They Are Getting Uptight In Lebanon--For Good Reason

One of these days, quite soon by all accounts, the special tribunal established by the UN to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 is to be released.  The history of this investigation is marked with false steps and false accusations, but now it appears the tribunal thinks they finally have achieved a firm grip on the event.  The tribunal's staff are convinced that they know who dunnit and why it was done.

The murder of Hariri was roundly condemned by the US.  That was a standard issue, off-the-shelf response.  Not so standard and certainly not well-advised was the precipitate action taken by the Bush/Cheney administration to false reports directly linking Syrian President Bashir al-Assad to the killing.

With a haste which was both unnecessary and unseemly, the neo-con ninnies suspended diplomatic relations with Syria, calling our ambassador home.  One result of this act and the charges underlying it was the sharp turn toward Iran made by an irate Bashir who felt that his country and himself personally had been insulted.  In addition the Syrian regime saw itself threatened by the suspension of normal diplomatic representation.

Syria has cleaved most tightly to Iran ever since.  This relationship is not in US interests any more than it is in the interests of Israel.  The Obama administration was well enough oriented toward reality to attempt damage limitation and repair.  This effort has proven fruitless as too much time had passed, too many connections made between the clerics of Iran and secularists of Syria, to allow any substantial or speedy change in the status quo.

The only action the US might have undertaken which would have resulted in Syria executing an about face was the return of the Golan Heights from Israel.  Since the administration decided to focus its efforts and attempts at pressure on levering Israel back to the negotiating table with the Palestinian Authority, it was impossible to do the same with Syria and the Golan.

The unwillingness or inability of the Obama administration to do anything useful on the Golan question assured that Bashir al-Assad saw nothing to be gained by dumping the mullahs and embracing the US.  An additional obstacle to changing Syrian affections from Tehran to Washington has been the repeated refusal by American administrations to acknowledge that Syria has both interests and a special position in Lebanon.  To us the notion of a "Greater Syria" incorporating Lebanon is a nul referent; to Syrians it is a reality demanding full recognition by the world including the US and its allies.

The real deal is Syria has a special position in Lebanon.  Whether Syrian troops are present in country or not, whether Syrian police patrol the streets of Beirut or not, whenever Syria decides to sneeze, Lebanon will catch pneumonia.  In short, to use the words of Winston Churchill, in Lebanon Syria has one hundred percent of "the say."

Since the US threw one hissy fit after another until all Syrian armed forces were withdrawn from Lebanon, the Boys in Damascus have employed the tried and true method of use-a-surrogate to exercise "the say" in Lebanon.  Hezbollah was a creation of Syria a quarter of a century ago and more.  Over the years the lads of Hezbollah have demonstrated a clear utility to Syria both in Lebanon and, when necessary, elsewhere.

However, the situation has become more complicated in recent years as a direct result of the tight and getting tighter linkage between Iran and Syria.  Particularly after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the flow of money, material, and training from Iran to Hezbollah has strengthened the direct ties between the theocrats of Iran and the adherents of armed political Islam of Hezbollah.  (It's nice to remember that the name translates as the Party of God.)

The situation is such that Hezbollah is almost in a position to play off Syria against Iran should its best interests demand it.  At the moment, however, the best interests of Hezbollah are served by unity between its two patrons.  The problem comes in what that may mean for Lebanon overall as the UN tribunal cranks up to go public with its investigation.

The conclusions of the tribunal's investigation is, Hezbollah did it.  This prospect has Hezbollah worried.  It has the current Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, very worried.  It has the Lebanese political elite very, very worried.

Hezbollah's capo, Hassan Nasrallah, has the capacity to tumble the government.  In lieu of simply causing the chaos a forced collapse of the central government would bring in its wake, the very hardline Islamist group and its leader may simply demand a reformulation of the Taif Agreement which ended the simmering internal Lebanese war by bringing Hezbollah into the government.  Any reformulation would grant even more power to Hezbollah, a prospect which Israel, among others, finds alarming.

Three ago the politics of Lebanon as threatened by the UN tribunal report made for strange bedmates as Bashir al-Assad met one on one with the King of Saudi Arabia.  The two long standing foes had come together in the hope of making sure there would be no reawakening of the dormant civil war.  For a couple of months it appeared the two had succeeded in brokering some sort of undiscussed in public means of preventing a Lebanese collapse.

