LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 25/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1,57-66.80. When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,but his mother said in reply, "No. He will be called John." But they answered her, "There is no one among your relatives who has this name." So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name," and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, "What, then, will this child be?" For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
Explosively False Propaganda: By: Muhammad Sahimi.Antiwar.com 24/06/08
Iran Conquered Lebanon… Now What?Bank? By Gerald Flurry and Joel Hilliker -theTrumpet.com 24/06/08
How many people have to die before Lebanon's politicians change their ways? The Daily Star 24/06/08
Hezbollah’s Last Fig Leaf.By Tariq Alhomayed 24/06/08
Fighting Near the Shores of Tripoli: Lebanon’s, Not Libya’s. By: W. Thomas Smith Jr. 24/06/08
Hizbullah Won't Stop at Shaba.By: Jonathan Spyer 24/06/08 

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 24/08
Spiritual Leaders for New Cabinet-Dialogue, Suleiman for Compromises that Prevent Suicide-Naharnet
MP Jisr: Order Should be Enforced, not Begged-Naharnet
Saniora Deletes Aoun-Naharnet
Olmert: Israel-Hizbullah Prisoner Swap Not Imminent-Naharnet
Qabbani Criticizes Campaigns Targeting Saudi-Naharnet
Lebanon's Hidden Arms Race: Local, Regional Preparations for War-Naharnet
Alawites Warn of Undisciplined, Armed Groups-Naharnet
Rice: There is Intersection Between Syrian-Israeli Talks, Palestinian Issue, Shebaa Farms-Naharnet
Moussa, Abul Gheit Slam Lebanon Situation, 'Unjustified' Fighting-Naharnet
Hizbullah in Sannine?-Naharnet
Nahr al-Bared Reconstruction Fund Launched-Naharnet
After Accord, the Inevitable Bickering Begins-IPS
Mubarak, Olmert Discuss Gaza Truce-Naharnet
Britain Removes Iran Opposition Group from Terror List-Naharnet
Donors pledge 60 million pounds to rebuild Lebanon camp-Reuters
Hezbollah gunmen kidnapped vacationers in Sannine -Ya Libnan
Canada: Hezbollah activity in context-Kuwait Times
Olmert backtracks on deal with Hezbollah for kidnapped soldiers-Ha'aretz
Hezbollah insists on the release of hundreds of Palestinians ...International Middle East Media Center
Military: Israel may declare 2 soldiers captured by Hezbollah killed in action.International Herald Tribune
Canadian 'directly involved' in U.K. bomb plot: prosecutor-Canadian Press
EU approves new sanctions against Iran-AFP
Troops move in to quell fighting in northern Lebanon-Los Angeles Times
Lebanon fighting eases after army intervenes-AFP
Donors pledge 60 million pounds to rebuild Lebanon camp-Reuters
Students in North take final exams despite fighting-Daily Star
'Tribalism at its best:' Analysts foresee long wait for unity government-Daily Star
Gulf states picks up half of tab to rebuild Nahr al-Bared-AFP
Moussa perplexed by Lebanon's latest squabble-Daily Star
Army deploys in Tripoli as violence continues-Daily Star
Israeli media says swap for Kontar may be receding-Daily Star
After Bush's failed project, prepare for the age of disorder-Daily Star
Religious summit expected to back unity, president-Daily Star
Moody's gives Lebanon poor notes on inflation sensitivity index-Daily Star
Hike in taxi fares prompts drop in customers-Daily Star
Students in North take final exams despite fighting-Daily Star
Hope springs eternal for some Shebaa Farms exiles-AFP
Sarkozy tells Israel to curb settlers, share Jerusalem-AFP
Olmert due in Egypt for talks on soldier held in Gaza Strip-AFP
How many people have to die before Lebanon's politicians change their ways? The Daily Star
 

Spiritual Leaders for New Cabinet-Dialogue, Suleiman for Compromises that Prevent Suicide
Naharnet/Lebanon's spiritual leaders called for speeding up efforts to form the new cabinet as President Michel Suleiman warned that differences have reached the level of committing suicide. The spiritual leaders, in a statement summing up their summit hosted by Suleiman at the Republican Palace, also called for launching national dialogue to tackle differences among the feuding political factions. The statement reiterated commitment to a ban on the use of weapons to settle political differences as outlined by the Doha Accord. It called for adherence to Lebanon's pluralist nature and the constitutional principles outlined by the Taef accord.
The nation's spiritual leaders also condemned "all forms" of fanaticism and violence. The statement urged all factions to settle their differences through dialogue at the nation's constitutional institutions so that Lebanon's interests top "all other interests." It called for supporting the spread of state authority over all Lebanese territories.
The statement urged all the Lebanese to cooperate with President Suleiman to facilitate his leadership of the nation to stability and prosperity "in cooperation with parliament and the new cabinet."
Suleiman, in a welcome address, expressed hope that the summit of spiritual leaders would pave the road to launching national dialogue. "Differences among the Lebanese have reached the level of (committing) suicide," the president warned. "We sense seriousness of the threats targeting Lebanon after months of factional agitation," he told his guests. "Let us work on cooling off the differences to avert factional conflicts and we'll proceed after that to tackling other issues," he added.
"By meeting today, you say that our nation is based on peace," Suleiman told the spiritual leaders. "Politicians should be messengers of peace," he added. Suleiman called for speeding up efforts to form the new cabinet to reflect the wish of the people in a better future. Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 14:01

MP Jisr: Order Should be Enforced, not Begged
Naharnet/MP Samir Jisr said the state should enforce order and not "beg it from anybody."Jisr, a member of the Mustaqbal Parliamentary Bloc, denied accusations by the Hizbullah-led opposition that the Mustaqbal Movement had provoked the Tripoli clashes. "What has happened in Beirut testifies to the fact that we don't have a militia," Jisr said. "We support the state. We believe in the state," he added. Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 15:41

Bassil for Adopting Election Law
Naharnet/Free Patriotic Movement official Gibran Bassil said Speaker Nabih Berri would call for a parliamentary session to adopt the election law even if a government was not formed. Bassil, told the Central News Agency the move would be both "legal and constitutional … after the opposition carried out its commitments in line with the Doha Accord, which are electing the president and calling off the sit-in."However, "the majority has not carried out its commitment of forming the national unity cabinet," he added. Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 18:05

Olmert: Israel-Hizbullah Prisoner Swap Not Imminent
Naharnet/Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday that indirect negotiations with Hizbullah for the release of two captured soldiers were still underway and would take time. "The negotiations will take more time and have not been concluded," Olmert told reporters before flying to Egypt for talks with President Husni Mubarak about a third soldier being held by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Last week Lebanese and Israeli officials hinted at the imminent release of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser -- both captured in a bloody cross-border raid in July 2006 that sparked a 34-day war in Lebanon. Lebanese media had said the swap would involve Israel releasing four or five Lebanese prisoners including Samir Kantar, current serving a life sentence for killing two men and a four-year-old girl in a 1979 attack in northern Israel. The two soldiers are believed to have been wounded during their capture and Hizbullah has provided no proof that they are still alive.(AFP) Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 16:00

Qabbani Criticizes Campaigns Targeting Saudi
Naharnet/Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani criticized verbal campaigns launched by Hizbullah against Saudi Arabia. Qabbani, in a statement, said Saudi Arabia is "above conspiracies and misguidance."Such campaigns "aim at assassinating Saudi Arabia's role in unifying Lebanon," he said. Those who attack Saudi Arabia, the Mufti said, are "incapable of understanding its noble role towards Lebanon and its people." Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 14:48

Lebanon's Hidden Arms Race: Local, Regional Preparations for War
Naharnet/Despite this entire reconciliatory advocacy, something else – quite significant and hardly noticed, is underway in Lebanon and the region. In the shadows there are those who are building arms for war. The Central News Agency, which carried the report, said several local and regional powers are preparing for a new round of fighting in Lebanon as an extension of Arab and regional confrontations. Citing political circles, CNA said several pro- and anti-government factions "have an interest" in a new war.  The circles believe that some forces from the ruling March 14 coalition have an interest in stirring the security situation and gradually dragging Palestinian refugee camps into a confrontation with Hizbullah. They said some forces in the Hizbullah-led opposition, at the same time, also have an interest in war in the wake of stepped up talks about a possible U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear facilities as well as progress in Israeli-Syrian peace talks.
The political circles, concerned over the arms race, urged authorities to keep a close eye on arms trafficking which is active on Lebanese territory be it in Beirut, the mountains, the Bekaa, Tripoli or Akkar.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun has warned of the deployment of "armed elements" in Akkar.
Naharnet/Meanwhile, Phalange party leader and former President Amin Gemayel revealed an "armed presence" in Mount Sannine has gone unnoticed.
The political circles cited the "active arms race and the stockpiling of weapons" as reason to believe that preparations for a new military battle are nearly completed "and in more than one area of the Bekaa and the north." They said that President Michel Suleiman, who is in charge of supervising national dialogue, is aware of "what's going on." "For this reason, he (Suleiman) made inter-Lebanese reconciliation a top priority," one political source said. The daily As Safir on Tuesday also talked about the existence in recent days of what it called "militia phenomena." It said the militiamen, however, did not seem to be affiliated with any of the political factions in Lebanon – a matter that raises a question: Who is responsible for arming and financing these phenomena? Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 08:19

