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I’ll be flying to Egypt tomorrow morning, so I don’t have much time to post.  I plan on writing a few posts when I’m settled in Cairo, and I may even stop over in Beirut for a few days.

Thanks for visiting the site!

Via Sandmonkey, now you can try your hand at hitting George W. Bush in the face with a shoe.  I don’t quite fall in line with majority opinion on this incident (more on that in another post), but I have to admit this game is fun.

My highest score so far: 8 hits in the face.

Back when the global food crisis, which is certainly ongoing, was making the front pages of international newspapers, a particular spotlight was shone on Egypt.  Not only were there several stories of the bread shortage, to which the government responded by commissioning the military to open more bakeries to avoid both hunger and the inevitable political unrest; the rise of food prices also spawned two days of rioting in the industrial city of Mahalla, home to the region’s largest textile factory.  From the L.A Times blog, Babylon and Beyond, April 9th:

The two-day riots this week that rocked the Delta province town of Mahalla, leaving one young man dead and about a hundred injured, exposed the failures of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. The clashes erupted after the police aborted a planned strike by the town’s 25,000 textile workers. Police fired tear gas and rioters threw stones and burned schools and shops.

The workers were angry over low wages and triple-digit inflation that have led to increasing unrest in a country where nearly half the population is poor. The Egyptian economy is growing, but the benefits have not trickled to the middle and lower classes, who blame Mubarak for years of neglect.

“The whole world suffers from inflation. Each state deals with the problem according to its capabilities; however, the Egyptian government failed in dealing with the crisis and let it deteriorate,” wrote columnist Khairy Ramadan in the independent al-masry al-Youm daily. “Aimless anger and aimless siege will only lead to chaos.”

Yesterday, an emergency court sentenced 22 of the rioters to jail-terms ranging from 3 and 5 years:

Among the 22 people convicted was a 58-year-old woman who was sentenced to three years in jail for allegedly carrying a Molotov cocktail.

Only Mubarak can intervene with a presidential pardon in the cases of those convicted, as under the 27-year Emergency Law emergency courts have no appeal process and the verdicts will stand.

Mubarak has kept the country under a state of emergency since President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 in order to combat terrorism. The powers enacted under the emergency law give the government the right to imprison anyone for any length of time for virtually no reason at all, and it widely and freely uses that prerogative.

“Those sentenced today are scapegoats used by the authorities to hide their inability to adequately handle the Mahalla protests and to cover up for their failure to investigate the killing of three people, including a 15-year-old boy,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy program director in a statement.

At least 20 percent of Egypt’s 80 million people live on less than $2 per day. With the sharply rising cost of living facing the North African nation, the majority of Egyptians are finding it difficult to support their families.

This is a sad reminder of how the Middle East’s authoritarian governments deal with demands for an increased quality of life; they feed oppression with more oppression.

Here’s some insight into the riots of April and their significance.  An interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim AlJazeera English’s program “Frost over the World”, on April 16th:

I, for one, will remember the presidency of George W. Bush not only for its follies and misgivings in the international arena, but also for the briefly refreshing period of Arab reform that managed to inspire a healthy chunk of a new generation in the Middle East to believe that representative government and respect for civil rights can be won from their spiteful rulers.  While the majority of the new ‘democracy generation’ would not trace their new found demand for political reform back to the outgoing President or the United States in general, the foreign policy of that nation, and specifically, the political pressures put on the tyrants of the Middle East to reform their ways facilitated that region’s protesters and grass roots activists that repeatedly made headlines around the world.

Over the past 8 years, we have seen movements of political reform, as weak as many of them proved to be, arise from soil long barren to the notion of representative governments and respect for freedoms.  In Egypt we saw the protests of Kifaya; Lebanon took a courageous step toward true sovereignty; there were movements for the release of journalists, student protests, and bloggers.

The rhetoric of this outgoing administration tied the freedom of the United States to the freedom of the rest of the world, tying the liberation of people to the pursuit of self-interest. From George W. Bush’s second inaugural address (2005):

“The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

The “Freedom Agenda”, as applied to the Middle East through programs such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, was ultimately abandoned due to rising pressure emanating from an unstable Iraq, requiring a reprioritization of its policies toward the region. While the Iraq war was the most important driver of this change in policy, its failures have influenced three regional developments which have further undermined American policy in the region: Iranian expansionism and its quest for nuclear armament, a failure of Arab states to make progress on political reform, and a perceived hypocrisy on behalf of the United States in its role of democracy promotion.

