LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
May 6/2006

Below news from the Daily Star for 5/05/06
Jumblatt insists March 14 is still 'the real, ruling majority'
Siniora seeks funding to improve conditions for Palestinian refugees
Magazine links Hariri hit to Al-Madina scandal
Nasrallah's harsh attack on government surprises officials
Hillen 'hopeful' national dialogue way forward
Qabalan calls for national cooperation on economic crisis
U.S. condemns Syrian warrants as 'cynical' bid to interfere
Nasserites to join forces with FPM, Hizbullah
Marches raise funds for Palestinians
Lebanon trades off harmful emissions for environmentally sound technology
Frem tried hard to revamp Lebanese industry
Former Minister George Frem passes away at 72
New book confirms Mossad killed PFLP leader in 1977-AFP
Ahmadinejad rejects 'nuclear apartheid,' demands respect
Cocaine and heroin make comebacks among unsuspecting Lebanese youth
The March 14 Forces have lost sight of the dreams of Lebanon's martyrs
Choose your weapon, it may resemble a remote control-By Rami G. Khouri
Al-Qaeda faces an ideological crisis-By Amr Hamzawy
Below news from miscellaneous sources for 5/05/06
Beirut bombshell: By Mitchell Prothero, Fortune Magazine 6.5.06
Terrorism Still Iran's Most Feared Trump Card-Forward
Rice Wants To Discuss The Situation In Lebanon -All Headline News
Shia of Lebanon emerge from poverty -Financial Times
US weighs new anti-Syria resolution at UN-Pravda
Old Damascus attracts capital, will charm survive-Reuters
Nasrallah slams March 14 Forces for 'provoking Damascus-The Muslim News
Putting the squeeze on Syria-Baltimore Sun
Iran and Two International Resolutions-Walid Choucair Al-Hayat
On the Eve of International Maneuvers on Iran-Raghida Dergham -Al-Hayat
Lebanese MPs summoned to Syria-BBC News
Lebanon Bars Taiwan President-All Headline News
Hariri's murder partly motivated by laundering and corruption-AsiaNews.it
US urges Lebanon to implement UN resolution on Hezbollah-Khaleej Times

Lebanese MPs summoned to Syria
Walid Jumblatt is one of the main figures in Lebanon's anti-Syrian camp
Lebanon's attorney general has confirmed receiving warrants summoning two prominent Lebanese MPs to appear before a military court in Syria. The MPs are Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and telecoms minister Marwan Hamade.
Reports say Mr Jumblatt, a key member of the anti-Syrian camp in Lebanon, is accused by Damascus of "inciting against Syria". A third man, Lebanese journalist Fares Khashan, has also been summoned to appear before a Syrian Military court.
Outspoken critics Mr Jumblatt is an outspoken critic of Syria. He has recently accused the Syrian government of "taking part in terrorism", and on Thursday offered to help exiled Syrian opposition groups work towards a "democratic and free" Syria.
Mr Hamade was the target of a failed assassination attempt in 2004. It is not known who was behind the attack.
Mr Khashan is a regular critic in the Lebanese press of the Syrian government and its supporters inside Lebanon. According to the Lebanon's National News Agency, he is currently outside Lebanon. BBC Arabic Service correspondent in Beirut, Nada Abdul Samad, says the warrants issued against the three men are seen as part of the struggle in Lebanon between pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian factions in Lebanon. The killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a truck bombing on 14 February 2005 prompted huge street protests and the withdrawal of Syrian forces stationed in Lebanon.
Damascus denies any involvement in the assassination

Iran and Two International Resolutions
Walid Choucair Al-Hayat - 05/05/06//
It is no coincidence that discussions have become heated with regard to the international stance on the UN's draft resolution regarding Syria, intertwining with the ongoing discussion to reach an international resolution about the Iranian file. The UN's draft resolution intends to force Syria to carry out certain demands, which are viewed as inevitable by major Western countries (especially the US, France and Britain) based on UN Resolution 1559. The international resolution regarding the Iranian nuclear file would force Tehran to respond to the international demands under chapter 7 of the UN charter.
Deliberations on the nuclear file deal with Iran within the context of the Western countries' pursuance to retrieve Iran's nuclear file from the scope of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The deliberations on the draft resolution with regard to Lebanon and Syria were not different from those regarding Iran's role in this issue. In other words, the European-American attempt to dismantle or neutralize the Iranian role in Lebanon, taking into consideration Iran's effect which caused Syria to take a fixed stance in response to the Lebanese dialogue's vision of the normalization of relations between Lebanon and Syria.
Concerning the Iranian nuclear file, the US and the European countries seek to obtain a resolution that provides several options for tackling the issue. The resolution will either be a catalyst to negotiate with Tehran in order to reach a diplomatic solution regarding its possession of nuclear energy, or it will be a launchpad for imposing sanctions and preparing for a military option later.
The European-American consensus is still confined to negotiations and diplomatic solutions (based on adopting immoderate stances with the Iranian side) and has not reached the military option yet.
The Iranian nuclear file resolution aims to deny the Iranian-Syrian alliance's use of Lebanon in negotiations with Western countries, by taking initiative again in Lebanon - beginning with the weakening of the political entity which emerged after the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. This entity is independent from the Syrian hegemony, which Damascus wants to regain, over the Lebanese authority.
It has now become clear that Tehran intends to keep the Lebanese trump card for its confrontation on the nuke file. During the past months, Tehran exerted exceptional efforts to reinstall the Syrian presence in Lebanon, and even declared its support for President Emile Lahoud during the March 14 Forces' campaign to overthrow him. Iran also headed those who doubted the international investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Elements of correlation regarding the Iranian role in the draft resolution may not be plain in the text, but signs of this correlation between this role in Lebanon and the nuclear file are clear.
For example, Washington's obsessiveness regarding Tehran's intention to possess nuclear energy relied on the assessment of some influential Arab countries, especially those which are concerned with the consequences of Iran's success in producing a nuclear bomb (and their fear of it), in order to determine steps of its political movement against this prospect and its military repercussions in the future.
These steps include reporting the problem to the UN. Washington also relied on the Arab assessment concerning its move to enforce Resolution 1559, and forcing Syria to honor its obligations mentioned in the resolution. This Arab assessment adopted the resolution declared by the National Dialogue Conference which was held on the sidelines of the Arab summit in Khartoum, where the influential Arab countries held that Syria had to respond to what the Lebanese had agreed to.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke frankly about one of its items when he called upon Syria to draw up a map that includes Shebaa Farms in a bid to end the borders demarcation issue.
The draft resolution on the nuclear file may not touch on Iran's role in Lebanon, but it may suffice to mention its rejection of foreign intervention.
The report outlined by the UN Secretary-General's representative (who is in charge of following up the implementation of Resolution 1559), pointed, for the first time, to Iran's authority on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Tehran scored a success in its political confrontation with Western countries, when Russia and China announced their rejection of these countries' warnings to impose sanctions based on Resolution 1559. Iran and Syria gained Moscow and Beijing's rejections of a resolution that would force Syria to implement what the National Dialogue Conference had decided; under the pretext that it was an intervention in the two countries' bilateral relations and Lebanon's domestic affairs.
But Tehran lost the European stance in the two draft resolutions concerning the implementation of Resolution 1559. The European countries played a role in preventing the Secretary-General's previous reports from containing some remarks that were already mentioned in these report's drafts on the Iranian role in Lebanon.
This probably means that Iran has lost the support of a Lebanese power that played a role in erasing any signal to the Iranian role in Lebanese domestic affairs; but this time it refrained from playing…