Saniora Deletes Aoun
Naharnet/Prime Minister-designate Fouad Saniora said he responds to verbal attacks by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun with a push button "delete" approach. "Delete," a smiling Saniora told reporters at the Republican palace when asked to comment on a vehement attack launched by Aoun against him the day before. Saniora also proposed presenting Aoun a copy of the Lebanese constitution so that the latter "can read it to find out that it does not permit" setting a time frame to efforts aimed at forming cabinets as the FPM leader had demanded. Protests by Aoun and the Hizbullah-led opposition against his style in forming the new cabinet are tantamount to a "typhoon in a cup," Saniora added after talks with President Michel Suleiman. "The majority has the constitutional right to nominate the premier, and the majority persists with backing me," he said. "No one has magic solutions. We all should participate in achieving a solution. If we persist with sparking tension we would not reach a settlement," Saniora noted. He reiterated that the new interior minister should be "neutral" and the defense minister should be trusted by president Suleiman.If the Hizbullah-led oppositions want either the finance or foreign portfolio "welcome, they can have either of them," Saniora concluded. Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 15:25

Alawites Warn of Undisciplined, Armed Groups
Naharnet/Head of the Arab Democratic Party, Alawite Ali Eid, has warned that gunmen in Bab al-Tabbaneh district in the northern city of Tripoli are a bunch of "small undisciplined, armed groups." "We have signed a (gentleman's agreement) with the politicians, but those on the ground are groups that do not take instructions from the (Lebanese) army, not even from the city's Mufti," Eid said. He believed that the Lebanese army was in a dilemma, adding that "things could get out of control if the military does not deploy and contain the situation." Lebanese troops moved into the contested neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Baal Mohsen Monday afternoon after clashes claimed 10 lives and wounded 55 people in 36 hours. The deployment followed heavy exchanges with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine gunfire. Beirut, 24 Jun 08, 12:06

Rice: There is Intersection Between Syrian-Israeli Talks, Palestinian Issue, Shebaa Farms
Naharnet/U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said nascent indirect Turkish-brokered talks between Israel and Syria and a new push to deal with the Shebaa Farms area should not be allowed to distract from Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. En route to a conference in Berlin on Palestinian security, legal and penal reform, Rice allowed that there was an "intersection" between the three tracks. But she warned against compromising the Israeli-Palestinian effort with too much attention to the other two. The Palestinian-Israeli issue is "intersecting now with the efforts on the Israeli-Syrian track and intersecting with the need for…the United Nations Secretary General to complete his work on 1701 and the Lebanese track," she said Monday. "I'm sure we'll have a chance to discuss the intersection, but I hope we will not lose track, or not lose focus, on the Palestinian-Israeli piece, which is, of course, still the one that is most advanced," Rice added. "We'll review where we are on all these tracks," the top U.S. diplomat said. She was scheduled to meet Tuesday on the sidelines of the conference with the other members of the international diplomatic "quartet" on the Middle East, the U.N., European Union and Russia.

Khawaja's bombs aimed at UK civilians in clubs, pubs, trains: prosecutors
Module body
By Jim Brown, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Crown prosecutors said they will prove that a local software designer was at the centre of an international terrorist plot to murder civilians by placing homemade bombs in nightclubs, railway stations and subways in Britain. The trial of Momin Khawaja began Monday after snipers took up positions on nearby rooftops and the courtroom was ringed by a floor-to-ceiling fence. Inside the courtroom, prosecutors began with a carefully constructed outline of Canada's first case under the fledgling Anti-Terrorist Act, more than four years after the ex-Foreign Affairs employee was charged with seven terrorism-related counts.
The bearded, 29-year-old defendant, dressed in white shirt and grey suit, sat impassively as federal prosecutors said how British surveillance and electronic bugs betrayed a murderous conspiracy. "The aim was to cause death, injury and damage for religious and political purposes," said David McKercher, the lead Crown attorney. Co-conspirators in Britain had purchased 600 kilograms of fertilizer for use in making bombs, McKercher said.
"The result would be massive destruction and loss of life" if a single such bomb was detonated, he said. Several bombs from the same material would have yielded similar results over multiple targets, he added. The case will be buttressed by evidence gathered in Canada, McKercher said, including electronic equipment, bomb-making materials, weapons and ammunition seized by the RCMP in a raid on the Khawaja family home in March 2004.
Computer hard drives seized by the Mounties also produced e-mail records of Khawaja's contacts with his alleged co-conspirators in the U.K.
The star witness, Mohamed Junaid Babar, was the first to take the stand.
The one-time al-Qaida operative turned police informer gave key testimony at an earlier trial in Britain. Babar faces charges in the United States and is hoping for leniency there in exchange for his co-operation.
Those inside the packed courtroom had to run a gauntlet of x-ray machines, metal detectors and tactical officers armed with submachine guns stood guard inside and outside of the courthouse located less than a five-minute walk from Parliament Hill.
Khawaja, who faces seven counts of terrorism-related offences, was the first person arrested under the new federal Anti-Terrorism Act following the highly publicized RCMP raid on his home four years ago.
But the prosecution was delayed by pre-trial constitutional challenges to the terrorism law by defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon.
The trial is being billed as a major test for the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the federal government, which pushed the anti-terror legislation through Parliament after the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida in New York and Washington.
Greenspon won a partial victory in 2006 when Justice Douglas Rutherford of Ontario Superior Court - the same judge now presiding over the trial with no jury - struck down a part of the law that defined terrorism as an offence motivated by political, religious or other ideological considerations.
The judge ruled those provisions violated the freedom of thought guaranteed by the Charter of Rights. But he simply severed the offending portions from the rest of the law and let the case proceed.
There was also pre-trial wrangling in Federal Court over disclosure of documents sought by Greenspon to help build his defence. Thousands of pages were released, but other material was withheld on national security grounds.
Khawaja, who once worked as a contract employee for the Foreign Affairs Department, is alleged to have collaborated with a group of British Muslims of Pakistani descent in a thwarted plan to bomb a London night club, a shopping centre near the city and parts of the British electrical and natural gas grids.
Five of the plotters were convicted by a London court last year and sentenced to life in prison while two others were acquitted. Khawaja, though named as a co-conspirator, was not tried in Britain.
Instead he was charged in Canada with a range of offences, including helping to develop bomb detonators, possession of explosives, helping to finance terrorist activity, receiving terrorist training and facilitating terrorism.
The trial got under way, coincidentally, on the 23rd anniversary of the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 with the loss of 329 lives - by far the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history.
Most of the militant Sikh separatists suspected of planning that bombing have never been convicted, in part because of turf wars between the RCMP and CSIS that hampered the investigation and left questions that lingered for years about Ottawa's ability to prosecute a complex terrorist case.

Hezbollah’s Last Fig Leaf
23/06/2008
By Tariq Alhomayed
Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat,
I hold no doubts about the treachery and sectarianism of Hezbollah and the danger that it poses; however, there are those who fail to acknowledge reality until after the axe falls, as the saying goes. We have seen and heard some of the shocked reactions to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah after the May 7 coup in Beirut and today, most people are shocked by Hezbollah and its agents' real objectives.
As soon as the idea of Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms surfaced, Iranian-affiliated Hezbollah became enraged and stated that Israeli withdrawal from the land would not mean that Hezbollah would disarm. If Israel does withdraw from the Shebaa Farms, even if the controversy surrounding its identity remains, then why does Hezbollah need weapons? Are Nasrallah’s weapons required for any other purposes? This is probably the case.
In order to understand Nasrallah’s objectives one should look at the comments made by a senior Iraqi official who stated that Iranian-affiliated Hezbollah, the Lebanese branch, acts as if it is a neighboring state to Iraq. Suffice it to mention the last speech delivered by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during which he boasted about being part of the Waliyat-e-Faqih [Guardianship of the Jurists] party in front of Iraqis and discussed their internal affairs.
Yet there is more; last Saturday, Nawaf al Moussawi, Hezbollah’s head of international affairs used a threatening tone in what could have been considered a declaration of sectarian war in Lebanon to the extent that he promised his opponents that they would not be able to escape the capital since Hezbollah would not accept any Lebanese security or military official that it did not trust.
This means that Hezbollah is investing in its coup and continues to challenge and humiliate its Sunni opponents in Beirut in spite of the Doha Agreement. The requirement that Hezbollah must be able to trust military and security leaders, the opposition’s desire to take the finance ministry and in the case that the foreign ministry is given to our brother Mr. Nabih Berri, means that Hezbollah would have taken the powers of presidency and premiership on top of the Chamber of Deputies of course.
In consideration of the above, all that would be left would be to create the post of envoy to the Supreme Guide within the Lebanese premiership and Lebanon would be transformed into a division of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is not sarcasm; this is the reality that is taking shape on the ground.
It is enough to mention here the warning given by Ahmad El Assad, the founder of the Lebanese Option Gathering in protest against the conduct of some individuals affiliated to Iran’s Hezbollah. He said “In spite of our differences of opinion, such behavior is not representative of our values as Shia.” In a warning to Hassan Nasrallah, he said, “Lebanon is still and will always be a diverse place with differing viewpoints. It has not and will never turn into Iran.”
Therefore if Israel does withdraw from the Shebaa Farms − even if it remains under the protection of the United Nations until the issue is resolved between Syria and Lebanon, which in itself is more complex than Israeli occupation − this would be equivalent to the falling of the last fig leaf, which would expose Hezbollah and the deception of Nasrallah’s concern for Lebanon

