In the last world war, cities used to have many sirens to warned against any incoming airplanes. So each time the population heard the distinct sound of these sirens they would rush to their hiding places in fear… Nowadays in Lebanon every time Hezbollah’s leader issue a speech, fear spreads among the Lebanese. Nassrallah speeches filled with anger and threats have become a dreaded event in the already tensed daily life in Lebanon, filled with bomb scares and never ending rumors….
Nassrallah brings nothing new to the table; he keeps on refusing compromises and solutions. He no longer accepts the third plus one of the council of ministers, and unequivocally refused the International Tribunal, claiming it was just a sham to legitimate the already decided upon sentences.
The best we can hope for now is to keep the current deadlock until the next presidential election in September, hoping beyond hope the country’s economic situation holds out that long. I will leave you to imagine the worst, as the anniversary of the start of the Lebanese war -the 13th of April- approaches…
7 comments :
it may extend beyond our presidential election. As long as there is a Hezb, as long as this current Syrian regime endures, and as long as M14 shows such lack of resolve, we're stuck in this mode.
The only thing that will cut through the local Gordian knot is a US election, and the coming of a different team in the White House.
>"The only thing that will cut through the local Gordian knot is a US election, and the coming of a different team in the White House."
That's interesting.
What kind of a new White House Team do you think is needed?
Are you looking for a different RIGHT winger who truly confronts Syrian & Iranian regimes or someone from the LEFT similar to House Speaker Pelosi who recently visited with Assad and stated the bewildering "road to peace runs through Damascus"?
Here's a good commentary from a Syrian regarding the leading House democrat's visit:
http://www.tharwacommunity.org/amarji/
Now, until I come across something better, I'm in favor of the current policy incremental resolutions by the UN Security Council against Iran (although it would be nice if they got more teeth sooner than later) and the more powerful economic sanctions being levied against Iran by banks, companies, countries independent of the resolutions.
This slow bleed emboldens the pro-democracy elements inside Iran while the lack of money in Tehran translates to less and less money being provided to Syria's battered economy and HA's propaganda machine.
The mullahs haven't been forced to decide yet because they are still awash with cash for several different campaigns beyond their borders, but as the fiscal squeezing persists, they'll have to start prioritizing their funds.
Forced to choose, Iran will devote it's funding to Iraqi insurgents instead of HA and Syria because it has far more to lose if they can't succeed with their plans for a puppet Iranian government in Baghdad.
They can still "wipe out" Israel (and Palestine, too) with nuclear missiles launched from Persian soil as they can if they were launched from Shebaa Farms.
If you are considering a better future delivered from the LEFT allow me to issue these points of contension:
1) Those currently calling for negotiation with Assad and Ahmadi Nezhad are the same the continually called for dialogue with the Soviet Union, and had that advice been followed my ethnic native county of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia) might still be under USSR domination.
These are the same people that marched demanding equal women's rights with men's in the 60's and 70's who now praise the defiance of Assad and Ahmadi Nezhad to Western pressures while turning a deaf ear, and blind eye towards the cries for help by the oppressed masses of those countries, especially the female segment of the population (hence the Pelosi example).
2) Aside from their utter abhorrence of war even in the case of WWII which was obviously necessary to stop Hitler's blitzkrieg, they don't want the "War on Terror" to be one by the West because it means that oil will remain low cost and therefore alternative energy sources will continue to go larger without attention and funding, thus harming their "War on Global Warming"
They also fear the whole "New World Order" "Big Brother" scenario that has always been a constant, but the LEFT seems to think somehow that cozying up to the already totalitarian regimes of Syria, Iran, Cuba, etc. will somehow fend off the emergence of a totalitarian state in the US (which I don't for a second buy because YouTube alone has too far reaching a power with its ability to present any form of information to millions, for example: if someone discovered some clandestine plot, they need only use their cell phone camera to record their statement for upload to the masses long before the authorities could stop it).
3) There isn't much of a cohesive long term plan on their part for the whole Middle Eastern Terrorism situation(granted you can say the same about the lack of a post-Saddam planning in Iraq on behalf of the Bush Team, but in their defense they were expecting post-Saddam Kuwait in 1991 and post-Saddam Northern Iraq in Kurdistan which both became utter paradises economically and security wise compared to the rest of the current lower Iraq bog).
The LEFT's answer is to pull all military forces out in outrage of the current violence not willing to put "2" and "2" together to realize that such an action would lead to a "4"-midable Darfur-like genocide that would change the current death tolls per month to a PER DAY tally.
The other problem is that pulling the Troops out just means bringing the bombers back in circa de 1990's under Clinton with sporadic campaigns trying to swat terror camps like a farmer with a shovel going after gofers.
But, either way I'm really interested in hearing the ideas you have on what the best role of US leadership in your part of the region would be coming from your perspective on the other side of the Atlantic(and Mediterranean).
[Sorry for the excessive length of this post, I haven't written much since Bob so kindly posted my "Terrorists are angry because they don't get laid" synopsis.]
