Army opened the paths and allowed them to proceed against the Government's orders.

Third: M Nasrallah said he acts on the interests of Lebanon only. If this is the case, he should send back the weapons he received from Tehran, declare that Hezbollah is not part of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and that Syria was and still is an occupier in Lebanon. If his group achieves these goals, then he can join other Lebanese in the political process as an equal partner.

Fourth: M Nasrallah still rejects the UN resolutions pertaining to Lebanon. As long as he opposes the international legality, the international community and the popular majority in Lebanon will reject Hezbollah as a legitimate part of the country's political process. Hence, any move by Hezbollah to bring down the democratically elected Government in Lebanon will be dealt with as a move against the majority of the Lebanese People and the international community.

Dr Phares made these comments to several radios internationally, including Mashreq Radio and the Kuwaiti daily as Siyassa.

Around The Horn on Lebanon

2006-11-15T18:08:00.000-08:00

Around The Horn on Lebanon
Steve Schippert from ThreatsWatch, http://threatswatch.org/

Several recent writings provide excellent analysis and commentary on the situation in Lebanon pertaining to Hizballah’s political power grab which, as Dr. Walid Phares has been saying, was Hizballah’s reason for sparking the Israeli war over the summer. While excerpts are provided here, readers concerned about the situation in Lebanon would find it well worth their time investment to read each in full.

First among the notable efforts is from Rick Moran with Hezbollah’s End Game In Lebanon Taking Shape.

What it comes down to is what has always been the greatest threat to Lebanon’s democracy; Hezb’allah and their guns. Faling to disarm the militia as they were required to do under UN Security Council resolution 1559, the March 14th Forces paid for their inability to rally enough popular support to suppress Hezb’allah first with the Israeli War and now with an existential threat to the existence of a free and independent Lebanon. Perhaps it was inevitable given the enormous difficulty in governing a country so riven with factional and sectarian divisions. But history’s judgement will be no less severe if the small group of brave democrats cannot find a way to stop Nasrallah from carrying through with his plans.

As for the United States, there is very little we can do to assist. Siniora is already battling charges that he is Washington’s stooge – charges that ring true with many ordinary Lebanese thanks to effective Hezb’allah propaganda spewed forth from Al-Manar, the terrorist media organ in Lebanon. And as Dr. Phares points out, Nasrallah’s push for power has not taken place in a political vacuum; both he and his patrons in Tehran and Syria know how to read US election results.

Rick refers to Dr. Phares’ analysis at The Counterterrorism Blog titled Hezbollah’s offensive in Lebanon has begun. In his analysis, he details the likely steps Hizballah will take in relatively short order in order for the Islamists to wrest control of the government from the March 14 coalition.

5. The projected scenario is as follows: Hezbollah and Amal movement ministers will resign from the Government calling for the resignation of the Government. The next move is to have Hezbollah, Amal, and their allies in the Parliament also resign, thus creating “conditions” for what they will coin as new elections and a collapse of the cabinet. Most of these moves have already been accomplished or are on the eve of being implemented. The pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud will declare the Government and the Parliament as “illegitimate,” and call for early legislative elections. The latter, if they take place will be under the smashing influence of Hezbollah’s weapons (a show of force was performed in the summer) and of the cohorts of militias and security agencies. Result: a pro-Syrian-Iranian majority in parliament, followed by the formation of an “axis” government in Lebanon. The rest is easy to predict: A terrorism victory.

The question today is, how to stop this from happening?

No look at Lebanon would be complete without including Michael Totten, who possesses the inate ability to communicate his informed observations in a naturally flowing and readable style that is truly rare, especially considering the topics often discussed. In A Perfect Storm?, Totten draws upon his personal experiences and knowledge of both Lebanese society, Beirut politics, personal friends on the ground and his own face-to-face experiences with Hizballah.

The Lebanese government says Syria and Iran aim to overthrow the elected government in Beirut and reconquer the country. Whether they are actually trying to do this right now or not is unknown. There should be no doubt, though, that if they don’t have a plan to execute now it’s because they want to do it later instead.

Meanwhile, a group that calls itself “Al Qaeda in Lebanon” appeared from Lord-only-knows-where and directly threatened to destroy the March 14 government. “Al Qaeda in Lebanon” may or may not exist as a wing of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. If they do, they’re serious. If they don’t, they’re a Syrian proxy. Either way, it doesn’t look good. This is not a prank phone call.

These threats to Beirut’s elected government are concurrent with Hezbollah’s and Amal’s resignation from the Lebanese cabinet. Hezbollah and Amal quit for two reasons. The first is that the March 14 bloc refused to give Nasrallah and friends who lost last year’s election more power in a “national unity” government. The second is because it was time for the cabinet to move ahead on the Hariri tribunal. Hezbollah will not tolerate the prosecution of their patron in Damascus.

Both Rick Moran and Michael Totten refer to Charles Malik and his observation that the apparently coming Lebanese internal violence just may take place without much participation from the Christians, divided as they are in their support for the given factions. Malik asks at the Lebanese Political Journal, Will the Assassinations Prompt Sectarian Clashes This Time?

Rumors are running rampant that sectarian clashes began immediately after the Shia ministers resigned from the government. A friend in the Future Youth Organization said that young people no longer feel safe going out in the evening, and that the FYO was expecting bombs to go off the night the Shia ministers resigned. This, obviously, did not occur, but people are preparing themselves for the worst. Sadly, preparing oneself for violence, like stockpiling weapons, often makes one too quick to respond aggressively when violence is not necessary.

There has been much discussion (including on this blog) about the divisions within the Christian community. Interestingly, this division might make the Christians safer. The Christians proved last year that they would not respond to violence with violence. With the Lebanese Forces in 14 March and Michel Aoun aligned with 8 March, the Christian community will not be at the center of any sectarian clashes for, perhaps, the first time in modern Lebanese history.

While there is much to be considered, each of the above writers are a tremendous resource with their observations, comment and analysis…not to mention readable styles. I for one appreciate the way they reference each other’s ideas, considering and incorporating them into their own writing. Readers here would be well served by checking in on each of the above as they look to make sense of the Lebanese situation.

Phares to Radio Iraq: "Americans voted on Iraq without hearing Iraqi voices"

2006-11-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

Phares to Radio Iraq: "Americans voted on Iraq without hearing Iraqi voices"
Phares in Arabic

In an interview with the Free Iraq Radio, FDD Senior fellow Dr Walid Phares said: "Obviously with the loss of Congress by the Administration, the only future possible will be discussions and negociations between the two sides on all main issues. This won't be the first time in American modern history when different parties controlled different branches of Government. There will be many areas of agreements and also other areas of difference between the two sides. However, what most experts believe is that this Congress will play a greater role in the preparation for the Presidential elections of 2008." Addressing the impact of the Iraq issue on these elections, Phares added: "Let's be clear: the voice of Iraqi intellectuals and academics was not heard in the debate that preceded elections. Millions of US citizens voted on Iraq but without hearing the voice of Iraqis. And that will certainly affect future policies on Iraq. (...)There will be pressures applied on the Administration by Congress, and on Congress by many political factions and lobbies to withdraw from Iraq faster, and in some cases voices will call for immediate pull out. But, in view of the new balance of power I don't think there will be an immediate abandonment. But the politicians of Iraq must put their utmost efforts to work with this US Congress and convince its new majority of the importance of US support to the new democracy. This is a matter Iraqis leaders haven't been successful with in the past couple years. If the latter are concerned with the return of totalitarianism to Iraq they need to work hard with the new US Congress and have their voices heard among Americans. It is not a secret that there are plans today that are different from before and may not be in the interest of pluralism and democracy in Iraq.

Asked about the Iraq study group and the ideas of former secretary of state James Baker, Phares said "there are many voices in the US and Europe supporting negotiations with the radicals. Iraqi politicians who are supportive of democracy and freedom must be attentive to this reality. If the Iraqi democratic movement has no voice in DC, some pragmatic but not necessarily attractive suggestions may well convince Congress and the Administration as a new policy in Iraq. After the last elections in the US, no one can influence the process better than the Iraqis themselves." [Listen to the interview in Arabic]
Nov 9, 2006, 18:31

Phares to the Wall Street Journal: "Secretary Rice should convene a Lebanese NGO conference to revive the Cedars Revolution"

2006-11-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

Will Bush Lose Lebanon, Too?
November 7, 2006; Page A13, WSJ

President Bush learns tonight whether Republicans will lose control of the House, the Senate, or both. But what's a mere midterm when his administration is on the verge of losing an entire country?

That country is Lebanon. Twenty months ago, when Syrian troops were abruptly forced out in the so-called Cedar Revolution after a 29-year occupation, the Levantine state was a byword for the ascendancy of the Bush Doctrine. "It's strange for me to say this," the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told columnist David Ignatius in February 2005, "but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."

Fast-forward to the present and then watch as the Cedar Revolution gets played in reverse. The White House issued a remarkable statement last Wednesday warning of "mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah and their Lebanese allies are preparing to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government." That evidence includes recent threats on the lives of leading anti-Syrian figures, about a dozen of whom were assassinated last year. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has also promised massive demonstrations if his demand for a "national unity" government -- in which he and his allies would gain enough seats in the cabinet to exercise a veto -- is not met by the end of this week.

This could be scene-setting for another civil war, if the Lebanese have the appetite for it. Mr. Nasrallah's opponents, including the notorious Christian militiaman Samir Geagea, have put it about that if Hezbollah goes ahead with its demonstrations they will stage massive counterprotests and perhaps barricade the roads into Beirut.

What would Mr. Nasrallah do then? "He's going to push the troops of others to bring about an incident," speculates Lebanese commentator Walid Phares of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "He'll start a massive demonstration in front of [Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's] office and demand his resignation. He'll portray himself as the opposition. What he would love most of all is to have the media broadcast the downfall of the Bush-allied government."