Fighting Near the Shores of Tripoli: Lebanon’s, Not Libya’s
By: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
23 Jun 2008
Over the weekend, we received word that fighting was taking place in-and-around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, not far from where last year's fighting took place between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda affiliate group Fatah Al Islam in the bloody battle of Nahr al-Bared.
The current fighting, which is now being widely reported throughout the Western media, is between pro-democracy Sunnis and pro-Syrian Alawites (allied to Hezbollah).
According to the AP:
“…It was not immediately possible to determine whether the Tripoli violence was an isolated event or residue from last month’s clashes …”
Our sources are telling us, the fighting in Tripoli is most certainly connected to last month’s attacks by Hezbollah, the Doha agreement – which greatly increased the power and influence of Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria) in Lebanon – and the ongoing albeit under-reported attacks launched by Hezbollah and its allies across the country since mid-May.
Readers may also recall from our reporting at World Defense Review (here, here, and here) that resistance groups began forming across the country almost immediately following the Doha talks in Qatar. And as I reported at Human Events:
“On Sunday evening [May 18], sources informed us that members of the pro-democracy movement in Lebanon had, hours earlier, formed a ‘resistance group against terrorism.’ Monday we learned the resistance group — formed in Beirut — was composed of Christians, Druze, and Muslims (both Sunni and Shiia), all ‘committed to resisting Hizballah.’ There also are reports of a like-minded Sunni resistance group forming near Tripoli.”
According to Ya Libnan, Lebanese parliamentarian Mohammed Kabbara, a Sunni, says, “”Hezbollah is seeking to shift its battle — after invading Beirut — to the Bekaa, and now Tripoli’s turn has come.”
Tom Harb, secretary general of the World Council of the Cedars Revolution, tells us, "This is clearly a strategy of Hezbollah and a continuation -- by other means and in other regions of the country -- of the terrorist attacks launched by Hezbollah against the Lebanese people last month."
Sources very close to the Lebanese Army also are telling us, the attacks in Tripoli, the Bekaa Valley (last week), and elsewhere, are part of a much broader two-part strategy on the part of the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah axis to both increase the pressure on the Lebanese Army and the Interior Security Forces (national police) -- spreading legitimate Lebanese forces thin and keeping them off-balance -- and to perhaps create or increase fissures within the Army leadership and the rank-and-file.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.

Analysis: Hizbullah Won't Stop at Shaba
By: Jonathan Spyer
23 Jun 2008
Israel's announcement of a willingness for peace talks with Lebanon is one of the early fruits of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent visit to the region and her unexpected visit to Lebanon. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's recent visit to Lebanon and upcoming visit to Israel is also crucial here.
In the wake of the recent Doha agreement, the US is keen to bolster the position of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and the March 14 movement of which he is a part.
The Cedar Revolution, and the Saniora government which resulted from it, is considered by the US administration to be one of its most significant diplomatic achievements in the region.
Doha stipulated the creation of a new cabinet in Lebanon that would include opposition (i.e., Hizbullah and allied) representation. The US is evidently concerned about preserving the standing of Saniora and March 14 in the ongoing Lebanese political standoff.
This concern, it is understood, is shared by Sarkozy, who is considered a moving force behind the current initiative. The government of Israel is apparently willing to adopt a newly conciliatory stance on the Shaba farms in order to play its role within this process.
Rice, in Beirut, expressed her concern at Hizbullah's prominence in Lebanon and said that the administration intended to address the "real reasons and underlying causes" of this. When asked to define these, she said, according to a report in the Beirut Daily Star, that the issue of the Shaba farms must be resolved "within the context of [UN Security Council] Resolution 1701 rather than Resolution 425."
Resolution 425 appeared to close the issue of the Shaba farms, since the UN Security Council ruled that Israel was in full accordance with this resolution after its May 2000 withdrawal to the international Blue Line border between Israel and Lebanon. Resolution 1310, adopted in 2000, confirmed this.
Resolution 1701, meanwhile, adopted after the 2006 Second Lebanon War, implicitly reopened the matter by taking "due note" of Saniora's seven-point plan, which asks for the Shaba farms to be placed under UN jurisdiction. The resolution also calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon.
The US administration wants to bolster Saniora and simultaneously remove the rationale for Hizbullah's continued bearing of arms. Hizbullah currently uses the Shaba farms as its central rallying cry; hence, the apparent idea is to induce Israel to cede the farms, probably to UN control. This, it is expected, will simultaneously remove Hizbullah's reason for maintaining its armed capacity - and enable Saniora to pose as the "liberator" of Shaba.
The idea is likely to backfire. First of all, while Hizbullah has declared itself opposed to the idea of placing the Shaba farms under UN jurisdiction, this will not prevent it from declaring any Israeli withdrawal as its own achievement, a delayed result of the shock and fear - and subsequent flexibility - induced in Israel by the 2006 war.
There is no reason to assume that this version will be any less credible than that offered by Saniora. This is particularly so because the call for the "return" of the Shaba farms is associated with Hizbullah and was picked up by other elements in Lebanon only later.
Also, Hizbullah will claim that Israeli concessions on this issue are proof positive of the successful application of violence against Israel, since the international community declared the matter closed in 2000 and then reopened it as a result of the war of 2006. (This claim is factually accurate.) Such a path is also unlikely to lead to Hizbullah's disarmament. Hizbullah is, after all, both a local Lebanese actor and a client and creation of Iran.
There were those after May 2000 who assumed that once Israel had abandoned the security zone, the former aspect of Hizbullah's identity would take precedence over the latter. This, of course did not take place. Should Shaba be ceded, Hizbullah already has a list of subsequent "grievances" against Israel that will be used to justify further "resistance."
These include the seven Shi'a villages that existed in the Galilee prior to 1948, and the large Palestinian refugee presence in Lebanon. The movement has indeed already issued a statement saying that "anyone who believes that placing [the] Shaba farms under UN mandate will mean eliminating the rationale behind our resistance is mistaken."The US and France want to strengthen their partner in Lebanon, who recently suffered a military humiliation. They want to show that aligning with the West brings results, while the allies of Iran are the forces determined to prevent tranquillity. For the reasons cited above, reopening the issue of the Shaba farms is unlikely to produce these desired results. Rather, the impression given is more likely to be one of confusion, disunity and lack of resolution among pro-Western forces in the region.

How many people have to die before Lebanon's politicians change their ways?
By The Daily Star
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
The deadly clashes that continue to plague Tripoli are underlining the very real and very pressing need for Lebanon's squabbling political parties to put the country's interests above their own. The Lebanese people have spent far too long in the shadow of instability, and the military and security forces entrusted with their protection are at least partially hamstrung by the vacuum opened up by the protracted process of creating a new unity cabinet. The leaderships of both the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Internal Security Forces (ISF) are understandably hesitant to grasp the proverbial nettle and impose their will in the Northern port city because they still don't know which civilian ministers will be calling the shots in the aftermath of what could be a messy operation.
This situation would be undesirable in any country, but it is especially hazardous in this one: Lebanese politicians are a famously capricious species, the general and specific roles of the LAF and the ISF are the subjects of heated debates, and the former's status as Lebanon's sole remaining "national" institution is a precious commodity. For these reasons, it is only natural that both organizations have been shy about intervening in force to put down the fighting.
Instead of seeing the bloodshed - and the risk of having it spread - as obvious motivation to dilute their demands, however, some of Lebanon's politicians are using it to blackmail their rivals. This is unacceptable, especially so soon after the carnage that rocked the entire country in early May. That affair was at least temporarily prevented from dragging the Lebanese back into civil war, but only because the Qatari government stepped forward to broker the Doha agreement, which ended a long-running constitutional crisis and ushered in a nascent process of reconciliation. Understandably, however, the Qataris are now indicating that they have done their part, that Lebanon's own politicians have to take the next step by themselves.
Lebanon's ruling "elite" have always been an ineffectual and selfish lot, and much of the general public assumes them to be corrupt and irresponsible. The current phase is a proving ground, therefore, on which the country's political "leaders" have a chance to demonstrate that they can be pragmatic in order to prevent disaster. It can only be hoped that the electorate is watching closely so that when the next elections are held in 2009, those who throw up new obstacles on a daily basis will be held to account.

