Abdullah II Links Stability In Lebanon To Hezbollah's Electoral Victory

A source close to King of Jordan Abdullah The Second, denied telling American officials that he fears a Hezbollah coup plot against the Lebanese government next July, Annahar reported today.
The denial followed a statement by Republican Representative Mark Kirk, in which he quoted King Abdullah as expressing fears in this vein.
However, the royal source, while denying talks about a coup, linked stability in Lebanon to Hezbollah's victory in the coming parliamentary election in June.
"King Abdullah thinks that Hezbollah is confident of winning the coming parliamentary elections" the source said, adding that "this is a reason why the party would avoid tension and escalation in the street"...
Well, well well..... The King mentions nothing about what would happen if Hezbollah lost the elections...
Hezbollah offers an answer though. "Mutual Assured Destruction"...
As mentioned in previous note, Hezbollah conditions to be given the "one third + one" veto power in the after-election-cabinet in order to avoid taking the battle into the streets...
Just yesterday U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said in his 9th report on the implementation of resolution 1559:

the presence of armed groups and militias create an atmosphere of fear during the period of parliamentary elections.

Hence, Hezbollah puts the following equation on display. A coup from within the system using the unconstitutional veto power to paralyse the democratic governance process (read more here), or another from outside using weapons and streets to attain the same goal...

Hezbollah Is Plotting A Coup

Word coming from Washington suggests that Jordan King Abdullah II shared with American officials his fear of a Hezbollah coup plot against the Lebanese government next July.

Republican Representative Mark Kirk was quoted to have said that he heard from Jordan king that he is worried that Hezbollah might be plotting a coup against Lebanon’s government next July. Kirk’s statement came during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s hearing before a House appropriations subcommittee Thursday, Hicham Melhem, Annahar bureau chief reported.

In fact, several Hezbollah members warned that any government in Lebanon must reflect “true participation” of Lebanon’s various communities and political entities to avoid struggle. Nawaf Almoussawi, a Hezbollah candidate in the Lebanese parliamentary elections in June, threatened to take the confrontation into the streets, if March 14 won the elections and decided not to grant his party veto power within the cabinet.

Hezbollah demands to have “one third + 1” of any government to be formed after the elections, if it happened to loose the race.

In another dimension, Abdullah’s leaked statement underscores Arab Leaders anxiety with Hezbollah’s growing influence in the region supported by Iran.

President Hosni Mubarak warned yesterday "regional forces" against interfering with Egypt, pointing indirectly at Iran. Mubarak, whose country was the first in the Arab World to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has been under regular attack from Tehran and its proxies in the region (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other leftist/nationalist dinosaurs) for its so called self defeating appeasement.
Accordingly, Mubarak chose the anniversary of "the liberation of the Sinai" from Israeli occupation to address his foes.

"We are aware of your plans... We will expose your plot and catch you," the Egyptian president promised. "Stop [exploiting] the Palestinian issue and be warned of Egypt's fury."

His statement is the first since Egyptian security forces uncovered a Hezbollah cell allegedly planning to carry out attacks against Israeli and domestic targets in Egypt, several weeks ago.

Two Muslim camps fighting the Middle East's new cold war

Yaakov Lappin writes about "Two Muslim camps fighting the Middle East's new cold war". The author highlights the emergence of a:

new alignment which has swept the Middle East like a sandstorm, doing away with old geopolitical constellations and leaving a new reality in its wake.

While Lappin mentions

the Saudi-sponsored Arab League offer being waved before Israel, promising full Arab recognition and normalization of ties with Israel, in exchange for large territorial concessions

he avoids stating the growing Arab dissatisfaction with Israel's reaction to it.
KSA King Abdullah warned twice that this Arab initiative would not remain on the table for ever

US Iran Banks Warming Up

Four American banks, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, file requests with Central Bank of Iran ynetnews reported. If approved, they will be able to open branches in free trade zone, and later perhaps in Tehra

Melman advises Bibi to Attack Iran

Here is an interesting piece from Haaretz in which Yossi Melman advises Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran.

Are Hamas, Hezbollah Ready for Long 'Hudna'?

