Missed OpportunitiesUS Intelligence Failures in the Middle East
By Nagi N. Najjar
The momentum in the ME is an intelligence momentum, not a military one. When the US military defeated Saddam Hussein and his criminals in power, the right decision by President Bush, US intelligence failed in consolidating and cultivating the ground, something every Intelligence service rushes to do after a battle is won on the ground, and adopting the right strategy to place Iraq's both neighbors on defensive tracks, specifically a malcontent Syria who is the easier target compared to Iran. Everybody in the Middle East understands what it takes to win the nature of this war except the leadership of the US Intelligence community who are too busy articulating and promoting "Democracy" in a region where religion is the doctrine of overwhelming choice. Not only is this United States Administration failing in this war and surrendering their allies to an unacceptable status quo, creating a dangerous indefensible situation in the Middle East, but its Intelligence community is using every wrong instrument to pressure and surrenders their enemies.This failure of effective action will inevitably lead to a major US setback in the area, for a misguided US policy will allow Teheran to force an Islamic take-over of the Levant, compounded by an upheaval of the Gulf States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the entire region. The first US Intelligence miscalculation, by taking over Iraq, over-evaluated the Sistani Shiaa factor by discovering after a few years the dangerous influence of Teheran on its neighbors. Should the US course of events stay unchanged, Iran will have access to the Mediterranean sea, controlling the oil flow production, assisted by the Damascus regime, Hezbollah, Hamas, and all the Islamic terror groups that are placing Israel under a terror siege while waiting for Israel's collapse.Another of America’s greatest mistakes was pressuring Israel to preventing it from redrawing the geopolitical map of the terror regimes in the area, mainly Lebanon under Hezbollah, Damascus, and Teheran, collectively known as the Syrian-Iranian axis of terror. Jerusalem had the ability to change the events in Lebanon and Syria far more effectively than the United States ever could.Iran and Syria, along with a "quiet" Russia, are using delaying tactics to bring about a defeat of George W. Bush in the next election in order to create a new fait accompli of terror that will affect regional Oil production as well as the politics of the area.Iran's Islamic Revolution is one of the bloodiest rises to power of any century, and Iran by exporting its terror alliance to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Iraq, ensured the political survival of Teheran’s struggle that is now underway against a fragmented United States's political power structure.Should the US continue its politics of pressuring its allies for concessions to please the Saudis, as they did with Prime Minister Sharon in Gaza for a Peace of illusion, they will enter a power struggle that Ahmadinejad will certainly win against the US at the end of the day in the region. As Washington is dragging its feet in Iraq and over the nuclear issue, the Iranian strategy is far more clever, more operational, and more effective in the Middle East and debilitating for the United States. Yet, despite its aggressive terror path, this terror strategy can be destroyed and vanquished .This will not happen by using the ineffective United Nations tool as an up-front instrument to counter the terror of such Rogue States in the area, only military action will halt an Iranian advance into a regional, nuclear power and neutralize and defeat their terrorist paramilitary groups in the ME.Bachar el Assad and Ahmadinejad of Iran know that US sanctions mean weakness, for it will only prolong the corruption and blackmail of the West as Iran enhances its nuclear bomb capacity. For those who understand the Middle East, this cosmetic US-Saudi power struggle, now being played out against Iran and Syria, is doomed to failure.Syria and Iran will see the economic sanctions by the West as an opportunity to consolidate their positions on the ground. Using the showdown against the West, Syria and Iran, with Russia’s support, will deceive Washington and defeat it in the region by using a strategy of terror in Lebanon, Israel, and Iraq. The U.S. military misadventure in the Middle East is seen as a failure in the Islamic world as they know that the United States is politically in trouble in both Iraq and Afghanistan, therefore America’s options for dealing with Syria and Iran are limited.Economic sanctions will do little to damage this Axis of terror. Short of a regime change, the US mishandling of the area will result in the consolidation of the power of these regimes who will continue their campaign of terror and assassination in Iraq, Israel, and Lebanon, in order to consolidate their take over against the United States in the area and justify the effectiveness of their take over against the West.Gebran Tueni was assassinated within this context in Lebanon, only few days after FBI Director Robert Mueller visited Lebanon with a message of support from Washington. Syria reacted with Teheran’s blessing in sparking the assassination by telling the Lebanese that America will not bring Peace to your country .A serious indication of Washington intelligence failure is the weakness with which the Saudi-US alliance reacts to such terrorism. Syria has cleverly chosen to pick its fight with the West, because whomever controls the ground, controls substance in the Middle East. Iran controls