On the Eve of International Maneuvers on Iran, Syria, Hamas and Lebanon
Raghida Dergham Al-Hayat - 05/05/06//
New York - The American diplomacy in the UN started to break away from the consensus limit sought by members of the Security Council when dealing with major and thorny issues, since reaching a consensus restricts the US' options and extends the lingering drive.
The foreign ministers' meeting in New York early next week will be of paramount importance, not only regarding the issues to be dealt with - Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Israel. The meeting gains further importance as far as bilateral relations are concerned, as between the US and Russia, and Washington and Beijing
The ministers could test one another to the farthest limits of diplomacy; a matter which gives rise to a new strategy that is not only based on breaking consensus, but respecting differences in priorities and interests as well.
The output of the new approach is not clear yet. It could push for adamant defiance or helpless flexibility.
The clear point is that the positions of Iran, Syria and the Hamas-led government play a key role in the positions to be adopted by Russia and China in the face of the new Anglo-French-backed US strategy. It is certainly the onset of a confrontation.
The oil, economic and strategic interests are steering the Russian and Chinese policy toward Iran, not Syria.
China hardly deals with the Lebanese and Syrian issues, as well as the Palestinian one, except when the need arises; but it stands at the helms when it comes to the Iranian file.
Russia, too, is placing Iran in a category far from that of Syria, which is, to some Russians, the last foothold for them in the Arab region. But Iran is the big players' game, presently and strategically.
There is a Russian impulse in the Security Council to provide cover and protection for Syria, and to fend off pressures regarding its relations with Lebanon, albeit at certain limits.
Russia and China seem to be unable to spare Syria from accountability, because the Security Council resolutions, starting with 1559, have put the Syrian-Lebanese relations under an international scrutiny and brought them out of their unnoticed hiding place.
Every now and then, the Russian diplomacy tries to reopen some pending issues like border demarcation and diplomatic ties between the two countries to the bilateral spotlight on the grounds that the Security Council has nothing to do with it.
Sovereignty and the need to respect it are matters that are hard for Moscow to object to.
Damascus' agitated stands regarding the border demarcation and establishment of relations with Lebanon, clash with the Lebanese consensus and defy what UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for in his report about the implementation of Resolution 1559.
Syria's position weakens Russia's reasons to provide a protective shield for Syria against international pressures.
Perhaps that is why it would be anything but easy for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to give instructions about the use of the veto against a draft resolution compelling Syria to cooperate with the Lebanese government to meet halfway with the Lebanese consensus.
Lavrov, however, could give instructions to abstain from voting, which in its turn would be very embarrassing for the Russian diplomacy.
Russia, specifically Lavrov, is fully aware of what the Syrian positions signify, as well as their reasons and objectives.
Accordingly, abstaining from voting or voting against a draft that calls for Syria's government to cooperate with the Lebanese government to implement the national dialogue resolutions would be like a Russian go-ahead for the Syrian reluctnace in recognizing the independence of Lebanon and respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
China would walk in Russia's footsteps on the draft resolution pertaining to borders and exchange of ambassadors.
Some elected members would abstain from voting, particularly if Qatar, the only Arab member in the UN Security Council, did. Qatar might abstain just because it is Qatar. Moreover, the resolutions issued by the recent Arab summit in Khartoum have not been firm regarding the consolidation of Lebanon's independence.
The US-Anglo-French diplomacy has found in the Lebanon file what it found in the Iranian one: there is no way UNSC members are unanimous over this juncture.
Perhaps this diplomacy did not waste time working on a statement calling for unanimity. It headed straight toward a draft resolution to be voted upon.
It was nearly the case with Iran. This trio did not take too long trying to convince the Chino-Russian camp to approve a draft resolution by virtue of Chapter 7 to force Iran to yield.
The US-Anglo-French trio moved directly, after a brief meeting with the Chinese and Russians, to offer elements for a resolution in the UNSC before its 15 members to make a point: cut short any procrastination and bring Iran under Chapter 7.
Eventually, the US-backed Anglo-French draft resolution would give Iran another chance and extend its deadline to respond to the demands of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The draft draws the Persian state's attention that its inflexibility would lead to unspecified measures while its response would remove scenarios of forced submission from US and European options.
The Chinese-Russian duet objects to having Iran come under the binding Chapter 7 that grants the right of using different kinds of pressures to impose implementation on nations, including economic sanctions and military actions.
It is true that the draft under discussion neither mentions any sanctions, nor demands the UNSC to take any measures; at the same time, it is not a compulsory resolution, according to the US-Anglo-French diplomacy, as it is void of any language of threats.
The battle between the trio and the duet, the five permanent members in the UNSC, is a profound and critical one in the Iranian affair.
So far, the five nations, with Germany aboard, have invested all efforts in search of a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis with Iran, and to lure it into implementing the IAEA's requests to stop its uranium enrichment operations.
The luring goes along with masked threats of the consequences of defiance and obstinacy, in various ways.
Deadlines and more chances are only one of those ways the trio wants to use with Iran.
Tehran, however, is the party that shapes the trio's steps to come. If it responded, would help the Chino-Russia duet stand up against punitive measures, but if it continued disregarding the IAEA demands, it would help the trio corner the duet.
Iran would rank high on the ministerial meetings' agenda, not only through the discussions about the means to rein in its nuclear ambitions, but also to block its regional ambitions.
The ministers might not openly discuss the concerns about Iranian retaliation for measures taken against it, but they would certainly deal with Iran's roles in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.
Intellectual circles discuss the options available versus expectations of a different kind of campaign of sabotage and terror, if ever the US resorted to the military option with Iran.
Iraq bleeds profusely today with the ghost of civil war overshadowing the oil-rich country, which would have serious consequences over the region as a whole.
Iraq is a playfield for devastation and terrorism, but it could develop into an Iranian vendetta against the US troops there, in response to any American military action against Iran.
What those circles are discussing is the impact of a confrontation with Iran on the war on terror, expecting a fresh campaign of terrorism leading to more terror than that of al-Qaeda network, like the ruining of economic infrastructures.
They believe that instruments in the region, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine and Syria, are disposable and not of radical importance in Iranian calculations.
Hamas will also be discussed next week during the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quartet, which comprises the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.
The economic crisis brought about by the election of Hamas to run the Palestinian Authority represents a goliath burden on Hamas itself, not just on the Palestinian people.
Consequently, Hamas must comply with some necessary demands, with the approaching meeting of the Quartet that urged Hamas, which are: to honor the previously-signed agreements, renounce violence, and recognize Israel.
The Islamic Resistance Movement seems to be easing toward the direction of the Arab initiative issued by the Beirut summit, which recognized Israel and supported a solution for the two states based on the 1967 borders.
As it may seem, Hamas has started to realize that Iran may not be an appealing option and that the Palestinian people may not after all want an alliance with Iran, regardless of the deluded emotion that considers Iran's possession of nuclear weapons a useful tool in the face of Israel's.
In the case of military confrontation with Iran, some Arab countries will not remain neutral. Some of them will even side with the US against Iran.
If indications and pledges from Hamas are sent to the Quartet in New York during the next few days to assert its wish to normalize ties with the Quartet, then it will have to break free from Iran's bosom and take the active Arab parties as supporters.
By doing this, Hamas would, first of all, help the Palestinian people and then help itself. However, if it opted for the opposite direction, it would have decided where to stand in the Iran-led axis of Syria, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian factions active in Syria and Lebanon.
The parties in this axis will be prominent on the agenda of the foreign ministers' talks in New York when discussing the Lebanon-Syria file, the draft resolution which concerns implementing Resolution 1559.
Most probably, the overlapping drafts on Iran and Lebanon would lead to some correlation concerning the inclusion or omission of Iran and Hezbollah in the Lebanese plan.
The UN secretary general's report has placed Iran's role in Lebanon on the official negotiating table in the UN for the first time, holding both Syria and Iran responsible for the success or failure of the Lebanese consensus, due to their constant interference in Lebanon's internal affairs and their refusal to recognize the independence of Lebanon and respect its sovereignty.
The UNSC could insist on the need to respect the Lebanese sovereignty and demarcate the borders between Lebanon and Syria, as the latter acts as a link between Hezbollah and Iran.
These issues now depend on the outcome of the talks between the foreign ministers next week.
They are not ordinary diplomatic meetings. Rather, they are negotiations among the 'big members' over who would be allowed to aspire to join the nuclear club, how national interests could intersect with the duties of maintaining international peace and security and limits of patience versus provocations and overt threats of direct and indirect terrorism.