Canada: Hezbollah activity in context
Published Date: June 23, 2008
Kuwait times
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTA2MTg3Njc3NQ==
Reports from Canada say Hezbollah operatives have been detected conducting surveillance on Jewish targets in Toronto, including schools and synagogues. US sources have confirmed increased Hezbollah activity as well. Intriguingly, the reports specifically said the men conducting the surveillance were Hezbollah members, not just men of Middle Eastern appearance. That either indicates a deep penetration of Hezbollah in Canada - the Canadians knew the political affiliation of the men - or psychological warfare
against Hezbollah, an attempt to let the group know the Canadians are on to them. If this is a Hezbollah operation, the Canadians just told them they were busted.
There is a complex situation developing around Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is in deep trouble. Syria has shifted its position by entering into serious negotiations with Israel. Syria wants to come out of those negotiations with Lebanon in its sphere of influence. The Israeli price for that would be Syria curtailing Hezbollah activities. The Syrians, more interested in Lebanese wealth than in the interests of a Shiite religious movement - Syria is neither Shiite nor particularly religious - might well make thedeal.
This puts Hezbollah in a very difficult position. They have operated in the past with the sponsorship of Iran and Syria. Syria is closer. If the Syrians were to shift their policy, Hezbollah would be isolated and in jeopardy. Indeed, there is a debate in Stratfor as to who actually killed Imad Mugniyah, the death of whom Hezbollah swore to avenge. Some take the conventional line that it was Israel. Others believe the killing was a Syrian down payment to Israel on the Israeli-Syrian negotiations and a signa
l to Hezbollah not to do anything to upset the negotiations unless and until the Syrians gave the word.
At this moment, Hezbollah's only ally is Iran. It needs to make itself valuable to Iran. The United States and Israel are constantly signaling they might attack Iran in the next few months. The very fact that these signals come and are taken seriously reduces the likelihood of such an attack. If either country really wanted to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, they would want to take out all the facilities' equipment and the personnel. Expertise is everything, and they would want to eliminate it. Signaling
the possibility of an attack increases the likelihood that Iran would disperse all of the expertise and some of the equipment. That would decrease the effectiveness of the attacks dramatically. You do not signal an attack on facilities to give the other side a chance to shift things around and undermine your intelligence.
Thus, there is a great deal of psychological warfare involved in these threats. The United States and Israel want Iran to feel insecure. This has resulted in increased tensions within the Iranian government, namely, between factions around Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who believe the United States is bluffing and factions around Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and others who might also believe the United States is bluffing, but are using the bluff to undermine Ahmadinejad's position by portraying him
as reckless - and a poor custodian of the economy to boot.
It is in Ahmadinejad's interest to attempt to counter American and Israeli pressure by demonstrating Iran's strategic options. Tehran does not have many, but it does have one: Hezbollah. US President George W Bush's nightmare is that his presidency will end as it began, with terrorist attacks. His one claim to success - and it is an important one - is that regardless of what might have happened in Iraq, the United States itself has not been attacked since 9/11, and that this was the result of his global ac
tions. To the extent he will have a positive legacy, it will be built on that claim. But if Hezbollah were to carry out strikes in the United States as Bush exits, his legacy would be further tarnished.
The question of whether the Republican strategy is really effective against terrorism would be raised in the middle of a campaign for president, and the campaign would turn around this question. The Republicans will want to show that the Democrats do not take terrorism seriously enough and have no plan to deal with it. The Democrats would claim that it is the Republicans who seven years after 9/11 still do not have an effective counterstrategy. Hezbollah needs to do a service for Iran. They need Iran. The
Iranians need to signal Washington that their psywar - or even real plans to attack - would have a swift and devastating counter, a counter Bush really does not want to see. Therefore, it was in Iran's interest to have Hezbollah surveillance noticed. It sends the message that Ahmadinejad wants to send to the United States and Israelis. It also increases the strategic value of Hezbollah to Iran, which in turn can pressure Syria on the future of Hezbollah.
Thus, there are two reasons why the Canadians could know what group these operatives were members of. One is that they and the Americans have penetrated Hezbollah and are letting them know that their cover is blown. The other is that Hezbollah wanted to telegraph its punch to signal the U.S. administration to move very carefully in pressuring Iran. This message would be that if you strike Iran, we will strike at you, and if you keep threatening us we will threaten you. Without doubt the Iranians are split
politically. But they are signaling the United States that as much as Iran is split, they are not as politically split as the United States is at the moment.

Olmert backtracks on deal with Hezbollah for kidnapped soldiers
By Amos Harel, Barak Ravid and Zvi Bar'el
The deal between Hezbollah and Israel for the return of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two reservists abducted during a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006, which sparked the Second Lebanon War, will be delayed. In meetings held yesterday between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and senior officials in the defense establishment, a number of issues were raised that appear to have delayed Israel's response to the German mediator, Gerhard Konrad. The delay will stall the deal, which until late last week was expected to be finalized in the coming days.
Olmert, according to a political source in Jerusalem, is inclined to reject the deal for the prisoner exchange as it is currently framed. Advertisement
Olmert's stance on the issue of a deal with Hezbollah had been favorable until several days ago, in spite of the troubling issue of the release of Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese national held since 1979 following the murderous raid in which he participated in the northern town of Nahariya, which left four Israelis dead.
One of Olmert's concerns is the reaction of the cabinet to the deal, which it has to approve before it can be carried out.
Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin both believe that going ahead with the deal in its current form would create a precedent that could put the life of Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as well as the lives of any Israeli soldiers captured in the future, at risk.
Two months ago Olmert sent to Hezbollah, through the German mediator, Israel's "final" offer on the release of the two soldiers. Israel agreed to release Kuntar, and four Hezbollah men captured during the Second Lebanon War, as well as the remains of some of the fighters of the radical Shi'ite organization. Israel insisted that the deal would not include the release of any Palestinian prisoners, which had originally been a demand of Hezbollah.
However, contrary to what had been previously reported, it appears that Hezbollah has once more revived its demand for the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal. Sources in the Prime Minister's Bureau said last night that the demand for the release of Palestinians is a major stumbling block in the deal.
But security sources say that the Palestinian "element" was overplayed by Olmert's aides for reasons that are not clear to them. Similar claims were made by the members of the families of the two abducted soldiers, following a meeting with the Prime Minister late last week, although senior security officials stress that they are not aware of a renewed demand for Palestinian prisoners. What is certain is that the heads of the defense establishment, with the exception of Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, are opposed to the deal as it currently stands. While Ashkenazi understands the reservations of his colleagues, including the head of Military Intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, he is of the opinion that the growing interest of Israel is to close the Goldwasser-Regev case. The chief of staff is also concerned that the stalling of the swap may turn into a tragic missed opportunity unless it is finalized soon.

Military: Israel may declare 2 soldiers captured by Hezbollah in 2006 "killed in action"
The Associated Press- Published: June 23, 2008
JERUSALEM: The military says a procedure has begun that could lead to a declaration that two Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas two years ago are dead. The military statement said all the information about the soldiers has been transferred to the chief military rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Ronsky, who will determine whether they will be declared as killed in action. The move Monday comes as Israel and Hezbollah are said to be close to a deal to trade the soldiers for Samir Kantar, a Lebanese serving multiple life terms for a 1979 attack that left four people dead. If the soldiers are declared dead, it is seen unlikely that Israel would trade Kantar for the bodies. The soldiers were known to be badly wounded when they were captured.

Hezbollah gunmen kidnapped vacationers in Sannine !
Published: Monday, 23 June, 2008
Beirut- Phalange Party leader and Lebanon's former president Amin Gemayel said hooded gunmen have kidnapped an undisclosed number of people who were vacationing in the Sannine Mountain range and released them after a while. Gemayel said the captives were interrogated about their political affiliations. He did not disclose further details. However, reliable sources said Hezbollah gunmen on Sunday intercepted two Sports Utility Vehicles carrying a number of vacationing youth in Tohan area, between Sannine Mount and Zaarour and kidnapped them for a few hours. The captives, according to the sources, included "a citizen from Aql family and another citizen from the Khoury family." He said the captives were "held for more than three hours during which they were interrogated individually in a tent that was part of a camp set up by the Hezbollah squad in the mountainous region."The development escalated tension as it revealed deployment by Hezbollah gunmen in strategically-located highland that commands road links between the coastal sector of Lebanon and the inland Bekaa Valley as well the coastal highway linking north Lebanon to Beirut.