That's one scenario, though it probably won't come to that: Mr. Nasrallah would prefer maximum autonomy within the country than actual responsibility over it. Instead, Lebanon's political classes are likely to settle on a compromise that would sacrifice at least one of the three most cherished goals of the Cedar Revolution. The first is disarming Hezbollah, as required by the 1989 Taif Accords and demanded by U.N. Resolutions 1559 and 1701. But that latter resolution, part of the cease-fire agreement arranged by Condoleezza Rice last summer, does more to shield Hezbollah from Israel than the other way around.

Second is a successful conclusion to the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The investigation, led by low-key Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, is said to be within weeks of wrapping up, and informed U.S. diplomatic sources expect that it will indict senior figures in the Syrian regime, including relatives of President Bashar Assad. But the indictments must be followed by a trial in Lebanon, which Mr. Assad is desperate to quash. Hence the Hezbollah power play: If Mr. Nasrallah and his allies can gain a third of the cabinet's seats, they can prevent the Hariri case from ever going to trial.

Finally, the Cedar Revolution was supposed to put an end to Syria's meddling in Lebanon. But that won't happen if at the end of this week's political negotiations the Lebanese government allows President Emile Lahoud, still and forever a Syrian puppet, to remain in office even as the country moves to early elections. Nor does it help that Mr. Assad continues to prove his worth to Mr. Nasrallah by serving as his main conduit of arms.

In all this, Hezbollah has been helped by the weakness of its domestic opponents. The Cedar Revolution demonstrated that Lebanon's anti-Syrian forces were a majority in the country. But those forces are fractious and unsure of themselves, and Mr. Nasrallah was able to draw down their support by striking a deal with the opportunistic Maronite leader Michel Aoun. Israel's incompetent military campaign last summer was another boon for Mr. Nasrallah, since anything less than his complete defeat in war was bound to embolden him politically.

Then there is the forthcoming report of former Secretary of State James Baker's Iraq Study Group, which is rumored to urge the Bush administration to re-engage Damascus diplomatically. In recent days Mr. Assad has been talking a blue streak about his willingness to make peace with Israel, a signal that he might be willing to play ball on that front and maybe in Iraq if only the administration lets him have his way in Lebanon.

The term for Mr. Baker's advice is "sell-out," and it is entirely characteristic of his past Mideast diplomacy. As an alternative, Mr. Phares argues that Ms. Rice should convene a conference of Lebanese NGOs in Washington as a way of bracing them for what he calls a "second Cedar Revolution." Also noteworthy is the internal Shiite opposition to Hezbollah: "The Shiite community never gave anyone the right to wage war in its name," Sayed Ali al-Amin, the Shiite mufti of Tyre, recently told Beirut's An-Nahar newspaper. With winter approaching and Hezbollah reportedly sharply cutting back on its reconstruction funds to homeless Shiites, there's an opportunity here to discredit Mr. Nasrallah and separate his organization from its religious base.

Saving Lebanon will require focus, nerve and imagination, qualities hitherto absent from Ms. Rice's tenure at State. Maybe if her boss loses his majority in Congress, he'll be less inclined to let the remainder of his legacy go down the drain with it.

Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads By Walid Phares

2006-11-02T04:31:00.000-08:00

Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads
By Walid Phares

The Fall 2006 issue of the Journal of International Security Affairs published my article "Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads." The JISA also published articles by esteemed collegues from the CTB. In this piece I attempted to provide a global assessment of the Jihadi threat five years after September 11, 2001. Following are the short introductory paragraphs:

The strategic decision to carry out 9/11 was made in the early 1990s, almost ten years before the barbaric attacks on New York and Washington took place. The decade-long preparations and the testing of America’s defenses and political tolerance to terrorism that took place before September 11th—were a stage in the much longer modern history of the jihadist movement that produced al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers.

Decades from now, historians will discover that the United States, the West and the international community were being targeted by a global ideological movement which emerged in the 1920s, survived World War II and the Cold War, and carefully chose the timing of its onslaught against democracy. Undoubtedly, the issue that policy planners and government leaders need to address with greatest urgency, and which the American public is most concerned about, is the future shape of the terrorist threat facing the United States and its allies. Yet developments since 2001, both at home and overseas, have shown that terror threats in general—and the jihadi menace in particular— remain at the same time resilient and poorly understood.

Defining the war

The jihadi war against the Soviet Union during the Cold War—and the struggle against the United States and some of its allies thereafter—are all part of a single continuum. Over time, jihadi Salafists and Khomeinist radicals alike have become proficient in selecting their objectives and infiltrating targets. Indeed, an analysis of the security failures that made 9/11 possible clearly demonstrates that the hijackers exploited systemic malfunctions at the national security level. Learning these lessons is essential for better counterterrorism planning in the future. But the jihadists are also learning, and the advantage will go to the side which can adapt most quickly. If the jihadists learn to understand and anticipate their opponents, their tactics and strategies will mutate.

Read the whole article here.

THE CALIPH-STROPHIC DEBATE By Walid Phares

2006-10-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

THE CALIPH-STROPHIC DEBATE
By Walid Phares

Published by George Mason University's History News Network HNN.

It seems that the US is having a hard time winning the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims, but an equally serious problem can be observed in the intellectual circles of America where some have had a difficulty coming to terms with the terminology of the War of Ideas. If the educated elite of the United States is incapable of identifying the ideology and the strategy of the Jihadists five years after 9/11, we not only have a problem with handling the War in Iraq, but also with the future of American national security as a whole.

An article published in Newsweek magazine on October 13, 2006 illustrates this problem. Entitled “Caliwho?” it asks why President Bush has raised the issue of an Islamic Caliphate. Lisa Miller and Matthew Philips, co-authors of the piece, begin by defining the term, “Caliphate” as a “fifty-cent word” posing a question of why a U.S President would use it four times in one speech. At first read, I thought the Newsweek journalists were lamenting the delay with which the chief executive of the nation has finally begun using this term - half a decade after September 11, and fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. After all, has not the American public demanded that the US Administration and Congress take steps toward “informing” the nation about the enemy, its ideology, and its future goals? Since one of the most important objectives of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Salafi Jihadi networks around the world has been the re-establishment of a Caliphate - incorporating in it all Arab and Muslim states – one can only express relief that the term “Caliphate” has finally entered the President’s speeches.

However, as I continued to read further, I realized that the authors of the Newsweek article were putting forth quite a different view. They seemed to be appalled by the fact that the President “dared” to mention the “word” Caliphate and spoke of the Jihadists’ attempt to “extend the Caliphate, establish the Caliphate and spread the Caliphate.” Miller and Philips, writing with the certitude of Middle East Studies expertise, reminded their readers, oddly, that “many people (in the US) live long without using the word Caliphate” suggesting the uselessness of the President’s vocabulary.

Precisely this absence of understanding of the term Caliphate was the problem in the 1990s. During that decade, most instructors in American classrooms unfortunately succeeded at “dis-educating” the nation about the nature of the enemy by simply leaving out the term “Caliphate” of the curricula for Middle East Studies classes. If American students, many of whom would end up being recruited to newsrooms, have never heard about the Caliphate, Salafism, Wahabism or Khomeinism - let alone Jihadism – then the US was inevitably headed for a big trouble.

If in 1941, one would not know what “Reich” meant in the Nazi rhetoric, one would not be blaming those who would be helping others to understand it, but rather those who concealed the meaning from others in the years prior to the rise of Hitler. Since it has turned out that Americans were not properly educated by their Middle East Studies experts prior to 9/11, it is these academic and intellectual elites that should be put on the spot and questioned about their motivation to massage – for decades - Islamic history to make it more palatable to Western audiences. Why are the Newsweek authors blaming US government officials for taking up the task of teaching the nation about the true nature of the enemy when those charged with the task have obviously failed to do so?

Authors Miller and Philips continue further in misleading their readers. They blame the President for using a “pejorative” tone when referring to the “Caliphate” suggesting that the term is quasi-sacred and should be used with near-reverence. The authors treat the term as if it denoted a mere historical period and not an aggressive political project of the Jihadists of the 21st century. The term “Caliphate”, with all its linguistic and doctrinal derivatives in today’s Salafi terminology, is as charged and politicized as the “Third Reich” was to the National-Socialists during WWII. The “Caliphate” epitomizes all that the Jihadists are preparing for, working towards, and killing for. This word IS at the center of the War with Terrorism – it is not an obscure academic word as Miller and Philips would have us believe. The bringing back of the “Caliphate” is the chief reason why Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri, Zarqawi, and Adam Gadahn have declared and waged a war against the people of the United States. Given its centrality to the Jihadist activities, the term must be treated seriously.

But Newsweek ’s investigative team is more interested in the “political” implications of such a use. Maybe it could stir some trouble overseas as the alleged Guantanamo-Koran affair did before? Or perhaps it would mobilize another campaign by the traditional (Wahabi funded) elites against educating Americans on matters “they shouldn’t know more about?” Who knows?

The article attempts to “link dots” between the use of the term “Caliphate,” and the so-called abhorred use of the terms “axis of evil,” Islamo-fascism, Islamic radicalism, militant jihadism, or what they coined as the “too jargony but more scholarly term of Islamism.” While they weren’t technically wrong on the latter, the authors implied the President is perhaps wrong or “political” when he used the more focused ones. Miller and Philips interestingly target the “people who prep him,” i.e. his speech writers, as perhaps pushing “complicating” words into the mouth of the commander in chief: in other words his advisors who probably encourage him to draw the attention of the American citizens to what the “Islamists” are up to. So, in sum, the article would suggest calling the enemy “Islamists” (the academic term) but not revealing their objectives, one of which is to establish a Caliphate. Is the Newsweek article calling on US leaders, President or congressional leaders “not” to use the term Caliphate at all, so that readers and the public at large “wouldn’t” learn what the actual Islamists “want” to do? This would be a disservice to the public and in total contradiction with the noble mission of the press.