Thus, it would seem, Obama ‘the pragmatist’ may continue to shy away from the assertive nature of the democracy promotion in the Middle East so characteristic of the Bush administration pre-2006.  From Fouad Ajami’s latest piece in the WSJ, “The Return of Realpolitik in Arabia“:

One thing is sure to go with Mr. Bush when he departs to Crawford, Texas: his “diplomacy of freedom.” That diplomacy — which propelled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which drove the Syrians out of Lebanon after they had all but destroyed the sovereignty of that country, and had challenged pro-American allies in Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula — is gone for good.

It was an odd spectacle, the time behind us: a conservative American president preaching the gospel of liberty for lands beyond, his liberal detractors at home giving voice to a deep skepticism about liberty’s chances in inhospitable settings. No one was more revealing of the liberal temper — and of things to come — than Vice President-elect Joe Biden (then the point man for foreign policy among the Democrats) speaking in December 2006 about the hazards of believing in liberty’s appeal to Muslim lands. Of President Bush, he said: “He has this wholesome but naive view that Westerners’ notions of liberty are easily transported to that area of the world.” Mr. Biden knew better: He warned the president, he said, that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s view of liberty differed from “our view of liberty . . . I think the president thinks there’s a Thomas Jefferson or Madison behind every sand dune waiting to jump up. And there are none.”

Perhaps there aren’t, and perhaps we’ll never get to find out. I can find much to quarrel with in the foreign policy of President Bush and his administration, and the decisions of the last eight years will certainly have played a role in shaping the succeeding decade. I suspect history will not be so kind to the president, and that is largely his own fault. However, should it completely disappear, the assertion with which reform was pursued in the Middle East, for all its faults, is a development I won’t soon forget.

I’ve wanted to write about this topic for quite a while.  The primary factor hindering my will to write up a post on the issue is the humbling amount of academic material on the issue, and the developing consensus that humanitarian intervention is both a morally and politically sound form of military action.  Given the recent appointments to the next U.S administration, one gets the impression that military intervention in Darfur and other areas of the world home to genocidal activity will receive increased attention and prescription by the world’s leading military power.  Susan Rice, a veteran of the National Security Council under the Clinton administration and the newly appointed Ambassador to the United Nation under the upcoming Obama administration, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007 that the failure of the international community to act in light of the occuring genocide in Darfur was a “collective shame.” She then proposed the invocation of Chapter VII of the U.N Charter, which authorizes the security council to take military and non-military action (read: military) in order to secure and maintain international peace.

The developing consensus I referred to earlier is both evident in the amount of material available on the subject of humanitarian intervention today (I just read two reviews of books on the subject in this weekend’s edition of the Herald Tribune), but also the increasing amount of U.N resolutions that have tied gross human rights violations specifically to the threat of international peace, allowing for the invocation of Chapter VII.  From the conclusion of a paper by a professor of mine, Fred Grunfeld:

My point may seem rather academic, since all of today’s conflicts are caused by gross violations of human rights; in the words of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights: “today’s human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow’s conflicts.” Conversely, all conflicts have produced gross and mass violations of human rights.  This is correct and in that sense, the two principal objectives are inextricably linked.  This does not detract from the fact that development described in this contribution reveals an upgrading of the protection of human rights by the international community.  The upgrading is expressed by the use of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.

Grünfeld, F. (1998). Human rights violations : a threat to international peace and security. In: M. Castermans, F.v. Hoof, J. Smith (Eds.), The role of the nation-state in the 21 century, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, pp. 427-441.

Rather than repeating the well-reported pros and cons of humanitarian intervention, I’d rather discuss the importance of the will to intervene.  There is a renewed sense of hope that under an Obama administration, the cause of humanitarian intervention will finally receive a U.S administration willing to assert its power, in concert with the international community, to intervene in occurring genocides and perhaps even to prevent those for which the early warning signals are strong. From a recent article in Newsweek by Jonathen Tepperman:

Meanwhile, much of the international opposition to U.S. military action is specific to George W. Bush and will dissolve come January. That’s especially true for interventions to stop mass killings, which have grown much more palatable to the international community since Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur. The United Nations recently unanimously approved the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine that gives such missions international imprimatur. And as Ivo Daalder, another prominent Obama adviser, and Robert Kagan have pointed out, between 1989 and 2001 America dispatched significant military force to foreign hot spots so often—once every 18 months—that intervention became something of a standard weapon of U.S. foreign policy, and one with bipartisan support. Kagan argues that this new tradition has been reinforced by 9/11, which showed both policymakers and the public that troubles abroad can come back to hurt the United States. Today’s public is thus “remarkably willing to support overseas action” for the right cause, Kagan says.