Putting the squeeze on Syria
By David Schenker
Originally published May 5, 2006
WASHINGTON // Reports from Syria indicate that President Bashar Assad is engaged in a systematic crackdown on his opposition.
The good news is that Syria may be feeling the pressure of U.S. efforts to promote reform in the world's last Baathist regime, including a promised $5 million to pro-democracy groups.
The bad news is that the crackdown shows that despite U.S. efforts, Mr. Assad still feels confident enough to strong-arm his opponents. Washington has been pursuing a policy of pressuring Damascus since 2002, when it became clear that Syria was helping Saddam Hussein in his looming fight with the United States. Initially, the Bush administration was stunned by Mr. Assad's audacity. When jihadis flowing into Iraq from Syria started to kill U.S. troops after the war began, the frustration turned to anger.
After senior Bush administration officials tried and failed several times to persuade Mr. Assad to curtail his support for the anti-U.S. insurgents, Washington implemented an incremental policy of pressure, starting with the signing of the 2003 Syria Accountability Act. But the policy kicked into high gear after the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a crime for which Syria is considered the leading suspect.
Since the Hariri killing, several key Syrian government figures have been designated as supporters of terrorism, among them Mr. Assad's brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, the director of military intelligence.
On March 9, the Treasury Department implemented the final order for Patriot Act sanctions against the Central Bank of Syria, mandating that U.S. banks sever all correspondent accounts with the Syrian bank.
U.S. rhetoric on Syria also has been strong. In early April, for example, the administration condemned Syria for continuing to "interfere in the Lebanese political process and intimidate the Lebanese people."
Is the policy of financial sanctions and tough language working? The answer is mixed. While the pressure is clearly having some effect, there is little sign that it has succeeded in compelling the regime to change its behavior regarding Iraq, Lebanon and general support for terrorism.
Maintaining momentum to compel behavior change has proved a challenge. Initially, the process stalled because of some grudging Syrian cooperation in the fight against al-Qaida. Then the pressure eased when Washington and Damascus discussed security on the Iraqi border. In late 2005, additional measures were put on hold to avoid prejudicing the publication of the U.N. report on the investigation into the Hariri murder.
The Hariri investigation illustrates the momentum problem. Publication of the first U.N. report in October 2005 implicated Syria in the killing, turning up the heat. The second report, published in December, was more circumspect. (The same day the document was published, anti-Syrian Lebanese parliamentarian Gibran Tueni was assassinated in Beirut).
Lebanese politics since the withdrawal of Syrian troops last year also has buoyed the Assad regime. In the beginning, the Cedar Revolution gave rise to hopes that the Lebanese finally would work together to rebuild their country's political system and evict the remaining vestiges of Syrian occupation. But petty infighting and parochial interests have interfered, with Syrian allies and agents reaping the benefit.
All of this is good news for Mr. Assad's regime. The Syrians believe time is on their side. If they can wait just two more years, President Bush will be counting his final days in office and Washington's surprising ally in the anti-Assad coalition - French President Jacques Chirac - will have been replaced. Mr. Assad hopes for more sympathetic U.S. and French administrations.
For Washington, now is the time for a full-court press. The pressure strategy is working but requires some additional international - particularly European - assistance. Only with a fully joint U.S.-European approach can a tough policy toward Syria have a chance of success. To get the Europeans on board, Washington will have to convince key European capitals that behavior change - and not regime change - is the true policy goal.
Given how much other pressing issues - Iraq and Iran, to name just two - will crowd out the trans-Atlantic agenda, this is the only way to gain European confidence about Washington's true intentions. So long as America does not sell out the potential for a home-grown democratic reform movement to emerge as a result of the pressure strategy, Washington should be open to European ideas on pressing Mr. Assad for changing his problematic behavior.
Regrettable as it may be, without the Europeans, the U.S. efforts to promote change in Syria will remain on the right course but not cross the finish line.
**David Schenker, a former adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Syria and Lebanon, is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His e-mail is dschenker@washingtoninstitute.org.

Nasrallah slams March 14 Forces for 'provoking Damascus'
05-05-2006
By Raed El Rafei-BEIRUT, Daily Star:
Hizbullah's chief lashed out at the March 14 Forces Thursday, saying they did not really want to demarcate Lebanon's borders with Syria "but are just looking to disarm Hizbullah."
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who has headed Hizbullah since 1992, criticized the Parliament majority for refusing to postpone the demarcation of the Shebaa Farms border until after its liberation and rejecting Syria's request to start the demarcation in the North and the Bekaa. Delivering a speech at the opening of an international book fair in Beirut's southern suburbs Thursday, he said that the issue of the sand-berms, which were erected by Syria in Ras Baalbek and Ersal, was an old issue "totally made up" by the March 14 Forces to cause tension with the Syrians. "I object that problems with Syria over border issues be qualified as a new Shebaa Farms," he said, adding that this comparison was "shameful."
Nasrallah was referring to statements made by acting Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat, who said Tuesday following a central security meeting with Premier Fouad Siniora that Syria had erected military posts and sand barricades inside Lebanese territory. Hizbullah's leader said the March 14 Forces were "provoking Damascus and creating silly problems daily," accusing them of failing to abide by the decisions of the national dialogue, which called for good relations with Syria.
The leaders of the country have agreed over the past few months to demarcate borders and establish diplomatic relations with Syria. The next national dialogue session, which will be held on May 16, will discuss the more controversial issues of the presidency and Hizbullah's arms.
Nasrallah also voiced his support for the country's unions and syndicates and added that Hizbullah would participate in the demonstrations that the unions have called for on May 10, if the government failed to meet their demands.
He criticized the economic reform plan, presented recently by Siniora's team to the Cabinet, for reducing cultural and educational matters to figures. He said that education should be a priority in the government's policies.
A five-year economic reform plan was put to the government by Siniora for discussion before endorsement.
Commenting on regional issues, Hizbullah defended Iran's right to acquire and export nuclear power for peaceful purposes and accused the United States, Britain and France of "monopolizing knowledge" in the world.
"The knowledge of dancing ... and singing ... is acceptable ... but acquiring the knowledge or technology of enriching uranium for peaceful energy purposes is banned for Arabs, Persians and Turks," he said.
"It is only allowed for Anglo-Saxons, and I do not know why the French are joining them," he said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=24189