NADIM KOTECIH
Published: March 17, 2009

Middle East Times


BEIRUT -- From Gaza to the Dahieh (Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut) a new fact seems to be emerging. Hamas and Hezbollah feel they are forced to abide by part of the international community conditions: Freezing violence while resiliently refusing to recognize Israel.

Hamas, which is part of a Palestinian national dialogue taking place in Cairo to form a unity government with Fatah, vowed it won't recognize Israel and won't abide by previous commitments made by either Fatah or the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) saying, nonetheless, it will only "respect" them. Putting respect versus abidance is merely a linguistic maneuver that, in essence, resembles Hamas's refusal of PLO commitments.

The PLO which agreed to the Oslo accords with Israel in 1993 had committed to recognize Israel and abandon militant struggle.

However, while Hamas is loud about not recognizing Israel, it is interesting to note that the Islamic movement warned Gaza residents last week that it will act against those responsible for the "ill-timed" rocket firing into Israel. Some Gazans, mainly from the Islamic Jihad movement, were reportedly arrested, questioned and forced to sign obligations not to carry out attacks and to notify "authorities" of those who do or give order to do so.

Hezbollah seems to be on the same page.

The party's secretary general said his movement would never recognize Israel, rejecting a U.S. precondition for dialogue with the group that Washington considers a terrorist organization.

Nasrallah was referring to new reports that the United States expressed readiness to conduct dialogue with Hezbollah provided that the movement recognizes Israel and abandons violence.

"We reject the American conditions.... Today, tomorrow and after 1,000 years and even until the end of time, as long as Hezbollah exists, it will never recognize Israel," Nasrallah said, days ago at a rally celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad.

But what about the other condition: abandoning violence? Nasrallah used general emotional terms in stating what resistance (synonym to violence in the U.S. political lingo) corresponds to his party.

"Resistance is not to be abandoned. It is our dignity, existence and the holiest of what we carry."

Notwithstanding, Hezbollah did not fire one rocket from south Lebanon or any other place into Israel since the military activities of the July 2006 war came to a halt. Even when some Katyusha projectiles were fired into Israel from Lebanon during the last Gaza war and right after, Hezbollah was always among the first parties to deny any connection to these incidents.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the bloodiest fight between Hezbollah and Israel and it embraced the "unanimous decision by the government of Lebanon on August 7, 2006 to deploy a Lebanese armed force of 15,000 troops in south Lebanon...." Another International force of 15,000 officers was deployed changing the whole situation on the ground which Hezbollah managed to vest in for decades.

"Those who don't want to fight," Nasrallah added "should not legitimize Israel or concede defeat, because the coming generations will stand and fight."

Hence, akin to Hamas, Hezbollah realizes the facts on the ground and seems to have come to the same conclusion: While fighting was made so hard, "we" are not forced to bestow legitimacy on Israel. Contrary to that "we" will keep investing in the animosity till the facts on the ground change one day.

Does this mean accepting a long term "Hudna" (truce) is in the horizon?

Hamas has already done it before and the ongoing talks in Egypt tackled the duration of this hudna. Some leaders of Hamas expressed in the past the movement's readiness for a 30 years hudna as part of a negotiated settlement with Israel.

For Hezbollah it might be easier. Lebanon and Israel already signed an armistice agreement on March 23, 1949. The Lebanese government has already requested that "(t)he U.N., in cooperation with the relevant parties, will undertake the necessary measures to once again put into effect the Armistice Agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel in 1949, and to insure adherence to the provisions of that agreement, as well as to explore possible amendments to or development of said provisions, as necessary." This request was endorsed, among others, in the UNSCR 1701.

While Hezbollah has rarely displayed commitment to state regulations when it comes to its struggle with Israel, the concept "hudna" might adhere to some theological dimensions in its ideology and, hence, facilitate its acceptance. Hudna is the Islamic concept and framework which controls and advices the relation with the "enemies of Islam" in times of no war.

Hudna is not peace. True. But solving the problem in the Middle East in one shot is not reasonable as well. Nevertheless, the long term hudna, if materialized, might be an opportunity for moderates and rejectionists to try to change the facts on the ground and I'm sure the former have better answers to offer to their societies.