Still, only one thing will ultimately determine whether the United States intervenes when crisis strikes: “political will,” as Albright puts it. Kagan is more specific: “At the end of the day, the only person who will be able to answer these difficult questions is the president. It’s all about what this guy wants to do.” Where exactly Obama stands on humanitarian intervention remains something of a mystery. Though he made supportive comments in the campaign—”when genocide is happening … that diminishes us” he said during the second presidential debate—no one seems to know what Obama will do when faced with a real live crisis. The answer may depend on whether he’s an idealist who favors do-gooder missions, as some experts argue, or a hardheaded realist who’d avoid them.

My suspicion is that Obama will fall somewhere in between these two personality types.  John Stoessinger wrote in his book “Why Nations Go To War” about two personality types of American presidents: the crusader and the pragmatist.  The chapter is titled ‘New Wars for a New Century’, and predictably analyzes the personality of George W. Bush (you can guess which end of the spectrum Stoessinger saw W. leaning toward).  The crusader tends to make decisions based on a preconceived idea rather than on the basis of experience, yet also exhibits a “missionary zeal to make the world better.” The pragmatist, by contrast, is “guided by the facts and his experience in a given situation.”  While its certainly too early to tell which end of the spectrum Obama will fall toward, based on his presidential campaign and his appointees to top foreign policy positions I would project that the next president will adopt the role of the pragmatist, keeping more idealist influences around him to inject a humanitarian tinge to his policies.

Needless to say, it will be both interesting and exciting to see how the next administration reacts to the crises in the Congo and Darfur and others exhibiting the gross violations of human rights, and whether the responsibility to act will be met with a will equally as strong.

Here’s a post I wrote over at MidEast Youth about donating books to the new library of the American University of Iraq - Sulaimani.  This follows the lead of Christopher Hitchens, who publicized this appeal earlier this year in his weekly column at Slate:

It would seem unnecessary to remind people about the history that the lands of Mesopotamia have enriched our world’s civilization with; this, after all, was the land of knowledge transmission, the enrichment of the Arabic language, and the world’s center for translation. It was the scholarly home of Al-Khwarizmi and Ibn Sina, the poetic haven of ibn Burd and Abu Nawas. Yet today’s Iraq is void of many of its characteristics under Abbasid rule. Today’s Iraq suffers from the demons of political instability and the perils of economic development. This is not the place of enrichment and learning it once was; after the shadow of Saddam was dispelled, a wave of academic assassins targeted the country’s most prominent scholars. As early as 2004, over 1000 professionals and intellectuals had been killed, and the country’s schools no longer provided comfort in the safety of knowledge. Several thousand more had fled to safer horizons, and reports of this nature have not received respite in recent years. In a tragic occurrence of cultural significance symbolic of the dialectical tension between Iraq’s past and present, the nation’s national library was looted and set on fire in April of 2003, setting aflame centuries of history and culture.

One can, nonetheless, provide both hope and opportunity to Iraq’s future, even in a manner as miniscule as this. The American University of Iraq first opened its doors in 2007; its enrollment numbers, while initially humbling, are projected to reach over 1,000 students in 2011. Located in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the university provides a safe environment for students and their studies. AUI-S currently offers three undergraduate majors and a graduate MBA in international management and leadership. Its library is looking for an all-encompassing collection of material for students motivated to gain the knowledge of generations past and present.

You can read the whole post by clicking the first link.  For more of my posts at MidEast Youth, click here.