Terrorism Still Iran's Most Feared Trump Card
By MARC PERELMAN
May 5, 2006
A senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards warned this week that any strike against his country by the United States would be met with a severe missile attack against Israel. History suggests, however, that Tehran's most menacing threat is its vow to carry out retaliatory terrorist strikes against American interests around the world.
In comments last week, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Tehran would "give a double response to any strike." "The Americans should know that if they launch an assault against Islamic Iran, their interests in every possible part of the world will be harmed," said Khamenei, who has the last word on security and foreign policy issues in Iran.
Indeed, the mullah regime does boast a record of international terrorist action spanning from Lebanon to Saudi Arabia to Europe to South America, and could reactivate its sprawling network of operatives in the event of American military strikes against its nuclear facilities. Iran has not been linked to major terrorist attacks in the past decade. But the regime's vow to strike back, combined with media reports of Iran's training of suicide bomber squads and renewed ties with senior terrorist operatives, has fueled concern that Iran might attempt to hurt more than American interests in the Gulf or in neighboring Iraq.
"Iran is very capable of carrying out several deathly terrorist strikes," said Daniel Benjamin, a counterterrorism official at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. Benjamin is now a senior fellow at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies "If they are in a retaliatory mode, the constraint that they had in the [past] decade would not be there anymore."
In addition to using Iranian government intelligence services and paramilitary forces like the Revolutionary Guards and the Bassijis, Tehran could preserve some deniability by acting through proxies, first and foremost Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"Iran has multiple options for employing terrorism," said Paul R. Pillar, the recently retired top CIA official in charge of the Middle East. Pillar is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University. "Their own operatives, particularly in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, constitute one such option. Allies and surrogates would be another. Premier among those is Hezbollah, which retains its close alliance with Iran and probably would still retaliate on behalf of Tehran even though it is far more self-sufficient now than it was when Iran helped to organize it in the 1980s."
In 1983 Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241, and in 1996 Saudi Hezbollah, allegedly directed by Iran, bombed Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. soldiers. The Clinton administration retaliated for the Khobar Towers bombing by exposing Iranian intelligence operatives around the world, prompting Tehran to stop targeting Americans, according to a 2004 report in USA Today recently confirmed in an article by former American antiterrorism officials Richard Clarke and Steven Simon.
Germany accused Iran of fomenting an attack on Kurdish opponents in the early 1990s; Argentina accused the country of ordering the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Argentinean investigators have long argued, and Israeli officials recently acknowledged, that the attack, which killed 85 people, was retaliation for an Israeli operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In recent years, several reports of Iranian casing of Jewish institutions have emerged in Britain and in Canada, and senior Israeli officials have raised concerns repeatedly that different terrorist groups were planning attacks against Jewish targets. No indication has emerged that Iran or Hezbollah was involved in strikes in recent years against Jewish sites in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco, which were blamed on Al Qaeda and affiliated groups.
In addition to its network of intelligence cadres posted at worldwide embassies, Iran has a footprint in the United States. In recent years, Iranian diplomats working for the United Nations mission in New York City have been expelled for allegedly casing the subway and other potential targets; Iranians have been deported on visa violations because of their ties to various Iranian security services. Moreover, several alleged Hezbollah operatives have been arrested, most prominently members of two smuggling rings in North Carolina and Michigan.
This past March, nine men were arrested in the Detroit area for reportedly smuggling cigarettes, Viagra pills, toilet paper and baby formula. That same month, FBI director Robert Mueller told a Congressional panel that his agency busted a Hezbollah smuggling ring that had operatives cross the Mexican border to carry out possible terrorist attacks inside the United States. Terrorism experts estimate that Hezbollah raises $20 million to $30 million a year through criminal activities in America.
Michael Rubin, an Iran expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who recently worked for the Pentagon, said that Hezbollah could easily use those networks to carry out terrorist attacks.
Last week, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported that eight fundamentalist Islamist groups had received large sums of money in the past month from Iran's intelligence services as part of a project to strike American military and economic installations across the Middle East, as well as the interests of British, Arab and Muslim allies. The paper, which is owned by Saudis, cited a senior source in the Iranian joint chief of staff as describing a series of visits by leaders of groups in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, as well as by the heads of Hezbollah cells in the Persian Gulf, Europe and North America. The article also described weapons shipments to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and to Hezbollah, and contended that about 80 operatives underwent training to carry out suicide operations from the air and undersea. According to the source, in case the American military attacks continue, more than 50 Shehab-3 missiles will be targeted against Israel. Revolutionary Guards would be given the go-ahead for more than to allow more than 50 terrorists cells in Canada, the United States and Europe to attack civil and industrial targets in those countries.
A few weeks ago, London's Sunday Times reported that firebrand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had held a January meeting in Damascus with the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah's overseas operations, Imad Mugniyah, the man generally assumed to coordinate the group's terrorist attacks. The topic was reportedly to discuss retaliation against Western targets in the event of any strike by the United States on Iran's nuclear facilities, the article stated, citing American and Israeli sources. The same paper had earlier reported that the Revolutionary Guards had trained 40,000 suicide bombers to strike in Britain and the United States if Iran's nuclear facilities were attacked, and also cited a Guard official as saying that 29 Western targets had been identified.

Rice Wants To Discuss The Situation In Lebanon With Her French Counterpart
May 4, 2006 7:11 p.m. EST
Som Patidar - All Headline News Contributor
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes to meet with her French counterpart in New York next week to discuss current happening in Lebanon, a U.S. official said on Thursday, according to a report.
Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister P. Douste-Blazy scheduled to participate a meeting of world’s top diplomats on Iran’s controversial nuclear program in New York on Monday.
McCormack, spokesman of U.S.’s state department said, “We're going to talk to the French government about Lebanon issue." He further added, “We've worked very well together on this issue, and we look forward to doing so in the future," according to a report. **John Hillen, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs, who is visiting Lebanon to discuss a number of security issues with top Lebanese officials and is expected to leave Friday, reports The Daily Star.

Shia of Lebanon emerge from poverty to face charges of overstepping their powers
By Roula Khalaf
Published: May 5 2006 03:00 | Last updated: May 5 2006 03:00
The newly built stone mansions in the village of Kfar Jos symbolise the changing fortunes of Lebanon's Shia community, the country's largest minority sect.
Nestling at the edge of the town of Nabatiye, known as the Shia capital of southern Lebanon, Kfar Jos's landscape has been transformed by a wave of immigrants who brought home part of the wealth earned in Africa and America.
At Nabatiye town hall, officials say almost every family in this part of the Lebanon has a member working abroad, their remittances helping to lift the living standards of one of the country's most deprived regions. They proudly list the social and economic achievements, including the establishment of 16 bank branches, five hospitals and more than 15 schools.
Signs of the Shia community's political empowerment are visible too, with posters of revered political chiefs plastered all over town and in surrounding villages.Among them is the late Musa Sadr, the charismatic leader who was the first, in the 1970s, to assert the Shia's political rights and fight discrimination by the then dominant Sunni Muslims and Christian Maronites.
Even more prominent are the pictures of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, chief of Hizbollah, the largest and most powerful Shia party, considered a terrorist organisation in the US but widely seen in the Arab world as a legitimate resistance group.
The Islamist movement's long war of attrition with Israel, which ended with an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, underlined the Shia's nationalism and cemented their role in the Lebanese state.
"The Shia were the poorest, they weren't well educated, and many of them were unskilled workers in Beirut," says Ali Fayad, director of the Beirut-based Consultative Center for Studies and Documentation, a research institute affiliated with Hizbollah. "Change for the southern Shia community came with migration, with political organisation, and with the Shia revival everywhere after the 1979 Iranian revolution."
But the forceful assertion of political rights has recently become a source of controversy. Shia parties face accusations of overstepping their powers and using the backing of Syria and Iran to impose their will on other communities.
In a country of less than 4m people, more than a dozen different sects and a history of civil war (in the 1970s and 1980s) no one knows the precise size of every religious community. The Shia, however, are now thought to be at least as numerous - probably more so - as the Sunni Muslims, with the once dominant Christians, most of them Maronites, now considered far fewer than Muslims.
Under the 1989 Taef accords that ended Lebanon's civil war, power was more evenly divided among the three main sects, with the Shia represented in the powerful position of speaker of parliament. But the civil harmony, always fragile, was shattered just over a year ago, when the country's Sunni leader and former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in Beirut.
Most Christians and Sunni Lebanese rose in revolt against Syria, which then controlled Lebanese politics and was blamed for the killing, forcing the departure of Syrian troops in April 2005.
Shia parties - Hizbollah and the more secular Amal movement - were caught in the middle. Hizbollah in particular has come under pressure from both Damascus and Tehran (its even stronger backer) to stand against the pro-western and anti-Syrian forces in the country. And it has resisted demands from the United Nations - and from some Lebanese parties - to dismantle its military wing.
But continued Shia backing for Damascus has prompted anti-Syrian politicians to question Shia parties' loyalty to Lebanon and to accuse Hizbollah of using its military power to gain political leverage.
"The Shia feel threatened but there is no real threat. They're the only ones who are armed," says a Christian politician. "They feel like a besieged minority but the others see them as a dominant minority and a threatening minority." Hizbollah officials say the party's weapons would never be used against other Lebanese and insist they are as attached to civil peace as any other political party.
Other Shia religious and political leaders, meanwhile, have been stressing that the community's allegiance is only to Lebanon.
"The Shia . . . do not want to replace Lebanon for any other country and they will not accept that they be ruled by Iran or Syria. They co-ordinate with Syria and Iran on issues that they believe in, exactly in the same way that others co-ordinate with America or France," says Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's top Shia cleric. "Why is the intervention of the US, through the American ambassador, and that of the French, considered 'independence' but the help of other countries considered 'occupation'?"
But the polarisation of Lebanese politics has alarmed regional governments, already troubled by the Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq. Saudi Arabia is said to have warned Sunni leaders to avoid confrontation with the Shia at all cost.
All sides were reminded of the risk of sectarian violence last month when security forces foiled a plot to assassinate the Hizbollah chief. The would-be killers were said to be a group of Sunni extremists.