I don't recommend talking to either Hamas or Hezbollah. Both movements seem to have started to partly accept International conditions even before any talks have started.

Talking about this hudna should start with Syria and Iran as part of their essential commitments toward the international community. Strategies, programs and policies will be developed later to assure that moderation prevails.

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Nadim Koteich is a political analyst and host of "Studio 24," a daily prime time news analysis show that airs on the pan-Arab Future News channel, headquartered in Beirut. His e-mail is nkoteich@gmail.com

Despite Obama's Overtures, in Iran it's Business as Usual

NADIM KOTEICH
Published: February 10, 2009

Middle East Times

BEIRUT -- In Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Tehran it is business as usual. Statements and attitudes of Iranian officials and Iran's proxies in the Middle East seem to be deep-rooted in pre-Obama templates.

Neither the U.S. president's inaugural 'new way forward' he seeks with Muslims, nor his 'Americans are not your enemy' first-interview-message seem to have been noticed by the conservative Iranian establishment or at least noticed enough to reply positively.

To the contrary, U.S. 'hope' to change Iran's attitude and bring it to act more responsibly was dimmed by Iran's "hope," a satellite recently sent into space, using same long-range ballistic technology that is used for launching warheads. This makes Iran the ninth nation to successfully register its name in the orbit.

Adding pure insult to injury, Iran refused to issue visas for an American badminton team that was supposed to participate in an international tournament in Tehran.

But why the big fuss?

Granting the visas won't have meant that change is in the wind. In fact the United States has sent 32 athletes to Iran under a sports exchange program launched in 2007, and 75 Iranian athletes and coaches have visited the United States, as State Department data reflects. Since then, it is worth noting, Iran advanced its uranium enrichment process going from 164 centrifuges to 5,000 it claims are spinning at the moment.

Akin to 'hope,' the term 'new,' in current Iranian political lingo, is merely a metaphor. It is almost exclusively linked to war and confrontation.

Talking to Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal last week, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei emphasized the importance of keeping the resistance fist 'clenched.' He called on the Palestinians to remain vigilant and be prepared for "new" attacks that could come at any time.

A Cyprus-flagged ship, Monchegorsk, sailing from Iran to Syria, docked off the Mediterranean island shore proves Khamenei is a man of his word. Washington, whose navy earlier boarded the ship in the Red Sea, said weapons were found on board.

A Western diplomatic source told Reuters that U.S. Navy inspections had found arms-related material including propellant and other casings for artillery and tank rounds, as well as shell casings, which Israel suspects were being carried to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In the same vein, Hezbollah, Iran's most lethal proxy, is improvising, and building up a new case against Israel as a pretext to the coming "new" war. In a recent press conference Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah cited three reasons why his organization is keeping fingers on pistols triggers.

First, "there are still the remains of 350 Arab and Lebanese martyrs' in Israel," he said, talking to reporters via a huge screen.

Second, he touched on the issue of four Iranian diplomats who went missing in Lebanon in 1982, claiming that they are held in Israeli prisons. Though the Christian-dominated Lebanese Forces, and a now Hezbollah tough foe, were held responsible for kidnapping the diplomats, Nasrallah, surprisingly enough, said that this is an unconvincing Israeli story, keeping the focus on Tel Aviv.

It is worth noting that the top security commander at the time of this incident was the late Lebanese Forces lieutenant Elie Hobeika who enjoyed close contacts with Hezbollah for the most part of the period since 1992 till he was killed in a car bomb near his residence in east Beirut on Jan. 24, 2002.

Third, Nasrallah assured his audience that revenge will be taken for the killing of Hezbollah premiere militant, Haj Radwan, better known as Imad Mughnieh, who was assassinated in February 2008 in a tightly secured zone in Syria.

These are just the latest signals of how defiant Iran is and how far it is willing to go to preserve what it sees as the nation's dignity.