I was going to write something up about this story, in which the WSJ reports that the Bush administration intends to sign a nuclear pact with the U.A.E, the first of its sort with a Middle Eastern nation.  Instead, I’ll link to a blog that’s been a helpful resource over the years in helping me to understand the relation between my academic studies and analysis of current events and foreign policy.  MDC over at Foreign Policy Watch gives a little insight into similar agreements (’123 agreements‘) that allow U.S companies to engage in nuclear cooperation with foreign states:

Some 123 agreements - ones with India, Russia, and China, for example - are more controversial than others. The US concluded one with Russia under the Bush administration that provoked the ire of several members of Congress even prior to this summer’s war with Georgia. Several members expressed concern that Russia had not been fully cooperative in supporting Washington’s nonproliferation efforts against Tehran, particularly as Moscow is still constructing a light water reactor at Bushehr. In May, the administration sent the agreement to Congress, where it would have had to sit unopposed for 90 days before entering into force. Yet the Russian-Georgian war that broke out in August proved to be the agreement’s spoiler. Sensing that this already hostile legislative environment would have only been further soured by the conflict, the administration pulled the agreement before it could be killed by Congress and also as a way to not be seen as rewarding Russia following its routing of a US ally.

This story is one to watch not only for the significance of a Gulf state pursuing nuclear energy in a manner that contrasts starkly to the road of provocation which Iran has taken, but also for the precedent it would set for other Middle Eastern nations that have expressed interest in acquiring nuclear power over the past few years.

Egypt has already stated its intention to resume work on the building of a nuclear power plant as part of a programme that was halted in the wake of Chernobyl.  Back in September of 2006, the nation’s Energy Minister announced plans that would see a power station built on its northern Mediterranean coast, slated for completion within the next decade (I assume that’s Egyptian time).  A month later, China announced it had struck a deal with Egypt over nuclear cooperation.  Last March, Egypt signed a cooperation deal with Russia, allowing that nation to bid on contracts as well as providing training to Egyptian personnel and supplies of nuclear fuel.  Egypt now plans to build 4 power stations in cooperation with international partners and the IAEA.

Egypt is only one of 13 nations in the Middle East to have announced nuclear intentions since 2006, a development brought about by a worsening energy crisis and a will to emulate Iran in an effort to balance regional power.

Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor at Tehran University, penned an op-ed that appeared in Lebanon’s Daily Star in which he questions the difference that a Democratic or Republican U.S president makes on the issue of engaging Iran, also noting that different Iranian presidents have been unable to sway Iranian foreign policy in a more moderate direction with regard to U.S-Iranian relations.  The crux of the article is hard to argue, and gives view to the difficulty that Obama will have in making good on his campaign rhetoric of engaging Iran:

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian leaders have watched five presidents of the United States come and go, including Jimmy Carter, who was president during the revolution. Two were Democrats and three were Republicans. Does the presence of a Democrat or a Republican president make any difference to relations between the US and Iran? Judging by these five presidents and three decades of hostility between Tehran and Washington, changes in the White House have made no difference.

The same observation is true of changes in government in Tehran. Hostility toward Washington remained unabated under the pragmatists led by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the reformists led by Mohammad Khatami and the hard-liners led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even though the three governments pursued different policies on many issues.

There was, however, one exception. Khatami pursued a more moderate foreign policy that even included softening Tehran’s hitherto belligerent tone toward the US. The move was not reciprocated by US President Bill Clinton. This was a blow to the reformists in Tehran. The opportunity was ultimately destroyed when the hard-liners seriously opposed the olive branch Khatami extended to the Americans.

History aside, there are serious obstacles to any rapprochement between the two countries. Although at an early stage in his campaign Obama expressed his desire for “direct and unconditional talks” with Ahmadinejad, he was forced to deny this statement and replace it with a declaration of willingness to negotiate directly with Iranian leaders, not necessarily Ahmadinejad. The reason behind Obama’s denial was not difficult to understand. It went back to the root of the dilemma. Ahmadinejad is hugely unpopular in the US. His Holocaust denial, calls for the destruction of Israel, speeches at the United Nations General Assembly, and remarks in interviews and speeches in the US have all made him a remarkably unliked figure among many Americans.  

In fairness to Obama, he’s backed off of the more unwitting statements he made during his presidential run when he seemed to suggest that he’d be willing to sit down with Ahmadinijad one-on-one, or at a greater summit.  Not that sitting down with other human beings should be avoided; his rhetoric on having the moral courage to talk to those you disagree with was a refreshing divergence from the near-dogmatic morality of the previously established U.S attitudes toward Iran. 