U.S. weighs new anti-Syria resolution at U.N.
Front page / World -05/05/2006 00:43 Source:
The United States may push for a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria in hopes of reinforcing existing council demands for that country to respect Lebanese sovereignty, a senior official said Thursday.
As before, the United States has been in close touch with France on the issue. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is tentatively planning to raise the subject next week in New York with French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.
Syria's refusal to open an embassy in Beirut is a sign that Syria has yet to accept Lebanese sovereignty, said the official, asking not to be identified because no final decisions have been made on future U.S. actions at the U.N.
A resolution adopted by the Security Council in September 2004 calls for strict respect for Lebanon's sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence under Lebanese government authority, repoorts AP.

FEATURE-Old Damascus attracts capital, will charm survive?
05 May 2006 01:02:00 GMT
By Rasha Elass-DAMASCUS, May 5 (Reuters) - Majed al-Sabah has big hopes for "the street called straight" in Damascus' Old City -- the part-owner of Syria's first designer clothes store thinks this road will one day become a must-visit spot for monied shoppers.
Sabah and his partners poured around $1 million into their Villa Moda store to restore an authentic look of stone walls and arabesque arches -- joining a wave of individual investors putting money into bricks and mortar in the Old City.
But while some of this money is recreating the former glory of the United Nations World Heritage site, there are fears that unbridled, unsupervised building could do more harm than good.
The new investment is driven by a rise in real estate prices and tentative moves to lessen restrictions on business after decades of state control in the socialist country.
Municipality officials say applications for restoration licences have increased tenfold in recent years. More than 70 old houses have been turned into restaurants and bars in the maze-like alleys where wires poke from walls and second floors lean at precarious angles.But some residents fear the absence of a master plan, lax zoning laws and investors' desire to make a quick profit could damage one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities.
There have been successes -- a renowned hotel, restored second homes and the designer store, Villa Moda. But there is also a Wild West feel to some of the development.
Residents of one neighbourhood recently complained to authorities about a well-connected investor who built a concrete second floor on top of a centuries-old house he had bought to convert into a business.
"The inspectors withdrew as soon as his guards came out brandishing AK-47 rifles," one neighbour said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He ruined the house and the skyline with impunity."
POLITICS AND POTENTIAL
In Beirut, billions of dollars in private and government capital helped rebuild the city centre after the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. But although individuals are investing in Damascus, the funds are nowhere near as plentiful.
And now, politics has dampened investor enthusiasm with some financiers reluctant to finish projects since the United States imposed sanctions on Syria in 2004 for what it said was the country's support for terrorism.
Syria is also in the international dock because of its alleged role in the killing of a Lebanese former prime minister.
For some, the relative slowdown offers opportunity: Youssef Takla, a Syrian expatriate, invested $3 million to turn an old house into a luxury hotel with an ornate wooden entrance in the Jewish quarter, where a Syrian Jewish community once thrived.
"You have to invest when the weather is bad because when everything is superb things will be expensive," Takla said.
For Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, the Old City has vast potential. "I think 'the street called straight' will be converted to the new Bond Street in Syria," he said, referring to a central London street studded with designer stores.
Many businessmen would disagree, pointing to the government's reluctance to open the retail sector to foreign competition, with import licences mainly granted to those close to the ranks of political power.
SHORTAGE OF SKILLS
"The street called straight", where tradition says Saul stayed at the house of Judas over 2,000 years ago, illustrates what needs to be done to preserve the Old City, but also what can go wrong. The street is dotted with hundreds of alcoves with cement ceilings where vendors sell everything from nuts to wooden boxes decorated with mother-of-pearl. A row of buildings on top of the shops collapsed years ago and municipality workers only recently began to clear the rubble.
Mowafaq Doghman, head of the Old Damascus municipality, said inexperienced developers and a shortage of craftsmen sometimes led to dubious restorations. "One of the challenges facing Old Damascus is its weak infrastructure; plumbing, sewage, electricity and phone lines; restaurants have further weakened it," said Doghman.
Restoration can work, but it requires lots of cash. In the Christian quarter, La Mamlouka boutique hotel was opened barely a year ago, and already it has won rave reviews from international travel magazines.
The owner kept the feel of the original house: a narrow wooden door opens onto a courtyard with a fountain surrounded by an orange tree, a lemon tree, jasmine and grape vines. Overlooking the courtyard, there are two floors where the original family used to live. Each room costs at least $112 per night.
"First everyone thought I was crazy and that nothing would come of it, but now everyone is in a hurry to do the same," said May Mamarbachi, who spent $1 million with a partner to restore the 17th century house.
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis)

