Opposing the Opposition

The Arab American News warns:

Hands off Lebanon Mr. Bush

By Osama Siblani

President George Bush is attempting to use this crisis to his advantage, claiming the opposition protests are a direct result of America's so-called "democracy on the march" policy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lebanon has been holding democratic elections since the 1950s...

Bush is also attempting to use the crisis in Lebanon to further isolate Syria, something he has been trying to do for a long time in the interest of Western hegemony over the region. To that end, the U.S. Congress passed the “Syrian Accountability Act” and the United States engineered the passage of UN Resolution 1559. But 1559 is foreign meddling in the volatile internal affairs of Lebanon and an introduction to another civil war. There are many ethnic and religious groups in Lebanon that must be heard. Resolution 1559 attempts to silence everyone but those who agree with the United States. Syrian presence in Lebanon is a Lebanese and Arab issue and the current crisis must be resolved by them.

Bush and the Lebanese opposition are using each other. The opposition, many of whom were extremely critical of Hariri before he was assassinated, has tried mightily to use his death to their advantage. With the media focusing obediently on them alone, they for a while defined the Lebanese issue for the world.... But they are in the distinct minority, and that was demonstrated clearly when close to a million people marched in Beirut this week in support of Syria....

As part and parcel of his overall strategy to render the Arab world irrelevant and subservient to American and Israeli interests, Bush has demanded that “all Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for those elections to be free and fair....”

The whole article is too long to excerpt in detail. Read the whole thing here.

Note the recurrent themes. This is an Arab problem to be solved by Arabs, non-Arabs keep out. This is a Zionist plot. Bush is the tool of Israeli interests. Bush is seeking global hegemony and control over the Arab world. Nothing we haven't heard before time after time.

And then there's the UN

The NYT reports:

The special United Nations envoy on Lebanon cautioned Sunday that a commitment by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to withdraw all troops and intelligence forces from Lebanon in the next few months was contingent on the formation of a new government by Lebanon's leaders.

Notice the time frame. Lebanese elections are coming up in May, but even the most optimistic UN timeframe is for a "few months" which means that the withdrawal will not be completed until well after the elections. Now we see the logic behind Lebanese Premier Karami's resignation and subsequent rappointment. It was simply another one of Assad's delaying tactics, and the UN is complicit in the deceit, as usual.

Nothing can be done until.... the same thing we have been hearing from Arab autocrats for decades now. Faugh!