THE AXIS OF THE HARMFUL-‘N-USELESS (SAUDI ARABIA, ISRAEL, AND EGYPT- THE-UNCLE-TOM) THREATEN CIVIL WAR IN LEBANON.

First draft.


If only you knew how painful a place can be
...
In our country
All funeral processions start in Karbala
And end in Karbala

Nizar Qabbani, “The Poem of Balqis.” (My translation.)

SUMMARY.

On or about August 27, Egypt’s Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, dropped in on Beirut. The Western press said his visit was meant to lessen tension between Israel and Lebanon. But it wasn’t. As only a self-hating Arab reactionary would, Aboul Gheit came over to communicate two threats to Lebanon: (1) to unleash the axis’s Israeli bully on Lebanon; and (2) to unleash the Sunni Islamists to set off a civil war in that country and hope to spread that war to Syria. Neither threat can be taken seriously. For one, the reactionaries’ bully would end up paying a dear price for unleashing against Lebanon. For another, Saudi Arabia’s Tripoli Islamists are likely being hounded by Syria’s intelligence service, the Lebanese Army’s, Hezbollah, and the Alawite community of Tripoli. The latter by now should be armed to the teeth and ready for the upcoming confrontation.

Aboul Gheit was doing an errand for Saudi intelligence and Israel, no more no less.


THE SELF-HATING ARAB COMMUNICATOR OF DOOM.

While Aboul Gheit was in Lebanon, the Chairman of Egypt’s People’s Council (parliament), Mustapha al-Faqi, called on the Arabs to draw Syria closer to them and away from Iran. Nothing new. The axis of the harmful-‘n-useless, in part on behalf of the harmful idiots, for a long while has been trying to recruit Syria away from Iran. But Egypt should be the last one to succeed at that, albeit it’s trying so hard to show that it is useful to the harmful idiots, their influential Israelis and their American diaspora, and the paying Saudis.

(Egypt became useless a long time ago when it left the ranks of the Arabs and split off to sign a separate peace agreement with Israel without Syria and the Palestinians.) And Syria knows the score: you build it up as a regional power, then emaciate it under all sorts of lies, then assault it, then hang its ruling elite high – all while the “brothers” sit on their fat ass or on top of their piles of harem. Or better yet: you tie it down to all sorts of economic enslavement measures a la IMF then cause bread riots to weaken it.

The Israeli threats against Lebanon had been a near-weekly phenomenon. For instance, on or about August 20, Israel’s Prime Minister warned Lebanon that Israel would devastate its infrastructure (yet again) for the influence Hezbollah has in that country. Hezbollah’s Nasrallah replied on or about August 24 that his party was ready to reap as much destruction onto Israel as Israel on Lebanon. Muhammad Raad, Hezbollah’s caucus chief in the Lebanese Parliament, said that his party would dispatch 11,000 missiles on Israel should that country carry out its threats. There had been earlier threats by Israel, by Defense Minister Barak, both from Israel and most recently from Egypt.

In Beirut, Mr. Aboul Gheit claimed that he had told Defense Minister Barak “to stop the threats against this Arab country [Lebanon] [that is] a friend.” ( Quite a demotion since Lebanon had always been Egypt’s younger brother. Now it’s only a friend.)

He spoke about “a situation that brings us worry in the city of Tripoli and the movements/currents which threaten a clash/war.” He warned all Lebanese to be alert so that “a spark doesn’t lead to a situation that isn’t good.” To be clear, he added that “Egypt’s priorities in Lebanon [include] the prevention of the renewal of the civil war [which would be] scary...”

Another thing: he said that relations between on the one hand Syria and on the other Saudi Arabia and Egypt would improve depending on what happens in Lebanon. On or about August 15/16, Saudi King Abdallah had visited Egypt and Lebanese Prime Minister Seniora was there and had met with Mubarak. (The quotations are my translation.)

ANALYSIS.

What’s Aboul Gheit up to?

When Hezbollah in May had routed the Saudi Foreign Legion of mercenaries, including Jordanians and Israelis, from West Beirut and the Shouf, it had in effect kicked out Saudi Arabia from Lebanon. Be mindful that Saudi Arabia had owned Lebanon when it had , along with the harmful idiots, dispatched the late Rafiq al-Hariri who became Prime Minister and put that office to good personal and family use by robbing the country blind. His obscene corruption and unquenchable greed robbed the “Saudi state” in Lebanon of what legitimacy it had. (The “Saudi state” in Lebanon is the office of the Prime Minister which was made powerful by the Taef agreement that had ended the Lebanese civil war. Many assert that the Saudis paid off the Lebanese deputies to parliament substantial bribes to enact “reforms” which would result–and did result–in the office of Prime Minister gaining power vis-a-vis the Maronite Presidency.)

Hariri’s extreme corruption and grand theft of Lebanon’s purse ended the Sunni phase of governance of Lebanon fairly fast, but only after he is alleged to have pocketed an estimated $17 billion. Bye, bye legitimacy. What helped the process along was the decision by Hariri to stand up to the Syrians. Possibly he had assessed that there wasn’t much left to steal in Lebanon. As with many, Hariri made the mistake of believing that the Americans can help him. He needed 500,000 fighting troops; instead the CIA gave his people money for a “color revolution.” He paid for that mistake with his life. The harmful idiots were exactly that: harmful and idiots. Their analysts the sophomores told them it can be done. (It’s beyond me. Really is. I no longer am able to tell how much of all of this is intelligence stupidity and want of realism and how much is the politicization of intelligence.) It’s possible too that the harmful idiots had used all the theft information they had on Hariri to blackmail him to turn against the Syrians at a time not of his choosing, and go against his better judgement. Time will tell us.

