LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 06/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 9,14-17. Then the disciples of John approached him and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast (much), but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
The Borders of Hezbollah.BY; By Manal Lutfi. Asharq Alawsat 05/07/08
Peace on all fronts?By Shlomo Ben-Ami.Daily News Egypt 05/07/08
How to Measure al Qaeda's Defeat.By Walid Phares.FrontPage magazine.com 05/07/08
Iran doesn't have to blink to make America and its partners blush. The Daily Star 05/07/08

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 05/08
Sfeir From Australia: Greed Threatens Lebanon from Far and Near-Naharnet
The Making of Lebanon's Cabinet: High Hopes-Naharnet
Lebanese leaders close to government deal: sources. Reuters
Syria calls on UN to 'stop Israeli aggression against our citizens ...Ynetnews
Aoun criticizes US and defends alliance with Hezbollah-Ya Libnan
Moussa: Lebanon's Cabinet 'In Hours'-Naharnet
Zahra Criticizes Christian Gathering-Naharnet
Bomb Explodes Near Ain al-Hilweh-Naharnet
From Jail to Justice-Naharnet
Berri Back Home to Welcome New Cabinet-Naharnet
National Christian Gathering Launched, Aoun Says he Hopes Move Would Be a Step in a March-Naharnet
Muallem: Cabinet Formation Should Precede Establishment of Diplomatic Ties with Lebanon-Naharnet
Geagea Expects Government Birth in 24 Hours, Wants Dialogue Prior to Policy Statement-Naharnet
New Examining Magistrate in Tueni Murder-Naharnet
Soeid: Lebanon's Security Tops All Priorities-Naharnet
Hizbullah Tells Israel Arad is Dead-Naharnet
Fatfat: Blocking the Cabinet Cannot Persist-Naharnet
Lebanese hopes rise as prospects for unity cabinet take upturn-Daily Star
UK envoy finesses 'terrorist' label on Hizbullah's armed wing-Daily Star
Religious leaders call for unity among Lebanese-Daily Star
Opposition Christians form new umbrella group-Daily Star
Karam named examining magistrate in Tueni case-Daily Star
Lebanese groups hail prisoner swap 'victory-Daily Star
My country's disease-Daily Star
Israeli authorities 'have report' on missing airman-AFP
Fresh tremor causes panic among Srifa residents-Daily Star
Seafood takes center stage at Samak Lubnan festival-Daily Star
Forests association unveils fire-prevention measures-Daily Star
Reconstruction of South is still far from complete-Daily Star

A Canadian soldier has been found dead at a Persian Gulf military base.
The Canadian Press The death of Cpl. Brendan Anthony Downey on Friday has been declared non-combat-related. Downey, an airman and military police officer based in Dundurn, Sask., was serving at Camp Mirage, a major supply post and staging base for Canadian warships and aircraft. It offers logistical support to Canada's mission in Afghanistan. The location of Camp Mirage has been previously reported but cannot be revealed under terms of the Canadian Forces embedding agreement for Canadian media. The military said Downey's body was discovered around 4:15 a.m. local time in the sleeping quarters of the base. "No further details are available at this time, although enemy action has been ruled out," a military statement said. "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Cpl. Downey during this difficult time. Our focus over the next number of days will be to provide the best possible support to the family of our airman and to his colleagues," the military said. His death is the 11th non-combat fatality in the Afghanistan mission.

Opposition Christians form new umbrella group
Participants stress need for community to play stronger role - and to engage with muslims
By Anthony Elghossain - Daily Star staff
Saturday, July 05, 2008
BEIRUT: Polished, yet distinctly partial. The National Christian Gathering (NCG), a Lebanese Christian political front, was launched at the Le Royal Hotel in Dbayyeh on Friday, during a convention with a clear bent toward the opposition Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Marada Movement factions.
In the lead-up to the conference, with the soft tones of Fairuz serenading those assembled early enough to bear witness, ushers and security personnel directed around 150 Christian Lebanese political, economic and social figures to their seats and at times discreetly jested with individuals wearing ties of the "wrong" colors.
Reserved for NCG bigwigs, the front two rows were clearly populated by opposition stalwarts such as FPM chief MP Michel Aoun, Marada leader and former Minister Suleiman Franjieh, Popular Bloc chief MP Elie Skaff and politically realigned former Phalange boss Karim Pakradouni. While obviously lacking representatives from March 14 Christian factions like the Phalange Party and Lebanese Forces, the NCG event displayed no apparent hostility to the absent segment of the Lebanese Christian political establishment.
Preliminary speakers outlined the motive of the NCG - preserving an effective Christian presence in Lebanon and the Middle East. Then, Aoun - the former Lebanese Armed Forces commander and current opposition Christian lynchpin - took the podium to outline the vision by which such preservation could be achieved. "We must draw new political lines in order to allow [the state of] Lebanon to play its natural role in the Middle East region," Aoun said.