Rather, what would sitting down with Ahmadinijad accomplish?  Zibakalam rightfully points to the upcoming presidential elections in the Islamic Republic as a sign that a more pragmatic, open president may be elected who could greet Obama’s overtures with more warmth.  It would also ease domestic public opinion if Obama engaged an Iranian President that did not make the same vile statements which Ahmadinijad has made in the past.  The problem with Zibakalam’s assessment of the situation is that an assumption is made that the Iranian presidency has significant control over the governing attitudes on foreign policy; these anti-U.S, anti-secular attitudes are well enshrined in the country’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.  It would seem to me that former President Khatami, an Iranian reformer, failed to impose any significant changes because of the higher authority present in the country.  Any policy short of engaging the Iranian regime at its highest, most influential levels would be unlikely to accomplish much.  At best, an Obama administration may be able to forge cooperation on issues that are specifically of mutual interest (Iraq, a deal on the nuclear issue if the price is right).  Any sea-changes in Iranian attitudes toward the U.S should not be expected until a new Supreme Leader is appointed by the nation’s highest clerical body.  Here’s a summary of a study conducted by Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour, who argues that an understanding of the role that Khamenei plays in Iranian affairs is vital to any rapprochement (you can download the study at the link):

Sadjadpour argues that “Iran’s Islamic government is more powerful than it has ever been vis-à-vis the United States, Khamenei is more powerful than he’s ever been within Iran, and in order to devise a more effective U.S. policy toward Iran a better understanding of Khamenei is essential.” Though Khamenei is sometimes dismissed as weak and indecisive, Sadjadpour writes, “his rhetoric depicts a resolute leader with a remarkably consistent and coherent—though highly cynical and conspiratorial—world view.”

Given that the real political power of the Iranian Supreme Leader dwarfs that of the president, Sadjadpour argues, “It’s time for the world to focus less on Ahmadinejad and more on Khamenei. His speeches present arguably the most accurate reflection of Iranian domestic and foreign policy aims and actions over the last two decades.” He explores how Khamenei’s unexpected ascent to power is instructive in understanding his style of leadership, and unearths insightful quotes that provide deep insight into Khamenei’s thoughts on issues such as the United States, Israel, Iraq, President Ahmadinejad, and the nuclear issue.

“Given Iran’s centrality to urgent U.S. and European foreign policy challenges—namely Iraq, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, energy security, Arab–Israeli peace, and Afghanistan,” Sadjadpour writes, “the United States does not have the luxury of shunning dialogue with Tehran until Khamenei’s death or the arrival of a more accessible Iranian leader. This could be a long time in coming.”

Sadjadpour argues that any successful approach toward Iran must take into account Khamenei’s pivotal role in Iran’s decision-making process and his deeply held suspicions of the United States. “Trying to engage an Iran with Khamenei at the helm will no doubt be trying, require a great deal of nuance and patience, and offer no guaranteed chance of success. But an approach toward Iran that aims to ignore, bypass, or undermine Khamenei is guaranteed to fail.”

Following the resumption of diplomatic ties between Syria and Lebanon in October, the two states look ready to make good on one of their promises as the names for each country’s ambassadors have been circulating in news reports.  The Foreign Minister’s of each country signed an agreement two months ago in Damascus pledging the establishment of diplomatic ties based on a “mutual respect of each other’s sovereignty and independence.”  The agreement, however, only came in the aftermath of the Lebanese domestic developments in March, which saw Beirut under seige by Hezballah gunmen, eventually earning them veto-power in the national government following an accord brokered by Qatar.  While ties have been resumed, and embassies are scheduled to be opened soon, several contentious issues remain between the two states (including the demarcation of their shared border, which has implications for the Israeli-Syrian negotiations on the Golan Heights).

The two names making the rounds in press reports over the past few days have been the Lebanese Ambassador to Cyprus, Michel El Khoury, and Syria’s Ambassador to Spain, Makram Obeid:

“The cabinet is planning to submit the name of Khoury, the current Lebanese ambassador to Cyprus, to become ambassador in Damascus,” the official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

The cabinet is due to meet on December 15.

In October, Syria and Lebanon established diplomatic ties for the first time since both became independent 60 years ago and vowed to name ambassadors by the end of the year.

Khoury, who will turn 59 on December 24, would not confirm his appointment, telling AFP: “I have not been contacted officially on the matter.”

Once the cabinet officially designates its ambassador, his appointment must then be approved by Damascus before the envoy can take up the post.

Khoury was previously ambassador to The Hague and held top diplomatic jobs in several countries including Britain, Brazil and Mexico.

Diplomatic sources quoted by the Lebanese press say Syria has decided to name its current ambassador to Spain, Makram Obeid, as it envoy to Beirut.