In the meantime the P5+1 gathering granted Barack Obama's administration great powers' support for its willingness to engage in direct talks with Iran and help it break out of isolation over its internationally disputed nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that "if Tehran does not comply with United Nations Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency mandates, there must be consequences." For a person whose verbal toughness record is as vast as hers, she sure can talk the talk; however, the administration is rather expected to prepare for walking the walk when the moment arrives in the not very far future.

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Nadim Koteich is a political analyst and host of "Studio 24", a daily prime time news analysis show that airs on the pan-Arab Future News channel, headquartered in Beirut. His e-mail is nkoteich@gmail.com

Can Hamas be Trusted?

NADIM KOTEICH

Middle East Times

Published: February 03, 2009


BEIRUT -- Suddenly, Hamas finds its basket full of international carrots after being hard hit with Israeli sticks. But not only that. Rapprochement messages to Hamas were being smoothed each time an international player spells them out.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was the first European statesman to say that his government was ready to talk to Hamas, "when they accept the peace process, when they agree to start negotiations." Speaking in parliament, Kouchner said: "We don't ignore the reality of Hamas, its electoral success or its weight in Palestinian opinion."

One week later, a similar message, less conditioned though, came from the Quartet Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair. The grey-haired British PM-turned-diplomat said the Quartet would talk to Hamas "provided that Hamas is part of a government that is on terms that are consistent with the two-state solution."

Just recently, the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana made the lightest gesture toward accepting a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas shall the Islamic movement commit to pursuing a two-state solution. Solana's new approach fell short of long-standing conditions, that Hamas must renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing interim peace accords.

This approach fantasizes about a beaten up and desperate Hamas that will soon rush to "accept the peace process," abide by the terms of a "two state solution" or at least commit to "pursuing" such an outcome. It also fantasizes about a strategy of engaging the militant organization, diplomatically and politically, to walk it through a process of moderation. Didn't Khaled Meshaal tell the French Jewish writer Marek Halter on the eve of Israel's 22-day offensive that his movement, whose 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, is finally ready to recognize Israel? So why not trying to further this "moderation."

In fact there is substantial evidence to the contrary.

Meshaal is a professional deceiver who masters sending mixed messages. Shortly after the guns fell silent in the Gaza Strip due to an internationally enforced cease-fire, he said that Gaza battle laid the ground for a serious "strategy of liberation" that would extend beyond Palestine. During the war Hamas attended a quasi summit in Qatar alongside with Syria, Sudan, Iran (the neo-rejection front led by the messianic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) where the Arab Peace Initiative spearheaded by Saudi Arabia was called dead.

For Meshaal peace fruits shall be facing the same destiny. Shortly after, he announced the surprise that work is underway to form an alternative representative authority to replace the decades-old Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Hamas has always refused to join ranks of the PLO, which due to its acceptance of a Palestinian state on the territories Israel occupied in 1967 and recognized Israel's right to exist, was internationally recognized as the "sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

This is barely the first coup attempt against the PLO.

A few years ago Hamas led other Damascus-based Palestinian groups to establish the Front of the 10 Palestinian Factions. In 1976, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein encouraged a group of Palestinian officials to form the Palestinian Rejection Front. Less than a decade later, Syria backed a dissident Fatah officers Abu Moussa Maragha and Abu Khaled al-Amleh, to establish the Palestinian Salvation Front.

In addition, it is not the lack of "engaging Hamas" that hardened its positions, but rather the strategy of engagement itself. In February 2007 Saudi King Abdullah oversaw a tough reconciliation process to get the two rivals Fatah and Hamas to end street fighting and form a national unity government. The deal was announced from Mecca, Islam's holiest place, and $1 billion was promised in aid. Not less remarkable the Mecca agreement put Mahmoud Abbas and Meshaal on the same level, granting Hamas an unprecedented position. However, less than four months later Hamas militiamen were throwing Fatah supporters from high rise buildings in Gaza, dragging the bodies of "collaborators" through the streets and stretching the borders of Iran to meet those of Israel while consolidating its stranglehold on the strip.

Hamas sustained, since then, its refusal to join a national dialogue proposed by Egypt. And when a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel, brokered by the Egyptians, expired the Islamic organization turned down all calls from Cairo to revive the agreement.

