My Friends make me appreciate my Enemies

4^th August 2006
The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

I admit to plagiarizing Mark Twain’s thoughts about human relationships forcing him to love his dog. These are exactly my feelings regarding the atrocious developments in the Middle East where people I share western civilization with (friends) are forcing me to appreciate other people I had disdain for, and whom I used to consider as fundamentalists in a crusade against western liberties (enemies).

I will come to the Lebanon tragedy later but let me start with Iraq first.

As the trial of Saddam Hussein inches to an end I think the biggest mistake that can be made is condemning him to death, making a victim out of a tyrant. I never had any appreciation for the way Hussein ruled Iraq, crushing all opposition and forcing his country to several useless wars. Whilst I always considered the US invasion of Iraq as a grave mistake and a destabilizing force for the whole Middle East peace process, I felt no compunction about the removal of Hussein.

Now I do. Never a day goes by without news that several tens, sometimes hundreds, have been killed through sectarian violence between the various factions of the Iraqi society. Innocent people are being killed everyday without as much as a whimper by the international community who seem to argue that it is okay for the Iraqis to kill themselves as long as they do not kill foreign forces who destabilized the country and are trying to make eggs out of an omelette.

Consequently I am starting to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt that only through his hard-fisted leadership one could keep together a disparate society that was artificially put together by past colonisers to suit their interest, without any regard to the grave risk of such artificiality eventually leading to a civil war. I can even start understanding Saddam’s need to keep the country at a constant state of war with an external agent to prevent it from fall into a war within itself. May be Saddam had to make a choice of the lesser evil. Just as Communism disintegrated on its own without outside aggression, tyranny in Iraq needed a long time spanning several generations to smoothen its conversion into a democracy. Forcing a democracy through battle tanks clearly does not work.

The invasion of Iraq has only favoured the country that really poses a threat to western interests i.e. Iran. Iran has now indirect control over the Shiite majority which has effective power in Iraq and this at a time when the US military capabilities is fully stretched making the threat of military action against Iran sound hollow.

The escalating resources and belligerence of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon simultaneously with the growing influence of Iran over Iraq is no accident.

The distaste of Iraqi youth for what they regard as the occupation of their homeland provides a fertile ground for recruitment of ‘freedom fighters’ to join Hezbollah in the crusade for the liberation of Palestine.

With America practically abandoning its indispensable role for a diplomatic two-state solution for the problem of Palestine, Israel feels threatened by the growing role of Iran whose President has vowed to wipe off Israel from the Middle East map.

For as long as America was considered as a genuine peace broker, even if tilting on the Israeli side, there was hope for a diplomatic breakthrough. However since the Iraqi invasion America has lost its influence and is no longer considered as a suitable broker for a Middle East solution, so much so that the United Nations requested both the US and UK to adopt a low profile in the search for a cease-fire to the Lebanon conflict.

The failure of the EU is that it failed to fill the diplomatic gap created by America’s involvement in Iraq, for a diplomatic solution for Palestine. And where diplomacy fails belligerence and war succeeds.

With a growing threat on its northern border Israel argued that conflict was inevitable and that now was better than later as time was only working to increase the threat. Israel will no doubt succeed militarily is pushing Hezbollah a few kilometres away from its international border and will re-occupy southern Lebanon until a UN sponsored military force can take control of the buffer zone. But if such a buffer zone force has to be put together during a crisis, why was it not put together through diplomacy across all Israeli borders in order to give it a sense of security without having to resort to armed conflict?

In the process hundreds of thousands of innocent people are suffering. As Israel wins back territory it loses friends and sympathy and for every terrorist they kill, they give birth to hundred freedom fighters.

To get a glimpse of the tragedy innocent Lebanese are going through, here is an extract that a business friend of mine in Lebanon sent me:

“I decided to drive around to get a first hand look on the refugees fleeing the South of Lebanon & the Southern Suburb of Beirut. I spent most of the day driving refugees out of Beirut to safe villages in the Christian areas (north east of Beirut). As of July 17 I have adopted a refugee centre housing 45 families (i.e 243 persons mostly mothers and children). This centre is public garden. On July 18 I have added to my commitment another close by centre housing 152 families (i.e 770 persons mostly mothers and children). This centre is the Faculty of Law of the Lebanese University. Realizing that I will not be able to feed a thousand persons a day for long, I have drafted a plan with our staff and friends to support the relief operation on a sustainable manner while engaging the refugees as well.

I have been averaging 4 hours of sleep a day. (even this is not sound asleep. Israeli war planes manage to interrupt our sleep regularly.)”

America’s invasion of Iraq is the root cause of the Middle East turmoil and there can no scale - down in armed conflict in the region before the White House gets occupied by a team that truly believes that American Supremacy has to flow through its diplomacy, with military solution being used as a very last resource and only with specific UN mandate.