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This Counterpunch man-on-the inside has been reporting from the womb of Nahr al Bared. There is little food, hardly any clean water, not a few innocent victims, too many Fath al Islam fighters, and the man clearly does not know from which end his take on the events is coming, no doubt too grateful that he’s been invited to the party to give sobriety a chance. This is sad—sad because that small space in his piece that does accommodate persuasive speculation about some of the reasons that brought us to this tumult suffocates from the much larger section that sinks into bluster, sensationalism and clichéd conspiracy theories; sad because I was not hearing it from Bill O’reilly on Fox, I was reading it in Counterpunch.
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Lamb starts out sensitively enough. The tragedy that is this forever harassed and abused Palestinian people graces the first part of his May 26 article, (as it should every reporter’s) and then it’s bye-bye from there. Had he stuck to some variation of Seymour Hersh’s argument of unintended consequences, or blow back--as some refer to it—he would have remained on safe ground, still marching close enough to intelligent conjecture and fact. But he quickly attaches himself very confidently to one scenario (obviously the Americans did it), inexplicably dispensing with all the requisite qualifications that typically accompany explanations to very dark and nebulous happenings.
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In his first post, he rambles on incoherently about the Welch Club (named after Assistant Secretary David Welch) and an American-inspired conspiracy against the Lebanese army, in the second he denies that there was a bank robbery or that Lebanese soldiers were beheaded. In neither does he tread carefully around the shadowy world in which Fath al Islam and like-minded extremists thrive or show appreciation for all the menacing (and often competing) forces that steer them within it. By offering only his own political predispositions and Fath al Islam denials to him as support for his suppositions, this very angry, if seemingly well-intentioned, American keeps himself in the dark and his hapless readers with him.
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No sense in jumping to last summer’s war in the midst of this commotion is there? Old news, that sad episode and its residues, now that we are discovering that we have been standing waist-deep in an infinitely larger sewer, and much of it of our own making—as usual.
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Who said stupidity is not fascinating to behold as it reveals itself in real time, mind-numbing in its willful ignorance, tragic in its self-deception? Are we not all mesmerized by the calamity that is about to give birth to its demonic offspring everywhere around us—all because, like the dimwitted midwife in those B-rated horror movies of yesteryear, we have obstinately cared for the pregnant beast, believing it against all evidence to be just the grouchy side of an essentially good woman?
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You think me hysterical?
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As the facts trickle out of Nahr al Bared, as the experts’ once tedious warnings suddenly become worthwhile reading, as once ridiculed investigative analyses about the naughty dealings of the bad boys parading as the good guys enjoy renewed respect, we begin to fathom the extent of the trouble ahead of us and the dearth of solutions.
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Every which way you turn it, the drama of Fath al Islam and all those other groups with equally nifty names--Jund al Sham, Ussbat al Ansar, Ansar al Islam, al Ahbash,…--is all thorns, filth and bad odors. But I have to say, whichever way you actually do turn it, it tickles the senses. The facts have yet to line up naked before us, but they sure are stripping. And the details they are exposing so far--escorted, of course, by all the standard provisos--are these:
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The Salafi Fath al Islam, a very recent (last November to be exact) offshoot of the non-religious Fath al Intifadah, a splinter itself from Yasser Arafat’s Fath, may well have been sponsored by the Saudis and the Hariris and cuddled by the Lebanese government which allowed it to roam relatively free between Palestinian camps. If those who accused the intrepid Seymour Hersh of being sloppy when he first revealed this in the New Yorker’s March 5th issue have not yet sent out their apologies, they should get on with it. Hersh was not right about everything, it is true--especially the very likely role Syria has been playing in this tawdry business—but he is close enough to the facts about Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s grand Shiite containment strategy sold last year to the Americans with a Saudi seal.
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For Bandar, it would seem the main threat to the region’s status quo (i.e. Sunni Arab dominance) is the Shiite resurgence and the Persians’ bourgeoning influence. That both were offered by the Americans to their ecstatic recipients, like dhulma on a silver platter, was especially rankling to the dumb-struck Saudis, and hence Bandar’s obsessive pursuit of a bold plan to reverse what the Bush administration itself had set in motion. Bandar thought and thought, and then thought some more, until one morning it landed on his head: Let the Americans hit Iran, let us Sunnis firmly (but secretly, of course) join hands with Israel against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and last, but certainly not least, let our Sunni Lebanese protégés sponsor al-Qaeda-like extremists in Lebanon to check Hezbollah’s hegemony and threaten its interests.
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It is not clear whether Bandar, the maverick that he is, was playing solo all along, or whether King Abdullah, finally realizing that his dashing little prince had fallen face-down in his horse shit, abandoned him in mid-gallop. But all those in the know are speaking of the dimming star of a sidelined Bandar. King Abdullah reportedly was not too keen on Bandar’s proposition from the start, preferring a more creative and less combative approach. He, therefore, informed a surprised Dick Cheney that the Kingdom would not back a military hit against Iran, would not enter into an alliance with Israel and would much rather keep the doors open with Hezbollah. It is not that Abdullah is not nervous about the emboldened Iranians and Shiites in the region, especially in Iraq, he is—very—but let’s just say his spirit is not quite as adventurous as Bandar’s. Blame it on age and, thankfully, the bit of wisdom that sometimes comes with it.
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So far, so good? Here’s where things go from moronic to downright dangerous. In those few months Bandar was left to stray, he signals to the Hariri crew to start feeding Fath al Islam as well as other guns for hire and facilitating their armed existence in Palestinian camps. The Hariris, longtime supporters of the similarly hideous Ussbat al Ansar and other Islamist radicals—a few of whom were arrested in the Diniyeh clashes in 2000, and then pardoned due to Sa’ad Hariri and other Sunni leaders’ intercession—begin looking after Fath al Islam, signaling to the Lebanese government to let these gangs trek unhindered between refugee camps.
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This was more than a family affair; this was government policy apparently aimed at bolstering the Sunni community against a heavily armed Shiite Hezbollah. However, as mentioned in my previous post, these bridges between mainstream Lebanese Sunnism and the sect’s fringe elements are old constructions, and the Hariris were not the only active investors in this enterprise. From the outset, and long before this patronage morphed into a specific Saudi and Hariri-endowed political plan, it was obvious that the Sunni establishment was presiding over currents that make Hezbollah look positively angelic.
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The trail grows much colder at this juncture. Three likely scenarios make their case for space. Either the plug was pulled (prompted by a Saudi-American change of mind) on Fath al Islam, provoking it to show its canines; or Syria, the ingenious trickster that it is, drills inroads into Fath al Islam, works them like no master can, and turns them loose on their old patrons; or a combination of both: An unruly Fath al Islam dampens Hariri’s enthusiasm for them and creates a door through which Syria walks in and plays its hand. Nice!
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Whichever scenario is the closest to reality, Hariri and Saniora must be finding it very difficult to sit on their bums right about—oh, say-- this very minute because as we all know once you create a monster you can never be sure when it is going to turn around and bite you—hard.
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This is what I have been able to gather and deduce from the reports and assessments of those with serious insight into and knowledge about the different pieces of this puzzle.
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But, alas, as revelatory as all this is, it is not where the story may prove to be at its most meaningful—and unsettling.
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Spooky, huh?
Al baqiyyah fi al adad al Qadem (roughly, more later)
