A SAUDI-SYRIAN WAR IN LEBANON.

Aroughandnotsosummerlikedraft

I CAN SEE INTO THE FUTURE. NOT ALWAYS. ALWAYS. PERHAPS NOW AND THEN. IN JULY 2006?

(Written in July 2006:)

"Syria wants its Joulan Heights back. Any compromise that does not obtain these, fully, see a Palestinian state on all of the 1967 lands, and pay reparations that are acceptable to the refugees and to Lebanon, would spell the end of the Syrian government.

"Lebanon is a card in Syria’s hand to achieve the above. Tragic for Lebanon, but it’s stuck. Has been since 1967, ever since the local bullies (Israel and Syria) and the harmful idiots have been waging their wars.

"Syria has lots of influence in Lebanon. It has...

(...)

"And it has the Palestinian refugees, over 400,000 of them... Should Syria and Hezbollah decide to escalate, they should be able to unleash a Palestinian army in Lebanon....

(...)

"(...) The Secretary General of Fateh in Lebanon, Sultan Abu Aynayn, just gave SaudiPolitics another predictive victory. He announced that the Palestinian factions (al-fasael) will fight the Israelis should these come close to the refugee camps. That, my dears, is an escalation, or a pre-escalation–a message to the racist and harmful idiots that Lebanon will slip into wars which their sophomoric plans had not accounted for.

"These Palestinian refugees should want nothing less than to face off with the Israelis in a protracted guerrilla war in the south.

"Syria’s unconventional power therefore is quite impressive."



BACK TO THE FUTURE: ON THE CURRENT TURMOIL.

The recent bloody turmoil in Lebanon, if it continues, should go a long way in neutralizing Saudi Arabia’s policy of fostering a united Sunni front against Iran and the Arab Shia. There’s no such thing as a united Sunni front without Palestine. In other words, whoever champions the Palestine cause in a genuine fashion wins the hearts of the Arab Sunni.

Hence the most recent anti-Israel statements by Iran’s President.

In Lebanon, should the fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam escalate, it likely would spill over to other camps. The death of innocent Palestinian civilians should break the back of the Saudi-funded united Sunni front. And that’s one way of interpreting that turmoil.

This interpretation, in SPC’s view, is more weighty than the one that highlights the effort to thwart the international tribunal. After all, the tribunal will or will not be formed in accordance with Russia’s wishes–whether it would vote for, veto, or abstain–and not because Lebanon is on fire. (Saad Hariri had made at least one trip to Moscow. Would a couple of hundreds of million of U.S. dollars from Saudi Arabia. deposited for the Rusian President in a secret Swiss bank account, define the Russia vote on the Security Council? Is this feasible in Russia? I don't know. But you can bet the farm that Saudi Arabia and Hariri have either tried or thought about trying.)

Burning down Lebanon, in the end, is something that no one can afford: Saudi Arabia and its proxies will lose their money and their foothold, but so will many of the Shia who, too, have a lot of money in the small country.

Worse of all: Fighting, if it spreads, could result in abject failure on the part of the Lebanese army. Why? When the Maronites controlled that army, there were a few towns which provided rank-and-file Maronite soldiers to fight–some in the Akkar region; some in the Beqaa. The army now relies on Shia recruits. Accordingly,

1. The Shia recruits would hardly want to fight for a government with which both Hezbollah and Amal, the main Shia political parties, are dissatisfied.

2. The Christian recruits aren’t many. Those who had enrolled in the army would be foolish to lose life and limb to advance the agenda of a Saudi-supported Sunni government. Why? This de facto Hariri government has sunk it in a disastrous debt, to the tune of $42 billion. Most of this money was pocketed by the lavishly corrupt thieves-proxies of Saudi Arabia and the harmful idiots.


Note: there’s the possibility that some Christian operatives of the harmful idiot and the Israelis, some of a couple of insignificant political leaders, and some intelligence operatives of regional countries (e.g., Jordan), would act to catalyze fighting between the army and the Palestinian camps. Big mistake–since the army should be unlikely (I’m talking high probability) to succeed, and should lose hundreds of soldiers while plunging the country into an active, albeit low-intensity, civil war.

3. The Sunni recruits are few and come mostly from north Lebanon, where the Islamists have blossomed thanks to Hariri and Saudi money. (See below.) Should the fighting spread, I suspect that these would be reluctant to fight other Sunni. At the risk of generalizing, the Sunni of Lebanon are not known for their fighting rage. In 1975, Sunni leaders used the PLO armies as theirs. Now, Mr Hariri, Bandar bin Sultan, and the harmful idiots have tried to re-create a Sunni Palestinian army to balance Hezbollah. Syria and Iran turned that army against the idiots and should be able to use it to break the back of the cherished anti-Iran and anti-Arab Shia front the idiots had been trying to evolve.

4. The Druze soldiers. Don’t make me laugh. There probably 2 ½ of them!