But the matter would sound even more dramatic to Jihadism experts: For the article says “no one but students of Islamic history have much more than a vague idea of what it means.” Well, if we count on the educational system that “taught” America in the 1990s, you’d end up believing that Jihad is “spiritual yoga,” that Takfir is some Rock’n Roll Band, and that Umma is a Hollywood actress. Sure, if you count on our mostly Wahabi- funded Middle East studies programs you will get your Caliwhos and even your Caliwhats. Neither the US Congress nor the White House, let alone Homeland Security, are paid to teach students; campuses are, and handsomely. Unfortunately they did a bad job in educating their pupils, and now they are putting the blame on the graduated students.

You didn’t have to be an expert on German history or philosophy in 1940 to know what a Reich is. Nor did you have to be a specialist in Roman History and Latin to understand what fascism was. If today’s Joe and Jane Doe aren’t familiar with the term Caliphate it is because “someone” didn’t help them to make the acquaintance and that another someone is still obstructing that knowledge by alleging that this is only for the high cast of academics. While tens of thousands of Jihadists are pledging to the Caliphate before they commit to suicide bombings, beheadings and wrecking havoc in civil societies around the world, some voices (not necessarily the authors of the articles but intellectuals who are offended by popular awareness) are complaining about even “raising the issue.”

Although finding that students in Islamic studies can barely understand the Caliphate, the article yet uses a Merriam-Webster’s “dictionary” to educate readers:

A caliphate, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is the “office or dominion of a caliph”; a caliph is “a successor of Muhammad ... [the] spiritual head of Islam.”

Well, in Islam there is no such a thing as the spiritual head of Islam. One wonders how did Webster's come up with this “spiritual head of” concept other than projecting a Christian-centric concept? Prophet Mohammed, according to the Islamic faith is the last Prophet and the messenger of Allah. He didn’t organize the Caliphate before he died. His followers established this system of succession, which with time, became the head of the Islamic state, not an office for spiritual affairs. Even though the Caliphs were technically the successors to the Prophet at the head of the community, known as Umma, they were heads of Government, leviers of taxes, managers of prosperity, ultimate judges, and more importantly commanders in chief of imperial armies. Caliphs invaded countries and involved themselves in civil wars among Muslims. Dozens of Caliphs were killed in coup d’etats, putsches, battlefields, succession wars, etc. The Caliphate wasn’t just an office to interpret holy texts but it was also a real Governance and power position; the equivalent to the Papacy and Emperor rolled into one. Trivializing the institution of the Islamic Caliphate for 14 centuries just to score points against a sitting President for eight years in "infidel" America is absurd.

Then Miller and Philips go on to lecture on the Caliphate-101:

After the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D., his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, became the first caliph. (At the heart of the schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims, even today, is the question of succession: who has the right to become Islam’s caliph?) From the time of the Prophet’s death until the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, caliphs ruled over Muslims and presided over the Muslim expansion throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. These were the caliphates; some beneficent, some warmongering, in concept not unlike any other empire or dynasty.

So, the lesson from Newsweek article is that indeed the Caliphs were emperors and did wage wars. Some were benign, others harsh, as in any other empire. But that is important for average Americans to know and for Europeans to remember: Caliphs were involved in geopolitics and have declared Jihads, as did Christian emperors for centuries, on divine inspiration. Hence, Caliphs aren’t spared criticism and aren’t shielded from historical analysis and judgment because they were strictly spiritual. Besides, even if they were, Caliphs aren’t deities and the Caliphate is a very earthly thing. Along with all other offices of power in world history, the Caliphates had blood on their hands and no one can dispute that.

But what was missed by the writers was that the US President, and before him President Putin, US Congressional leaders from both parties and Arab clairvoyant leaders such as King Abdallah of Jordan and others, when they mention the Caliphate as a threatening goal, they are not playing historians. They are not talking about Caliphs Omar, Moawiya, Haroun el Rashid or Sleiman the Magnificent. Those are the Caliphs of history, not the commanders of 21st century al Qaeda. Adolph Hitler wasn’t a German emperor from the Middle Ages but he pretended he was their heir. Mussolini wasn’t Julius Cesar but he played his role. Hence when world leaders are warning about the “Caliphate” they aren’t arguing with those who died centuries ago, but resisting the extremists who want to reawaken the dark ages again, but with modern weaponry.

The article imputes rightly to Usama Bin laden the many troubling statements about “his” caliphate:

“Baghdad, the seat of the caliphate, will not fall to you, God willing,” he said, “and we will fight you as long as we carry our guns.” Bin Laden’s rhetoric evoked, as it often does, an earlier, golden era of Islam, one that exists more in his imagination than in the lawless, crumbling city of Baghdad today.”

Precisely, as I explain in my book Future Jihad, the Salafi Jihadists live in the past, borrow from the past but their bloody projects are in the present and loom over the future. When leaders, because of the mishaps of academics, respond to al Qaeda, they are sending a firm message: “This” Caliphate, which is against international law and the enemy of Muslim moderates as well, won’t be allowed to crush the international community and democracies. But our media unfortunately are not interested in a smart and vigorous response to the terrorists, but only in what can be harvested domestically in partisan “debates.” This article is telling us that Bush (or the 1990s’ Clinton for that matter) or any future President shouldn’t utter the word Caliphate, even if it has been absorbed by the modern days Jihadists and used in their mobilization campaign. As if in 1941, American Presidents would have been criticized for the use of “Third Reich” because “many centuries ago, the Reich was perceived as the German nation re-gathered.” Puzzling, isn’t it?

But the academic inquiry turns quickly into the usual political thing. They write: “Backers of the war in Iraq—Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, not to mention hawks like Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania—jumped on the word and used it in speeches dozens of times.” It is sad to see a debate about a national security, war on terror, war of ideas, history and ideology, rushed into “backers of wars, hawks, jump on word,” litany. For the Caliphate debate isn’t about Republicans and Democrats but about the victory of democracy and the survival of the Republic. It is not a partisan thing but a national defense and world security matter.

And to top it the article consults with the Islamist lobby on the issue and elevate it to the position of ex cathedra on all things Islamic. They write:

Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American Islamic Relations, says bin Laden’s word choices distort Islam for the world, and he wishes the president would take more care. When Ahmed heard “caliphate” Wednesday morning, he thought of the way Bush used the word “crusade” after September 11. “There’s a fundamental misunderstanding with the president and his advisers on core Islamic issues,” Ahmed said. “He’s getting bad advice, they’re misinformed on Islamic terminology.” Either that, or he’s making a strategic rhetorical choice.

With all due respect to the opinions and analysis of the spokesperson quoted, the question is not who has the real interpretation of the caliphate or Jihad for that matter. CAIR and al Qaeda could debate these matters at will, and one would wish to see this debate happening soon. I mean a real and open debate between the American Islamist-based group on the one hand and Adam Gadahn or Zawahiri on al Jazeera. That would be very informative, but obviously it is technically difficult since Gadahn is indicted and Zawahiri is wanted for justice, both for terror. Nevertheless it would be more academically sound to interview some pro Bin Laden Salafi Jihadi clerics on what the Caliphate they are struggling for IS, and IS slated to become when the time comes, and compare what they are saying with what Western leaders are talking about. Apples shouldn’t be mixed up with Oranges in the War of Ideas.

Tony Blair, the enemy number two of the Jihadi-terrorists after Bush, said a few weeks ago that, yes, we need a war of ideas: a campaign of intellect inside Western democracies, so that the public can be made aware of the realities of the War on Terror. He made a great point. For the Caliphate debate shows more clearly than anything, how “Caliph-strophic” the discourse is among our dominant intellectual elites.

This article was also published by World Defense Review, Family Security Matters and posted on FDD's web site.

Dr. Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Visiting Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy and the author of “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America.” Email: Phares@walidphares.com

UNIFIL in Lebanon finally receives its rules of engagement

2006-10-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

An Unenviable Task

The UN peace-keeping force in Lebanon finally receives its rules of engagement, to the disquiet of many Lebanese, reports Lucy Fielder, Al-Ahram

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The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has expanded from 2,000 to 5,200 and is expected to triple by the end of the year, has been granted a "robust mandate", to use UN jargon. This includes authorisation to use force against "hostile activity", set up temporary checkpoints and intercept the movement of "unauthorised weapons" -- ostensibly those of Hizbullah -- if the Lebanese army is unable to do so.

"It was passed as a [UN Charter Chapter 6] peace-keeping mandate, but to make certain parties were more supportive they included items that should be under Chapter 7 peace enforcement," says Timor Goksel, a former spokesman and adviser to UNIFIL. "This is like Chapter 6.5."

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought an uneasy calm to ravaged Lebanon and mandated the force, was passed after weeks of US and British refusals to call for a ceasefire. Many Lebanese saw the resolution as biased, supporting as it did Israel's right to "self-defence", even as it still occupied pockets of Lebanon, while Hizbullah had to "cease all military action".

UNIFIL's purpose is to support 15,000 Lebanese troops taking up positions across the south, parts of which were solely controlled by Hizbullah before the conflict. Bolstering UNIFIL was aimed partly at persuading Israel and the United States to accept a cessation of hostilities. Analysts say that in line with US-Israeli demands the force was granted a stronger mandate than many Lebanese, or indeed contributing states, wanted. "UNIFIL II" has no mandate to disarm Hizbullah, but it is expected to prevent the movement of the resistance movement's arsenal, used to keep invading forces at bay and to strike at northern Israel.

One clause gives rise to particular concern. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which has deployed five brigades in the southern areas formerly controlled solely by Hizbullah, will take action concerning the movement of unauthorised weapons, UNIFIL said. "However, in situations where the LAF are not in a position to do so, UNIFIL will do everything necessary to fulfil its mandate in accordance with Security Council resolution 1701," read a statement outlining the ground rules of UNIFIL II, issued 3 October.