a large part of Iraq Shiaa affiliates and Syria still controls many Shiaa radicals through Hezbollah and the Palestinian militias in Lebanon. The CIA and Prince Bandar were busy playing the Abdel Halim Khaddam card, a former Syrian Vice President empty of substance who cannot deliver anything but buy time for Damascus and give Syria another chance of survival in the region.This is enough failure in a time of war, Syria must be destroyed, not pampered and compromised as the CIA and the Saudis are articulating in their warfare against terrorism. Time is working against the Bush Administration in this war. There are unexplored different wild cards that will disintegrate and defeat the nexus of these "rogue states," otherwise Terrorism Incorporated will take shape and empower the entire region against the West.This strategy of failure from the US side will inevitability assist Iran in acquiring nuclear weapons and ensure to Iran the capability of threatening the whole Middle East as well as the United States.Without consolidating the ground and demilitarizing Hezbollah in Lebanon, the upcoming reception of Hariri's son at the White House will only compound the US failure for a bold solution versus terrorism in the Middle East. The Saudis have demonstrated a series of failures with their American appointed associates in countering the Iranian-Syrian terror offensive in Lebanon.To marginalize terror in the Middle East, Israel should take the offensive against Iran's nuclear capacity, against the Syrian regime by toppling it, and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The countdown of the consequences of Iran's confrontation has started.Diplomatic pressure will backfire on the West, only precise military actions against the terror groups and toppling their sponsoring regime in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, will consolidate the West's strategy in consolidating a new Iraq and peaceful Middle East, anything else will be translated as a strategic failure and will empower Tehran and Damascus to use terror incentives to completely destroy the United States and assassinate their political allies and regimes one after the other in the Middle East.

Ariel Sharon,An Immortal Legacy
by Nagi N. Najjar
Sabra and Shatila darkened P.M. Sharon's name for decades, as manipulated by Arab media warfare, it was a segment of a bigger, confrontation dynamic playing out between Islam and the Forces supporting the West in the Middle East. The Sabra and Shatila camps were not a piece of Real Estate on the French Riviera and Cote D'Azur where barbarians came from nowhere and massacred "innocent" Palestinians living there.Sabra and Shatilla was an ugly reaction in history to Palestinian gangsterism in Lebanon, from the Lebanese community who were fed up with Yasser Arafat and his gangs who harbored most of the terror organizations of the world, protecting them, and giving them support from the PLO and their likes. Most of the airplane hijacking in the 70's and 80's were masterminded in the Sabra and Shatilla Camps of Beirut by the Palestinian organizations; many Lebanese kidnapped by the PLO gangs were murdered there and never returned. Where was the silent Press of the West then? Why this silence? The silence was due to Arab Saudi Oil influencing European and US political and media influence. Indeed, Prince Bandar from his Aspen, Colorado residence and his Washington residence succeeded in coercing the White House, the State Department , European and US media, to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of Islam against the other minorities in the Middle East. Thousands of Lebanese were murdered in Damur and other cities of Lebanon prior to Sabra and Shatilla. Sabra and Shatilla was a primal reaction to an unprovoked barbaric and savage slaughter of Lebanese Christians by Islamists. Where was the West? They were blinded by Saudi Oil. Today, after the events of Iraq , the wheel is turning in an alarming situation in Lebanon, just as prior to 1982 when the IDF entered Lebanon to help the Lebanese liberate themselves from the terror of the PLO and other Islamic militias ruling the country Ben Laden style. The silent West, sedated by Saudi financial influence, didn't move, as it watched the Christians of Lebanon being massacred by the various Islamic Palestinian militias. Israel responded on its own due to a brave, political decision taken then by Prime Minister Begin and Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon. The whole world later came down against them: why? 20 years of Islamic terrorism could have been prevented in the Middle East should Sharon have consolidated Lebanon with an Israeli military alliance. The Israeli Forces and their Lebanese Forces allies in Lebanon were crushing Islamic fundamentalism and the Palestinian mini-armies of Yasser Arafat who were spreading terror using Southern Lebanon as a springboard for their terror operations against Israel. No, instead, the Americans who pretended to know better, condemned Israel and pressured Israel to withdraw. The Americans then landed in Beirut in 1983 to consolidate Lebanon under the banner of "US Democracy" and ran later like rabbits with the first wave of car bombs that Hezbollah launched against them. The results?US diplomats were kidnapped and murdered everywhere for 20 years as a result, their diplomatic missions and Embassies were blown up everywhere possible, from Beirut to Ryadh, to the USS Cole in Yemen, to the Nairobi attacks on the US Embassies, finalizing it in the event of September 11th in the United States, and not to forget the Islamic terror offensive in London, Paris, Darfur, and other