Moody's gives Lebanon poor notes on inflation sensitivity index
Daily Star/Tuesday, June 24, 2008
BEIRUT: Moody's Investors Service's Inflation Sensibility Index ranked Lebanon as the third most sensitive country among 11 Arab economies the firm rates in the Middle East and North Africa region. The index measures the extent to which a country's vulnerability to inflation shocks could damage its creditworthiness and sovereign ratings. The agency said high rates of inflation can have indirect consequences on the sovereign ratings of a country through fiscal, political and economic channels. First, on the fiscal front, governments can find it difficult to maintain fiscal discipline during inflationary periods, as citizens demand compensatory increases in salaries, subsidies and welfare payments to offset their decreasing purchasing power. Second, regarding politics, high rates of inflation often raise social tensions as governments and private employers are sometimes reluctant to raise wages, subsidies and welfare payments quickly enough in order to offset inflation.
Third, on the economic front, high rates of inflation can jeopardize growth by deterring productive investment, distorting market incentives, encouraging wage hikes and disrupting activity through strikes or more serious political unrest.
The free functioning of markets can also be hampered by the introduction of unusual economic measures such as price controls as governments attempt to contain inflation through alternative means. Moody's considered that Lebanon was less vulnerable to inflation shocks than Egypt and Jordan, but more vulnerable to such events than Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Lebanon received a score of 13 points, below the regional average of 16.5 points. It added that Lebanon's very low rating of "B3" already incorporates a high degree of political and economic risk. The Inflation Sensibility Index is the average of a country's rank in five variables grouped in three different categories considered to be meaningful indicators of inflationary impact on sovereign ratings. The indicators are GDP-per-capita in purchasing-power parity terms, the level of human development, the fiscal balance, the net government debt, and the annual change in inflation rate.
Lebanon also ranked in fourth on the Social Vulnerability Sub-Index. This category measures social vulnerability in terms of GDP-per-capita in purchasing-power parity terms and its rank on the UN's Human Development Index. Lebanon had the seventh highest GDP-per-capita and the eighth highest level of human development among the 11 countries. As a result, Lebanon was considered less socially vulnerable than Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco, and more vulnerable than Saudi Arabia and Oman. Also, Lebanon ranked in first on the Fiscal Flexibility Sub-Index, which means that it is the country with the least fiscal flexibility among the 11 Arab economies included in the survey. - Byblos Bank's Lebanon This Week

Moussa perplexed by Lebanon's latest squabble
By Hussein Abdallah -Daily Star staff
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
BEIRUT: Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said on Monday that rival Lebanese leaders were the only ones to be blamed for the delay in forming a new government. "I feel sorry for how things are turning out in Lebanon ; The delay in forming a new cabinet is reflecting negatively on the security situation," he said, referring to clashes in the North between government and opposition supporters. Moussa expressed surprise over the dispute on distributing the sovereign portfolios in the new cabinet. "I don't understand why such a dispute should block the formation of a new government," he said.
Also Monday, Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun accused Prime Minister-designate Fouad Siniora on of intentionally delaying the formation of the new cabinet. "Siniora is not in a hurry to form the new cabinet despite the fact that the country cannot afford any more delays," Aoun told reporters after a meeting of his Reform and Change parliamentary bloc. "There should be a deadline ... It cannot be an endless process," he added.
Aoun also warned Siniora against "stirring trouble" between himself and Sleiman. "I advise you not to speak about the presidency anymore ... You are getting yourself into a very sensitive issue ... This is the last time I will allow you to do that," he said, addressing Siniora. Siniora earlier accused Aoun of "battling to make gains in the new cabinet in order to compensate for losing the presidency." Aoun also addressed the issue of keeping caretaker Defense Minister Elias Murr in his post. "I want you to tell me: Is Elias Murr a neutral figure?" Aoun asked reporters. "If they want him to be a minister in the next government, they should include him in their own quota ... He can only be part of the bloc that he really represents," Aoun said, hinting that Murr was allied to the March 14 Forces.
Sleiman has reportedly tipped Murr to stay in his post, a move that Aoun is against as the opposition remains unconvinced that Murr can be regarded as a neutral figure. Asked about his position on Hizbullah MP's Hassan Fadlallah's recent proposal to give Reform and Change the Telecommunications Ministry together with the post of deputy premier as an alternative to giving the bloc a sovereign portfolio, Aoun said the offer had been rejected by the parliamentary majority.
Aoun, who secured the majority of Christian votes in the 2005 legislative elections, believes that his bloc (the biggest Christian bloc in Parliament) deserves to get a sovereign portfolio in the next cabinet, preferably for a Christian candidate from his bloc. But Aoun's demand has reportedly stumbled over the president's alleged insistence on choosing two Christian candidates for the interior and defense ministries.
Traditionally, the four sovereign ministries are divided among Lebanon's four biggest sects (Sunni, Shiite, Maronite, and Greek Orthodox).
Aoun earlier told local newspaper Al-Akhbar that Siniora was the only one to be blamed for the current crisis. "Our problem is with the prime minister-designate, not the elected president ... The president has nothing to do with Siniora's failure to form a new cabinet," he said.  Aoun accused Siniora of trying to create conflict between him and Sleiman. "I do not see him as a prime minister who wants to form a new government ... He is acting as if he is paving the way for war and not dialogue between the Lebanese," Aoun said, advising Sleiman to call for a new round of parliamentary consultations aimed at naming a new premier.
"I was and will always be a man of peace," Siniora told LBC television on Monday in response to Aoun's remarks. Siniora was attending a conference in Vienna held to raise funds for the reconstruction of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli. Meanwhile, a number of MPs from Aoun's bloc, including the retired general himself, have reportedly presented to Speaker Nabih Berri a draft proposal, calling on the legislature to vote on adopting the 1960 qada-based electoral law for next year's parliamentary elections. Aoun's move is likely to provoke the parliamentary majority as March 14 sources were quoted as telling the Central News Agency last week that moving ahead with the electoral law issue before forming the new government was a clear violation of the Doha agreement, which ended an 18-month political crisis in Lebanon. The pact called for the election of Sleiman, the forming of a national unity cabinet in which the opposition has veto power, and the drafting of an amended version of the 1960 electoral law to be adopted for the 2009 polls.
Also on Monday, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt said speeding up the formation of the new cabinet was necessary in order to move on to discuss the issue of adopting a defense strategy. In a comment to his party's Al-Anbaa weekly, Jumblatt said the issue of Hizbullah's weapons should not be related to the liberation of the Shebaa Farms but to discussing a defense strategy.
"The defense strategy should come in accordance with the Taif Accord, which calls for truce and not peace between Lebanon and Israel," Jumblatt said