He added that the NCG seeks to buffer Christians in the Middle East from the negative effects of demographic displacement brought on by "American policy in Iraq and Palestine, which has disproportionately affected Christians there," and placed this against a backdrop of "American hegemony in the international system and to the treatment of smaller peoples like chess pieces in a great game since the collapse of the Soviet Union [reduced balance in the international system]."
Still, the FPM leader stressed that "disagreement with the US administration does not mean enmity with the American people, whose [values] we share." Aoun added that Lebanon is a "small and fragile" country that remains hostage "to its location at the crossroads and fault lines of East and West," but went on to say that "Christians in Lebanon are of the East - and their role [in the country] is vital."
Following Aoun, former Bar Association chairman Shakib Qortbawi outlined the political platform of the nascent NCG, which all speakers described as a Christian political front aimed at promoting dialogue within the community and with Lebanese Muslims. The platform stressed the "internal dangers" of "Palestinian resettlement in Lebanon, a development that would overturn the demographic equation in the country and exacerbate a crisis in a country lacking sufficient natural resources; the purchasing of land by non-Lebanese citizens in an illegal fashion; and the marginalization of the Christian community in government, the public administration, boards, institutions and the security services." Qortbawi added that "a historic settlement should be concluded with Syria leading to the demarcation of borders, the establishment of diplomatic ties and the creation of neighborly relations between two independent peoples."Finally, the platform concluded that despite an emphasis on Christians in Lebanon, the NCG is attempting to "create relations between strong Lebanese Muslim and strong Lebanese Christian communities, so as to restore balance in a country that has not known life without it."
Canadian soldier found dead at undisclosed Persian Gulf base
A Canadian soldier has been found dead at a Persian Gulf military base.
The death of Cpl. Brendan Anthony Downey on Friday has been declared non-combat-related.
Downey, an airman and military police officer based in Dundurn, Sask., was serving at Camp Mirage, a major supply post and staging base for Canadian warships and aircraft. It offers logistical support to Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
The location of Camp Mirage has been previously reported but cannot be revealed under terms of the Canadian Forces embedding agreement for Canadian media.
The military said Downey's body was discovered around 4:15 a.m. local time in the sleeping quarters of the base.
"No further details are available at this time, although enemy action has been ruled out," a military statement said.
"Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Cpl. Downey during this difficult time. Our focus over the next number of days will be to provide the best possible support to the family of our airman and to his colleagues," the military said.

Sfeir From Australia: Greed Threatens Lebanon from Far and Near
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir said Saturday Lebanon is threatened by "greed from far and near like any small nation." Sfeir made the remark in Sydney shortly after embarking on a visit to Australia. He criticized the splits among the various factions based on narrow minded reading of politics. "The situation in Lebanon is not as we wish it to be and not as its immigrants wish it to be," Sfeir said. Beirut, 05 Jul 08, 12:19

The Making of Lebanon's Cabinet: High Hopes
Naharnet/Hopes were high Saturday that Lebanon would have a new cabinet. Tentative agreement has been reached on the distribution of seats between the majority, opposition and President Michel Suleiman. "It is over," Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly told guests who visited him late Friday upon his return to Beirut, interrupting a foreign tour. Progress was reported following contacts Friday by the Foreign Minister of Qatar Sheik Hamad bin Jassem bin Jaber al-Thani with Berri and Premier-designate Fouad Saniora. What was left, though, is a detail and a rather important detail, related to agreeing on the politicians who would assume the portfolios in the new cabinet. Michel Aoun's Change and Reform Bloc would get the portfolios of telecommunications, power, agriculture and social affairs in addition to the post of vice premier. Press reports said Aoun would relay his final response to Saniora later in the day Saturday, most probably during a lunch banquet hosted for the premier-designate.
