Obama's speech

There is lots to say about Obama’s speech, the most significant is that a black man is touring the region apologising for what white men have done. A point lost on many, but the symbolism is clear.

That Obama can deliver this speech in Cairo university is itself astounding.

If Bush had attempted to speak at the campus it would have been burnt to the ground. Obama instead is greeted with standing ovations from an audience that has not been shy in booing Egyptian ministers.

Fickle Arabs easily swayed by smooth words? That’s what many commentators would do doubt be thinking. But Obama’s tone is important.

Some, such as Noam Chomsky, have have dismissed it.

In his analysis Chomsky warns that “Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral US rejectionism.”

Others, such as William Pfaff, see it as a heralding a new era.

It is neither. But it does mark a shift in US strategy.

This speech needs to be seen in two parts. First what has not changed.

Echoing Bush’s 2002 “axis of evil” speech, Obama is committed to the “war on terror” . “When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains people are endangered across an ocean,” he announced.

Obama also warns Iran over its nuclear ambition and sets out to continue the war in Afghanistan.

Here is what’s different.

Gone is the rhetoric of “clash of civilisation” and “crusades” that characterised Bush and his supporters (especially from the pro-war left).

It is replaced with an acceptance of Islam, and the contribution of Muslims in creating civilisation. Easy words maybe, but a noteworthy departure from Islamobobia.

Obama said that, “Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world... I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.”

And although Bush referred to Iran as part of the “axis of evil”, Obama acknowledges that the US bears responsibility for the tensions.

He said: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.”

He follows this with an appeal for negotiations.

This is not a continuation of Bush policies, but a departure. Bush wanted to invade Iran, Obama wants negotiations.

This softening of attitudes towards Iran is a recognition, if any is needed, that the US desperately need Iran to help out in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is with Israel that real change of tone.

The president’s standard commitment towards Israel is laced with criticism.

He said, “It is also undeniable that the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians, have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years, they've endured the pain of dislocation.

“Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and neighbouring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.

“So let there be no doubt, the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

In a remarkable passage he states:

“For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the centre of America's founding.”

There are two messages here. The first is that Palestinians must lay down their weapons. But in a radical departure from previous US leaders, Obama is saying Palestinians are suffering as black slaves did.

Note the language: “lash of the whip”, “segregation”, “daily humiliations”, “the pain of dislocation”.

These words have caused deep concern inside Israel.

Israeli ministers have been running around Washington waving bits of paper signed by Bush that allow them to continue settlements in the West Bank. Obama has instead told them they had to stop.

So here is Haaretz on the reaction inside the Israeli government: “Netanyahu now understands what he already knew before the speech: The moment of political reckoning that he so feared is now rapidly approaching.

“The thunder he hears in the distance is the sound of the Likud legions and the West Bank settler hordes rolling down the mountains. The light on the horizon is not that of a new day, but of a train coming right at him—a night train from Cairo.

“Netanyahu will have to decide over the coming weeks whom he would rather pick a fight with: the powerful US administration, whose president sees himself in an almost messianic role, or his own coalition and members of his party.”

In these circumstances it is easy to dismiss Obama's words as rhetoric, and we know that he faces deep problems reconciling the tensions between US imperialism with its Arab allies. But tension there are—caused partly by popular anger over Palestine, but more directly by the deep hatred of the Arab regimes.

And although the Israelis care little of what happens in Afghanistan, or which government rules in the Arab world. Alfter all they have the comfort of a powerful army and some 50 nuclear warheads.

But it matters deeply to the US and the rest of the West. And if they needed any reminding then last Sunday’s victory by Hizbollah in the Lebanese elections is very sobering. The resistance won largely because of Israel’s 2006 war on the country.

Would another Israeli assault on Gaza mean the US loses Cairo? For the US the stakes are now too high abd the Israelis must be reigned in.

Obama's speech is a recognition of the deep problems faced by US imperialism in the region. He no doubt hopes he can charm his way out of this sticky situation.

The ultimate test is what happens in practice, on this point Chomsky is right. But what is significant is that it will be the Israelis who ensure that Obama will fail.

Elections: What the US bosses think

The Wall Street Journal is over the moon over what it calls the "rebound of Saudi power." I won't mention the hypocrisy of the newspaper which a bastion of neo-conservative, pro-war, pro-Israel, and anti-Muslim, views... but not anti-Salafi (the conservative Saudi ideology).

Never mind. Here's it's take on the elections:

Saudi officials are savoring the weekend election victory in Lebanon of the so-called March 14 alliance.

The Western-leaning bloc held on to its parliamentary majority, despite some polls predicting gains by an opposition coalition headed by Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

"The vacuum of power among the Arabs has finally been filled. We can see that the balance is tipping in our favor," said one Saudi diplomat.

Saudi Arabia was a key player in ending the civil war in Lebanon in 1989, but its influence there waned after the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a billionaire who made his fortune as a contractor for the Saudi royal family.

Since then, the Saudis have openly intervened on behalf of the government dominated by Mr. Hariri's party. It has pledged $1.5 billion to prop up the country's currency and to help rebuilding efforts after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Opposition politicians in Lebanon accused Saudi Arabia of funneling money into the campaigns of politicians running alongside Mr. Hariri's son, Saad, who is now in the running to become Lebanon's next prime minister. Saudi officials have denied interference.

Influential Saudi-owned regional media outlets, however, waged their own public-relations campaign, warning in Lebanon of a looming crisis should Hezbollah and its allies win.

After the elections, Saudi's King Abdullah sent congratulations to the Lebanese people for their "successful" elections.

Tariq Alhomayed, editor of Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, owned by a brother of the king, went further, declaring in an editorial that the results showed "the fall of the Iranian project" in Lebanon.