The rapprochement has proven short-lived.  The Kingdom of the Two Mosques and the Baathists of Syria have come to a parting of the ways on Lebanon as a direct result of the Syrian-Iranian alliance.  The Syrian government has come out in favor of the candidacy of Nouri al-Maliki.  Maliki is the favorite son of Iran for the office of Iraqi prime minister.  Being Iran's favorite means Maliki must be Syria's as well.

The opting for the Iranian Candidate has infuriated Sunni Saudi Arabia.  Even if it was not possible for Bashir and his government to come out in support of Allawi, who was acceptable to Saudi Arabia, the overt endorsement of Maliki was too much for the Keeper of the Two Mosques.  It was, as they say, a deal killer.

Bashir has also blasted the on-again and now once more, off-again Israeli-Palestinian Authority talks as existing only to "boost Obama."  That he delivered himself of this opinion with Ahmadinejad beaming away in the next chair was not lost on any observer--particularly those in Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian Orator-in-Chief is scheduled to return the call in a couple of weeks.  This means the internal politics of Lebanon will remain in stasis at least until the Man From Tehran heads home on 15 October.  After that date, all bets are off regarding the internal stability of the faction ridden state of Lebanon.

Ahmadinejad, accompanied by Nasrallah, is scheduled to dedicate a garden located not far from the Israel-Lebanon border.  At this time the Guy From Tehran is expected to toss a symbolic stone in the general direction of Israel.  This action close to what Ahmadinejad has called "Iran's border with Israel" raises a question.

No, bucko, not what shape is Ahmadinejad's arm.  Rather, will the Israelis go for a commando raid and snatch, bringing Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah back to Israel to stand trial for either war crimes (in Nasrallah's case) or exciting genocide in regard to Ahmadinejad's many calls for the destruction of Israel.  In a way it is too bad that this intriguing prospect (think glass booths, simultaneous translations, hordes of international observers all in the ala Eichmann manner) is a non-starter.  It would solve so many problems all at once as well as raise a number of other, more fascinating--or at least less repetitive--issues.

In any event watching Lebanon will be a whole lot more fun after the UN tribunal releases its report.  It will be one more episode in the long running and ever-so-bloody drama of Can Lebanon Survive?  In the worst realistic case, the Lebanese situation will be reality TV at its most compelling.

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Yo! Mahmoud! Shoot Yourself In The Foot Again?

The Geek is a dedicated maven of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  This is not simply because the once upon a time traffic engineer is amusing.  No, the Geek dotes on every piece of spittle which froths forth from the mouth of the Orator-in-Chief because he is a very dangerous man who fronts for an even more dangerous assemblage of clerical authoritarians.

The danger Ahmadinejad embodies is comprised in equal measure of Iranian ambitions, the Iranian nuclear project(s), the Iranian connection with the almost as unsettling regime in Pyongyang, and the eschatological not to say apocalyptic visions of the Return of the Hidden Imam which permeate the regime and its most avid supporters.

Among all the threats facing the US and the rest of the civilized world, (threats which have increased almost geometrically while the current administration has wrung its collective hands in dismay over the failure of peace to break out everywhere upon the arrival of the New Guy In the Oval,) Ahmadinejad's Iran holds the pride of place.  It is number one.  It surpasses even the unstable and formidably out of touch bunch in Pyongyang.  It is a more immediate danger than the one posed by the Gnomes of Beijing.  Compared to the impending danger from Tehran, even the most grotesque perils of anthropogenic climate change are reduced to insignificance.

This explains why the Geek was alarmed by Ahmadinejad's behavior during the opening days of his most recent American Tour.  In his appearance on Larry King Live as in his numerous interviews with members of the MSM, the Iranian president gave an unsettling appearance of rationality, of calm poise, of being a reasonable man representing a reasonable government, of being firmly committed to diplomatic negotiation in good faith with the members of the P5+1 on the vexing nuclear question.  To his alarm the Geek even found his head nodding in agreement with much that the Orator-in-Chief was peddling.

"What is wrong here?" The Geek muttered to the flat screen before him.  "Where is the usual World According to Mahmoud distortions of what most see as the consensual agreed upon objective reality?"

Finally, came the main event, the Speech.  That is the set piece address to the General Assembly.  The jewel which has always crowned Ahmadinejad's trips into fantasyland.  The Geek's worry level increased markedly when the opening lines were cut from the same charm offensive cloth as the remarks earlier in the week.