If accepted, the proposal relayed by Saniora to an Aoun aide Friday, could put a final end to differences between the March 14 majority and the Hizbullah-led opposition on the distribution of cabinet seats. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea reportedly expressed to President Suleiman Friday that his party is interested in the justice portfolio, among other seats in the cabinet. It remains to be seen if Geagea's party that was oppressed through judicial means in the early 1990s would be given the privilege of guiding justice in a nation waiting for the international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes. Prediction had it that the new cabinet would be formed in the weekend, latest on Monday, to face the tough, and rather thorny, mission of working out a policy statement. Geagea had asked Suleiman to host national dialogue at the Republican Palace of Baabda so that the various factions could agree on common grounds to facilitate agreement on the policy statement. That remains to be seen. Beirut, 05 Jul 08, 07:58

Lebanese leaders close to government deal: sources
By Laila Bassam
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese leaders are close to a deal on the formation of a national unity government as stipulated in an agreement that ended the country's political crisis, political sources said on Saturday. They said the new government, in which Hezbollah and its allies would have a blocking minority, could be announced as early as Saturday. Lebanon's U.S.-backed majority coalition and the opposition, led by the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, signed a Qatari-brokered deal in Doha on May 21 that pulled the country back from the brink of a new civil war. President Michel Suleiman was elected four days later in line with the deal, but squabbling over cabinet portfolios has held up the formation of a government. The sources from both sides said the breakthrough in the government came after a series of contacts by Qatari Prime Minister Shiekh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani with rival leaders. The new government, led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, would have two Hezbollah ministers in addition to nine ministers from its Shi'ite Muslim, Druze and Christian allies. The ruling coalition would have 16 ministers while the remaining three ministers in the 30-member cabinet would be picked by the president, the sources said. Personalities close to Suleiman would be assigned the key defense and interior portfolios. Leaders were holding intense contacts to finalize the cabinet list. Once the names of the ministers are finalized, Siniora would meet Suleiman and announce his line up. "Final touches are being put on the list of names. It could be finished today or it might take a little bit longer," one source said. The main task of the cabinet would be to ease political and sectarian tensions that had led to bouts of deadly violence, adopt an election law already agreed in Doha, and supervise next year's parliamentary election. After the formation of the government, Suleiman is expected to call rival leaders for round table talks to discuss various divisive issues. On top of the agenda would be the fate of Hezbollah's weapons. Hezbollah maintains a formidable guerrilla army that had survived a war with Israel in 2006. Its domestic detractors say there are no more justifications for the group to keep its arms after Israel pulled out of Lebanon while Hezbollah and its allies argue that it needs its arsenal to defend Lebanon against "Israeli threats."Hezbollah and Israel are expected to exchange prisoners later this month. (Writing by Nadim Ladki)

Peace on all fronts?
By Shlomo Ben-Ami
First Published: July 4, 2008
Not since the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks during President Bill Clinton’s last days in the White House has the Middle East seen such a frenetic pace of peace diplomacy as it is seeing today. A ceasefire has been brokered between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel and Syria have started peace negotiations, and Israel has offered Lebanon a chance to resolve the issues that block a bilateral settlement. Less dramatic perhaps, yet persistent nonetheless, are the peace talks between Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.
So is the Middle East at the gates of a lasting, comprehensive peace? Not quite.
Aside from the Annapolis talks, which seem to be going nowhere because of the parties’ irreconcilable differences over the core issues, all the other peace efforts are more tactical than strategic. In none of them do the conditions yet exist for an immediate leap from war to peace, nor do the parties themselves expect that to happen.
It would require bold statesmanship to turn the ceasefire with Hamas into a prelude to political talks. Indeed, both Israel and the United States are adamant about excluding Hamas from the Annapolis process unless and until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, while Hamas will not abandon its identity as a resistance movement merely to join negotiations that seem unlikely to satisfy the Palestinian people’s minimal requirements.
For Israel, the ceasefire with Hamas reflects its reluctance to become mired in another asymmetric war like the one it fought in Lebanon two summers ago, this time in the alleys of Gaza’s refugee camps. Ehud Olmert, an especially unpopular prime minister whose days leading the government are probably numbered, lacks the legitimacy to throw the country into another bloody war, which given conditions in Gaza would be both costly and inconclusive. Israel’s leaders believe that the day of reckoning with Hamas will come only when the conditions for a major military showdown are riper.
The Syrian track — requiring Israel’s withdrawal from the strategically vital Golan Heights and the evacuation of tens of thousand of settlers — is hampered not only by the Israeli leadership’s legitimacy deficit, but also by US opposition to the talks. For the Syrians, the major objective in concluding peace with Israel is rapprochement with the US, but they will balk at the Americans’ demand that they stop flirting with terrorism as a precondition for talks. In fact, it is doubtful that they will ever agree to this. As Buthaina Shaaban, a Syrian minister, put it, “To demand that Syria forsake Hamas and Hezbollah is like demanding that the United States forsake Israel.”
The US has been absent from Middle East peacemaking for too long. Indeed, for the first time in the history of its special relationship with Israel, America is not speaking to Israel’s enemies, be they Syria, Iran, Hamas, or Hezbollah. As a result, Israel, embattled and facing a gathering storm of regional threats, had to find its own way to talk, without the diplomatic assistance of its big brother.
The demarche with Lebanon, to which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice devoted most of her recent surprise visit to Beirut, has much to do with America’s desperate attempt to revive its role as the main regional peace broker. After all, it was tiny Qatar that brokered Lebanon’s domestic settlement, Egypt that mediated the Gaza cease-fire, and Turkey that is facilitating the Israeli-Syrian talks. Israel’s shift in policy towards Syria, and that of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was a powerful message to the Americans that they should not miss the Lebanese train as well.
But America’s dwindling leverage cannot match the influence of the region’s “axis of evil.” Lebanon is too vulnerable to pressure from Syria and Iran, neither of which wants to see their local clients relieve the Israelis of the burden of a “Lebanese front” before their own grievances are addressed. Nor is Hezbollah keen to see the end of Israel’s occupation of the Sheba Farms on the Lebanon border undermine its claim to the formidable independent military force that it has built with Iranian and Syrian help.
Tactical moves, however, can always develop into strategic shifts. The Gaza cease-fire should be allowed to facilitate reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, which would make the Annapolis process more legitimate and inclusive. It was none other than the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Salah al-Bardawil, who defined the cease-fire as “a historic opportunity for all the sides involved to live in peace, and to build a future for the next generations.”