Iran Conquered Lebanon… Now What?
From the August 2008 Trumpet Print Edition »
The world is pretending that Lebanon is on path to stability. The reality is that Iran is now in control. Will its next conquest be the West Bank? By Gerald Flurry and Joel Hilliker
Do you understand just how dangerous what happened in Lebanon in May truly was? May 9, Iran put a choke hold on Lebanon in order to preserve its position on Israel’s northern frontier. This act of war sounded a death knell for Lebanese democracy, strengthened Iran’s grip on the Middle East, and dramatically increased the threat to Israel and beyond.
Amazingly, the United States and the international community did nothing.
In fact, they did worse than nothing. If you read the general news media at the time, you might have thought that the deal that emerged from this terrorist violence left Lebanon better off than it had been before! Civil war was averted, commentators said. A political face-off ended in reconciliation. After 19 failed attempts since last November, the country installed a new president. As one hopeful writer put it, the settlement reached in Doha, Qatar, on May 21 “puts an end to an 18-month national crisis and raises hopes for a stable future for that beleaguered country” (Middle East Times, May 29).
That is gross ignorance! What occurred in Lebanon was nothing less than a bleak surrender by Lebanon’s Western-backed governing coalition—and a major victory for the Hezbollah terrorist group and its primary sponsor, Iran.
That the United States, the United Nations and others pretended it was anything else is a measure of their own capitulation to Iran.
Hezbollah’s Show of Strength
The Lebanese government had just taken steps to restrict communication and travel between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Iran—dismissing the security chief at a major airport facilitating Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah, and launching an investigation into an Iran-built telecommunications network maintained by Hezbollah. Iran treated these moves as a declaration of war.
Within hours, Iranian Guardsmen joined Hezbollah gunmen in a massive show of strength, rapidly overwhelming the streets of West Beirut. They blockaded the airport, shut down pro-government news outlets, and besieged the headquarters of Lebanese leaders Fouad Siniora and Saad Hariri—all within one day.
Everyone knows Hezbollah operates as a proxy of Iran. A similar scenario occurred in the summer of 2007, when the mullahs in Tehran engineered the violent overthrow of the Gaza Strip through their proxy Hamas. The world was silent then too!
After its display of force in Beirut, Hezbollah did something extraordinary: It turned its new gains back over to the Lebanese Army. The message: Iran will not tolerate attacks on Hezbollah’s power and military infrastructure in Lebanon—yet it is not interested in taking over formal governance of the nation. All it needs is a weapon to unleash against Israel at some point yet future. Hezbollah already proved its value to that end in the war against Israel during the summer of 2006.
Iran is the number-one terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East, and it has been since the 1970s. After it gained control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 through Hamas, Tehran began to focus more diligently on cementing control of Lebanon. It accomplished that goal in May. Iran now controls both Gaza and Lebanon!
“Hezbollah’s victory in taking over western and central Beirut … has had the effect of adding another link to the pro-Iranian chain encircling Israel,” reported debkafile. “In many ways it is a more damaging setback for Israel’s national security than the Palestinian Hamas’s seizure of the Gaza Strip” (May 15). In fact, one Hamas activist told the Washington Times that it was the second stage of a plan to tighten the noose around Israel—a plan that started with the Gaza coup and will spread to Jordan and Egypt.
The Beirut putsch was a monstrous act of war by Iran! If it were America or Israel taking over in Gaza or Lebanon, you can be sure there would be a massive international outcry! But it wasn’t America or Israel. It was Iran. And the international community essentially stood back and let it happen.
Washington’s Non-Response
Washington’s response to the crisis was anemic. Its first move was to try to drum up international support for the Lebanese government. Condoleezza Rice busied herself with visits to the United Nations secretary general and the foreign ministers of France and Saudi Arabia. Washington called on the Arab League to “show its displeasure with Hezbollah and its sponsors,” the Washington Post reported (May 10).
The phone calls and meetings changed precisely nothing, of course. For 19 months, the United Nations has stationed 15,000 troops in Lebanon, supposedly to contain Hezbollah, and that changed nothing. What possible good could expressions of “displeasure” do?
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called on “those who have influence over Syria and Iran to encourage those countries to use their influence with Hezbollah.” It is hard to imagine a more ignorant statement. Syria and Iran were already using their influence with Hezbollah—to control Lebanon.
As Barry Rubin wrote, “Iran and Syria back their friends with weapons and help; the West responds with words backed by nothing. Who can blame Hezbollah and Damascus and Tehran for laughing in contempt?” (Jerusalem Post, May 11; emphasis ours).
What then made this shameful situation far worse was the political agreement that consolidated and legitimized Hezbollah’s victory.
A Disgraceful Agreement
Back in late 2006, the Hezbollah-led opposition resigned from the national unity coalition cabinet, demanding more power and a veto in all government decisions. Since then, amid numerous assassinations of prominent Lebanese figures, the Lebanese government had been deadlocked. When the president’s term ran out last November, no new president could be elected without Hezbollah’s cooperation, even after 19 grounded attempts.
Now this deadlock is resolved. After five days of negotiations in Doha, the Lebanese government submitted and gave Hezbollah what it had been holding out for 18 months for: veto power in a new government.
Why the change? Because of Hezbollah’s brutal display of military might.
Yes, once again in the Middle East, violence paved the way for more political power for terrorists.
What Hezbollah’s veto power in a new national unity government means is clear. It means the Lebanese government can pass no legislation calling for the terrorist group’s disarmament. It means the government can’t direct the army to take action against Hezbollah or stop a Hezbollah attack on Israel. In truth, it means the government can’t make any decisions that might favor Israel or the West. All key decisions and appointments in the new government will have to be approved by Hezbollah. The Doha agreement didn’t even mention UN Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701, which call for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
As Reza Hossein Borr wrote for Global Politician, “The fact of the matter is the opponents of Hezbollah were very happy that it did not capture and execute them during the short civil war. They were humbled sufficiently to accept what they couldn’t accept for nearly two years. They were happy that they were alive and they were happy that Hezbollah was happy to withdraw its troops from their territories” (June 2).
It was a clever plan by Hezbollah. Flex its tremendous power—enough to let the Lebanese see it, enough to wring from them the political concessions it sought—and then retreat to the shadows and play the whole incident down. Nothing to see here, folks.
The Doha deal also enabled the election of Syrian-backed Gen. Michel Suleiman as president on May 25. This was widely seen as perhaps the most positive outcome of the agreement. In reality, Suleiman is a sympathizer of Hezbollah and an enemy of Israel. He was handpicked by former Syrian President Hafez Assad as Lebanon’s Army commander. During his nine years in that role, he never confronted Hezbollah—not even during the Second Lebanon War. In May, rather than directing the army to repel Hezbollah’s attack, he presided over a largely pro-Hezbollah force that stood by while the terrorists seized ground.
Any notion that Suleiman might take stronger action against Hezbollah as president is ridiculous.
The Failure of Negotiation
After World War ii, President Franklin D. Roosevelt thought he could negotiate a peaceful handling of Eastern Europe with Russia’s Joseph Stalin. Yet Stalin, one of the worst dictators ever, ended up enslaving all of Eastern Europe. That’s what happens when you sit down and try to negotiate with these very ambitious and vile dictators. Sadly, too few people are paying attention to this alarming history today.
On May 15, the American president spoke at the Knesset to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Israel. “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” he said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. … We have an obligation to call this what it is—the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
President Bush was exactly right! It is not a time to negotiate. It is a time to stop terrorist acts. Hezbollah will never be talked out of abandoning its cult of death. Efforts to pacify these terrorists by giving them political power are doomed to spectacular failure!
Both U.S. Democratic presidential nominees at the time strongly disagreed with the president’s remarks. Barack Obama said that America needs to “use all elements of American power—including tough, principled and direct diplomacy—to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.” Hillary Clinton called Bush’s comments “offensive and outrageous.” Of course, Winston Churchill was also vilified for warning against Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany before World War ii. But we fail to learn from our own history.