Couldn’t find much more information about the two men, however when/if I do, I’ll be sure to update the post.

Meanwhile, the Syrians are set to sign an agreement with the EU, putting the two actors in a partnership toward establishing stronger economic and cultural ties.  The partnership, which stems from 1995’s Barcelona Process, would also privelage Syria with economic assistance and prefferential trade arrangements.  Syria, which was the lone holdout to the partnership agreement that 11 other regional nations have signed, agreed to terms on the initiative in 2004 only to have the process frozen following the assassination of Lebanese P.M Rafik Hariri in 2005.  The warming of the EU’s perceptions of Syria’s image is another signal that Damascus is being brought back into the international fold after a recent spell of isolation.  What brought about the sudden reversal of attitudes?  David Shenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy speculates:

What prompted the EU’s recent reassessment is not entirely clear; the Hariri investigation is months away from conclusion, and the international tribunal will not be operational before spring 2009. To be sure, Europe was impressed this past May by the announcement of Israeli-Syrian (indirect) negotiations in Turkey and by Damascus’s adoption of a seemingly more productive stance vis-a-vis Lebanon, symbolized by the election later that month of Michel Suleiman as president. More recently, Paris expressed delight with Syria’s pledge in July 2008 to open an embassy in Beirut. In the aftermath of these developments, senior-level diplomatic exchanges between Europe and Syria — largely frozen since 2005 — resumed full force.

Despite the fanfare with which these developments were received, Syria’s steps were rather modest. Although Damascus deferred a political crisis in Beirut by allowing the election of a Lebanese chief executive, President Suleiman, who was appointed chief of staff of the Lebanese Armed Forces by Syria in 1998, is widely viewed as sympathetic toward Syria. Likewise, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad’s commitment to open an embassy in Beirut remains only a pledge — and a symbolic gesture at best. Damascus is already hedging on follow-through; in early December, Syrian foreign minister Walid Mouallem said the appointment of an ambassador “would take place gradually.”

Few in Europe are likely to believe that the embassy’s establishment will constitute recognition of Lebanese sovereignty. And many in Lebanon fear a new embassy would represent the reestablishment of Anjar, the notorious former home of Syria’s viceroy in Lebanon.

Continue reading that last link, in which Shenker lists a few ‘inconvenient truths’ that the EU seems to be ignoring.

Also: this news story may spawn a longer post in the future, given that the story develops, but for now a link will suffice.  Iraq has proposed the creation of a regional grouping in the Middle East, modeled after the E.U.

The proposal seems to be the child of a nation eager to reassert itself amongst its neighbors, in which Iraq seems to be ignoring a few inconvenient truths of its own.  My suggestion: forget establishing new partnerships and organizations until the ones that exist function effectively.  Begin a serious process of reforming the Arab League, refocusing its efforts on economic cooperation and policy.  Any new groupings will run into the same ditch of insignificance that its forerunners have been stuck in for years.

The title of the article differs from the one in my post in that it ends with a question mark; I figured I’d go ahead and imply what’s already well assumed.  Here’s a blockquote from towards the end of the article when Joshua Hammer sits down with Walid Jumblatt, but be sure to read the entire piece.  It’s a captivating narrative of the Hariri Tribunal, and a sobering take on the clash between justice and interest, one that may see the events of February 14th, 2005 figuratively thrown under the bus of the ‘new Middle East’:

“I do believe the U.S. is using the tribunal as a bargaining chip with the Syrian regime,” Jumblatt told me as he gazed out the window toward Syria. Jumblatt had been one of the last people to see Hariri alive; “he believed he was going to be killed,” the chieftain said. Leaning back in a leather chair, hands folded in his lap, Jumblatt looked at once pensive and resigned. The democratic, pro-Western Lebanon he had campaigned for had proved to be a chimera; and the campaign to avenge his closest colleague seemed to be collapsing as well. He said he expected the tribunal to end with some sort of a deal along the lines of that in the Lockerbie case: the regime of the Libyan dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, was accused of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing 270 people. After intense negotiations with Western powers, Qaddafi finally handed over two low-level intelligence agents to face charges in a Scottish court set up in the Netherlands at Camp Zeist, just a few miles from the court in which Hariri’s murder case will be tried. The same kind of arrangement “would be a face-saving solution for Assad,” Jumblatt told me.