Nor are the other peace tracks — Lebanon, Syria, and maybe also Iran — doomed to permanent failure. But their success, so urgently needed to save the region from the politics of Doomsday, will have to wait for a new US administration to inject into them the necessary balance of realism and idealism, military power tempered by a genuine commitment to diplomacy.
**Shlomo Ben-Ami,a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace, is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org

Media reports on Hezbollah incite CSIS visits
When CSIS comes knocking
http://www.hour.ca/news/news.aspx?iIDArticle=15021
Stefan Christoff
Zuberi: Wants Arab and Muslim Canadians to know their rights
Recent claims in the Canadian press that Hezbollah are actively plotting operations in Canada has created a media firestorm and fuelled targeted visits in Arab and Muslim communities in Quebec by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
The report about Hezbollah, a political party with an armed wing based in Lebanon that formed as an armed resistance to Israel's military occupation of southern Lebanon in the 1980s, was spurred by a U.S.-based ABC news network report that was widely cited in the Canadian press.
"Hezbollah has been consistent in only engaging militarily with Israel inside Lebanon as either an occupation force or invading force, so these recent media reports are really incredible," explains Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF). While Canada and the U.S. regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, it is widely regarded as a legitimate resistance movement in most of the Arab and Muslim worlds. "Recent media articles will only provide additional ammunition for CSIS to intimidate and harass the Lebanese and Arab community." says Mouammar.
Arab and Muslim associations in Canada have criticized the reports as sensational, arguing they reference unspecified information from anonymous intelligence agents. The Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR) has been receiving distressed calls from Lebanese Canadians who have been visited by CSIS.
"This past week numerous calls have come in from members of the Lebanese community, people
who were contacted at their workplaces, at their homes in a very rude fashion in response to the recent media reports on Hezbollah," explains Sameer Zuberi from CAIR. "Effectively these media articles provide further justification for intelligence services to harass Lebanese and Shiite Muslims in Canada."
In Montreal, the Centre Communautaire Musulman de Montréal (CCMM), a major Lebanese community centre in Montréal-Nord, is speaking out against the CSIS visits. "Since 2006, the Lebanese community has been experiencing many unwelcome visits by CSIS," explains Bassam Hussein from CCMM. "Whenever stories of this nature begin circulating, visits again become a serious, serious issue within our community

The Borders of Hezbollah
04/07/2008
By Manal Lutfi
London, Asharq Al-Awsat - If the absence or presence of a person were capable of changing the course of the history of a political movement in a state, then the presence and disappearance of Sayyed Musa al Sadr, the founder of Amal movement, is a prime example.
In August 1978, Musa al Sadr’s disappearance six months prior to the eruption of the Iranian revolution was not the mere absenting of an individual but the loss of a mode of thought, perception and vision. Not only did al Sadr’s disappearance affect the course of Amal movement, which was drastically marginalized, and thus affected the fate of Lebanon; it also had an impact on the progress and outcome of the Iranian revolution. However, two years following the triumph of the revolution, the nationalists and liberalists of Iran were the ones who were marginalized after the conservative clerics took center stage.
The fact is there have always been links between the developments in Iran’s revolution and between the events that took place in Lebanon via Syria. Iran’s war with Iraq weakened the liberal and national trends in the former while the conservatives and clerics started to gain ground. They believed that the only way to protect the Islamic republic from the enemies was through exporting the revolution’s ideas and models and disseminating them throughout the region. The two ideal locations to begin this project were: Iraq and Lebanon.
During his years of exile, the leader of the Iranian revolution Ayatollah [Ruhollah] al Khomeini was in Najaf while his close contemporaries were active in Lebanon prior to the Iranian revolution in 1979. However, Iraq was not the easiest of targets to export the ideas of the revolution to by virtue of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, which went to war with revolutionary Iran. This meant that Iran could not spread the ideas of its revolution simply because it lacked channels, institutions and activists who could operate internally. Furthermore, many sympathizers had left Iraq for Iran in hope of ousting Saddam one day.
At the time, Lebanon was the second candidate that was regarded a fertile ground upon which to sow the ideas of the revolution. The Mahroomeen movement (Movement of the Disinherited) led by Musa al Sadr had been established from the beginning under the slogan of putting an end to the suffering and deprivation that the Shia sect had been subjected to.
It only took a few years for Amal movement to become widely influential as a result of the social, religious and political institutions that it set up and by virtue of al Sadr’s magnetic charisma and his popularity in Lebanon, the Arab world, the region and on an international level. These traits made Musa al Sadr unrivalled as a leader in Lebanon’s Shia circles, however; it was these very same characteristics that elicited a lack of trust among Khomeini’s close associates who were against some of al Sadr’s actions, positions and decisions.