Then--Allah be praised!--Ahmadinejad fell back to type.  He delivered himself of the roster of tired, long disproved conspiracy theories regarding the mass murder of 9/11.  Not only did he pin the tail of culpability on the US government, he compounded his offense against reality by asserting that "most people" in the US and around the world believed that to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The amazing thing about the General Assembly audience was not the departure of the delegations from thirty civilized states but rather that anyone stayed after the Orator-in-Chief delivered his (quite evidently) favorite interpretation of 9/11--that the Americans did it to save their crumbling economy and provide a necessary boost to the "Zionist regime."  The Geek could not but wonder just how any person of even average intelligence and ethical integrity could remain and grant a respectful ear to the rumblings of a man functioning in a state of politically motivated delusion.

Sure, one could excuse the continued presence of men representing majority Muslim states.  Religious solidarity must take precedence over mere bagatelles such as the truth.  But the others?  The delegations from countries such as Russia and China, whose diplomatic understanding and support has been cultivated so assiduously by the Obama administration?  What was their reasoning?  Or was their continued presence simply a strong indicator that their governments were closer in alignment with Tehran than with Washington?  Perhaps they were of the view that President Obama's American was not so much a weak horse than a dead one?

President Ahmadinejad's jaunt into 9/11 denial, like his well established position as the world champ of Holocaust deniers, could be interpreted as an exercise in bunkum--a ploy meant to play well back home particularly with the extreme hardliners who have been eviscerating the president in recent weeks.  That view is not impossible, merely improbable.

The improbability of the most charitable explanation for Ahmadinejad's charging off the I'm-so-rational reservation has been underscored by his full-throated defense of his accusation in later press conferences.  Not only did he issue a demand for an "impartial" UN conducted "truth commission," he had the chutzpah to assert that not only did the people of the world deserve this, so also did We the People as it has been the American public which has borne the costs of the wars predicated on 9/11.  It is evident Mr Ahmadinejad believes his performance deserves adulation and not the calumny it has received.

The real deal is simply the Iranian president and both his government and the clerics in charge have been and will continue to tell their narrative in their way.  This was the case with his rendition of the conspiracy theory of 9/11.  It was the case with the companion campaign in which Ahmadinejad as well as the turbaned lads back home equated the execution of a woman by the state of Virginia with the so far not carried out death by stoning sentence passed on an Iranian woman.  It has been and will be the case with all the words expended by Iranian "statesmen" regarding their nuclear program.

The Iranian clerics and their governmental front, now epitomized by Ahmadinejad, have raised the fine art of lying in support of governmental policy to heights previously undreamed of.  Neither the Nazis nor the Kremlin Communists came close to the achievements of Iran in the area of bald prevarication in the interests of state.

The Iranians have enjoyed a fair measure of success from incorporating the technique of the Really, Really Big Lie in their policy arsenal.  Ahmadinejad and the others have correctly judged what various audiences acutally want to hear, wish to believe, and have tailored their propaganda to fit this cloth.

Consider this.  Muslim, particularly Arabs, have wanted to believe that their fellows could not have committed the atrocities of 9/11.  As early as the day after the slaughters, more than one Arab was quoted as saying something along the lines of, "Americans or the Jews had to have done it.  No Arab could get it together well enough to pull off an attack of this size."  Badda-bing, Ahmadinejad's version of history is ever so acceptable to individuals of such a mindset.

Indeed, the Ahmadinejad linkage of an attack fabricated or facilitated by the US or an Israeli-US agreement being used to justify falsely the waging of war on innocent Muslims plays very well not only with Muslims but with a wide swath of opinion throughout the world, even in portions of Western Europe.  In short, the seemingly outrageous jobbing of a conspiracy theory at the UN was a carefully calculated exercise in public diplomacy.  So also were the later explanations coupled with the call for a new Goldstone Panel, this time with the US as the designated bad guy.

While it is true that the Ahmadinejad speech made him no converts in the US and may even have hardened attitudes within We the People, it was nonetheless a success from the Iranian point of view.  It can be argued that had the Orator-in-Chief continued his charm offensive, his come-let-us-reason-together message, it might have paid off in the US or even in Western Europe.  That we will never know.  Instead, the president opted to continue to write-off the American people in favor of gaining more and stronger support elsewhere.

At nightfall, the fact remains that Ahmadinejad, in either his rational or nutter form, is a very dangerous man.  And the government of which he is nominal head to say nothing of the clerics in the background are the most dangerous men on Earth for We the People and others fortunate enough to live in civilized states.  That is something upon which we all must get a grip.

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