Michel Aoun : "Les Etats-Unis travaillent à la déstabilisation du Liban"

From le Monde, via SyriaComment, here.

"...Les Américains refusent notre tentative de sortir le Hezbollah de son isolement. Et ils soutiennent sans faille le gouvernement de Fouad Siniora contre ce projet. George Bush a annoncé il y a une semaine le gel des avoirs de ceux qui agissent contre le "gouvernement légitime" du Liban, dont nous contestons la légitimité depuis un an. Trois jours avant l'élection de dimanche, cette menace a effrayé ceux qui nous soutiennent de leurs dons..."

Cheney urging strikes on Iran

From McClatchy's, Via WarAndPiece, here.

" ... The (behind the scene) debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both..."The Bush administration has launched what appears to be a coordinated campaign to pin more of Iraq's security troubles on Iran..." Patrick Clawson, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said a strike on the Quds camps in Iran could make the nuclear diplomacy more difficult... Before launching such a strike, "We better be prepared to go public with very detailed and very convincing intelligence," Clawson said..."

Memo From Dubai:U.S. Backs Free Lebanon Elections, Only to See Allies Lose

From the NYTimes, here

"...Mr. (Al Akhbar's Nicolas) Nassif added, “Since then, every time the Americans interfere, it ends in a war or in their expulsion...”

“... It’s the kiss of death,” said Turki al-Rasheed, a Saudi reformer who watched last Sunday’s elections closely. “The minute you are counted on or backed by the Americans, kiss it goodbye, you will never win...”

US moves to hobble Lebanon's president

From AP, here.

"... One U.S. official familiar with the situation said the slew of high-level meetings accorded Chedid is intended as both a signal of support for Saniora's government and a diplomatic slap in the face to Lahoud, whose term in office is due to end in November..."

INTERVIEW-Saudi media empire tries to counter opposition

From Reader Salem read here.

Dawood al-Shirian, Saudi Arabia manager of the Saudi-owned MBC television and radio network, defending Saudi influence, says:
"This (media influence) has played a role in opening up the Arab world and revealing the falseness of some ideologies such as Arab nationalism, the Left and political Islam," he added, listing populist political movements that the Saudi royals have long regarded as threats to their rule.

McClatchy's: Suicide Bombers in Iraq: Largest number are Saudis

Read McClatchy's, here

"... Hafez, whose new book is "Suicide Bombers in Iraq," has identified the nationalities of 124 bombers who attacked in Iraq. Of those, the largest number — 53 — were Saudis..."

TAX CUTS!....Here's the latest desperate plea for attention from the White House:

From Kevin Drum, here.

What "Carrots" Have Been Offered to Iran?

"... What carrots? Whenever Rice or Satterfield talk about diplomacy on Television we are treated to a vision of glowering bluster demanding Iranian compliance in Iraq. Period!!! The AEI types that Wright mentions are consistent in the fullness of their fantasy life just as they were before Iraq..." Lang

WaPo, here.

A “viable and contiguous” Palestinian state, pledged by the Bush administration, remains a pipe dream

From UPI's De Borchgrave, here

"... The consensus in Israel today, says Pappe (his book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine), is for a state comprising 90 percent of Palestine “surrounded by electric fences and visible and invisible walls” with Palestinians given only worthless cantonized scrub lands of little value to the Jewish state. In 2006, Pappe sees that 1.4 million Palestinians live in Israel on 2 percent of the land allotted to them plus another 1 percent for agricultural use with 6 million Jews on most of the rest. “Another 3.9 million live concentrated in Israel’s unwanted portions of the West Bank and concentrated in Gaza that has three times the population density of Manhattan,” notes Pappe. Back from the Middle East last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said prospects are good for a two-state solution...!"

Anti-Saudi tide rises in Iraq

From the Christian Science Monitor, here.

"... The Saudi backlash is being fueled by Iraqi media reports and Shiite leaders' condemnations of apparent fatwas, religious rulings by Saudi muftis calling for the destruction of Shiite shrines in Iraq..."

"... One Saudi fatwa allegedly called for the destruction of the mausoleum of Imam Hussein in Karbala, south of Baghdad. The violent death of the third imam and his companions in battle against the caliph's army in AD 680 marked the schism between Sunnis and Shiites. The intensity of the standoff over the centuries tended to track regional political upheaval..."

