Bkirki's Snub

Bkirki is once more giving March 14 the red eye. Here's why.

this time, ignore me at your peril

Most people in the March 14 movement were surprised when the council of Maronite bishops announced on Tuesday that a Chapter 7 resolution to the Hariri tribunal would be damaging to Lebanon.

Hariri immediately rushed to Bkirki to find out why they said that. Naharnet totally ignored the part about chapter 7 in their story, March 14 bloggers fumed and Hariri-owned Almustaqbal media was defensive in tone and said that the Lebanese people have the right to a chapter 7 resolution if everything else fails.

The reason the Maronites are cautious is simple though. With all the talk about the Saudis mending the fence between the Sunnis and the Shias, the Patriarch was sensing another 7ilf ruba3i in the making(in reference to when Hariri, Jumblatt, Nassrallah and Berri had an electoral alliance that left the Christians behind).

Bkirki wanted to remind everyone that the Christians also have sacrosanct issues. Sfeir is now making it a point that the number one priority for the Christians is NOT the international tribunal but a fair electoral law. Which to this blogger, makes perfect sense.

However, the burden is on Aoun to persuade his allies to accept a new electoral law based on small districts. After all, it is Berri and Nassrallah that have always been the most resistant to such a law.

Make That Beast Look Friendlier

A tale of feisty men, a neighborhood and a panther that has to change colors.
When a diligent Daily Star reporter approached Ahmad el Masri, a Tareek Jdeedeh resident to ask him if he's familiar with the neighborhood's new "black panthers" logo, Ahmad whipped out his mobile phone, smiled and pointed at his screen: "This one, you mean?"

The unmistakable "black panthers" design is indeed a hit with Tareek Jdeedeh residents (or the TJ as a hip panther would call it). Even the logo's designer, code named M.A, was surprised at its enormous success:

"I was so surprised to see my logo on flags and T-shirts," said M.A., who added a special mark on the logo as a signature. "Today, I went to the store that sells flags and it was sold out. Imagine I have to buy my own design."

So who are the panthers?

Maya Abdel Aziz, 18 year old Tareek Jdeedeh resident explains:

"The Panthers are security so that nothing happens to the people[..] They're needed because the army can't do anything. Like when the [BAU clashes] happened on Thursday, the army just watched while people broke cars.

"The Panthers stay awake," Abdel-Aziz continued. "They take care of the security and they take shifts staying up and are aware of all the happenings in the area. They keep in contact with each other and they're organized. For security though, both the Panthers and the army need to be present."

Of course, a black panther is a bit harsh as a logo for armed vigilantes on the loose. This is why a brand face-lifting is in order. Shop owner Fatima discloses a secret on the next version of the logo: "Soon we'll be selling buttons, only they'll be in blue,".

The color change might be a large and costly operation. Just ask Mr. Al-Masri who'll have to upload a brand new image to his mobile phone.

Seymour Facts?

If the "facts" mentioned in Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article are true, Saad Hariri has a moral obligation to come out clean.

The media in Lebanon has been focusing on the Hersh report in The New Yorker for good reasons. The central premise of the report is that the Americans, Saudis and Israelis are engaged in a clandestine operation (Hersh likens it to the Iran-contra affair) to undermine Iranian influence in the region, by actively working on a Sunni-Shiite confrontation and empowering extremist Sunni elements.

Hersh believes that the Saudis and Americans are backing fundamentalist Sunnis in Lebanon:

according to the former senior intelligence official and the U.S. government consultant. “We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence, and we’re spreading the money around as much as we can,” the former senior intelligence official said.
[..]American, European, and Arab officials I spoke to told me that the Siniora government and its allies had allowed some aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.

Hersh spoke with Alastair Crook "who spent nearly thirty years in MI6, the British intelligence service, and now works for Conflicts Forum, a think tank in Beirut", who told him:

The Lebanese government is opening space for these people to come in. It could be very dangerous.” Crooke said that one Sunni extremist group, Fatah al-Islam, had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon. Its membership at the time was less than two hundred. “I was told that within twenty-four hours they were being offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government’s interests—presumably to take on Hezbollah

Hersh sees Saad Hariri's role in providing amnesty to the Dinnieh insurgents as part of that plan:

In 2005, according to a report by the U.S.-based International Crisis Group, Saad Hariri, the Sunni majority leader of the Lebanese parliament and the son of the slain former Prime Minister [..] paid forty-eight thousand dollars in bail for four members of an Islamic militant group from Dinniyeh. The men had been arrested while trying to establish an Islamic mini-state in northern Lebanon. The Crisis Group noted that many of the militants “had trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.”
According to the Crisis Group report, Saad Hariri later used his parliamentary majority to obtain amnesty for twenty-two of the Dinniyeh Islamists, as well as for seven militants suspected of plotting to bomb the Italian and Ukrainian embassies in Beirut, the previous year.

Hersh elaborates on the bigger picture, and explains Jumblat's role:

Walid Jumblatt, who is the leader of the Druze minority in Lebanon and a strong Siniora supporter, has attacked Nasrallah as an agent of Syria, and has repeatedly told foreign journalists that Hezbollah is under the direct control of the religious leadership in Iran. In a conversation with me last December, he depicted Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, as a “serial killer.” Nasrallah, he said, was “morally guilty” of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the murder, last November, of Pierre Gemayel, a member of the Siniora Cabinet, because of his support for the Syrians.

Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said.

Also in a twist that would please Aounist supporters, (but which I think is utterly rubbish) is this part:

Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites.
“The most important story in the Middle East is the growth of Nasrallah from a street guy to a leader—from a terrorist to a statesman,” Baer added. “The dog that didn’t bark this summer”—during the war with Israel—“is Shiite terrorism.” Baer was referring to fears that Nasrallah, in addition to firing rockets into Israel and kidnapping its soldiers, might set in motion a wave of terror attacks on Israeli and American targets around the world. “He could have pulled the trigger, but he did not,” Baer said.

**Update**
Bilal Saab from the Brookings Institute disputes Hersh's findings and argues that it is in fact Hezbollah that is in control of extreme Sunni elements. Read more..

**Update 2**
More skepticism from Tony and SM.

Hariri Will Not Drop His Guns

There is only one argument that might convince Saad Hariri of dropping Samir Geagea and Walid Jumblat: The disarming of Hezbollah.

A very tight grip

By announcing that "there are factions (within the majority) that have an interest in a solution and that are seeking a solution. And there are internal forces that do not have an interest in a solution.”, Hassan Nassrallah effectively culminates an orchestrated yet futile “divide and conquer” strategy.

The Syrian newspapers, the opposition’s media and just about every March 8 politician have been towing the same line after February 14’s speeches: “Hariri good, Jumblat and Geagea bad”

It is still not clear why they are playing such an obvious game. Without Geagea and Jumblat, Hariri is literally defenseless and would be eaten alive by the mobs in the "resistance"

March 14 knows this very well, and as Failasoof pointed out in my previous post: March 14’s leaders are just playing a good cop-bad cop game.

Perhaps when listening to Hariri’s ‘friendly’ speeches next time, Nassrallah should reflect very well on one of Al-Capone’s most memorable quotes:
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.