One such point of contention was when the Shia leader met with the Shah of Iran in the seventies to request the amnesty of 11 clerics who were on death row. Also, his close ties with the liberalist Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI) whose prominent figures and leaders had been active participants in the toppling of the Shah’s regime proved to be another point of disagreement. With the vanishing of Musa al Sadr, Amal movement found itself at a loss as to dealing with the post-revolutionary Iran and with its leader Khomeini. According to Lebanese intellectual Hani Fahs who was a mediator between post-revolutionary Iran and the Palestinian Fatah movement, “Musa al Sadr’s disappearance left the Shia Higher Council unsure of how to deal with the revolutionary Iran; it did not want to embark on an adventure and its relationship was not solid with Imam Khomeini,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat, “This was the reason behind the council’s insistence on seeking Sayyed [Abul-Qassim] al Khoei’s opinion with regards to the Iranian revolution (this was natural since he was a Shia marja’a (religious reference)), especially after al Khoei was subjected to harassment by the Iraqi regime which also forced him to receive Farah Diba. This made it seem as though al Khoei was opposed to the revolution and to Imam Khomeini and he was compelled to issue a statement in which he said that he had been against and was still opposed to the Shah’s regime.”
He added, “We recall how Sayyed al Khoei had welcomed Sayyed Khomeini upon his arrival to Najaf after the Shah’s regime complained that the Turkish state was unable to prevent Khomeini from resuming his activities against the Iranian regime. He also demanded Khomeini’s exile to Najaf so that he may be part of the Hawza and its academic activities, away from politics. Moreover, al Sadr left behind the Amal movement, which was supposed to be driven towards the revolution… and it was launched – except it was met with an obstruction that impeded its progress and complicated its relationship with Iran.”
Sayyed Ali al Amin, the Mufti of Tyre and Mount Amel, who was one of the key eyewitnesses during the transformation of the relationship between Amal movement and Iran told Asharq Al-Awsat that in these definitive years two essential factors shaped the relationship between Amal and post-revolutionary Iran in 1979; first was the frustration within Amal over the way in which Iran dealt with the disappearance of Musa al Sadr. Amal had expected Iran to exert efforts to save al Sadr and bring him back to Lebanon from Libya – but this did not happen. The second source of frustration was Iran’s support of Palestinian groups in Lebanon at Amal’s expense, which had been calling for extending sovereignty over the entire Lebanese territory through armed confrontations between the Palestinian factions and Amal movement.
Al Amin pointed out that although Amal was a Shia movement; it was of an Arab Shia affiliation and with time political and cultural differences started to emerge between it and the new Islamic regime in Tehran after some signs of the regime’s desire to export its revolution to Lebanon began to manifest. This is also when Iran realized that Amal was not the instrument required for the success of its project.
He continued: “After Khomeini’s rise to power in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution in Iran, a relationship was established between the Lebanese Amal movement and the new regime in Iran. The main factor in this relationship was the emotive bond that was the outcome of religious and doctrinal ties shared by both parties, upon the consideration that Amal movement was founded by Imam Musa al Sadr based on principles of the general religious culture in areas that were predominantly inhabited by Shia. These Shia respected and followed the scholars and marja’ (religious references) of their religious heritage. Since Iran’s revolution was led by religious clerics and spearheaded by Imam Khomeini; it had supporters among the Shia sect in general, and in Amal movement specifically, all of whom believed that the revolution would be a stepping stone that could help them consolidate their position in the Lebanese regime and end the deprivation they were subjected to. It had only been a few months since Musa al Sadr’s disappearance and Amal movement had expected the new Iranian regime to support it in its ongoing conflict with the Palestinian factions and the left-wing Lebanese parties that were dominating over the south and various other Lebanese areas. Meanwhile, some groups that were affiliated to Iran and which were linked to its embassy in Beirut and the Levant began to raise the slogan of the Islamic republic of Lebanon.”
According to the Mufti of Tyre and Mount Amel, Amal movement rejected the aforementioned slogan and furthermore believed that it went against the cultural, political and religious beliefs in Lebanon all of which did not recognize the Iranian concept of ‘Wilayat-e-Faqih’ [Guardianship of the Jurist] and the religious authorities in Mount Amel and in Najaf, Iraq rejected it too. This is why Amal movement and the Lebanon’s Shia sect did not support the Iranian project. Iran realized that Amal movement, which was mainly comprised of political activists at the time not religious clerics, was not the appropriate tool for exporting the revolution out of Iran. As such, Iran began to set up a party whose members were religious clerics, and the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982 served to assist it. This was achieved through activists and clerics in al Hawza al Ilmiyah [religious seminary] in Najaf, including Sheikh Abbas al Musawi and Sheikh Sobhi al Tufeili who had left Amal to support a new party called Hezbollah. Not many of Amal movement’s affiliates were aware of these new manoeuvres, including Sheikh Ragheb Harb who found out in 1983 through al Tufeili, revealed al Amin.