I think all that we hear now is "noise", in the sense that the US election is on, and I would not put much stock in that. Whatever team reaches the White House, the target is the same; Iran. The oil interests are such that they need to secure the Persian Gulf, as well as backup access to Arab oil. Beyond this, no plan.
To illustrate my point, I would suggest a map of the famous Sykes-Picot agreement. Two salient features appear, and they never discuss those in our schools. No, it is not the Zionist conspiracy;
1- Look at the French region. Soon after oil was discovered around Mosul, the North-Eastern part of the French Zone was changed, thereby altering Syria's future shape.
2- Plot the IPC route; it defines Syria's borders with Iraq and Jordan.
It has always been about oil, in the same manner that our wars have always been about water. Whoever reaches power will not change that; only the style will be different.
Jeha,
First off, great links and commentary from your October 06 piece on mines.
For the West, it has always been about Middle Eastern oil, and for the Middle East, it has always been about Western money.
This formula though, has obviously spawned quite a menacing situation that is afflicting both our regions (of course, the peril is obviously far less here in the West).
The rise of HA, Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc. not only threatens this Western Money for Middle Eastern Oil relationship but also something far more important in the long term world wide democratic freedom.
Plug in hybrids are on their way to market here in the US where they consume 1/4 the fuel and cost on average $3.50 to fill up (by plugging them into your electrical socket at home) versus the $20-50 a tank of typical cars.
You throw in coming advances in nanotechnology in regards to dramatically reducing processing costs of going from the corn stalk to the fuel tank, and big oil will take a big hit.
This big hit is a problem down the road (although the US, China and India will still be big oil consumers overall at the likely reduced price) because the House of Saud, Assads, King of Jordan, Mubarak, etc. have used oil wealth to successfully buy off part of their populations and pay to brutally suppress the rest.
This dam has obviously sprung cracks and its busting will yield a region wide bankruptcy that creates nothing but opportunities for groups like HA to install fundamentalist theocracies that chase away the clear headed.
One of the advantages of "Getting Iran" is that it will stop the major player of exported terror in the region (Saudi Arabia being the second) helping open up that population to moving its economy beyond oil to other enterprises.
The US for example was once awash with textiles & automobile manufacturing among other industries that have gone the way side to outsourcing forcing a shift to different industries much in the same way Syria will be forced to do in the next year or two as they run out of enough oil to export (Iran and Iraq are about a decade or two away from the same fate).
So, just because the Yankees have come to plunder oil, doesn't mean there isn't advantage in it for the region.
There is legitemacy to the argument that things have to change in the ME to avoid it falling even further behind the rest of the world as it enters the 21st century.
And you shouldn't knock oil altogether, either. Without it the Middle East would be worse off than sub-Saharan Africa and Angelina Jolie would constantly be stopping in to adopt away your children.
The alternative to not "Getting Iran" would be a failed democracy in Iraq (I'm not convinced its a lost cause).
This failure would turn Iraq into Iran's Lebanon which would lead to a retaliatory Sunni mass revolt in Syria that would overthrow the Assads and unleash another bloody Iraq situation with the oppressed majority Sunnis finally seizing power, spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood(Syria's version of the SCIRI, Mahdi Army, and Badr Brigade) while the minority Allawites armed by Shia allies in Iraq would launch a brutal insurgency with the Kurds also getting involved in fighting for their own Kurdestan autonomy with masses of refugees fleeing south into Lebanon fomenting another Civil War much in the way the Palestinian refugees decades ago did.
Slavic Mike,
The world is indeed in transition, but oil still matters, at least to ensure the transition... I do not think the United States is about to give up so easily on the region, and Syria and Iran control much less than they give themselves credit for.
Still, there are worrying historical parallels, particularly with the history of the "Peloponnesian War", a cautionary in historic hubris if there ever was one.
Allah yse3dak
Jeha,
>The world is indeed in transition, but oil still matters, at least to ensure the transition...
True, very true, but just like the economics that have made oil the cheapest alternative for so many years versus ehtanol, electricity, wind, etc. those factors are now going in the opposite direction favoring the latter now that still in April gasoline is over $3 throughout the country.
Beyond environmental concern, national security, etc. its economics which dictates the fate of oil and as it continues to stay it is ceding ground to hybrids, plugin hybrids, ethanol, and so to the point that when the oil price does return to comfortable levels it won't matter because consumers will have learned their lesson once and for all.
>I do not think the United States is about to give up so easily on the region, and Syria and Iran control much less than they give themselves credit for.
No, the US won't be going anywhere, especially with the growing alliance with Arab countries from a military standpoint to counter Iranian hegemony.
I agree with something Bob said before about not doubting that those in favor of freedom and democracy will carry the day, it's just a question of how high the "Butcher's Bill" will be.
As far as Peloponnesian War similarities, they're definitely there, but Tehran is showing increasing signs of buckling in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
> Anonymous said...
Allah yse3dak
I don't know what that means so, I can't comment one way or the other.
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