Beirut bombshell
The assassination of a former Prime Minister may have been linked to the collapse of Lebanon's Bank al-Madina.
By Mitchell Prothero, FORTUNE
May 4, 2006: 11:30 AM EDT
(FORTUNE Magazine) - Last year, when Syrian intelligence operatives were implicated in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, their motive seemed clear: to neutralize a political opponent of Syria's three-decade occupation of Lebanon.
But United Nations investigators and other sources have told FORTUNE there may have been an additional reason for the hit. The February 2005 car bombing in Beirut, the sources say, may have been partly intended to cover up a corruption and bank fraud scandal that siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars to top Syrian and Lebanese officials.
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assasinated in February of 2005.
Bank documents, court filings, and interviews with investigators and other sources show that some of the officials were deeply involved from the late 1990s until early 2003 in a kickback scheme that supplied them with cash, real estate, cars, and jewelry in exchange for protecting and facilitating a multibillion-dollar money laundering operation at Lebanon's Bank al-Madina that allowed terrorist organizations, peddlers of West African "blood diamonds," Saddam Hussein, and Russian gangsters to hide income and convert hot money into legitimate bank accounts around the world.
Despite efforts to cover up the details surrounding the bank's collapse in early 2003, these sources say, the Syrian and Lebanese officials allegedly involved in the fraud feared that Hariri could return to power and reveal their role in one of the biggest illegal banking operations in the Middle East since the Bank of Credit & Commerce International scandal in the early 1990s.
"Was the scandal part of the reason Hariri was killed?" asks Marwan Hamade, Lebanon's Minister of Telecommunications and a Hariri confidant who was himself the target of a car-bomb assassination attempt. "Absolutely. It was certainly one of the cumulative reasons. If he had been reelected, Hariri would have reopened the file, which we know goes directly to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad through the [Lebanese] presidential palace in Baabda."
UN investigators looking into Hariri's death, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, became interested in the link to al-Madina on the suspicion that money stolen from the bank helped fund the plot, says a Lebanese security source who helped investigate the bank's collapse and later worked with the UN team. After reviewing some of the banking records of suspects in both Syria and Lebanon, says the source, who asked not to be identified as he isn't authorized to talk about the matter, the UN team started looking into whether at least some of the plotters were motivated by a desire to obscure their roles in the al- Madina affair.
"It goes all the way to the top people in Syria," the source says. Mehlis's reports on the assassination make reference to financial fraud as a possible motive.
"Fraud, corruption, and money laundering could have been motives for individuals to participate in the operation that ended with the assassination of Mr. Hariri," Mehlis wrote last December in his second report, referring specifically to the collapse of al-Madina.
Mehlis, who would not be interviewed, also mentioned in his report a taped conversation in which General Rustom Ghazali, Syria's top military official in Lebanon, accused Hariri of discussing Syrian corruption in a newspaper interview, apparently in violation of an agreement to remain quiet on the matter.
In late April, noting UN findings, President George W. Bush ordered a freeze on assets held in the U.S. by anyone involved in the assassination, though the order did not cite names.
As part of the power struggle that ensued after Assad extended the term of Lebanese President and Syrian ally Émile Lahoud in 2004, Hariri resigned as Prime Minister with the intention of running for Parliament on an anti-Syrian platform. Hariri confidants say that, once returned to power, he planned to reopen the investigation into the bank's collapse. The case file and a trove of supporting documents were sealed in the vault of Lebanon's Central Bank in 2003 after threats by Ghazali, who appears to have made millions of dollars from the scheme himself.
The Syrian occupation of Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 has long been viewed as a geopolitical move designed to stabilize its smaller neighbor after decades of civil war and create a bargaining chip in the Arab-Israeli conflict. But over time, the occupation turned into a moneymaking operation for Syrian elites and their Lebanese allies.
"When the Syrians came to Lebanon," says Adnan Araki, a former Lebanese member of Parliament and Syrian loyalist, "they wanted the Golan Heights back and considered Lebanon and Hezbollah something to bargain with. We had to teach them how to steal."
Investigators looking into the looting at Bank al-Madina got a break in March, when Brazilian police arrested Rana Koleilat, al-Madina's former executive secretary. Koleilat, who jumped bail in Lebanon last year and eluded an international manhunt, is believed to have played a key role in the bank scandal.
She is alleged in lawsuits brought by the bank's owners to have used false withdrawals and bogus loans to enrich her family and pay off authorities. Even as al-Madina failed, she is said by investigators to have extracted millions of dollars from owner Adnan Abou Ayyash, a construction magnate who lives in Saudi Arabia, through a series of wire transfers and check exchanges.
Koleilat denied the charges after her capture and said that the bank's owners had authorized all withdrawals and that Ghazali had blackmailed her into paying him for protection.
When the dust settled in the summer of 2003, after depositors were paid and assets liquidated, the Abou Ayyash family found itself about $1.5 billion poorer, a stunning turn of events for a Lebanese family that controlled a vast business empire.
But as Koleilat and the Abou Ayyash brothers sued and countersued, and the Central Bank grabbed whatever money was left to pay depositors, it became clear that no investigation would be forthcoming. The money was gone, and only questions remained, questions whose answers were locked away in a vault in the Central Bank.
In an interview last year, Central Bank governor Riad Salameh didn't deny reports that Ghazali had threatened him into closing the investigation. The general's family, records produced by the bank appear to show, got more than $32 million from al-Madina via transfers approved by Koleilat. But with a pro-Syrian Parliament and Justice Minister in place, then-Prime Minister Hariri was unable to force an investigation beyond the initial 2003 fraud claims.
It is only recently, a year after the departure of Syrian troops, that the bank files have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice for a proper investigation into how the money was stolen and who benefited from the bribes. Just a handful of bank documents have emerged, but they detail an impressive pattern of corruption and fraud on the part of Syrian political and security officials and their Lebanese allies.
Critical evidence of the extent of the money-laundering operation was unintentionally revealed during an investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to ensnare an arms dealer with ties to the Islamic resistance movement Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, which the U.S. and several other governments consider a terrorist organization.
In 2004, U.S. prosecutors charged Naji Antoine Abi Khalil with attempting to purchase and ship night-vision goggles and other military equipment from the U.S. to Hezbollah. Khalil's ties to al-Madina's money-laundering operations came to light when he bragged to agents and informants that he traveled the world picking up cash to be delivered to the bank on behalf of Hezbollah and Russian mobsters.
According to court papers, Khalil, who has since pleaded guilty, accepted $100,000 to launder from agents as part of a sting and told them the single biggest delivery he had made to the bank was $160 million in cash.
But those amounts pale when compared to the piles of cash laundered by Iraqi officials and their partners in illegally gaming the UN's oil-for-food program. Designed for humanitarian reasons to allow Iraq to sell oil through vouchers that could be used to purchase food and medicine, the program became a hotbed of corruption that Saddam and his loyalists used to earn illegal money. By the late 1990s, proceeds flooded the Middle East as favored allies of the regime received coupons good for oil purchases at lower-than-market prices.
Investigations into the program found rampant corruption on the part of UN officials, Middle Eastern government officials, and oil companies. The son of Lebanese President Lahoud was implicated, as were other prominent Lebanese and Syrian officials and businessmen. And al-Madina served as a place for them to hide the proceeds.
Several sources, including one alleged conspirator in the oil-for-food scandal, who refuses to let his name be used for legal and safety reasons, put the amount transferred and laundered through al-Madina at more than $1 billion, with a 25 percent commission going to Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies. The source says that among the recipients of this money were Bashar Assad's brother Maher and the head of military intelligence in Lebanon at the time, Ghazi Kanaan. (Kanaan committed suicide last October after Mehlis questioned him about the plot to kill Hariri.)
To protect this operation, Koleilat had developed a network of graft that shocked even a Lebanese society comfortable with questionable business dealings. She threw dinners where guests received Rolex watches, and she gave luxury cars to friends and officials. The graft was so widespread that one security official described the parking lot of his office during that era as a "Mercedes dealership."
Some bank records point to 155 pieces of real estate - villas, apartments, hotels, and condos - purchased or distributed by Koleilat and her brothers. The Koleilats also had five luxury yachts and as many as 194 cars and motorcycles, not including the gifts to friends, associates, and greedy officials.
Koleilat and the al-Madina plotters needed protection and sought out high-level officials who could help them, says a former employee of the Koleilat family who witnessed many of their dealings.
The source, who requested anonymity because the matter is still considered dangerous to discuss in Lebanon, says one of those was Jamil Sayeed, a former director of Lebanese internal security, since arrested on suspicion of plotting Hariri's murder. (Sayeed refused to comment.)
"Rustom Ghazali would receive money, cars, jewels, and hunting trips," the source says. "People used to come and wait in the office. The big shots would get checks; the lower people, like generals and officers, would get cash. This situation went much higher than Ghazali. It was a way for Maher Assad and others to profit from Lebanon and from the Iraq factor."
Several Syrian officials mentioned in the Mehlis reports can be tied to money from al-Madina by documents supplied to FORTUNE by the bank's owners. Ghazali's three brothers were issued four ATM cards linked to a fake account with a $2,000 daily limit for withdrawals, which they made each day from December 2002 to January 2003, according to one document. One of the four cards had a total yearly cash withdrawal of $8 million.
Ghazali's brother Mohammed also received a money transfer for $1,091,000 from the bank on Jan. 20, 2003. Investigators and lawyers for the bank's owners say that during these final months, Ghazali and other top officials decided that the bank's failure was inevitable and acted quickly to drain the remaining monies. One bank employee says that he witnessed Rustom Ghazali demanding a $300,000 payment just after the bank had been put under Central Bank management, a payment approved by regulators.
Among the 155 suspicious real estate transactions flagged by investigators is the transfer of an apartment valued at $2.5 million from the Koleilat family to a friend of Maher Assad's office manager - a transfer the bank's lawyers say they believe was intended to put it under Maher Assad's control. Lebanese political and security officials say that the sealed documents show far more money and property transferred to Maher.
"The entire file on Madina is now at the Ministry of Justice, except for the key parts that implicate Maher Assad, which are still being held in the Central Bank, because people are afraid of being killed over it," says Hamade, the Telecommunications Minister. "While there is not the same level of threats, the Syrian presence remains, and judges are very cautious about this case." (Efforts to reach Maher Assad and the Ghazalis for comment through several Syrian government agencies were unsuccessful.)
Other documents show transfers or transactions made by the bank to the benefit of Lahoud's son - allegations he refused to comment on - and to Lebanese security officials, including the four generals arrested last year on suspicion of participating in the plot to kill Hariri.
Current Finance Minister Jihad Azour, a friend of Hariri's, insists that only today, with Syrian troops out of the country, can Lebanon commit to a full investigation. And he believes fear of such an investigation drove some of the murderers.
"The risk of reopening the file could have led to this murder," Azour says. "Al-Madina reached the biggest people in Lebanon and Syria."
Azour says Hariri wanted to pursue an investigation into al-Madina and other cases of corruption and would have gone forward, even knowing the danger.
"Hariri wanted this file to reach its conclusion," Azour says. "He was concerned about the scandal's ramifications. It has a very negative impact on the status of the Lebanese banking system. And it's important that the case be treated in an extreme way to fix this perception."