Current number of 1001 Contractors killed in Iraq is a small fraction of real number

Ben Crair blogging in the New Republic, believes that private contractors' deaths in Iraq (and Afghanistan) surpass 1000. Here.

Patriarch Sfeir: Almost ALL Presidential candidates are "deficient"

In an "audience" that resembled a "confession", Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir confided that almost all Presidential candidates are "deficient" due to "criminal histories, Bank Al Madina or family feuds", ... bar ONE!

The Friedman Units

On the Friedman Unit (FU: first coined by Atrios, " ...Well, it's almost here. Amazing how a Friedman Unit seems like a long period of time and then suddenly it's almost over. I've long documented how the Wise People of Washington were convinced that September was some sort of magic change date on Iraq. I think I even pegged it at 20% chance that they were actually right. But as we know, September will come and go and nothing will change because of cowardly old men with large egos..."

Getting it wrong on Lebanese Elections

But PajamasMedia gets it right with "Gen. Aoun becoming "pro-Syrian" here, ... and while Beirutis did not bother to leave their VILLAGES to vote..." As one Dear German friend of mine would say Wawaweewa!! read this.

Beyond Arms Sales: Whither the US-Saudi Relationship?

Sameer Lalwani writes in the WashingtonNote, here.

" ... And contrary to the popular belief of oil windfalls recklessly squandered, there is good evidence to suggest Saudi's constructive investments in the rest of the region affords it considerably political leverage. Dr. Steffen Hertog has analyzed the most current regional economic that reveals a marked increase in cross-border investment by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in the Middle East. As a result, he concludes the GCC, with Saudi as the most pivotal heavyweight, are poised to play a key stabilizing role in the region (particularly Syria and Lebanon) that would certainly be in America's interest:

With its emerging role as the dominant economic hub of the region, the GCC arguably is a potential anchor of stability in the Arab world. Relatively weak in military terms, it has a vested interest in political calm, as it can then flex its economic muscle. At a time in which American hegemony has become of questionable value even to its "moderate" allies, the GCC might be willing to play a more assertive role based on its economic resources.

Needless to say, no amount of Gulf capital can buy stability amid a mess of epic proportions, as in Iraq (although Gulf money has been helping significantly to shore up the economy of the war-wrecked country). Still, the "soft power" of Gulf capital is not an academic point. As more and more GCC money is channeled into Syria, for example, Gulf political influence there is bound to increase. Its regime in rather dire economic straits, Syria will be increasingly reluctant to alienate Gulf governments--which are not capable of micromanaging the investment decisions of their business classes but can certainly use their moral suasion to indicate which investment destination is not palatable. Similarly, Gulf FDI imparts considerable soft power in Lebanon, where it will play an important role in reconstruction..."

USAID pressures the Daily Star after publication of "Solidere: 'Vigilantism under color of law"

Lysandra Ohrstrom's article in the Daily Star here, and USAID "prompt and stern reaction" via AngryArab: "

"the USAID funders have requested that the coming pages (of Daily Star examiner section) all have their writers submit synopses of their pieces for vetting." the pretext was that "the political agenda of the donors is not to undermine the fouad Siniora government".

Mapping Israel's Separation Barrier

Matt Yglesias says " ...the wall involves various kinds of land-grabs along the border, and also more than a few penumbras and emanations aimed at securing the more far-flung settlements. This, combined with the gray "Jews only" roads that criss-cross the West Bank, constitutes a major inconvenience for tens of thousands of Palestinians and seems to lay the groundwork for a situation where the Palestinians on the other side of the wall enjoy some kind of autonomy or even formal independence while remaining essentially under Israeli control. .."

In Beirut's Dahiyeh, a motley of war-inspired Sandwiches: "Winograd, Ra'ad, Zelzal ..."

From Al Akhbar, here.

"La tragédie des chrétiens du Liban"

Read Le Figaro, here

"Il faut se garder de diaboliser Michel Aoun dont les arguments sont respectables. Sa volonté de transcender les clivages sociaux et communautaires traditionnels, pour favoriser la cohabitation entre chrétiens et musulmans, est louable. Mais son alliance, nouée début 2006, avec le Hezbollah parrainé par l'Iran et la Syrie est contradictoire avec l'idée souverainiste qui devrait animer la communauté chrétienne et qu'il a lui-même incarnée naguère..."