Lebanese Army commander General Michel Sleiman told Al-Akhbar newspaper Friday he hoped UNIFIL's mission would be completed by next summer and sought to assuage fears about the international troops' mandate to use force. "There is no fear since the forces are there to back the Lebanese army, which is the only one with the right to issue orders in the south," he said.

Those who supported Hizbullah's resistance, meaning most of the south, already feel UNIFIL is there to protect Israel. German Chancellor Angela Merkel sparked controversy in Lebanon and appeared to confirm such perceptions when she cited Germany's historic responsibility for Israel's existence and said Germany's contingent to the UN peace-keeping presence aimed to protect it. Germany is sending battleships to patrol Lebanon's coastal waters rather than troops, seemingly to avoid any risk of confrontation with Israeli soldiers.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL's stronger mandate drew suspicion in Beirut. Speaker of parliament Nabih Berri said UNIFIL must stick to its mandate under 1701. "We, as Lebanese, are facing major problems and we don't need a new controversial issue to talk about," said Berri, whose Amal movement fought with Hizbullah during the 34-day war. "UNIFIL should abide by 1701 by helping the Lebanese army defend Lebanon's sovereignty."

UNIFIL, which was established in 1978 to confirm Israel had withdrawn after its invasion of that year, had a stronger mandate than many realised before, including the power to set up checkpoints and the right to defend itself. The force's large European contingent -- made up of German, Spanish, Italian and French troops -- may ensure that both sides treat it with caution, but it also raises the profile of the force and its mission.

An Indonesian contingent of 1,000 is expected by the end of the month. Turkey is sending engineers. Germany's warships are currently off Cyprus and are expected to patrol the coastline from mid-October. This will bring UNIFIL up to half its expected size.

To some, the south already seems a little crowded, with many southern Lebanese greeting new troops with suspicion, though not hostility. Local newspapers reported that villagers had mistaken the Spanish contingent's Hummer vehicles for Israeli ones because they were not the UN's usual white.

"They seem in some ways like a new occupying force," Issam Faris told Al-Ahram Weekly in the high, windswept border village of Maroun Al-Ras, from which Israeli troops withdrew last week. "There's a lot of them and they're dressed and armed like a normal army," he said. Goksel described heavier armour as the "show part" of being "robust".

Whether UNIFIL can do anything about Hizbullah's weapons is a moot point. Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who has long warned that any international force might deploy on Lebanese soil to protect Israel rather than as neutral monitors, said the group had replenished its weapons supply in the days immediately after the war and was now stronger than when it started on 12 July.

"Blockade and close the borders, the sea and the skies. This will neither weaken the will nor the arms of the resistance," he told the "Divine Victory" rally in Beirut on 22 September.

Analysts say Hizbullah and the Lebanese Army have an agreement that resistance fighters should keep their weapons hidden, which they can do easily, with their sophisticated underground bunker system. Fighters are invisible, simply having melted back into the villages from whence they came. Banners celebrating the victory, yellow flags, pictures of Nasrallah and bulldozers of Hizbullah's "construction jihad" engineering arm are the outward signs of the group in the south.

According to Goksel, the problem with "robust" mandates is having the political will to implement them. "Countries are not going to lose their soldiers for somebody else's war," he said. And Israel will want UNIFIL to take whatever action it can on Hizbullah's arms. "Denigration of UNIFIL by Israel will start very soon, because it will not be happy with what it is doing," he said.

Meanwhile, a UN report this week found that Israel had used a 500kg precision-guided bomb in an attack in late July that killed four UNIFIL soldiers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland while they were at their base. It said Israel struck 21 times within 300 metres of the base on the same day.

UNIFIL spokesman Alexander Ivanko said Friday that the force reported Israeli violations of Lebanese air space to the Security Council daily. On Friday alone, the Lebanese army said 12 Israeli planes flew over south, east and north Lebanon. Talks are underway for Israel to withdraw from the last pocket it occupies, the divided village of Ghajar by the Golan Heights.

Unless the international community brings pressure to bear on Israel to stop all violations of Lebanese sovereignty, the UN mission's inability to do anything except report them to the Security Council may fuel a sense of bias.

Perhaps in an effort to offset such perceptions, UNIFIL launched a public relations offensive last week emphasising the boost the force gives to the local economy. Acting Chief Administrative Officer Jean-Pierre Ducharme said in a statement UNIFIL spent about 60 per cent of its budget on procuring from local companies.

"The soldiers spend a lot of money here, they visit local attractions, eat out, travel, and this in the end helps to stimulate the economy," he said. Their visitors would also boost tourism, he added.

President Assad's Interview to BBC

2006-10-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

President Assad's Interview to BBC
Monday, October 09, 2006 - 10:05 PM
Interview conducted by John Simpson of the BBC

with

President Bashar al-Assad

on Sunday, 8 September, 2006

Mr Simpson: Mr President, welcome and thank you very much for doing this interview with us. It is a rare occasion, and you have to forgive me if some of my questions are blunt, because sometimes it is impossible to be too polite about some things. For instance, Syria has a really unenviable reputation in many countries of the West. For instance, the United States has publicly said, or American officials publicly said that Syria is a member of the axis of evil. Your country harbors people that others would regard as terrorists.

President Assad: First of all, you are most welcome in Syria. I am going to be very direct as usual. Actually, everybody care about their reputation, but we care more about reality. Reputation is matter of perception. The question is: do some in the West perceive the reality in our region as it is or as they want? The events in our region, especially after September 11 in New York, and after the invasion of Afghanistan, and especially after the invasion of Iraq proved that we were right; and maybe there is some denial by most of them to confess that they were wrong. But actually, many of those officials in the West that you have mentioned in your question revised their policies. And it was proven that they were wrong. Actually, when they accused Syria about supporting terrorism anywhere, they wanted to make Syria a scapegoat to blame it for every single mistake they make; and they absolve themselves from any responsibility.

Mr Simpson: But might it not be better not to have close links with groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas, not to have such a close alliance with Iran, not to allow weapons to go to Hizbullah, not to allow insurgents to pass into Iraq from your country?

President Assad: Some of the biggest mistakes made by the West – I know that the term West is very broad, but I have to use it because I cannot name every country – was to use labels as a base for political action. It does not matter what you label organizations or people or countries. The most important thing in politics is whether they have effect or not. As long as they are effective on the ground, among the people, you have to deal with them. And when they have the support of the people, you cannot label them as terrorist, because this way you label the people as terrorist. You cannot say this country is a terrorist country, and this people is a terrorist people. This is not objective; and that is why most of the policies undertaken by the West for the past few years toward our region have failed.

As for Hamas and Hizbullah, both are part and parcel of the Lebanese and Palestinian societies. And do not believe that there is any organization which sends its people and members to die for a third country. This is not realistic. They die when they have a cause. Do not believe that any one of them could be strong and win elections in both countries, whether to be at the helm of the government or in municipal elections when they represent only themselves or part of their society. When they win these elections, it means that they have the full support of their people, and of course the support of the people in the region. In Iraq the situation is different. We do not know which party or parties – or there might be no parties at all – take part in the resistance. In Iraq, they have two things: there is the chaos and terrorism and you have the resistance. Our public stand is that we condemn every single attack against civilians and the innocent in Iraq. Some times there are suicide bombers who kill tens and hundreds in one day. While attacking occupying forces is normal.

Mr Simpson: It is acceptable!

President Assad: Whether we accept it or not, it is normal, it is a fact. Wherever you have occupation in the region, for the last 150 years at least - we can go further back in history, but at least for the past 150 years – you have the same reaction to every occupation. The British were in Iraq at the beginning of the last century and they faced the same thing, Israel in Lebanon, Israel in Palestine, and now the British, American and other troops in Iraq. This is a normal reaction whether we accept it or not. So, it is better to accept what is normal.

Mr Simpson: ِِAre you prepared to help the people who kill British and American soldiers?

President Assad: First of all, we are against the occupation, and we warned the British and the Americans before the war that whenever you are going to win the war – and you are going to win it – you are going to ask the whole world to extricate you from this quagmire – and they are in a quagmire. Of course, if it is normal, and we have to accept the normal, of course, resistance is one of our concepts that we adopt, not against the British or the Americans in particular, but as a concept, against any occupying forces in the world. Even the UN Charter gave people the right to resist, whatever kind or resistance, whether it is military or through any other way, resistance is the right of the people. It is very normal for us to support it and adopt it.

Mr Simpson: So, you do allow insurgent to pass across the border into Iraq.

President Assad: No, this is something else, because first of all the resistance in Iraq is Iraqi resistance. It does not come from anywhere outside the border. Second, the insurgents, as we understand them, are the terrorists who go and kill the Iraqis. They try sometimes to come through the borders because, you know, terrorism has no borders. It is like the internet. It flows from place to place with no restrictions; but we tried our best and succeeded somehow in preventing many of those to go to Iraq. But, anyway, Iraq has now been transfigured into a nexus for terrorism. So, nobody can stop it. But we do not allow and we do not support them because first for the Iraqis, and second for our own interest, because if you allow terrorists to attack somewhere anywhere in the world, it would attack you later. So, how is the situation going to be if you allow it in your neighbouring countries.

Mr Simpson: Let me get this absolutely right. You understand the reasons for the insurgency, either against Israel or against the British and American forces in Iraq, but you do not help them.

President Assad: I have to be very precise about the definition. The insurgency is something against the law. We do not support it. As to resistance, we adopt it as a concept. That does not mean that you support it with money or armaments. I am talking about the political concept. We adopt it as a right. It is like when you in the West say that you adopt the human rights bill legally. That does not mean that you support it with money or you take action or whatever.

Mr Simpson: I see. But you helped Hizbullah and you allowed them to have weapons that came from Syria, did you not?

President Assad: Usually, and from our experience in the region, whenever you have resistance, you have public support. Whenever you have public support, they will be able to get arms from anywhere.

Mr Simpson: Can I just ask you: you did help Hizbullah with weapons, did you not?

President Assad: No, we helped them politically. We usually help them politically.