A Candid Conversation With Dr. Walid Phares
Joseph Puder On Middle East
Special To The Evening Bulletin
04/11/2006
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Most people know Dr. Walid Phares as the Middle East commentator for MSNBC, NBC, Fox News, CBC, BBC, al-Jazeera, al-Hurra, and al-Arabiya. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, and professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University.
Dr. Phares was born in Beirut, obtained degrees in Law, and political science from St. Joseph University in Beirut. He earned his Masters degree in International Law from Lyons University and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Miami. His new book Future Jihad is on the top 12 best selling books on the Foreign Affairs magazine list.
Our recent conversation dealt with the issues raised by his new book Future Jihad and an assortment of broad Middle Eastern concerns.
Question: What motivated you to write Future Jihad and who is your intended audience for the book?
Answer: Future Jihad is the sum of two decades long research and interaction with the thinking of the Jihadist mind. Back in the 1980s, I had published a number of books and articles in Arabic out of Beirut on the war of ideas and the clash between the pluralist democratic thinking and the Jihadi ideologies. Already between 1979 and 1980, I witnessed and have been part of that war of ideas as I published my first book Pluralism followed by Democratic Dialogue. Both books exposed the rise of radical ideologies such as Baathism and Jihadism.
I wrote on the clash of civilization 14 years before Samuel Huntington. My message was basically a warning to the West that Jihadism is on the rise, and is going to hit America and the rest of the free world. In 1987, I published a book on the Iranian Islamic revolution warning of its expansionist trends.
When I relocated to the U.S. in 1990, I renewed my research and published a number of pieces, warning of the coming clash. At the time, I was analyzing a future jihad that in fact occurred on Sept. 11. After 9/11 I decided to publish a comprehensive book that would explain the strategies of the Jihadists, and their future plans. My objective with Future Jihad is to make a contribution in the education and information of the American public.
The deeper reason for the book is the fact that the academic elite misled American classrooms. It is very sad to see that throughout the 1990s, the Middle east Studies community ignored the real problems in the Middle east: democracy, dictatorship, minorities, fundamentalism, and chose instead to concentrate exclusively on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Our foreign policy suffered as a result, and we paid a great price on 9/11 and since.
Question: In Future Jihad you present the Jihadists plans against America and their future threat. You touch upon the dormant cells, and the role of the Mosques and the Islamic organizations in America. Has the US government done enough since 9/11 to forestall an attack, and are we winning the war against the Jihadists?
Answer: The Jihadists, as I argue in the book, are living off the dividends of Wahhabi activities within the US. This ideological influence was first propagated via Saudi Arabia since the 1973 Oil crisis. Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in America as part of a propaganda campaign to strengthen the Saudi influence in this country. But it was not limited to diplomatic influence. It quickly mutated into a full fledge infiltration of US universities and some media, in addition to organized lobby groups. The Jihadist influence in America is of two dimensions: One is public and militant, backed by the Wahhabi political influence and financial power. This track developed the ideological penetration of the country under its laws. It controls the overwhelming majority of the religious and social centers, hence it controls the political representation of the (Islamic) community within the US.
The other track is the Jihadi-terrorist, including al Qaida, but not exclusively. The network has a second generation in the making. A number of cells have been dismantled by government action. But the public remains the most important player in the homeland security strategy. If we increase public education about the Jihadists, the U.S. would be winning the war on terror in the long term. If the Jihadi ideological influence continues, chances for future strikes will increase.
From my personal observations, the pro-Jihadi current is still growing, and I assume recruiting, because the intellectual elite in this country is still blurring the vision of Americans. Imagine that pro-Wahhabi organizations are called upon to teach members of official institutions about the War on Terror and human rights!
Question: Iran poses an existential threat to Israel and a serious threat to the Arab Gulf States and the West, what courses of action do you propose in dealing with Iran? And, as a corollary, what prospect is there for Iranian minorities to bring down the regime?
Answer: The Iranian regime is above all a threat to the Iranian people, Persian and non-Persians as well. Since 1979, the Khumeinist regime massacred up to half a million people. The opposition is claiming a higher number. Human rights, particularly of women, youth and minorities have been reduced dramatically. In addition, the Teheran Mullahs have developed Hezbollah in Lebanon as a worldwide terror threat since the early 1980's. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas have formed an axis of Jihadism threatening democracy and peace in the region. That Axis targets not only Israel and the US, but the Gulf states as well. In the current escalation as a result of Ahmadinejad's quest for nuclear weapons, Iran and Hezbollah are posing a grave threat to the West, including the U.S., Europe, and moderate states in the Middle East.
A wise course of action to contain and roll back this threat would be to increase support to the democratic movements within Iran. However, the international community should also focus on Iran's capacity of preemptive strike against targets in the region, including Iraq, the Gulf, Lebanon and the West. The Hezbollah threat, as a military-terror force with global reach has to be addressed, probably prior to applying strategic measures against the Khumeinist nuclear threat.
The minorities in Iran are a very important factor. Arabs in Khuzestan, Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, and others are being suppressed by the regime. Along with the masses of students, women, and democratic forces, the international community should support this trans-ethnic coalition. In the long run, the people of Iran are the ones to create the change.
Question: Professors Walt and Mearsheimer's study titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" concluded that the Israel Lobby runs US foreign policy. To what extent do you think this anti-Israel document has been influenced by Saudi Prince al-Walleed's $20 million gift to Harvard University?
Answer: Wahhabi influence has infiltrated the US academic world, and Middle East Studies was taken over by pro-Wahhabi money, and grants. This resulted in increased levels of political anti-Semitism and anti-democracy trends in Middle Eastern Studies. The genocide in Sudan, the persecution of such minorities as the Kurds, Copts, Assyro-Chaldians, Berbers, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, the human rights abuses, and Middle East dictatorships were silenced as areas of study. Instead, Wahhabi influence concentrated solely on the Arab-Israeli conflict, taking one side in it. Hence, you can see the trends among many academicians who blame Israel for all the problems and ignore the massacres, bad governance, human right abuses. I am surprised that prestigious institutions such as Harvard and Georgetown are accepting millions of dollars from Wahhabi sources, five years after the massacres of New York and Washington.
Discussing the Middle East with Dr. Phares would be incomplete without addressing his native Lebanon and the recent Israeli and Palestinian elections. I also wanted to know if Lebanon's Christian community could reassert itself and whether Lebanon could sign a peace treaty with Israel in the foreseeable future?
"In 1990 Syria fully invaded Lebanon and controlled its politics and economy," he explained. "The Christian community was suppressed politically because of its resistance to the Syrian invasion since 1976. During the 1990s, Lebanese-Christians were subjected to significant pressures from Baathists and the Khumeinists. The politicians selected to represent the (Christian) community were Syrian appointed. The combined efforts by the Diaspora, the US and France resulted in the passing of UN Security Council resolution 1559 calling on Syria to withdraw. Assad pulled out his troops from Lebanon but left behind intelligence networks. The pro-Syrian president, and Hezbollah's terror networks are still confronting the Cedars revolution."
The international community must help Lebanon free itself from the remnant of Syrian domination and disarm the Hezbollah. "Lebanon," he said, "Will have to regain its independence as a condition to regulate its diplomatic relations with its neighbors, including Israel.
According to Phares the elected Hamas government has two choices: " it could recognize Israel and thus address the peace process, its economic situation, and its relations with the international community", or it could resume its alliance with the Iranian regime and form "part of the regional Jihadi axis" and join Iran and Syria in their confrontation with the international community.
The Kadima party victory in the Israeli elections that was based on its promises of unilateral withdrawal and definition of Israel's future borders "will have to," Phares posited, " take into consideration the global and regional war on terrorism and Hamas' response to these policies."
©The Evening Bulletin 2006