What happened in Lebanon was clearly a setback for Washington and its allies that seek to disarm Hezbollah. Amazingly, however—just days after his Knesset speech—President Bush said, “I am hopeful that the Doha agreement … will usher in an era of political reconciliation to the benefit of all Lebanese.” He congratulated Suleiman on his election, and a U.S. congressional delegation attended the parliamentary vote that officially made Suleiman president—right along with the foreign ministers of Iran and Syria.
It was bad enough that the U.S.—not to mention the United Nations—did nothing while Hezbollah strong-armed the Lebanese government into submission. But to then pretend that the resulting Hezbollah-dominated political landscape would be more peaceful and stable was an even more shameful betrayal!
Reza Hossein Borr believes that this acceptance by the Western world was the greatest concession Hezbollah received. “The international recognition of Hezbollah as a political force will encourage this organization to increase its military power even further to secure even more recognition,” he wrote (op. cit.).
By smiling upon the Doha agreement, the Western world put its stamp of legitimacy on the new state of Hezbollastan that now occupies the former nation of Lebanon!
Clearly, Hezbollah, our mortal enemy, must be destroyed. But we—Israel and the United States, even Europe at this time—simply do not have the will to do it.
And will is one thing Hezbollah and its backers in Iran and Syria don’t lack: They’ll kill anyone and destroy anything to win.
Victory for Iran
Make no mistake: A victory for Hezbollah is a victory for Iran. Syria—as much as it has influenced Lebanese politics in the past—is a far less consequential figure in the Middle East than Iran is. Iran, not Syria, is Hezbollah’s chief patron. Iran gives Hezbollah at least $100 million in aid annually—some sources say more than $3 billion; it provides Hezbollah extensive training and masses of weapons, ranging from machine guns to anti-ship cruise missiles; it gives Hezbollah its directions, its ideology.
And now, via Hezbollah, Iran has tightened its choke hold on Lebanon. Through Hezbollah’s military putsch and cleverly planned retreat—followed by an agreement hailed by the Arab world and passively approved by the West—it not only consolidated its political position in the country, but also eliminated any possible threat of its forced disarmament. And it got its choice of president to boot.
What does this development mean for America? It means the U.S. is losing its war against terrorism! It is a calamity of the highest order! Most of the media and most of our politicians don’t view these events this way, but every terrorist victory is a dangerous warning sign to America, Britain and the Jews in the Middle East.
As Iran keeps marching forward and winning systematic terrorist acts of war, we see a clear failure of will on the part of America and the Western world.
The reason America’s efforts in Lebanon have failed could not be more clear. It is because Iran, via Hezbollah, has the Lebanese government under siege. Yet still, the U.S. simply will not go after Iran.
Do you know why? Did you know that God prophesied this would happen? If you have been reading the Trumpet for any length of time, you know that biblical prophecy foretold this disaster—and reveals precisely why it is happening: because God has broken America’s will.
Broken Will
Read the prophecy in Leviticus 26. God says that if we do not obey His laws, He will curse us. One of the curses God warns us about is this: “I will break the pride of your power … And your strength shall be spent in vain” (verses 19-20). Yes, America has power—yes, it has strength. But the pride in that power is broken, and the strength is being spent in vain.
The fact that the U.S. is abandoning Lebanon to Iran is a truly remarkable sign of just how powerless it has become.
Lebanon is clearly a project the U.S. is heavily invested in. Washington trumpeted the Cedar Revolution of 2005 as being a symbol of the Middle East’s future, of freedom and democracy sweeping the region toward peace and security. It has funneled $1.3 billion into the Siniora government over the past two years.
Those big ideas have been trampled. $400 million of that money went toward strengthening the Lebanese Army, and now Hezbollah has co-opted that force. “The Lebanese Army is by now more an operational arm of Hezbollah than an armed force that serves the government,” debkafile reported (May 16).
President Bush has pursued three priorities in the Middle East: Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Lebanon. Despite massive expenditures, he finds himself unable to lock down even one of these situations.
Here is the plain truth: Iran is the problem behind all three.
The U.S. will never resolve Iraq without confronting Iran. The U.S. and Israel will never put down the Palestinian terrorist groups without confronting Iran. Lebanon will never be secured unless Iran is put down. All efforts to put these issues to rest—while ignoring the Iran connection—are exercises in futility.
The fact that the U.S. simply will not confront Iran is the single greatest proof today that God has broken the pride of our power.
The U.S. is truly spending its strength in vain in Lebanon, in Israel and in Iraq. The single greatest reason is Iran. The Islamic Republic is bloodying America in all three theaters. And still, Washington acts as though France or the Arab League can solve the problem.
The Iraq War alone is costing the United States $341 million per day. It has killed well over 3,000 American soldiers and cost half a trillion dollars. And the truly remarkable thing about it is where it is all leading: In the end, the U.S. is going to pull out, and Iran is going to take over.
The U.S. went into Iraq not only to put down Saddam Hussein, but also to use that area as a staging ground for dealing with the second member of the “axis of evil”—Iran. But in the end, all the strength we’re spending there is achieving exactly the opposite of what we wanted. We are preparing to hand control of Iraq—and subsequently the Middle East—to Iran.
Many people are criticizing the Bush administration harshly for its decisions. They fail to see the bigger picture. This problem is not merely the result of bad decisions by one administration: It is the result of curses from God that have descended on the United States for our disobedience to His laws.
It wasn’t our president who broke the pride of our power—it was God. He is trying to teach our nation the problems that result from forgetting Him.
Iran’s Next Move
The Trumpet has been warning for 15 years that Iran would take over Iraq en route to its becoming the “king of the south.” Its role in biblical prophecy is clear, and today we see events leading to its fulfillment in a truly remarkable way.
Now we must ask the question: What piece of territory will Iran conquer next? It will undoubtedly go after the West Bank.
The Arabs of the Fatah party currently control the West Bank. However, Hamas terrorists (and weapons) are present throughout the West Bank and there is little doubt that they are working toward getting control of this strategic region of Israel. Iran’s ultimate goal is to overrun Jerusalem. The West Bank adjoins the city. The Iranians believe that if they can conquer Jerusalem, they can unite the Arab world under their control.
Despite Tehran’s diabolical strategy to slaughter Jews and overrun Jerusalem, many in the U.S. still want to negotiate with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as he continues to commit terrorist acts of war! We want to negotiate just as Neville Chamberlain of Britain wanted to negotiate with Hitler leading up to World War ii. Hitler took over a big portion of Europe and almost won World War ii before the Allied powers finally woke up and realized there was no other recourse but to fight!
We face the same situation in the Middle East today. Iran has taken over Gaza and Lebanon, and soon it will get control of the West Bank. Then it will turn its attention toward its ultimate prize—the capture of Jerusalem!
Bible prophecy says Iran will then push at a European power (Daniel 11:40). That push will undoubtedly revolve around Jerusalem, which remains a focal point of Catholicism, and is rapidly being besieged by radical Islamic forces led by Iran. Conquering Jerusalem has been Iran’s openly stated goal for some time. But can you imagine what will happen to the Arab world when it takes control of East Jerusalem—including its third-holiest site? (You can learn more about this event by reading our March 2006 cover story, “Jerusalem Is About to Be Cut in Half.”)
That event will likely transform many moderate Arabs into dangerous Arab radicals. Despite that victory, however, Iran is not going to get control of all of Jerusalem because when it pushes at Europe, Europe will react by descending upon it as a “whirlwind.” This is the clash between the king of the south and the king of the north prophesied in Daniel 11:40.
Strong’s Bible Concordance states that this European whirlwind will leave people terror-stricken! It will probably be a nuclear whirlwind that will do a lot of damage very quickly. Remember, Iran started this state-sponsored terrorism and has been the predominant power behind it. Gaining control of Jerusalem is its number-one ambition. America and other Western nations can negotiate with it, and turn a blind eye when it overthrows governments, but nobody’s going to talk it out of that goal. It has claimed that as its avowed aim for years, just as Hitler did before he started World War ii. As Churchill said, we just never seem to learn from history!
God wants us to know that just before Christ’s return will be a time when prophecy will be very specific and detailed. He said we would even be counting the days. What could be more inspiring, stirring and uplifting than that? And when we see Iran’s continual pushing, though it is bad news, it will lead to this greatest event ever to occur in the universe: the return of Jesus Christ!
This will happen, and you can prove it from your Bible. You don’t want to take our word or any man’s word for it—but you can take God’s word for it! When He says it, it will surely come to pass! These are the most exciting times in human history! The Messiah is about to come! •