Mr Simpson: Are you prepared to work with the international community in preventing new weapons getting to Hizbullah in Lebanon?

President Assad: Yes, this is part of the UN resolution 1701 which we supported. So, are we going to implement part of it or the whole resolution? Was this resolution passed to help the region and to prevent another war, or was it passed just against Hizbullah? If it is going to be implemented as a whole - we said that we do not agree about all the points in it - but we are going to support it in order not to have another war. For example, there are incessant encroachments by the Israeli aircraft and troops into Lebanese airspace and territory on a daily basis. Why does not the international community interfere and talk to the Israelis about this resolution. So, it is not a matter of Hizbullah. The whole resolution should be implemented. This is how we see it.

Mr Simpson: How has the fighting in Lebanon in July and August changed things in this part of the Middle East?

President Assad: First, it did not change the position of Syria. But it changed the vision in some other countries in the world, especially the United States and some of its allies in the West. They used to think that military force is the omnipotent power and that it can solve anything. That was proved to be wrong. And it has proved a very important thing: if you do not tackle the issues politically, armies cannot do anything, no matter how strong the army is.

Mr Simpson: American officials are saying they do not think you can or will help with the peace process; and so they do not think there is any point in talking to you.

President Assad: You have to ask them on what basis they say that.

Mr Simpson: Well, I suppose they say because they feel that you are not moving towards negotiations with Israel, for instance. Are you prepared to move towards negotiations with Israel?

President Assad: If we draw an analogy with a car, it is not one car with one driver. The peace process has more than one party, and all of them have to drive in the same direction. You say in English, ‘it takes two to tango’. So, if one of the dancers is dancing tango and the other is dancing waltz but thinks that he is dancing tango, both of them will fall.

Mr Simpson: Which are you dancing? If you are favourable or you are helping, in one way or another, Israel’s enemies, it is going to be very hard to say, well we can negotiate with you openly.

President Assad: The ideal thing to achieve peace is to implement international law, UN resolutions and Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. So, the conditions to achieve peace are the international conditions. This is very simple, in order not to make it complicated. If you ask the parties, each one has its own vision, you make it complicated. Nobody will make concessions at the end. So, it is better to be committed to the international will if you talk about the will or if you talk about the vision. We are committed to this will and to this vision. Are the Israelis committed to it? This is first. Second, what is the role of the United States? It is not only the problem between the two parties. You need an impartial arbiter. This is the role of the United States. This is the supportive role of the United Nations and this is the supportive role of the Europeans. So far, the United States does not have the will to play this role and does not have the vision for peace. Of course they do not have a vision towards Iraq, they do not have a vision towards terrorism and about many other issues. But I am talking now about peace. If you go back to the very beginning, whether we can or we cannot, no, Syria by itself cannot make peace with itself. We should make it with all these factors so that we can achieve peace. Now we do not have this environment, we do not have this good climate to achieve peace.

Mr Simpson: So, now is not the time.

President Assad: It is always the time. I mean we do not have the factors. On the contrary, it is the time, especially after war. After war, you talk about peace, but that does not mean we have the environment to achieve it or to move toward it.

Mr Simpson: Some senior politicians in Israel are saying it is now time for Israel to start talking to Syria. I mean, if that were the case, if the prime minister, as opposed to some of his other ministers, were to say to you, we are ready for talks, what would your answer be then?

President Assad: Actually, I started talking about peace. So, we have to wait for their answer.

Mr Simpson: Are you waiting for an answer from them?

President Assad: As I said, it is not only them, because we do not know if this government is strong enough to move toward peace, like what happened during Barak’s term in 2000, when we went to Wye Plantation to meet with the Israelis, and you can read that in the memoirs of former US president Bill Clintion, when he mentions that the Syrians were ready to deliver, while the Israelis were not because of internal issues. So, the first question is can they and do they have the will? The other question is, as some say, the decision for peace now is not in Israel, it is in Washington. I did not only read this in the newspapers and magazines, but actually many officials in Europe and in the Arab world heard that from the Americans. If the Americans do not have the will, the Israelis cannot move without the United States. Third, as I mentioned earlier, that depends on the will and the vision of the United States.

Mr Simpson: And that is not there, you think, at the moment.

President Assad: So far, there was no dialogue, so how can we tell. We only expect, we hear from others. But can you achieve peace without making dialogue with all the parties. We cannot. How can you talk about peace and at the same time about isolation. How can you talk about peace and you adopt the doctrine of preemption, preemptive war? This contradicts 180 degrees with the concept of peace. You cannot adopt both.

Mr Simpson: One of the problems, particularly in Israel, is that people there feel absolutely certain that Syria is dedicated to wiping out Israel as a state. Your friend and ally, president Ahmadinejad of Iran has spoken about wiping Israel off the face of the globe. What do you say about that? Is that your idea as well?

President Assad: Your question is evidence that they do not read thinks very carefully. They do not read the lines and they do not read between the lines. I am not going to give you my opinion. I will give the facts. How can we ask for wiping Israel and at the same time ask for peace and negotiations. We had negotiations in the 1990s with Israel. Do you make negotiations and put peace as a goal to wipe out somebody? We talked about normal relations and all these details. This not objective.

Mr Simpson: So, would you accept that, at some future stage, no matter how long it takes, Syria and Israel could live side by side in peace and harmony accepting each other’s existence?

President Assad: Yes, the answer is yes.

Mr Simpson: No problems about that at all?

President Assad: Of course not. Why do we want to achieve peace, to have war? This is self-evident. I agree about what you said.

Mr Simpson: Down the decades, Syria’s influence in Lebanon has divided the different groups in the country, and of course most recently there was the murder of prime minister Hariri, which one UN report said could only have been carried out with the knowledge of the Syrian intelligence system.

President Assad: The assassination of Hariri has affected Syria as bad as it affected Lebanon. Hariri was a real ally of Syria. He was never against Syria. He supported Syria in many difficult positions and stands. So, there was no single convincing reason to push Syria to do such a thing.

Mr Simpson: Supposing the UN does turn up evidence that Syrian intelligence agents, for instance, who were very active in Lebanon and elsewhere, had been responsible. I know this is a hypothetical question, but would you put them on trial, would you deal with them?

President Assad: Yes, we announced that publicly. They would be prosecuted first of all in Syria. Now the question whether it is going to be an international tribunal or anything else is too early to answer. So far, our law says that whoever proves to be complicit in such an atrocity is considered a traitor, and a traitor is punished by the most sever punishment.

Mr Simpson: But forgive me, is it possible that the president would not know what the security people of his country are doing?

President Assad: This means you presume that somebody in our intelligence took part in this. We are not convinced of that.

Mr Simpson: It is what the UN report said.

President Assad: As far as we know, no Syrian is involved, whether in the state, the intelligence, or any other apparatus within or outside the state.

Mr Simpson: Syria is a difficult country for outsiders to understand. It is a very closed society. It does not exercise its affairs in public. We know very little about this country. Forgive me for asking this: are you really the man in charge, or does somebody tell you what to do?

President Assad: Of course none of this is true. I know what you mean. I am in charge of course legally. But some people in the West used to say he is not in control and somebody else is controlling him. At the same time they say he is a dictator. I answered this many times. If I am a dictator I should be very strong, and if I am not in charge I should be very weak to be a dictator. So, they have to make up their mind about this. I have my authority according to the constitution. I am fully in charge according to these authorities I have, but at the same time you have to keep consulting with the largest possible number of people regarding anything.

Mr Simpson: When you took over in 2000, people talked about the Damascus spring, that things were going to change, it was going to be possible for people to speak openly, there were going to be forms of democracy that have not been shown before. Some of those things or a few of them have happened, but for the most part Syria is still just as controlled as it was under your father.

President Assad: First of all, we did not say that reform means to loose control. It has to be under control. We need a strong state. We never thought of a weak state in Syria. It is never part of our reform and we never talked about it in Syria. For us reform is to have prosperity. Prosperity has more than one field: political, economic, cultural, social, whatever. But you have priorities: you cannot do everything at the same time, you cannot do it in a short time if we are talking about real reform. I am not talking about pro forma ones. I am talking about real reform. The most difficult problem that people suffer from is the economic situation. We are a poor country not a rich country. Wherever I go as an official I meet people and the first thing they talk about are their wages, not having a job, having good schools for their children, having medical services. Sometimes they do not have the basic things in most of the regions.

Mr Simpson: But it is your intention to open up Syrian society.

President Assad: Yes, of course. This is our interest and this is our goal.

Mr Simpson: I have got one last question to ask you: for much of your career, you were an ophthalmic surgeon in London - part of it was in London. Now, you are the president of a country which many people fear; and some people think is a ferocious dictatorship. What does it feel like to move from examining and healing people’s eyes to being in charge of a country like Syria?

President Assad: If you are a dictator, people should hate you. Do not believe that people like dictators. So, I think if you want to have the real answer, you would better ask the Syrians and they will tell you. How can you be a dictator and at the same time, as in your earlier question, I am not in charge? This is the contradiction.

Mr Simpson: Which would you prefer, though, being an ophthalmic surgeon or to be president of Syria?

President Assad: Actually, that depends on how many people you can help, or how much good work you can do for the national interest. I definitely enjoy being an ophthalmologist, but now I think whatever decision I can make is going to have a broader effect on my country.

Mr Simpson: Thank you very much in deed.

President Assad: Thank you, and thank you for coming to Syria.

Elusive unity - An age-old dilemma is at the heart of the debate on Hizbullah's weapons

2006-10-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

Elusive unity
An age-old dilemma is at the heart of the debate on Hizbullah's weapons,

Al-Ahram Weekly
reports Lucy Fielder from Beirut
5-11 October 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mohamed Kreyem's electrical parts shop is a stone's throw from the Koreitem Palace of the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri, western Beirut. The former prime minister, whose assassination last year many Lebanese blamed on Hizbullah's Syrian backers, gazes sternly from a poster in the window.