Now Saudi intelligence is trying to regain a place for its proxies in Lebanon. The proxies continue to knock at its doors. Saudi intelligence had decided to ease up on its policy of widening the rift between Shias and Sunnis. It did it in part to allow for the tactic by the harmful idiots (and Saudi intelligence ) to buy up the Badr/Dawa state in Iraq. In part, because Saudi Arabia has a sizeable Shia minority in the Eastern Province –where most of the oil is located. Widening the rift between the Sunnis and the Shias could translate into the Saudi Shias asserting themselves politically.

After the Saudi Foreign Legion’s rout in Beirut and the Shouf, Saudi intelligence didn’t have many cards left – except for the Tripoli Salafis. It couldn’t rely on Jordan since Jordan had become part of the effort to buy up the Badr/Dawa state. Only Egypt had the freedom to act for Saudi Arabia in Lebanon. For one, Egypt has no Shias and doesn’t share borders with Iraq. For another, its regime was aching for a role to play in the region to show its benefactors (the harmful idiots and Saudi intelligence) that it was useful for something.

Aboul Gheit’s talk about a renewal of the Lebanese civil war, alluding to Tripoli, was a sorry and desperate threat. It said that Egypt (and Saudi Arabia behind it) can in fact ignite a civil war in Lebanon should the body politic of that country not allow for a significant role for the Sunni Office of Prime Minister. But not any Prime Minister. It’s got to be Saudi Arabia’s proxies: the Hariri people. (They can’t even comprehend legitimacy since they have so much money to buy it inside Saudi Arabia. If they cared about legitimacy, they would pick someone who is not a grand thief , or descendant of a grand thief, like Salim al-Hoss.) Aboul Gheit’s assertion that what happens in Lebanon would determine the state of relations between Saudi Arabia and his country and Syria confirms that his trip and his threats were all about regaining a role for the Saudi proxies.

Thus viewed, his assertion that Egypt didn’t appreciate Israeli threats against Lebanon was in fact another threat : that Egypt and Saudi Arabia were willing to use the Israeli bully to return the Saudi proxies to a position of power in Lebanon. (There was a rumor circulating about that Saudi intelligence had paid for the Israeli assault on Lebanon in 2006.)

Ominous: it’s now clear beyond a doubt that Saudi intelligence, via Hariri/Seniora, is financing the Tripoli Salafis. Money is fungible. Money with the Tripoli Salafis should end up anywhere: Algeria, Europe, the United States. We are returning to pre-September 11 dynamics. Saudi intelligence, as seen in Aboul Gheit’s words, is operating under the illusion that it can set off a civil war in Lebanon that would spread to Syria. It’s an illusion, no more. From an American national security perspective, Saudi intelligence should be told to stop doling out money to Islamists lest this money ends up funding a terror operation against Americans. And to stop its proxies from doling out their own (formerly the Lebanese purse's) money. Desperation, incompetence, and the need to “do something” in the end are no excuse to financing people who are one-and-the-same as al-Qaeda.

Is Saudi intelligence retaliating for Hezbollah’s rout of the Saudi Foreign Legion? Yes. Can Saudi intelligence succeed? Highly, highly unlikely. By now, the Lebanese Army’s intelligence Service, Syria’s, and Hezbollah should be hounding each and every Islamist in Tripoli. Plus: weapons should be flowing with abandon to the Alawite community in that city. If it’s a civil war, it’ll be one limited to the Bab-el-Tebbaneh neighborhood and the area around it – a tough nut of a neighborhood to crack, but crack-able nonetheless. (There was a time long ago when Lebanese soldiers were asked not to ever enter that neighborhood to shop, nor even pass by it.) Expect the Lebanese army to use Sunni soldiers against that neighborhood since that army allows its soldiers to serve in their provinces, and the north is mostly Sunni. Michel Suleiman may try to subdue that neighborhood without using any commandos (as he did in Nahr el-Bared) since these would include Shias and Christians, to keep the matter intra-Sunni. He may not be able to.

I pity the people of Tripoli, especially the neighborhoods which will be involved. Though I was in the U.S. during the Lebanese civil war, my parents, siblings and many of my relatives were in Lebanon. And I’d be there visiting when major battles would erupt. And I’ve run scared while shells were whistling above my head. And I’ve slept in shelters and on staircases. And I’ve had my stomach cramp up when the shells would begin to fly and shrapnel explode against walls. And I’ve heard about my sister being a target for a Palestinian sniper from the Jisr-al-Basha refugee camp. And my mother a target for a sniper from Tal el-Zaatar. And I’ve driven what later I called the “trip of death,” through Syrian and Lebanese Forces’s lines, from Beirut to Jiita, where we became refugees living at friends’ homes, sleeping on their couches. And my parents had become refugees many times over, and once had had to rent a former chicken coop in which to live, houses for rent having been exhausted in Kisrouan. And I’ve heard about corpses brought back to the neighborhood (a Beirut suburb) of people who were murdered based on their religion. So I pity those neighborhoods in Tripoli from where Mr. Aboul Gheit and Saudi intelligence want to launch their Lebanese civil war.

May they not live the same fate. May they continue to please Israel, the protector of their privileges and wealth through its diaspora and its influence in the U.S. Congress, and dodge a Palestinian state so that we all go through civil wars for Israel’s sake, sponsored and armed to the teeth by the harmful idiots.

Advice to the harmful idiots: tell the Egyptian regime, your pet, to have some dignity and stop stooping so low as a slave. It’s humiliating for once such a great and Arab (once) nation as Egypt. Tell them, too, that all are aware of the tension between their Sunnis and their Christian Copts. That it wouldn’t take that much to fund that tension by anyone who wants to retaliate. And, harmful idiots: do get ready and Europe, wih contingency plans, to welcome the hundreds of thousands of Copts when these become refugees as the millions you and your right wing Jews have minted in Iraq.