Explosively False Propaganda
Bush's Middle East legacy
by Muhammad Sahimi
June 24, 2008
No part of the world, not even the United States, has been more deeply affected by George W. Bush's presidency than the Middle East. From the lofty goals of starting a "democratic revolution," making a "new Middle East," and helping the Palestinians to have their own independent state, to the bogus "war on terror," invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and meddling in Lebanon, Bush's Middle East policy has been simply one disaster after another.
The reality is that the Middle East is of utmost strategic importance to the U.S. U.S. involvement in that region will not end after Bush leaves office in January 2009. Therefore, as the president's second term is coming to an end, it is important to consider the results of his Middle East policy, with the hope the next president will learn valuable lessons from Bush's many blunders and devise a more constructive Middle East policy. So let us consider his legacy.
Iraq
If there is one minor positive outcome of Bush's Middle East policy, it has to be the removal of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party from power. But at what price?
Iraq has effectively been partitioned among the Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds.
Iraq became a vast training ground for extremists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Kuwait.
Iraq's infrastructure has been damaged greatly. It would take decades to put Iraq back to where it was before the war.
Much of Iraq's cultural heritage was looted from museums.
Iraqi prisoners were tortured at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
Two million Iraqis have left their country. Clearly, they are the highly educated (at least 3,000 of them professors), professionals, and the affluent, and, therefore, their departure is a great brain drain. Proportionally, it would be equivalent to 24 million Americans leaving the U.S.
Close to 2.5 million Iraqis have been displaced within Iraq. Proportionally, it would be equivalent to 30 million American refugees within the U.S.
As many as 1.1 million Iraqis may have been killed. Proportionally, it would as if over 13 million Americans had been killed, a staggering number. Notable among the dead are at least 230 Iraqi professors, with another 60 missing, presumably dead.
At least 1 million Iraqi children have become orphans.
Seventy percent of Iraqi children suffer from mental stress disorder.
Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, the 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, and Linda Bilmes of Harvard University estimated that the eventual cost of the war may reach $2 trillion. If, for a period of 10 years, the funding for cancer research were doubled, every American with diabetes or heart disease were treated, and a global immunization campaign that could save millions of children were carried out, the total cost would be about $600 billion.
As if the price that the Iraqis have paid so far is not enough, the Bush-Cheney administration has demanded the following in secret "negotiations" with Iraq's government :
Fifty-eight military bases.
Control of Iraq's airspace below 32,000 ft.
The authority to kill or arrest, without Iraq's permission, anyone deemed "hostile."
The authority to stage a war against terrorists anywhere from Iraq without Iraq's permission.
Full immunity from prosecution in Iraq for the U.S. military and civilian contractors.
The last one the U.S. also demanded of Iran in the early 1960s, which sparked the June 5, 1963, uprising in Iran, which eventually led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. As Ayatollah Khomeini said at that time:
"Capitulation means if we kill the dogs that the Americans bring to Iran, we will be jailed, but if they kill us, our spouse, or our children, or destroy our homes, they will not be even prosecuted in Iran."
Bush's Iraq legacy? A destroyed country, only nominally unified, and probably a quasi-colony of the U.S. for the foreseeable future.
Afghanistan
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there was an ocean of good will toward the U.S., and great support for destroying al-Qaeda. What happened?
Afghanistan was attacked, even though the U.S. knew that the al-Qaeda leadership had already escaped to the border region with Pakistan, and Donald Rumsfeld reportedly said that "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan." The Taliban were overthrown. But where is Afghanistan now?
The Taliban are resurgent. They are gaining ground and the support of the ethnic Pashtuns, and they control most of southern Afghanistan. Recall that they were despised right before the 9/11 attacks.
At least compared with Iraq, Afghanistan has received a dearth of aid. It is in turmoil, the best evidence of which is the assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and the recent assault by Taliban forces on a prison in Kandahar that freed at least 400 Taliban fighters. The unemployment rate is at least 60 percent.
Karzai is viewed by many Afghans as the puppet of the U.S., and this in a nation that has historically had little tolerance for foreigners and their agents.
Opium production, which was banned under Taliban, is thriving. It supplies 93 percent of the world's heroin and 53 percent of Afghanistan's GDP.
The government hardly controls anything beyond the capital, Kabul. The country has been effectively partitioned among warlords.
The number of NATO troops has increased from 20,000 in 2003 to more than 64,000, including 3,200 new U.S. Marines. Practically every day innocent civilians are killed by NATO bombing, causing a strong backlash against NATO.
Bush's Afghanistan legacy? An economic basket case that needs vast amounts of international aid to barely survive and will not be a viable state for decades, if ever.
Pakistan
Since 9/11, the U.S. has given Pakistan $11 billion in aid, in addition to forgiving its previous debts. Eighty percent of this aid has gone to the military to supposedly fight al-Qaeda. What has happened?
Ninety percent of the military aid has been used by Gen. Pervez Musharraf to buy advanced weapons and put them on the Pakistan-India border, one of the most unstable areas in the world, where two nuclear nations are lined up against each other.
Musharraf has, in fact, signed peace agreements with the Taliban's sympathizers in the western and northern Pakistan provinces, which means that both the Taliban and al-Qaeda have secure places to train terrorists.
With U.S. consent or at least silence, Musharraf has violated Pakistan's constitution repeatedly. For example, last year he sacked and jailed Pakistan's Supreme Court judges who opposed him. He then appointed new judges who had to swear to loyalty to him rather than Pakistan's constitution. The jailed judges have yet to be released.
The U.S. arranged for Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan to give a civilian face to the military dictatorship, without even making sure that she was secure. She was assassinated.
Bush's Pakistan legacy? An unstable nuclear nation with a large number of radicals in its military intelligence (the ISI) who support the Taliban.
Lebanon
After the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005, and the subsequent Cedar Revolution, Bush pushed for democratic elections in Lebanon. These were held in spring 2005, but the results were not to Bush's liking.
Not only did Hezbollah receive a significant fraction of the votes and send 14 representative to the parliament, but its partners in the March 8 coalition also received significant votes, and Hezbollah joined the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in July 2005. Condoleezza Rice's "directed democracy" project was a failure.
But Bush did not stop meddling in Lebanon's affairs. He constantly provoked Siniora against Hezbollah and its allies, notably Michel Aoun, the Maronite ex-general. The result: Complete paralysis of the government.
Then came the summer 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah began the war, and was rightfully condemned by the world. But Hezbollah had carried out several such small operations in the past, and each time there was a quick cease-fire.
Not this time. With strong support by Bush and Cheney, Israel started a full scale war. Meanwhile, the U.S. prevented the United Nations Security Council from reaching any consensus regarding a cease-fire, buying time for Israel to supposedly crush Hezbollah. Condi Rice promised a "new Middle East," one in which Hezbollah would be defeated and Iran would be attacked. Twelve hundred Lebanese (1,000 of them civilians) and over 150 Israelis (40 of them civilians) were killed, and the infrastructure of Lebanon was greatly damaged by Israel's bombing.
Hezbollah, however, won the war. Although a U.S. official told Seymour Hersh that the Israelis viewed Lebanon as "a demo for Iran," the Pentagon had to revise its plans for attacking Iran. After seeing the types of weapons used by Hezbollah, Gen. John Abizaid, then the Centcom commander, said the Iranians "have given us a hint about things to come."
Hezbollah remained intact, its popularity in the Arab world greater than ever before. This was the second time it had won a war with Israel. The first time was in 2000 when, after fighting with Israel for 15 years, Hezbollah forced Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1982.
Bush, however, continued his meddling. He provoked Siniora to sack the security chief of Beirut's airport, allegedly a Hezbollah member, and shut down Hezbollah's optical communication network, which had played a crucial role in its victory over Israel.
The result: Hezbollah swiftly took over West Beirut and routed forces loyal to Siniora. It demanded restoration of its communication network, giving the security chief his job back and veto power over all the government's decisions. Siniora had taken action against Hezbollah, counting on U. S. aid. The aid never came. Bush blinked. Siniora blinked.
The result: Hezbollah got all of its demands and more. Michel Suleiman, a general with whom Hezbollah has good relations, is now the president. Hezbollah is more powerful than ever.
Bush's Lebanon legacy? An organization that the U.S. has labeled as terrorist has won impressive strategic victories over both the U.S. and Israel and is in the driving seat.
Iran
ran provided significant help to U.S. forces when it attacked Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. It opened its airspace to U.S. aircraft and provided intelligence on the Taliban forces. The opposition forces that it had been supporting for years, the Northern Alliance, were the first to reach Kabul and overthrow the Taliban government.
Then, during the UN talks on the future of Afghanistan, after the Taliban's ouster, in Bonn, Germany, in December 2001, Iranian representative Mohammad Javad Zarif met daily with U.S. envoy James Dobbins, who praised Zarif for preventing the conference from collapsing because of last-minute demands by the Northern Alliance [.pdf]. Thus, the National Unity government led by Karzai could not have come to power without Iran's help.
How was Iran rewarded? Two months later, President Bush made Iran a charter member of his imaginary "axis of evil." Then, in early May 2003 Iran made a comprehensive proposal to the U.S., offering to negotiate on all important issues, recognizing Israel within its pre-1967 war borders, and cutting off material support to Hamas and Hezbollah. The proposal was never taken seriously.
What have been the results of Bush's belligerence toward Iran and his constant demonizing of that nation?
Iranians saw the double standards when the U.S offered security guarantees and aid to North Korea and advanced nuclear technology to India, but only sanctions and threats to Iran. Thus, in 2005 they elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had run on a platform partly based on standing up to the U.S.
Despite all the declarations that Bush has made against Iran's nuclear program, the fact remains that Iran has made far more progress in its nuclear program during his presidency than in the previous 30 years combined. This has come about only because Bush has refused to negotiate with Iran without any preconditions.
Because of events in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, Iran's radicals are actually in the driving seat, and their popularity in the Islamic world is higher than ever.
The hardliners have used Bush's idiotic proclamations of support for the reformists to label them as U.S. agents, and they have taken advantage of his threats against Iran to try to suppress the democratic movement.
Bush's Iran legacy? A nation on the verge of achieving uranium enrichment and becoming a regional power.
Palestine/Israel
When Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, the Israelis and the Palestinians were tantalizingly close to a peace agreement. Today, the probability of peace is practically nil. No other U.S. president has supported Israel as blindly and one-sidedly. He is also the first U.S. president who actually recognized Israel's policy of building and annexing settlements in the West Bank, giving Israel a secret letter committing the U.S. to such a policy.
With Bush's support, Israel "evacuated" Gaza but created the largest jail on Earth: Gaza's land, sea, and air borders are all controlled by Israel. It attacks Gaza at will, and when it kills innocent women, children, and old men, what does Bush say? "Israel must defend itself."
Bush and Rice pushed for democratic elections among Palestinians. The radicals actually wanted such elections too! What happened? The elections were held and certified as democratic by Jimmy Carter, but Hamas won. It received more votes than any other group, including Fatah, and took control of the Palestinian parliament.
As usual, Rice was shocked. "Nobody saw it coming," she declared. (No secretary of state has made more trips to Israel and Palestine than Rice without having anything to show for it.) So what happened? Instead of trying to work with Hamas, which has never been a threat to the U.S., Bush began punishing the Palestinians by cutting off all aid and pressuring others to follow the U.S. lead. Hamas responded to this by routing the Fatah forces in Gaza, taking full control there.
Bush has paid lip service to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. In his recent speech before the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Bush promised the Palestinians that they would have a state of their own "over the next 60 years." Some promise.
Bush's Israel/Palestine legacy? Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is more farfetched than ever.
The Middle East
In addition to all the above, here is the rest of Bush's legacy in the Middle East:
When Bush was elected, the price of oil was about $35/barrel. Today it is close to $140. Roughly half of the oil price is due to political reasons, the most important of which is the instability in the Middle East, caused by Bush's wars and threats of war.
When the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, there was much sympathy for the U.S. in the Islamic world. Today, the U.S. is despised in much of the Islamic world.
When Bush was elected, the U.S. and Iran had a chance for reconciliation, after Madeleine Albright's speech of April 2000, which expressed regrets for the CIA's role in the 1953 coup in Iran. Today, there is no such chance for reconciliation until at least after Bush leaves office.
Bush was elected only eight months after the Iranian reformists had taken control of Iran's parliament in the March 2000 elections, and only seven months after then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had talked about "strong winds of change" in Iran. The reformists' victory, together with the election of Mohammad Khatami in 1997, had generated considerable discussions and soul-searching among the Arab nations of the Middle East about the need for reforms in their countries. In fact, some of them, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan, had begun moving cautiously toward reforms. But after 9/11 and Bush's "war on terror," all the cautious moves toward reform were halted. The regimes of these nations chose instead to hide behind the "war on terror" and justify the repression of their citizens.
Bush still refuses to face the realities of the mess that he has created in the Middle East. His overall Middle East legacy is EFP, explosively false propaganda, through which he still tries to sell his fantasies to the public.
Yes, Mr. President, contrary to what you said recently, there is such a thing as "objective short-term history," and you have failed its test miserably.