parts of the world. A "Western" orientated Lebanon collapsed and Lebanon became a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism as Iran and Syrian use the various Palestinian and Islamic militias as offensive instruments to achieve their goal . The whole Middle East surrendered to Islamic fundamentalism and kidnaping, murders and car bombs, became the new reality of the Islamic world to be used against the West, predominantly America, as the Islamic terror pressure increased on the State of Israel. The best instrument of diplomacy used by the Palestinians to get concessions from Israel was terrorism, and the best advise America gave Israel was to concede to the Palestinians for a Peace of illusion that was promoted by various White House Administrations who never will understand a politically and religiously nuanced Middle East. Ariel Sharon understood the Islamic threat and had the adequate response to its problem. Terrorism has to be challenged by force and not concessions. If the United State had let Sharon proceed forward in Lebanon, the Middle East would be a different and quiet piece of Real Estate today. Sharon in substance, with the Christians of Lebanon, turned Lebanon into the cemetery of all Islamic Fundamentalism, despite a few missed political opportunities . America beat him on the head in 1982, forcing him to withdraw as if they could do better; America beat him again on the head in 2005 with the Gaza Withdrawal. The new US results? even more dangerous, just look around you! Iran, with a nuclear bomb in hand is waiting for the first sign of US weakness to take over Iraq. The situation is more perilous than described as if you read closely, the world is concerned that Iran does not develop a home grown nuclear capacity and does not address the real possibility that Iran has nukes purchased elsewhere. After assassinating Hariri and others to prevent Lebanon stabilization under Saudi-US influence, Syria and Iran in the last few months flooded the Palestinian camps, Hezbollah, and various Islamic militias, with tons of arms and ammunition. Lebanon at any moment, is a powder keg ready to explode in Washington's face. In the balance of forces on the ground, Lebanon's today is a de facto stooge, who under Iran's control is expanding its influence, aligned with Hezbollah, in strengthening Hamas in taking over the Palestinian Authority . What we will see afterward is an Iranian Mullah Empire spreading its terror roots from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the PA territories with Ahmadnijad becoming the new Middle East political symbol after Arafat. That is not important for Washington, what it further important for the moment is to bring acting Prime Minister Olmert to Washington to extract more concessions for Palestinians. The more these misguided politicians in Washington articulate Peace in their illusionary vision of a democratic Middle East, the more a war is shaping up at the horizon with Iran and Syria, along with the terror networks affiliated with them.

Resistance: A Case of Stunted Development
Joseph Hitti
Edgartown, Massachusetts
December 31, 2005

In its Saturday, December 31, 2005 issue, the Lebanese Daily Star reports on the holding of a National Conference in Beirut last Friday to “Support the Resistance” and “Endorse the option to resist and confront the American-Israeli schemes against Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East." According to the report, entitled “Arab culture ‘under attack from West in name of democracy'”, the conference which was held at, of all places, the UNESCO (a United Nations organization) building in Beirut, “emphasized the need to promote the culture of resistance and reinforce society's immunity to meet the current challenges facing Lebanon.”
The Conference president, Yehya Ghaddar, is quoted as telling the attendees that "…Lebanon is put again on the agenda of invaders who want to change our culture, politics and rob our resources in the name of democratization following devious road maps."
These are all tired, stale and obsolete arguments that continue to be used by those who want to protect the culture of death and destruction they themselves imported and implemented in Lebanon during 30 years of mayhem and barbarity. All under the banner of this “Arab culture and politics” that, they say, must be protected against the “invaders”. Such slogans as “Supporting the Resistance” and “Promoting the culture of Resistance” are intended solely by to maintain these individuals’ own grip on power and on the frozen mindsets of their people, whom they maintain immersed in a primordial soup of intellectual depravity and ignorance, with a good dose of backwards antiquated religious beliefs.
It is time for the Lebanese people and other peoples of the Middle East to listen more carefully to this language that has been slowly injected in their veins and their brains for several decades. Yes, I advocate that people should listen very carefully to this discourse and study every word of it, and not merely hear the big catchy headlines in it. Of course, the word “Resistance” is appealing. It conjures up romantic images of freedom fighters dressed a la mode, living a bohemian lifestyle under the cover of the bush, the jungle, the tropical forest, the desert or the Mediterranean maquis, cigarettes dangling from their mouths, and a gun over their shoulder, thwarting attacks by “foreign” enemies and occupiers. In other words, living it up very much like the Hollywood movies that these paper heroes grew up with and want to imitate in real life, but which they also condemn in their intellectually truncated development.