However, and while "engaging Hamas" remains the strategy advising Cairo's mediation to bridge schism between the same two factions, Meshaal said after the last war in Gaza that his movement is ready for a national dialogue "on the basis of resistance."

It was Albert Einstein who once said: "the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." However, when it comes to Hamas nothing could be more lethal than abandoning reality.

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Nadim Koteich is a political analyst and host of "Studio 24", a daily prime time news analysis show that airs on the pan-Arab Future News channel, headquartered in Beirut. His e-mail is nkoteich@gmail.com

End of the 'End of War on Terror'

The "end of war on terror," celebrated after U.S. President Barack Obama's Inaugural address, came to an imminent demise as Obama unveiled his administration's Afghanistan-Pakistan policy at the end of last week.

The shadows of the former administration couldn't be missed. The 'surge' strategy hovered over the policy lines, and so does the strategy of alliance with the Sunni Awakening Councils, who wreaked havoc on al-Qaida in Iraq.

"I have already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops" in Afghanistan, Obama said, adding that "later this spring we will deploy approximately 4,000 U.S. troops to train Afghan security forces."

However, Obama presented his surge as a way of correcting the former president's mistakes. In three of the four times he mentioned Iraq, he was emphasizing the same point.

"Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq."

"Those resources have been denied because of the war in Iraq."

"America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq."

Nonetheless, Iraq is about success as well and even Obama had to admit it.

"In Iraq, we had success in reaching out to former adversaries to isolate and target al-Qaida. We must pursue a similar process in Afghanistan...."

Not only the strategy borrowed some pages from George W. Bush's Iraq strategy, in some lines it echoed the 43rd president's most defining rhetoric. "[T]o the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you," Obama said in a modified form of Bush's terrorists-you-and-us template while repeating his own inaugural address message:

"... for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

At that time, terror was only mentioned once and without the suffix -ism, and the speech was immediately dubbed as the "end of war on terror" declaration.

Well, it was prematurely labeled as such.

In Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan policy speech, terror, terrorists and terror attacks were mentioned 12 times, 9/11 four times and its custodians, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, were mentioned by their names. More interestingly, Obama sent a clearer message that this war is afoot.

"The people of Pakistan want the same things that we want: an end to terror" he said stressing the fact that this war is still far from being concluded.

If so, then how the end of war on terror popped up?

In addition to the inaugural address, this argument gained grounds as the story of a message that was sent to senior Pentagon staff explaining that the current administration prefers to avoid using the term "long war" or "global war on terror" unfolded.

The Washington Post reported that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requested that federal employees refrain from using the Bush administration term "global war on terrorism." OMB director Peter Orszag dismissed the story.

Similarly, when asked about this message, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he doesn't know of any language "that has been passed around." He added, though, that Obama is less concerned with "the phraseology" than he is about the "steps that he's taken and that we need to take as a country to protect our citizens."

Gibbs's sentence about the president's lack of concern with "phraseology" couldn't be more disconnected from reality. Obama, at the end is a person of words. He is a former candidate who brilliantly architected his campaign around the power of words.

This, obviously, is not being said in the Clintonian fashion during the Democratic party nomination race.

"Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama said once to Wisconsin Democrats in retaliation to Hillary Clinton's attacks on him that all he had to offer at that point of time was words.

"'I have a dream' - just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' - just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' - just words. Just speeches," he went on saying.

In his memoir "Dreams from My Father," written at age 34 prior to being a politician, Obama provides his reader with the most insightful phrase on his belief in words. "If I could just find the right words ... everything could change," he wrote.

It is only in this sense, the sense of wording and phrasing, that one could comprehend the suggestion of the end of war on terror, while Obama himself is offering so much evidence to the contrary. It is, at best, the end of phrase, not the end of a phase.

The Washington Post wrote the following on Jan 23: "President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. ... While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, the notion that a president can circumvent long-standing U.S. laws simply by declaring war was halted by executive order in the Oval Office."

Although, the paper got it right, it got it wrong in the title. This is not ending the war on terror, it is rather coming with it to maturity.