So does Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, just above him. "Hizbullah is the only group working for the benefit of the country, and to rebuild the country. Nasrallah is a believer, he's working in the right way, an Arab way, whatever his relations with Iran and Syria," Kreyem says.

Hariri, the father, wanted Lebanon to be strong, he says, so there was no contradiction in displaying the two pictures. "But I don't much like his son Saad's politics. The international forces they brought in are to protect Israel, not us, even though we're the ones always being hit by Israel." As a boy, Kreyem said he had fled successive Israeli invasions of his native south.

Othman Itani, who owns a nearby parking lot, believes only the government should have weapons. "Nasrallah says they have 20,000 rockets -- who do you think you are scaring? Israel has two air forces. It will destroy Lebanon and go home. You are frightening the Lebanese, only," he says. His booth is plastered with pictures of the Hariris -- senior and junior.

"Since 1948 we've been fighting Israel," Itani says. "Other Arab countries have peace with Israel, so why is it only us fighting? Peace with Israel would open up everything for us. No one is thinking about how much this is all costing us."

Although both men are Sunni, they sum up two opposing camps in Lebanon's polarised society. How should Lebanon protect itself, given the weakness of its army? By maintaining a military deterrence of sorts through Hizbullah's weapons, though that may risk another attack by an Israel? Or through Western allegiances, perhaps peace with Israel, and the supposed international protection they would bring?

"There's a tendency among Lebanese politicians, including 14 March, which says, 'We don't want a strong Lebanese army' and a wish that Lebanon would never be involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict," says analyst Fawwaz Traboulsi, who helped lead Palestinian and leftist resistance to Israel's 1982 invasion. "To my mind, we paid the price more than we would have if we had taken seriously that we are part of that conflict."

With Israel on one side and Syria on the other, and a population split between looking east and west for its alliances, staying out of it all has proved wishful thinking. Traboulsi advocates persuading Iranian-backed Hizbullah to allow its seasoned fighters to become an elite unit under central army command in return for a greater say in national defence.

Where the Sunnis lie in all this is an enigma. Traditionally the backbone of Lebanon's urban, merchant class, the sect, which forms 25 per cent of the population, has typically shunned politics and played little role in the 1975-90 civil war. But after Hariri's assassination, Sunnis took to the streets and became leaders of the US-supported 14 March anti-Syrian movement. Saad Hariri's Future Movement commands the parliamentary majority, allied with Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt and Christian leader Samir Geagea. Hariri ally Fouad Al-Seniora heads the government, always a Sunni post under the sectarian political system.

But for many ordinary Sunnis, the government's US-backing sits uncomfortably with their traditional support for the Palestinians and Arab causes, especially after the US-backed Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Their broad support for the government as tensions rise cannot be taken for granted.

At his "Divine Victory" rally on 22 September, Nasrallah hinted at coming battles. Accusing the leadership of being unable to protect Lebanon, he said working towards a national unity government would be Hizbullah's "new project". Bringing in allied Maronite Christian leader Michel Aoun is seen as Hizbullah's main aim. By adding Aoun-backed cabinet ministers to Hizbullah's two, the allies hope for a blocking one- third minority in government. Nasrallah said Hizbullah's weapons could only be relinquished if the state was strong.

Nasrallah commands the loyalty of nearly all Shia, Lebanon's largest sect at just under 40 per cent. And a survey released this week by respected pollster Abdo Saad showed Aoun was clear favourite to be president, who has to be Christian Maronite. Forty-five per cent of Lebanese across the sects chose him; among Christians he scored 39 per cent. No one else came close.

Any support Aoun lost among his Christian support-base -- which appears to be between five and 10 per cent -- for allying with Hizbullah despite his anti-Syrian past, he has gained in Shia and other support. "Aoun can afford to lose a few per cent. He's now got Shia support and apart from Nasrallah he's more popular than any other leader," analyst Amal Saad- Ghorayeb says.

Nasrallah's rally, which mustered anywhere between 800,000 to a million people, could presage a bitter campaign ahead, said Saad-Ghorayeb, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment's new Middle East Centre in Beirut. The poll showed 70 per cent of Lebanese supported a national unity government, including a surprising 71 per cent of Christians and, more predictably, more than 90 per cent of Shia.

"Christians and Shia clearly don't see that they're politically represented," she said. "There's been a lot of political pressure mounting (for a national unity government) and this war of words has escalated. Now with these results you find that the public shares that view and that these groups could unleash their publics on the street," she said.

Oussama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies also predicted things would heat up. "I think Ramadan will be quiet, but after that Hizbullah and its supporters will try to change the government," he said.

Hariri hit back at Nasrallah's demands last week at a Ramadan Iftar meal. "We reject any calls for a change of government by undemocratic and unconstitutional means," he said. He called Nasrallah's address to the rally an "unacceptable local translation of (Syrian President) Bashar Al-Assad's speech".

Safa said Hariri is preparing for a push against his government. "So we're seeing an increase in the rhetoric. And there is genuine impatience. There's no opportunity in the offing for disarming Hizbullah". The government's war-time performance is viewed as poor. It disowned and implicitly blamed the "resistance" for sparking the war by seizing two Israeli soldiers, which cost it some popularity. Hariri was derided for being abroad for the whole conflict, and corruption and mismanagement characterise government aid efforts for the displaced even in much of the pro-government media. "14th March as a movement has pretty much fizzled out," Safa said.

"Most of the Sunnis are with Hariri, but there are pockets of dissidents," Safa said. Those are mainly in the north (Tripoli's outskirts and Akkar), and the west, namely parts of the Bekaa and Hermel. It is unlikely to be coincidence that these are poorer areas, where the Future Movement's business orientation is of little use, but pan-Arab views strike a chord. from Egypt's Al-Ahram

Jerusalem’s Damascus Conundrum Raises Wartime Memories of Yom Kippur Past

2006-10-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem’s Damascus Conundrum Raises Wartime Memories of Yom Kippur Past

Dateline Jerusalem
Gershom Gorenberg Fri. Oct 06, 2006

Bashar Assad says he wants peace — but failing that, he’ll take war. The Syrian president has made a point of intoning that message repeatedly of late. In Israel, the question of how to respond — indeed, whether to respond at all — has created a ragged political division that cuts across the usual lines of left, right and center. The deciding factor, so far, seems to be the Bush administration’s opposition to any diplomatic contact with Damascus.

Assad’s latest call for renewing talks came in an interview with the Spanish paper El Pais this past Monday, in which he said that Syria and Israel could reach peace in six months if they resumed negotiations now. A few days earlier, speaking to Germany’s Der Spiegel newsweekly, he said, “We want to make peace — peace with Israel.” Then he added threateningly that “when the hope [for peace] disappears, then maybe war really is the only solution.”

The threat, it appears, got Israel’s attention. Israeli Military Intelligence has raised its estimation of the chance of war with Syria, according to press leaks last week. For years, the possibility that Syria would initiate a conflict was rated as “low.” The Syrian military was presumed to understand that it stood no chance in a war with Israel. The Syrian-Israeli boundary has remained quiet since it was set in the 1974 “interim” agreement following the Yom Kippur War — though Syria continually has used proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas to remind Israel that the conflict is not over. After this summer’s indecisive fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Syria may be re-evaluating the possibility of confronting Israel directly — or so say the intelligence leaks.

The Syrians “have the impression, not necessarily correctly, that they could gain something through force,” commented Uri Sagie, a former chief of Military Intelligence. Assad could believe, Sagie said, that “you don’t need to start an all-out war. By heating up the border or perhaps grabbing [some land], you might get world attention and renew the [diplomatic] dialogue.” Assad wants not only to get back the Golan Heights, Sagie said, but also to “get everyone off his back” — that is, to remove Syria from Washington’s blacklist and reduce his isolation.

Assad’s double message of peace and war, former ambassador Itamar Rabinovich said, is similar to how Egyptian President Anwar Sadat talked more than 30 years ago, when he sought to regain the Sinai. Rabinovich, now president of Tel Aviv University, headed Israel’s negotiating effort with Syria under late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Though Rabinovich does not elaborate, his parallel is provocative. In the early 1970s, Sadat was hinting at peace and threatening war. Israeli intelligence, backed by then-defense minister Moshe Dayan, dismissed the chance of war, convinced that Sadat lacked the means to conquer the Sinai. The United States — in a policy formulated by then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger — declined to broker peace talks until Egypt abandoned the Soviet bloc, failing to respond to signs that Sadat was ready to do so.

Yet when Egypt did attack on Yom Kippur 1973, Sadat’s goal was not to retake the entire peninsula militarily. Instead, he sought to seize a narrow strip of land and to force the United States and Israel into a diplomatic process that would give him the rest. Costly as the war was for Egypt, he succeeded.

The parallel between Sadat and Assad is far from perfect. Sadat was able to initiate a two-front war in collusion with Syria, and he had the Soviet Union’s military backing. Today, Assad lacks those strategic assets — and perhaps Sadat’s daring, as well. History does not repeat itself precisely.

Still, Assad’s challenge has divided Israeli politicians. Some leading figures, including Public Security Minister (and former Shin Bet security service chief) Avi Dichter, began arguing in the wake of last summer’s Lebanon war that Assad’s peace hints should be explored. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on the other hand, repeatedly has rejected talking to Syria.

“In practice, they continue sponsoring terror,” Olmert recently told Ynet, the Internet site of Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, “including Palestinian terror groups that act against us in the territories.” He added: “The United States opposes talks with Syria…. Like many others, it doesn’t believe Syria wants peace, but perhaps to reduce the pressure on it….”

Olmert was even more blunt in another pre-Yom Kippur interview. “As long as I am prime minister, the Golan Heights will remain in our hands,” he declared.

The prime minister’s comments underline the twin pressures on him. Diplomatically, he seeks to avoid tension with Washington, which now treats the Middle East as divided between pro-Western and pro-Iranian forces. Domestically, the war-weakened Olmert cannot challenge the powerful Golan lobby.