But in real life, real people get killed, countries get destroyed, innocent people get hurt, and their lives, livelihoods, political power and economic wellbeing become shattered. Yes, people should read carefully the words that these power-hungry hate-mongers say to them, and understand that their underlying aim is to keep them in a state of war, in a state of stunted development, in a state of disrupted lives, in an existential limbo simply to maintain the romanticism of “resistance”. In real life, the people themselves - who are being “protected” by the “Resistance” against the “invaders” – become deprived of normal development, of economic wellbeing, of schooling for their children, and most importantly, of access to genuine political power that they must first snatch out of the hands of the political establishment spewing this language at them. In other words, as long as they want you to support the resistance, you will always live precarious lives. We must abandon this contorted intellectual depravity in order to give people real power: The power to control their lives economically, to elect who they want politically, to be treated with justice and fairness by governments they can hold accountable.
The “venerable” institutions that organized this summit of Arab and Lebanese grey matter have names such as the “Democratic Dialogue Forum”, the “Cultural Committees Gathering in Lebanon” and the “Permanent Conference to Confront the Zionist Cultural Invasion”. In addition, and to the chagrin and surprise of this writer and many Lebanese Americans, the Daily Star report stated that representatives of the “Leader of the Free Patriotic Movement Michel Aoun” attended this pseudo-intellectual cesspool, along with other illustrious Lebanese leaders or their representatives such as “President Emile Lahoud, Speaker Nabih Berri, and the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.” Thankfully, Premier Fouad Siniora was not represented, as if this would tip the balance in favor of some hope. But let us not get too euphoric. Siniora is watching his government quickly decompose, thanks to the defection of, you guessed it, the “Resistance” members of his government.
One of the papers that were presented at the conference offered its view on “how the Zionist and the Americans organize their media campaigns with the aim of defeating the Arab masses culturally and psychologically through ‘establishing and financing nongovernmental organizations and political and cultural associations capable of penetrating society's immunity and will to resist.’ ” Stunning intellectual perspicacity! According to this mind-shattering analysis, the Arab masses are currently at the zenith of their culture and development, thanks to the efforts of dedicated, pioneering, accountable and otherwise fast-moving democratic governments. But all these achievements and the wellbeing of those scientifically-literate, technologically-advanced, educated societies stand threatened by the Zionists and the Americans. The entire Western world, and it would be safe to add the growing Asian economic giants like China, Japan and India to the mix, have realized that the might of the Arab World is of such magnitude that it must be defeated before it takes over the world. And therefore, how better to attack these societies than by “penetrating their immunity and will to resist.”
If there is one thing that the Arab masses need liberating from, it is this mindset and language and one’s definition of oneself through the prism of the victim. What are the Arab countries offering world civilization TODAY? What developments and inventions and discoveries are being made in the Arab World TODAY? How is the Arab World contributing to human civilization and human decency TODAY? Besides the oil beneath their soil, for which no merit can be claimed by the humans living on the ground above, there is nothing that the Arab peoples are offering their fellow humans in our time and in our world. And the reason is primarily because the Arab masses remain hostage to their religious, genetic and economic elites that parade themselves as the pseudo-intellectual vanguard defenders of their masses against the outsiders, the Crusaders, the Zionists, the imperialists, the Americans, the colonialists, etc.
When will the Arab peoples understand their predicament under these totalitarian social and political systems? Luckily, there are true intellectuals from the Arab and Middle Eastern worlds, working with their fellow intellectuals and researchers from all over the world, to try and emancipate the human populations of the region from the hold that their governments and religious dictators have on them. The United Nations Arab Human Development Reports, which are published yearly, are a testament to this effort.
In the words of Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, “There can be no doubt that self-reform stemming from open, scrupulous and balanced self-criticism is the right, if not the only alternative to plans that have apparently been drawn up outside the Arab world for restructuring the region and for reshaping its identity” (http://www.rbas.undp.org/ahdr.cfm). The only alternative to the West forcing change in the Middle East for the benefit of the peoples and to the detriment of the rulers, is self-criticism. Self-criticism implies putting an end to the victim-syndrome, assuming one’s own responsibility to effect change, and shunning the fatalistic assignment to God of the source of our happiness and misery in this world. Admitting one’s own mistakes and taking steps and measures to correct them. Stop blaming others for our problems.
But until this happens, until the pseudo-intellectual heroes of the conference in Beirut pack their bags and go home, until they shut the tap on their verbal diarrheas against the West, until the construct of “Resistance” is thrown aside and is replaced by a proactive search within the self for the modalities of improvement and moving into the modern world, then we, the ordinary Lebanese, Arabs, and Middle Easterners will continue to seek help from the West and others to help us bring a modicum of change in our lives. To discard the yoke of tribal and family oppression, social and intellectual backwardness, the destruction of the human spirit by antiquated religious beliefs, and the overwhelming feeling that the Arab World, in spite of its wealth, remains the most backwards collection of societies in the world today.