Meanwhile Fahs told Asharq Al-Awsat that one of the factors that helped Iran replace Amal with Hezbollah was that it began to promote the notion that activists in Amal were not devout nor religiously committed. To this al Amin said, “Iran paved the way for this by religious mobilization among the clerical circles and in the religious seminaries and religious institutions that it had dominated over. It upheld that Amal was not legitimate since it was not connected to Wilayat-e-Faqih and they began to classify its followers and affiliates as believers, disbelievers and secularists while exercising a monopoly over the religious and legitimate dimension. Thus they abandoned Amal movement for a religious inclination and while the Shia Higher Council did not regulate this religious orientation and did not embrace the clerics, Iran backed them and thus they became the nucleus of what would later become Hezbollah.”
However, without the ‘Syrian passage’ it would not have been possible for Iran to transform Hezbollah from a simple idea into an autonomous political, military, financial and cultural entity. Abdel Halim Khaddam who served as foreign minister and vice president of Syria during Hafez al Assad’s term told Asharq Al-Awsat that, “an Iranian group oversaw the drafting of various plans and the training and preparing of Hezbollah and they were also trained by the Lebanese who had received training in Iran and Lebanon. There was an Iranian military force that came into Lebanon via Syria and a division that was based in Syria following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The Iranians participated in the training and preparing of Hezbollah and moreover, the latter derived its theoretical and practical basis from Iran and utilized them to found and develop the party. However, the leadership of Hezbollah managed through its own capabilities to disseminate its ideas in the Lebanese Shia circles and the Iranians benefited from their relationship with the Syrian regime, especially under former Syrian president Hafez al Assad. They continuously and persistently asked him to provide leeway to assist Hezbollah. For example, if the Iranians want to deploy weapons, around 20 phone calls and letters need to be exchanged over various different levels and President Hafez al Assad was responsive.”
In fact; it is not an exaggeration to say that all the projects between Hezbollah and Iran were launched through Damascus. When Iran wanted to support Hezbollah’s demand to found a television station; it did so through Damascus rather than directly. On this subject, Khaddam related, “There was an agreement between the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al Hariri, may his soul rest in peace, to grant a number of television station licenses, one for Hariri, Berri, LBC [Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation] and a state television channel. So they agreed about four or five channels but they also agreed to not grant Hezbollah a television channel. The Iranian president at the time, Hashemi Rafsanjani contacted President al Assad directly and requested a channel for Hezbollah and thus Syria asked the late Rafik Hariri to grant approval and licensing to Hezbollah and to facilitate matters for it… The founding of Al-Manar was one of the things that reinforced the independence of Hezbollah in the Lebanese arena.”
But setting up an ideology that Hezbollah and the ‘Syrian connection’ could be based upon was not enough; it is necessary to establish institutions to follow the new fledgling party. However, the idea behind these institutions was not only to provide financial, military and cultural support only but to also propagate ‘ideology’. Through these institutions, whether schools or economic or military entities or via television or newspapers, Hezbollah became the most influential party in Lebanon’s Shia circles. In addition to Al-Manar TV, other institutions played a major role in consolidating Hezbollah’s presence on a political, social, cultural and economic level.
Among such institutions is al Shaheed Foundation (the Martyrs’ Foundation), which is originally an Iranian organization that was established to support and assist the victims of the Iran-Iraq war. The Lebanese al Shaheed Foundation was founded upon the same principle as its counterpart in Iran and since its inception in 1982; al Shaheed has met the needs of over 3,000 Lebanese families of whom one or more members had been killed.
In July 2007, the US State Treasury imposed sanctions on the mother organization, the Iranian al Shaheed Foundation and its branches operating under ‘al Qard al Hassan’ (AQAH) and ‘Munazamit al Niya al Hosna al Khayriya’ (Goodwill Charitable Organization, GCO), the latter is affiliated to the former and was based in the United States. The US State Treasury froze their assets on the basis that they were part of Hezbollah’s network.
The GCO was primarily a fundraising bureau that was set up by al Shaheed Foundation in Dearborn, Michigan in the US. The US Treasury upheld that its sister organization AQAH was operating as a cover for the management of Hezbollah’s financial activities. According to US officials, AQAH is run by Ahmed al Shami who is a senior Hezbollah member who has served as a member of the party’s Shura Council and as the head of a number of institutions that the party dominates over.
Hussein Raslan who is in charge of the social relations aspect of al Shaheed Foundation told IslamOnline (IOL) in 2006 that, “the institution provides support for the families that have lost members during the latest Israeli attack on Lebanon [July 2006], including the sons of other sects.” He also stressed that the role of the state in this context was limited as opposed to the role that the foundation played.
Raslan affirmed that the organization epitomized the notion of self-sufficiency since it had its own schools, hospitals and financial and cultural institutions. He told IOL that the idea for the foundation originated with Khomeini, who provided the financing from Zakat (alms). Raslan said that the first Hezbollah school was established in Beirut in 1988 but that eventually the school was incorporated into the Imam al Mahdi Foundation in 2002. The flow of funds [from Iran], he said, enabled Hezbollah to establish a series of enterprises including those for food supply, gasoline and printing houses. Hezbollah schools in Lebanon, whether under Khomeini or al Mahdi Foundation, follow the Iranian curriculum.