Yet the cracks reach even into Olmert’s own Kadima party. “Imagine an alliance with Syria…. What leader can permit himself to miss a chance like that?” said Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik of Kadima in an interview published Sunday in Ma’ariv.

Former military chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon recently said in Ha’aretz that he favors negotiations with Syria. Ya’alon, widely expected to enter politics in the Likud, said he advised Ariel Sharon three years ago to begin talks with Assad in order to “crack the northern alignment of Iran-Syria-Hezbollah.” At the other end of the political spectrum, Meretz lawmaker and ex-colonel Ran Cohen told me that a key question after the summer’s war is why Israel “did not exploit the time since the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 to reach a peace agreement with Syria.” Negotiations now, he said, might prevent another war.

On the other hand, Labor Knesset member Ephraim Sneh, an ex-general who is considered dovish on Palestinian issues, argues that “right now there is nothing to talk about” with Assad. Before Syria can have normalization with the United States or negotiations with Israel, Sneh said, it must meet four conditions: It must influence Hamas to release captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, boot Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal out of Damascus, stop the arms flow to Hezbollah and seal its eastern border to Iraqi insurgents. Meeting those conditions, Sneh told the Forward, would “remove Syria from its strategic alliance with Iran” and from “the axis of evil.”

Sneh’s approach surely would please Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who recently spoke of getting other countries to join in new sanctions against Damascus — without specifying the means she had in mind. Her tour this week of the Middle East, which coincidentally began on Yom Kippur, does not include a stop in Damascus. Instead, she seeks to renew Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy and to bolster ties with Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia — viewed as a Sunni coalition against the Shi’ite-led Iranian-Syrian alliance. Rice’s approach underscores the administration’s view of the Middle East as once again divided into clear blocs.

Old Syria hands in Israel are less convinced that Assad’s overtures should be ignored. Rabinovich recommends “discreetly clarifying” with Assad “whether there is anything to talk about.” Such secret contacts, he notes, would have to be coordinated with Washington.

Sagie, who was in charge of talks with Syria under former prime minister Ehud Barak, said that Syrian-Israeli peace remains “a supreme strategic interest” for both sides. For that matter, he suggested, the Bush administration’s hard line “is not necessarily in U.S. interests.”

True, Sagie stressed, Syria “has done its utmost… regarding Iraq, Lebanon and Iran” to cause its own isolation. But “dividing the world into good guys and bad, black and white,” has undermined American influence in the Middle East, he said. “There are other shades, as you know. I’m not sure that Bush does.”

Sagie noted that in the long term, Lebanon is likely have a Shi’ite majority. Given the risk of a radical Syrian-Lebanese coalition, it makes more sense to try to pull Syria to the moderate side. “I don’t justify Syria,” he said, “but ignoring it does not serve Israel or American” needs.

That was advice that Rice seemed unlikely to hear in official Jerusalem — and perhaps even less likely to accept.

Fri. Oct 06, 2006

Author and journalist Gershom Gorenberg, a National Jewish Book Award winner who writes regularly for The New Republic and has published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Mother Jones and numerous other American and Israeli publications. In his new book, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977. The Washington Post cites Accidental Empire as "a meticulously researched, dispassionate and highly readable history of how Israel slipped into the settlement of occupied lands" and "an invaluable guide to one of the Middle East's most complex issues that will puncture illusions on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Analysis: Syria still holds the key - 33rd anniversary of the fourth Arab-Israeli Middle East war

2006-10-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Analysis: Syria still holds the key

By Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor
Oct. 6, 2006 at 7:00AM

This Friday, Oct. 6, marks the 33rd anniversary of the fourth Arab-Israeli Middle East war; four wars fought in as many decades. It was also the last time Israel fought more than one Arab army at any one time, and the first time the Israeli army was caught unawares, giving the attackers the upper hand, albeit temporarily.

The Egyptian and Syrian military managed to maintain absolute secrecy during meticulous preparation leading up to the surprise attack on Israel, which at the time occupied all of the Sinai Peninsula and faced the Egyptians across the Suez Canal behind the heavily fortified bunkers and trenches of the Bar Lev Line. The Israelis believed the Bar Lev Line was impregnable, thanks to its formidable fortifications. But the Egyptians simply threw men into the battle in such large numbers that the Israeli machine-gunners couldn't kill them fast enough. Their guns overheated and jammed and the surviving Egyptians made it through the defenses and captured the Bar Lev Line.

Indeed, on that Oct. 6, in 1973, Israel faced the two largest and most powerful Arab armies at the time -- Egypt and Syria -- fighting them on multiple fronts for 18 grueling days.

Iraq had also sent a contingent, but given the high level of mistrust that existed between the Syrian and Iraqi Baath parties, Damascus refused to house larger numbers of armed Iraqi troops in and around Damascus.

The war lasted 18 days and in reality ended in a stalemate, although the Israelis felt demoralized and the Arabs claimed victory. It was a situation not dissimilar to the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The October War, as it was called in the Arab world -- Harb October or Harb Teshrin -- was a turning point in the Middle East conflict. The bittersweet victory gave the Arabs back their dignity and honor after losing it so disastrously in June 1967. It showed them that Israel could be fought, that it wasn't this superpower it projected itself to be after the June Six-Day War. At the same time, it also showed the Arabs that while Israel could be fought, it could not be defeated.

On the Israeli side, the October War -- or the Yom Kippur War -- allowed a harsh reality to sink in; and that was that Israel could be defeated.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had reclaimed Egypt's honor -- albeit at the cost of much Egyptian blood -- was now ready to discuss peace with the Israelis. Israel, thanks to a last-hour maneuver by Ariel Sharon, who managed to re-cross the Suez Canal and encircle the Third Egyptian Army a mere 60 miles from Cairo, was also ready to talk peace with the Egyptians.

The hang-up was the Syrians. President Hafez Assad, father of the current leader, had hoped to reclaim the strategic Golan Heights which Israel had captured from Syria in 1967. Syrian forces fought valiantly for every inch of the Golan, but were pushed back by Israeli elite brigades.

Thus began Henry Kissinger's legendary shuttle diplomacy: the then secretary of state made no fewer than 36 trips to Damascus in under a month, on some days visiting the Syrian and Israeli capitals twice, as he relayed messages back and forth. Eventually, an agreement was reached in which Egypt was to reclaim the Sinai, and Syria the devastated capital of the Golan, Kuneitra. And the United Nations was to police a ceasefire. Thirty-three years later, the U.N. is still monitoring the "temporary" halt of hostilities, ensuring that peace on the Golan Heights is not shattered.

But if the Syrians have remained silent for 33 years on the Golan, their fingerprints have certainly been found on multiple "action dossiers," according to several foreign intelligence sources. The Syrians, say intelligence sources, have been supporting terrorist groups both in the Middle East and around the world; from backing and arming Lebanon's Hezbollah and radical Palestinian groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad (whom the United States and Israel accuse of terrorism), to allowing foreign jihadi fighters to enter Iraq by crossing through Syria, to interfering in domestic Lebanese politics.

This is Syria's own way of letting the powers-that-be know that they still have unsettled demands: basically that they want the return of the Golan Heights and they want to be included in any ensuing dialogue in the region. Damascus wants the United States to know that they hold the key to the door that will open the way to a permanent settlement of the Middle East crisis. Or, if they feel the need to, they can open the door leading to further chaos. So long as Syria has not reclaimed the Golan, thus at the same time reclaiming some of its honor, the ruling Baath Party will see to it that even if a peace deal is reached between the Palestinians and Israel, no lasting peace will be enjoyed in the Middle East without including Syria in the fold.

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice re-launches dialogue with friendly Arab countries, drumming up support for U.S. policy, she should be cognizant of the fact that one should also talk to one's foes if one is serious about peace.

--

(Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.)

Hezbollah's New Mission The "resistance" takes aim at the Lebanese government

2006-10-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hezbollah's New Mission The "resistance" takes aim at the Lebanese government.

by David Schenker Washington Institute for Near East Policy
09/29/2006 1:46:00 PM

HEZBOLLAH LEADER Hassan Nasrallah made headlines two weeks ago when he claimed during a rally that Hezbollah still possessed 20,000 rockets and missiles after this past summer's war with Israel. The rally and the announcement were audacious: Some 350,000 supporters gathered in South Beirut to see Nasrallah appear publicly for the first time in nearly two months, mocking Israel and demonstrating Hezbollah's steadfastness. Overshadowed amid all this were some pronouncements in Nasrallah's speech that have important implications for U.S. interests and for the future of Lebanon.

In a striking departure from Hezbollah's standard articulation of its raison d'etre as "resistance"--i.e., defending Lebanon from Israel, liberating Sheba farms, and freeing Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails--Nasrallah added a new domestic orientation to the group's agenda. He linked Hezbollah's disarmament to the formation of a "strong, capable, just, and clean" Lebanese state.

Not coincidentally, according to Nasrallah, the first step in building this new Lebanese state is the establishment of a "serious national unity government"--Hezbollah shorthand for adding more pro-Syrian and anti-Western forces to the government. Were this to occur, it would almost certainly signal the demise of the moderate government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and provide the Syrians with a new lease on life in Lebanon.

Given the endemic government corruption in Lebanon, this call for clean government provides yet another pretext for Hezbollah indefinitely to retain its weapons. For Hezbollah, of course, the topic of disarmament has always been a moving target. Initially, in the 1980s, disarmament was contingent on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. After the U.N. certified Israel's withdrawal in 2000, the focus became Israeli withdrawal from Sheba farms; later it was the liberation of seven Shiite villages in Northern Israel.

What is surprising is not the addition of yet another rationale for the militia to retain its arsenal but Hezbollah's unexpected turn inward. In his speech, Nasrallah explicitly threatened the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)--the reinvigorated international peacekeeping force currently on the ground in the South--if it attempted to get involved in Lebanese domestic affairs. "Your clear mission," he said, is to "support the Lebanese army. . . . [It] is not to spy on Hezbollah or disarm the Resistance." To avoid being dragged into a "collision" with his militia, Nasrallah warned, UNIFIL must not look into Hezbollah's weapons. "They should not interfere in Lebanon's internal affairs or be involved in such things."