General Aoun :I’m doing my duty as an opposition figure, while they reply to our criticisms with insults, without providing proof for their assertions.
Those accused of corruption have an interest in seeing the dossiers opened so that their innocence may be proved
May 5 2006 Monday Morning
General Aoun justifies his hostile attitude to the Future Current and his polemic with Koreytem, noting that “it all started when they replied with insults to my interview with a TV station”.
In addition, the general holds against Saad Hariri the fact that “he has contempt for 70 percent of the Lebanese people” who support his candidacy for the Presidency.
“You can’t be silent in the face of insults. Rafik Hariri fell as a martyr, but as a martyr of Lebanon, not of his own family, which must not exploit his tragic end”.
And reproving the majority for its “dictatorship”, he accuses it of blocking the Constitutional Council. In addition, the general holds the Future Current responsible for the present difficult economic situation and repeated violations of democracy since 1992.
Would you accept a rival to your candidacy for the nation’s highest office?
You don’t ask a candidate a question like that, because he cannot transfer to another the confidence people have given to him.
The ‘March 14 forces’ responsible…
You are accused of carrying on your presidential campaign on the basis of the slogan “Me and no one else”…
I have at no time uttered such words. But there was an opinion poll which indicated that no less than 70 percent of the people supported my candidacy. It is this that the circles close to the Future Current contest or are unwilling to take account of.
Are all the “forces of March 14” opposed to your candidacy?
I have the impression that these forces comprise a single bloc responsible for the degradation of the situation in the country. They support one another, mutually, without giving any kind of accounting or balance sheet on their management of state affairs so that responsibilities might be determined.
Is the presidential issue the sole problem to be resolved?
The problem goes beyond the Presidency. There are big issues related to corruption that the Future Current has been covering up since it was created in 1992. Of course the Current fears the opening of these dossiers, for which it might be called to account.
Is the focus of the conflict between the Future Current and the FPM the mechanism to be adopted to build a modern state?
We represent the mentality of the state, while they represent that of a firm that they want to exploit for their own ends and interests. This presupposes the dismantling of state institutions. That’s the basis they’re acting on.
In the end the state will win out over the firm. We have from the beginning noted the family monopolization of all the institutions, beginning with the cell phone sector, which we again hear will be privatized, something which goes against the liberal economy.
For example, I can point out that the plans for reform are not aimed at reactivating services or industrial and commercial productivity but instead at levying new taxes in order to decrease the budget deficit, which will increase the public debt still more.
No confidence in the cabinet
But the reform plan is supported by the international community.
If it is, let them pay the debts incurred by the state. If they don’t do that, are they going to sell the country at an auction?
So you have no confidence in the government and its economic management?
None at all. In 1992 Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, peace be to his soul, announced the “Lebanon spring”. I replied to him then that this spring will not be the work of your hands. These words apply equally well to Saad Hariri because he follows the same policy. That is why I place responsibility on them for the bankruptcy of the country.
Who can give us a guarantee that the situation will be better? How do they propose to deal with the public debt which, we’re told, represents 250 percent of gross national product?
The country is adrift and we cannot expect that privatizing the cell phone sector will provide a solution since it would deprive the Treasury of an important source of revenue.

Will the meeting of the dialogue conference on April 28 be the last? And what attitude will you adopt on the presidential issue?
Another issue no less important is that of the weapons of the Resistance and the defense strategy proposed by Hezballah. In my view, the arms should be placed in the legal framework so that they may be used advisedly. Now, discussing the defense strategy doesn’t mean giving Hezballah complete autonomy since the state must continue to assume responsibility for all operations on the ground. The important thing is to ensure the taking of a decision by the central authority for the use of these arms.

Defense strategy
How do you conceive of the defense strategy?
I’ll set out my point of view at the appropriate time. I’ll say this: the Army must assume responsibility for every security decision since it must act on the basis of a political decision.
What might happen if the debate on the weapons of the Resistance reached deadlock, like that on the presidential issue? How do you imagine the situation developing in the time remaining of President Lahoud’s term?
In a democracy there are neither deadlocks nor voids. We must begin by enacting a new election law, which the legislature will be asked to ratify. We will then hold early legislative elections.
Do you envisage ousting the cabinet?
I’m doing my duty as an opposition figure, while they reply to our criticisms with insults, without providing proof for their assertions.
Do you intend to step up your campaign against the cabinet?
It’s only beginning. I’ll keep it up because I’m convinced of the cabinet’s inability to do useful work.
I am not the ally of the Syrians
You are suspected of cooperating with the allies of Damascus.
I am not their ally. In Lebanon there are Lebanese divided into two camps: one has a flexible approach to relations with Syria, the other vows hostility to that country. The latter consider their adversaries as allies of Syria, something that will certainly lead us to ruin. At the worst moment of the war, when the Syrian tanks attacked Baabda Palace, I kept repeating: When Syria leaves Lebanon, we’ll put an end to our conflict with it to establish better relations between us.
I have not heard any of those who are described as allies of Syria express a desire for the return of Syrian tutelage over Lebanon. In my opinion, we must have relations of good neighborhood with Syria and eliminate all feelings of hostility in our relations with it.
But Syria is refusing to implement decisions of the national dialogue conference.
We can’t show ourselves hostile to it and at the same time ask it to establish normal relations with us. Certain people want to implicate it in the assassination of [former] Premier Rafik Hariri even before the inquiry has completed its work.
Leaving your residence in Rabiyé, Georges Adwan stated that the tendency at present is to maintain President Lahoud until the end of his term. What is your comment?
Why don’t the “forces of March 14” acknowledge their error and pay the price for it by supporting my candidacy for the Presidency? I am not in the service of the Hariri family, nor am I in the pay of this or that embassy or consulate. My position is clear: if it is the resignation of President Lahoud that is desired, guarantees must be provided concerning the prerogatives of his successor. We must also lay down conditions in order to ensure a normal succession at the headship of the state. The future president must enjoy the support of the Lebanese people and a wide popularity.
Some people talk about scandals without deciding to open dossiers, beginning with that of the Al-Madina Bank.

Saniora’s visit to the US
Do you think that the visit of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to the United States has marginalized the president?
We must do all we can to eliminate the noose that certain people are trying to impose on the Presidency of the Republic.
Aren’t you concerned that, in acceding to the office of president, you may be constrained by certain provisions of the Taef Agreement?
From the moment the president takes the constitutional oath, he becomes more important than any politician, for the simple reason that all the attributions are laid down in the Constitution and emanate from it. Thus, the president cannot tolerate an electoral law that transgresses the fundamental law, as is the case today. The Constitution stipulates that any initiative is illegal if it goes against harmonious coexistence. It’s the same in the case of the blockage of the Constitutional Council. The government cannot therefore act as a mafia and the head of the state can correct many errors on the basis of the authority given him by his constitutional oath.
Would you lose popularity if you were elected president?
It would rise from 70 to 80 or 90 percent.
Are you sure of being able to achieve your plan of reform?
Naturally, because I don’t joke about serious matters. The fact is that I am serious about everything I undertake.

My ‘presidential’ ideas
What are your ideas concerning the Presidency of the Republic?
Some of them address the need for liberation from the feudal mentality, be it in political, financial or communal terms. Then, the president is required to elaborate certain long-term policies. I will deal with all parties on a basis of equality regardless of the religious or political affiliation of anyone.
What do you expect from those who fear the opening of dossiers on corruption and squandering?
The Court of Accounts will be tasked with ruling on each case, and whoever has a clear conscience need not fear the inquiries. When I was in exile, I was myself accused of having stolen public funds. I bore it all, and on my return it was apparent after the investigations that I was innocent. Those accused of corruption have an interest in seeing the dossiers opened so that their innocence may be proved.
Do you still enjoy French and American support?
I can do without that support.
Might Lebanon not be isolated internationally?
Not at all, since its neighbors will take it upon themselves to protect it against that danger.
Has your rapprochement with Hezballah compromised your relations with the outside world?
Hezballah has good relations with France, where its emissaries frequently go. And why should the Americans be troubled by my agreement with the “Hezb”, which was the ally of the “forces of March 14” in the last legislative elections?
How do you evaluate your agreement with that party?
It is in fact a “Maronite marriage” [i.e., permanent, indissociable].
What will be the fate of the “forces of March 14”?
They will disintegrate because of their errors and their ambiguous stances. That’s why they no longer enjoy the confidence of public opinion.