He also said that they had thought about investing the funds that they were receiving and effectively started doing that in the ‘90s when they set up the aforementioned enterprises, in addition to hospitals. Raslan also explained that Jihad al Bina (Construction Jihad), along with al Shaheed, are two of Hezbollah’s most important institutions. On its website, Jihad al Bina states that it was founded “in the aftermath of the gross violations committed by the Zionist aggression in Lebanon in 1982 and as a result of the negative effects of the internal war” and that its primary objective is “to alleviate the hardships that the disadvantaged population and deprived families face, especially in areas that have been historically neglected, such Bekaa Valley and the south and north that now lack the bare necessities of life. Therefore it was critical to take a deliberate and calculated step to curb the dangers that stem from the aggravation of poverty and destitution.”
Al-Manar TV, Nour radio channel and ‘al Intiqad’ newspaper are all backed by Iran, in addition to hospitals where even the medical supplies are exported from Iran. Meanwhile on a social level, various institutions were named and based upon Iranian principles, such al Shaheed. Through the burgeoning party’s popularity and influence, such institutions started to become widely known on a political and economic level – however; most importantly, they had a strong presence culturally speaking.
Today in Lebanon, there are vast cultural discrepancies so that the end result is two different cultures. According to Sayyed Ali al Amin, the Mufti of Tyre and Mount Amel, “The struggle began between the new culture that was supported by Iran and its loyalists in the clerical circles and the figures in Amal movement and the Shia Higher Council,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat. “The latter were the ones that enjoyed the official decision-making capacity in religion and politics which is what led to differences in opinions, visions and direction. This later developed into an armed showdown through which many were killed in the name of religion; this happened when Syria was present in Lebanon and relations were good with Iran. Eventually, Hezbollah, Iran’s representative in Lebanon, became part of the religious and political decision-making process and through it; it was able to spread its influence gradually until it became the stronger partner within the Shia sect and the Lebanese regime. And thus, Amal and the Shia Higher Council retreated on a cultural level so that Hezbollah today practices hegemony over Lebanon’s religious culture, in addition to being the number-one political power among the Shia. Moreover, Hezbollah’s military capabilities within the resistance have enabled Iranian influence to expand and spread, particularly in the Shia-dominated areas such as the south and in the Bekaa Valley so that the Lebanese state has become largely absented from that region. This was the reason behind the price that Lebanese citizens and nation had to pay in the July 2006 war – a development that could recur as a result of the absenting of the Lebanese state. The situation also became further complicated when the constitutional institutions were disrupted and the presidency seat remained unoccupied for months on end. It is common knowledge that the culprit behind this disruption lies in the foreign external links that some parties in the Lebanese opposition have with Iran, which I believe is primarily responsible. Then it is followed by Syria, which benefits through Iran’s influence via Hezbollah.”
Thus the two conflicting cultural paradigms in Lebanon remain in strife and there is a multitude of issues that must be brought to the front and discussed so that they may reconcile their differences. However; the danger lies in the possibility of the minority continuing to grab hold of the control reigns.
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=13295

How to Measure al Qaeda's Defeat
By Walid Phares
American Thinker | Thursday, June 05, 2008
In an article published in the Washington Post on Friday May 30, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden is quoted as portraying al Qaeda movement as
"essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border." The article said Hayden asserts that "Osama bin Laden is losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world and has largely forfeited his ability to exploit the Iraq war to recruit adherents." More importantly, the article quotes the chief intelligence declaring a "near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq; near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia; significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally -- and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' -- as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam."
These powerful declarations prompted a series of reactions and debates both in political and counter terrorism circles, causing loud media discussions. The main but simple question of interest to the public, and subsequently to voters in the US and other Democracies, is this:
Is al Qaeda being defeated?
However more complex questions arise from the CIA Director's statements, which if answered accurately would leave the main assertion still unclear. Following are few of these strategic questions:
If al Qaeda is being defeated, who is defeating it? Is it the US and the West, the Arab and Muslim moderates, or other Jihadists? If Usama Bin Laden is being challenged by his own members, ex members or non al Qaeda Jihadists, how can that be determined as a defeat and to whom?
Would a coup inside al Qaeda be of interest to Washington if the new team is as Jihadist but not as "Bin Ladenist"? Or is it the US-centered interests that are at play? Meaning the inability of al Qaeda under Bin laden and Zawahiri to strike at America or target American troops and presence overseas, including in Iraq?
Is it Bin laden's discredit, al-Qaeda's weakening or Jihadism's defeat that is the broadest strategic goal to attain? Even farther in questioning, is it al Qaeda'Takfiri method or it the global Jihadist ideology that is receding? The matter is not that simple, as one can conclude. So how can we measure an al Qaeda defeat in the middle of a War still raging around the world? I propose the following parameters.
Is al Qaeda being defeated strategically worldwide as stated by the CIA Director?