Dr. Joseph Hitti

Lebanon remains a prey for axis of evil powers
Elias Bejjani
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By Elias Bejjani
December 30, 2005
Numerous puzzling questions are on the horizon in the aftermath of the recent military escalations that took place on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Six rockets were fired by an unidentified terrorist organization from inside Lebanese territory targeting Israeli residential communities. This unjustified infringement has instigated an immediate Israeli retaliation with an air raid on a Palestinian military base located in a coastal Lebanese village south of the capital, Beirut.
This base, like many similar others in the Bekaa valley and in the north of the country, were erected by Baathist Syria during its occupation to Lebanon.
All these bases are still under Syria's full control through surrogate Palestinian armed militias. The Lebanese central government does not exercise any kind of control or authority over those military bases, nor does it have any control over the other twelve Palestinian Refugee camps that host around fourhundred thousand residents These camps are a haven for dozens of armed militias and Jehadist organization, including Al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, a futile internal Lebanese power struggle and bickering among the country's main ruling political and sectarian officials has reached a point of no return. Hezbollah and its partner, the Amal Shiite movement, have put the activities of their five ministers in the current Siniora cabinet on hold, demanding before their return a public declaration from the central government stating that all clauses of UN Resolution 1559 have been implemented, and accordingly Hezbollah will maintain its weapons as well as its full military and administrative control on the Lebanese-Israeli border, the whole southern region of the country, the southern Beirut suburbs and a big portion of the Bekaa Valley.
The Beirut government, made up of representatives of the ruling coalition, is an unworkable marriage between what is known as the "Forces of March 14" and the "Forces of March 8". Regardless of such classifications, members of the cabinet are divided into two broad camps: the Hariri-Jumblat camp on one hand, and the Berri-Hizbullah camp on the other.
Meanwhile, the Christian ministers in the cabinet who belong to both camps are completely marginalized and not involved in the decision-making process, while all the portfolios they hold are not key ones.
What is happening on the border and inside the country is greatly disappointing, a sad sign of the Beirut government's helplessness and a high dose of reality for all those Lebanese and non Lebanese good wishers who envisaged with hope and faith a quick full triumph over the axis of evil and its rogue powers of terrorism and darkness. The Lebanese have been longing for a new Middle East and a new Lebanon with a leading role model of democracy and human rights.
The unfolding criminal events that have been targeting Lebanon's stability after the Syrian military withdrawal and striking hard at the Lebanese people and their patriotic leaders one after the other is a clear indication that under the imposed current internal and regional status quo, Lebanon remains, and will remain, a hostage to terrorism and terrorists.
The recent military escalations on the border once again delineates to the whole world that Lebanon is still used as a battlefield for the wars of others and a mail box for exchanging fiery criminal messages between Baathist Syria, Israel and other regional and international countries and powers. These powers have been for the last thirty years engaged in an ongoing war at the expense of the interests of the Lebanese people and the independence, sovereignty, security, and stability of the country.
Once again and in spite of the Syrian military withdrawal earlier this year, the Beirut government is powerless, stagnating in an idle position as was the status of all its predecessors since 1990 under the Syrian tutelage and dictatorship. The Beirut government is completely paralyzed, manipulated by non Lebanese agendas that are adopted and advocated by most of its members whose loyalty is not for Lebanon or its people, but for foreign countries that some of them are members of the axis of evil.
This Beirut government is divided on almost every issue. It is far from being a governing body. It is merely a bunch of politicians striving to maintain the bizarre status quo of the "no central state authority"
and the cantons and states inside the state. It has proved without a shred of doubt its blatant inability to rule effectively because its ministers do not see eye to eye on any crucial matter, especially UN Resolution 1559 that calls for the disarming and dismantling of all armed militias and the spread of the central government's authority through its own armed forces all over the country's territory and borders.
Lebanon, if not urgently rescued by the international community through the United Nations, will remain a haven for terrorism and terrorists and a breeding field for fundamentalists and Jihadists. It will fall far short from emerging as an independent, peaceful and democratic country. Meanwhile, an unstable Lebanon is going to negatively affect progress on peace andstability in the entire Middle East.
No more time should be wasted in vain: Lebanon needs a forceful, immediate and decisive international military intervention and an administrative custody for as long as is needed for laying down the foundations of a strong central government, particularly in the areas of security and the judiciary.
The Free World should come to the rescue of Lebanon before it is too late.
Elias Bejjani
*Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.