From Beirut to the Beltway

Arab rug politics have reared their ugly head again. The failure to admit that an Arab state is responsible for terrorism against another Arab state has galvanized some of the Arab press, not to mention Arab officialdom, into feeling sorry for a bunch of criminals who would throw every single Arab and Muslim to the lions just to stay in power.

I have been trying to stay moderate since the Mehlis report was published. Other blogs have expressed this frustration admirably. But this has gone too far.

We, the few Lebanese bloggers who have mobilized to blog the Mehlis report and show its significance not just to Lebanon but to the Arab world as a whole, are being accused of being blind to a wider US/Israeli plot to change the Syrian regime and destabilize the entire region. We are being lectured about the dangers of US interventionism and asked, not very politetly, to wake up and smell the scent of US conspiracy. We are being told to forget about our own independence as a nation, about justice within our borders, just to spite an “imperialist” nation that’s out to get a bunch of thugs holding their people hostage.

Rafik Hariri, the man whom Syria murdered (quit living in denial, they killed him), was one of the few Arab leaders who actually made a useful effort to support the Palestinian cause. He didn’t send weapons. He didn’t fire missiles. He didn’t fund stupid suicide attacks. He funded projects to bring their case to the international community through legal means. His foundations sponsored Lebanese victims of the Israeli occupation. He used his connections to spare Hizbullah and Lebanon the wrath of pro-Israeli policies. He was not a perfect man, nor a saint. But he did not deserve this fate.

It was Hariri who protected the resistance against Israel, not Syria. It was Syria that destroyed whatever was left of the cause, not the US or Israel. The blame rests on Syria’s shoulders this time. And it is a shame that very few so called Arabs out there refuse to come out in support of the country and the man who worked harder than many to support the cause they defend in the most inane way imaginable.

Let’s face it, we live in a region infested with shortsightedness and utter and unforgivable stupidity.

Arab leaders have made it clear that they have no time for Lebanon, a founding member of the Arab League, arguably the only country that keeps Arabs from the "ocean to the gulf" entertained and their companies running. They are worried about the threats against Syria, a bastion of Arab failure (and a reflection of their own). They will not tell the Syrian regime to cooperate in the investigation. They will stand watching and lamenting the self-destruction of a regime and blame it on foreign intervention. And they will do nothing of consequence. All that money and power will be channeled into growing their expanding bellies. All they can do right now is impale themselves on failure.