First the confrontation is still ongoing. Hence we need to situate the conflict first. Are we comparable with WWII before Normandy or after? In this War on Terror terms, what are our intentions? Is the US-led campaign designed to go after the membership of al Qaeda, go after its ideology or to support democracy movements to finish the job? Everything depends on the answers.
Geopolitically and at this stage, al Qaeda has been contained in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Somalia. But al Qaeda has potential, through allies, to thrust through Pakistan and the entire sub Sahara plateau. It was contained in Saudi Arabia but its cells (and off shoots) are omnipresent in Western Europe, Latin America, Indonesia, the Balkans, Russia and India, let alone North America. Objectively one would admit that the organization is being pushed back in some spots but is still gaining ground in other locations. Although geopolitical results are crucial, a final blow against al Qaeda has to be mainly ideological.
How can we measure al Qaeda's defeat in Iraq, if that is true?
There are three ways to measure defeat or victory: Operational, Control and Recruitment. First, is al Qaeda waging the same number of operations? Second, does it control enclaves? Third, is it recruiting high numbers? By these parameters al Qaeda was certainly "contained" in Iraq, particularly in the Sunni triangle. This was a combined result of the US surge operations and of a rise by local tribes, backed by American military and funding. But this scoring against al Qaeda would diminish and probably collapse if the US quit Iraq abruptly, or without leaving a strong ally behind. So, technically it is a conditioned containment of al Qaeda in Iraq.
How about Saudi Arabia?
The Saudis have contained many of al Qaeda's active cells in the Kingdom. But authorities haven't shrunk the ideological pool from which al Qaeda recruits, i.e. the hard core Wahabi circles. The regime has been using its own clerics to isolate the more radical indoctrination chains. It has been successful in creating a new status quo, but just that. If Iraq crumbles, that is if an abrupt withdrawal takes place in the absence of a strong and democratic Iraqi Government, al Qaeda will surge in the Triangle and thus will begin to impact Saudi Arabia. Therefore the current containment in the Kingdom is hinging on the success of the US led efforts in Iraq, not on inherent ideological efforts in Saudi Arabia.
How about Pakistan-Afghanistan?
In Afghanistan, both the Taliban and al Qaeda weren't able to create exclusive zones of control despite their frequent Terror attacks for the last seven years. But there again, the support to operations inside Afghanistan is coming mainly from the Jihadi enclaves inside Pakistan: Which conditions the victory over al Qaeda by the Kabul Government to the defeat of the combat Jihadi forces within the borders of Pakistan by Islamabad's authorities. Do we expect President Musharref and his cabinet to wage a massive campaign soon into Waziristan and beyond? Unlikely for the moment believe most experts. Hence, the containment of al Qaeda in Afghanistan is hinging on the Pakistan's politics. While it is true that the Bin Laden initial leadership network has been depleted, the movement continues to survive, fed by an unchallenged ideology, so far.
The war of ideas: Is al Qaeda losing it?
Geopolitically, al Qaeda is contained on the main battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and somewhat in Somalia. It is suppressed in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. But it is roaming freely in many other spots. It is not winning in face of the Western world's premier military machine, but it is still breathing, and more importantly it is making babies. All what it would take to see it leaping back in all battlefields and more is a powerful change of direction in Washington D.C:
As simple as that: if the United States decides to end the War on Terror. or as its bureaucracy has been inclined to do lately, end the War of Ideas against Jihadism, the hydra will rise again and change the course of the conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Arabia and the African Sahara. All depends on how Americans and other democracies are going to wage their campaign against al Qaeda's ideology. If they choose to ignore it and embark on a fantasy trip to nowhere, as the "Lexicon" business shows, al Qaeda -- or its successors -- will win eventually.
But if the next Administration would focus on a real ideological defeat of Bin Laden's movement, then, the advances made on the battlefields will hold firmly and expand.
Lately, some in the counter terrorism community are postulating that Bin Laden is being criticized by his own supporters, or more precisely by ideologues and Jihadists who backed him in the past, then turned against him lately. These analysts offer striking writings by Salafist cadres against the leadership of Bin laden and his associates as evidence of an al Qaeda going into decline. Would these facts mean that the once unchallenged Bin Laden is now losing altitude? Technically yes, Usama is being criticized by Jihadists. But does that mean that we in liberal democracies are winning that war of ideas? Less likely.
A thorough review of the substance of what the Jihadi critics are complaining about (a subject I intend to address in a future article), is not exactly what the free world would be looking forward to. But in short, al Qaeda is now contained in the very battlefield it chose to fend off the Infidels in: Iraq. But this is just one moment in space and time, during which we will have to fight hard to keep the situation as is. Our favorable situation is a product of the US military surge and of a massive investment in dollars. It is up to this Congress, and probably to the next President to maintain that moment, weaken it or expand it.
Al Qaeda and the Iranian regime know exactly the essence of this strategic equation. I am not sure, though, that a majority of Americans are aware of the gravity of the situation. In other words, the public is told that we have won this round against al Qaeda but it should be informed of what it would take to reach final victory in this global conflict.
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Professor Walid Phares is the author of Future Jihad. He is a Visiting Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels and a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.