Aoun: The Missing Link

Aoun: The Missing Link
“We are going to hold the show even if there’s an Israeli assault on the Biel.”
Ziad
Rahbani

Tit for tat. They had their demonstration so we’ll have ours. Or we’ll have our own ego trip is more like it. It’s that simple. That is the sum total of today’s downtown bazaar. Yes, I call this one a bazaar too, only perhaps a more drab one than that of the other camp.

Whereas in the first Cedar Revolution the sexual tension had been quite tangible, passes being made, smiles being exchanged, flesh rubbing against tattooed flesh, I assumed that here things would be quite prim and conservative, given the socio-political inclinations of many of the participants. I mean, we were definitely not going to find condoms sprawling on the ground in Martyrs’ Square at midnight, I supposed, until someone pointed out that given a few days they would probably start contracting mut’aa marriages. I have the grace not to mention the street vendors peddling turmos, nara for argileh, and the like.

On a less amusing note, let us go back a fortnight in time. When the Security Council voted on the subject of the International Tribunal, two member states were thought to be lukewarm on the subject, namely Qatar and Russia. Why?
Qatar, because as the only Arab country currently on the council it did not want to be seen as supporting a Tribunal seen as being aimed against a fellow Arab state, Syria, and Russia, the weightier player, for two reasons. First, because, Syria being its leading ally in the Middle East, it wants to cover the Syrian regime’s tracks. And secondly, because such a tribunal might set a dangerous precedent given its own grisly record vis-à-vis assassinations, not only in Chechnya but also regarding more recent deaths such as those of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and secret agent Alexander Litvinenko. This last analysis, while widely talked about, was confirmed to me by a professor of Political Science at LAU who shall remain nameless.

Well there we have it. Crowds of people protesting against Saad Hariri in the downtown that his father built for them (well maybe it was aimed at the rich but it was a farsighted investment for the whole country), agents provocateurs- taboor khamis is the appropriate lingo I believe-shooting innocent bystanders from upper windows (or was it rooftops?) and the rabble’s media outlets using the poor man’s death to recycle their cheap political capital.

When I call them “rabble” I am not passing judgment on these people on class grounds but simply because most of them do not and will not think for themselves. They are there because they were told, or rather brainwashed to be there.

The dogmatic and comprehensivist approach that Hezbollah takes to almost all issues is contrary to the basic modern liberal ideas of openness, tolerance, pluralism, in short, it is in essence contrary to freedom, that ray of light without which Lebanon would be an overcast wasteland

Furthermore, it causes many people to misunderstand and deride the Shiá, causing, causing the public and the media that this is a historic sect with a proud past. There are a growing number of voices among the Shiá intelligentsia (e.g. Mona Fayyad, Jihad Zein) and even some Ulama who are growing increasingly vocal in their opposition to the hijacking of our sect’s decision by a single party.

The fact is it’s a choice. What do we want Lebanon to be? Do we want to map our way via Damascus and Tehran or via Paris and Washington? I disagree with what some believe that the road through Washington necessarily leads to Tel Aviv. Apart from such purblind neocons as outgoing US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, much of the American establishment now sees that a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel is not a possibility in the foreseeable future.

In such a case, would it not make sense to return to the Armistice agreement of 1949? Why did the Southern border witness so little action between 1949 and 1969? Because Lebanon wisely (some would say treasonably) stayed out of the conflict.

Why did President Nasser of Egypt see fit to browbeat Lebanon’s feeble Helou administration into accepting the armed Palestinian presence?

Because he saw that Lebanon was the weak link in the Arab chain, and could conveniently be taken advantage of.

In response the Maronite militias began to arm and within six years the Paris of the East had become the Stalingrad of the East, from being a toast of hope to a toast of nostalgia.

As Dr Marwan Iskandar said in his article entitled “The Other Voice”, published in An Nahar last October, “Lebanon has given forty years of its life to the Palestinian cause. Enough is enough.”

Why not declare Lebanon a neutral country, as the late Raymond Edde advocated? Why should we see that as contradicting Lebanon’s Arab identity? That identity is enshrined in the constitution, besides the fact is that Lebanon is a member of the Arab League and Arabic is the official language. That is what embodies Lebanon’s Arab identity, not continuing to flog a dead horse for the sake of the Golan and the harebrained schemes of Ahmadinajad, who has been compared by many to George W. Bush in his manner of policymaking and execution.

(Note: for a further discussion of the Lebanese dilemma and what sort of treatment I believe it needs see my next article coming in the next couple of days)


One hears chilling stories about neighbors in places like Barbour who used to play backgammon and smoke argileh getting into fistfights. Why? Because one family is Sunni and the other Shiá. Not Muslim and Christian. Sunni and Shiá. Because if there is another war, which is possible if not probable, it’ll be between Sunni and Shiá. Does the word “Iraq” ring a bell?

Where do the provocateurs come from? Need one pose that question? The big sister of course, ever present and ready to shower us with devoted care. The Palestinian camps, belts of misery, provide droves of potential troublemakers, fueled on by decades of poverty and humiliation.

The news of LF elements training in the Kesrawan, true or not, is not an encouraging item of news in itself.

General Michel Suleiman’s statement that the situation is not parallel to that of 1975 is a pile of rubbish. I think they’re eerily alike.


Once again the most volatile fault line is the Southern Suburbs, Dahiyeh/Ayn Er Remmaneh. Both are underprivileged low income suburbs, one Shiá, one Maronite. It has already seen a number of tremors. That is not to say there will be another Ayn er Remmaneh Bus incident anytime soon, but it is worth noting. It is these young bloods who will staff any future militias, not the bourgeois youths of Ashrafieh and Verdun.

Dahiyeh was not always an exclusively Shiite area. It once had a sizeable Christian community, and was the birthplace of Michel Aoun, whereas the second was the childhood home of Samir Geagea. The two men of war turned politicians are now at loggerheads with each other, as they were during the 1990 War of Elimination, again manipulated by Syria.


This grand irony aside, one cannot help remembering the seemingly clairvoyant words of the late Georges Hawi, who said that either Geagea’s release from prison or Aoun’s return from exile was good but the two combined would not be advisable for they would soon be at odds again, given the fact that the Lebanese stage is too small for two such prima donnas. He could not have been more prescient. Many predicted that would happen though, and this was probably the calculation of our cherished brethren when they made their infamous “deal” with Mon Generale vis-à-vis his return. To give their client axis nationwide legitimacy, they need a Christian partner. Aoun, in his mania for the presidency, is the Missing Link in this chain of events. No pun intended.

The final question is the following: With their ongoing carnival in the downtown, Israel, whose destruction they claim their mantra, is seeking to take advantage of the situation. Do they not realize that if they persist in this farce, they are not only obstructing progress and the normal evolution of things, but playing into the hands of our historic enemy?