Nasrallah also devoted a portion of his speech to sectarian issues in Lebanon. Though most analysts believe the Israel-Hezbollah war aggravated existing Sunni-Shia tensions, Nasrallah denied there was any such friction, maintaining that "the dispute here is not sectarian, but political." He went one step further, making the astonishing boast that Hezbollah had "protected Lebanon from civil war."

Capping off his foray into local politics, Nasrallah commented that the Siniora government was not up to the task of reconstruction, and he issued a direct challenge to the Lebanese government. If the state fails to protect Lebanon, he said, Hezbollah will again assume the responsibility. "We have thus far been patient . . . be assured that we will not be patient for long."

While the speech was obviously well received by Nasrallah's constituents, others in Lebanon were less than pleased. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was the most outspoken critic; he described the speech as "a coup." Outside of Lebanon, though, the details of this revolutionary speech went unnoticed, overshadowed by the stunning photos and the rocket announcement.
Nasrallah's speech was important not only for the details but also as an indicator of Hezbollah's postwar strategy. With the deployments of the Lebanese Armed Forces and the reconstituted UNIFIL in the South, Hezbollah's freedom of military action is greatly constrained. Nasrallah's focus on domestic Lebanese politics is tacit recognition of the new reality on the ground. Absent the ability to attack Israel directly, for the time being at least, the "resistance" is in search of a new mission. Nasrallah seems to be working to establish a new political reality to accommodate this requirement.

For the United States and the Siniora government, this development is troubling, and it will be increasingly difficult to contain. In the short term, the best counter to Hezbollah's gambit will be for the Siniora government to succeed in its efforts to reconstruct Lebanon quickly, efficiently, and without conspicuous corruption. In the long term, however, the only real remedy will be to reform the Lebanese political system so that alternative Shiite parties can emerge to challenge--and ultimately dilute--Hezbollah's political power. Until then, Prime Minister Siniora, with U.S. help, will have to settle for competing with Hezbollah--and its Iranian patron--in hometown politics.

David Schenker is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2002 to 2006, he was the Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinian affairs adviser in the office of the Secretary of Defense.

2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard.

Assad: Syria preparing for Israeli attack

2006-10-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Assad: Syria preparing for Israeli attack

Syrian president says, in interview, nation is worried about Israeli aggression, preparing itself for attack 'at any minute'

Roee Nahmias
Published:
10.07.06, 13:36

Syrian President Bashar Assad said that his nation is ready for war with Israel. In an interview with Kuwaiti newspaper al-Anba, he was asked whether, pursuant to the war in Lebanon, Syria was prepared against Israeli attacks and would be prepared to wage war.

In response, the president replied: "During the aggression against Lebanon, there was vast pressure from among the population to fight against Israel and liberate the Golan. Many people made suggestions to this effect, directly and informally."

According to Assad, his nation is expecting an Israeli attack: "As far was we're concerned, the prospect for peace is unrelated to the changing circumstances and constitutes a basic principle, but, at the same time, we are preparing for an Israeli attack at any minute. We all know that Israel is military strong and backed by the US."

"Ever since Ariel Sharon came to power, Israel has given up on the peace process. Sharon's election was a sign that Israel had comprehensively given up on the peace process and the US government only strengthened this trend. Therefore, naturally, our expectation is that there will not be peace and perhaps will be war," said the president.
"What does it mean to be in a state neither of peace or war?" he asked. "Either war or peace. Period. This is why we have to prepare, to the best of our ability."

Assad addressed Lebanese complaints regarding arms smuggling from Syria to Hizbullah-controlled areas in Lebanon.

"When you speak of smuggling, you must understand that it is bidirectional smuggling, not smuggling only from one side to the other. Goods arrive from every direction. Anyone who needs arms goes to a place where he can buy arms. The smuggling comes from Iraq, Lebanon and all over the place. It cannot be stopped," he said.

Earlier statements
In September, the president said that he didn't discount the possibility that war would break out in the region: "This option is possible, because Israel is looking for a way out from the crisis it is in through a new adventure, by which it will restore its security."

Assad estimated that Israel may attack Syria under the pretext that it is aiding Iran, but declared that "Syria will resist, will stand strong and will never give in."

Tuesday, President Assad said that he believes that peace with Israel could be achieved within six months – if negotiations begin where they last left off.

In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, the Syrian president said: "Our vision regarding peace stated that no more than two years should pass since we set out for the Madrid conference (and until the negotiations are completed)… if we want to renew talks from the same point we stopped, then the talks need six months."

Two weeks earlier - in response to a question of whether he supports Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cry to eliminate Israel - Assad told German magazine Der Spiegel that Syria wanted peace with Israel, "not to see it destroyed."

"But my personal opinion, my hopes for peace, could one day change. And if this hope disappears, then war may really be the only solution," he added.

Regarding Israel's recent war with Hizbullah, Assad told Der Speigel that it would be impossible to prevent arms from reaching the militant organization due to its strong public support.

"As long as public support for Hizbullah is as high as it today ... then this is 'mission impossible'. The majority sees resistance against Israel as legitimate. I advise the Europeans -- don't waste your time. Get to the root of the problem."

Jumblatt: Assad acting like mafia head

2006-10-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

Jumblatt: Assad acting like mafia head

Druze leader continues: If Lebanon’s central government doesn’t have monopoly on war and peace decisions, it will find itself coexisting with country called Hizbullah

Roee Nahmias
Published: 09.20.06, 12:21

Lebanon’s Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt , said on Tuesday Sept 19th, 2006, ”Hafez Assad was a cultural criminal, but his son is a mafia head and not a government head.” He spoke out in an interview with the Lebanese television channel LBC.

In addition, Jumblatt, a typical representative of the anti Syrian bloc, attacked Damascus claiming it was trying to overthrow the Lebanese government and take over the country.

“The Syrian regime is only interested in overthrowing the country or damaging its ability to function, in order to enter the political vacuum through revolution or security related incidents. That, is to sabotage the establishment of an international tribunal (regarding the murder of Rafik Hariri),” said Jumblatt.

In an interview with LBC’s May Shediak - who was severely injured about a year ago in an attempted assassination, apparently instigated by Syria following criticism on her part – Jumblatt hinted that Syria’s methods hadn’t changed.

'Sheba only a distraction'
According to him there are still “whispers and signals” to hurt Lebanese Prime Minister (PM) Fouad Siniora, similar as to what occurred on the night former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri was assassinated.

Jumblatt criticized Syria regarding the Shebaa Farm issue, saying it avoided agreeing on a border in order to keep things vague, allowing itself and Iran to keep a hold on Lebanon.
He continued to say that both countries had ambitions, nuclear and vengeful, and that “if Lebanon’s central government doesn’t have a monopoly on decisions of war and peace, it will find itself coexists with a neighboring country called Hizbullah.”

During the interview, Jumblatt admitted that there wasn’t effective supervision of sea ports and country borders, contrary to what was required by security council decision 1701. “The borders and some of the ports don’t carry out thorough searches of ships, and Hizbullah decides on that.”

Jumblatt mocked Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration of a “divine victory” against Israel. “This isn’t a devine victory, but a financial victory. Those who give money and weapons are those who give the orders, and others become hostages. Even civilians holding money have become hostages to those they receive the money from.”

more from Druze LeaderJumblatt: Olmert's government will fall / Aaron Klein, WNDLebanese leader: Hizbullah 'victory' will bring down Israeli PM, embolden terrorists Full Story

EU body seeks closer ties with Syria

2006-10-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

EU body seeks closer ties with Syria

Members of European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee vote to strengthen cooperation with Damascus, support signing association agreement with country. Agreement could give 'a decisive impetus to political, economic and social reforms in Syria and would facilitate the Middle East peace process,' committee states AFP

The European parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee has voted to deepen cooperation with Syria and ultimately sign an association agreement.

"We stress the problems of human rights, we stress the Hariri enquiry, on the other hand we think that if Syria has decided to have another policy than its past attitude in the Middle East then that would be something very good for us," EU parliament member Veronique De Keyser, who prepared the resolution, told AFP on Friday.

A UN investigation commission into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is underway, with many pointing the finger at Syria.

The move towards closer ties with Damascus was also facilitated by Syria's military withdrawal from Lebanon.

The West's policy of isolating Syria has done all but that, but instead has strengthened its ties with Russia and Iran, she said.

'Respect for democratic values – a prerequisite'
The measure to urge the 25 EU nations to move towards an association agreement, which has been pending for almost two years, was passed overwhelmingly in the committee by 34 to one, with two abstentions.

EU parliament members pointed out that an association agreement could give "a decisive impetus to political, economic and social reforms in Syria and would facilitate the Middle East peace process."

But they also stressed "that respect for democratic values, human rights and civil liberties are prerequisites," according to an official statement released Friday.

The human rights clause to the agreement should also include an effective verification mechanism.
The EU parliament members were particularly concerned by the lack of progress in Syria in democratization and the respect for human rights and civil liberties.

The resolution specifically calls on Syria to respect Lebanon's sovereignty and to prevent Hizbullah from rearming.

Support for Hamas concerning
Members of the European parliament are equally concerned about Syrian support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad and they called on Syria to adopt a more positive approach to the status of the contested Shebaa Farms.

Parliament members also urged Syria to respect freedom of expression and the rights of religious and other minorities, protect human rights defenders, prevent torture and abolish the death penalty.

The association agreement is part of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and covers economic, social and cultural cooperation, including provisions relating to intellectual property, services, public procurement, competition rules,

"There is a strong requirement to fight against terrorism and for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," said De Keyser, during last-minute campaigning ahead of Sunday's Belgian municipal elections.

"For us it is good, for Syria it could be not bad."