Elections: What the UK bosses think

The Economist magazine catches the mood of relief in the west over the elections:

The coalition that has struggled to govern Lebanon since 2005 surprised even many of its followers as it emerged from a fiercely contested general election with an undented parliamentary majority.

Its win cheered the Western powers that support the March 14 alliance led by Saad Harir...

Yet March 14’s capture of 71 out of 128 parliamentary seats also underlined the flaws in Lebanon’s cumbersome democracy ... Taking advantage of the imbalance between the size of the constituencies and the number of their MPs, the alliance gained a critical advantage from the massive turnout by Sunni voters in Christian districts, reflecting both demographic shifts and the financial clout of the Sunni political machine.

The opposition’s losses were mostly suffered by independent politicians allied to them. Hizbullah, which in the past has shied away from a deep exposure to what it calls “dirty” electoral politics, ran only 11 candidates, all of whom won handily.

The March 14 victory is unlikely to inspire any early settlement of the feuds that have bedevilled its politics. But for the time being compromise is in the air.

This is helped by the warmer winds blowing from Barack Obama’s America, and the rise in Iran, engaged in an election of its own, of powerful currents arguing for accommodation with the West.

Change we can believe in?

It is easy to dismiss Obama's speech, and rightly. Noam Chomsky points to the substantive trap the US president finds himself in:

A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.

Keeping just to Israel-Palestine — there was nothing substantive about anything else — Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to 'point fingers' at each other or to 'see this conflict only from one side or the other.'

There is, however, a third side, that of the United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change or even be considered.

Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral US rejectionism.

....

But there is an edge, especially his criticism of Israel. Haaretz points to the problems Obama has with the new Israeli government:

During long, personal conversations with his inner circle over the past week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that he had no idea what US President Barack Obama would say in his speech in Cairo. "We have no information," he said. He does now.

Netanyahu now understands what he already knew before the speech: The moment of political reckoning that he so feared is now rapidly approaching.

The thunder he hears in the distance is the sound of the Likud legions and the West Bank settler hordes rolling down the mountains. The light on the horizon is not that of a new day, but of a train coming right at him — a night train from Cairo.

Netanyahu will have to decide over the coming weeks whom he would rather pick a fight with: the powerful US administration, whose president sees himself in an almost messianic role, or his own coalition and members of his party.

...

In these circumstances it is easy to dismiss Obama's words as rhetoric, and we know that he faces deep problems reconciling the tensions inside US imperialism with its Arab allies. But tension there is, caused by popular anger over Palestine and hatred of the Arab regimes.

But Obama is not Bush Lite... it is deeper than that. The US hoped that its invasion of Iraq would project its power, instead it has laid bare its weakness.

If you turn the prism you can see the light refracted in a different way. Here is a black man trotting the globe apologising for what the white men did. This is significant, because it will be the Israelis who will ensure that he fails.

...

For the record here is Omaba's speech.

Note the reference to the struggle against slavery... he is saying that the Palestinians are like the slaves in the US. Anyone familiar with this history will understand that those who helped the slaves are heroes.

Here is the Bush "axis" speech.

Is all OK, right?

Yes the economy is fine, says Forbes magazine:

Lebanon has been one of the unlikely success stories of the global financial crisis. The vital tourism and construction industries are booming, and capital is flowing into the country.

As optimistic Lebanese leaders, bankers and businessmen have emphasized, the success is primarily due to conservative bank-lending and bank-investment regulations, limiting exposure to mortgage-backed instruments and other products that have hurt the balance sheets of other international banks, including many Gulf countries.

A result of the country's long experience with perpetual instability in the national and regional political environment, conservative lending policies, backed up by a solid flow of remittances from millions of Lebanese abroad, have immunized the Lebanese economy from political turmoil.

Apart from the months immediately following the 2006 war with Israel, the Lebanese economy has experienced uninterrupted growth since 2001.

Healthy bank sector. A few years back, Lebanon's state regulations were subjected to heavy criticism from domestic and international bankers. Now the financial crisis has turned Lebanese banks into a safe haven in the region, and the economy has thrived:

--Bank deposits have grown steadily, rising 15% in the first three months of the year from the year-earlier period.

--Foreign currency reserves were estimated at 17.6 billion dollars in January 2009, up from 9.8 billion at the end of 2007.

--Foreign liquid assets stood at 22.3 billion at the end of March 2009, a record high.

Impact of the financial crisis. The banking sector's success is remarkable but does not detract from the fact that Lebanon's economy is well integrated into the global economy and will therefore inevitably feel some effects of its downturn in 2009. Private investors have incurred great losses in national and international investments, and the Beirut stock market alone has lost more than $5 billion since mid-2008.

The lack of capital investment will be felt in the crucial construction, telecommunication and service sectors in the medium term, particularly if the crisis continues throughout 2009.

...

But this optimism hides a slow burning crisis, writes Bassem Chit in Socialist Review:

Rafiq Hariri’s policies since the 1990s have mainly focused on borrowing money and then selling the US$40 billion accumulated debt to local banks with sky-high interest rates. As a result the state is going bankrupt.

...

Election battle

Kaveh Afrasiabi writes in Asia Times on what is at stake in the Lebanese elections:

Where Iran has Hezbollah, Israel has Jundallah, given Israel's apparent efforts to destabilize Iran by playing an "ethnic card" against it. This, by some reports, it is doing by nurturing the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah to parallel Tehran's support for Lebanon's formidable Shi'ite group, Hezbollah, that is favored to win parliamentary elections on June 7.

Should the Hezbollah-led coalition win as anticipated, the result will be even closer military-to-military relations between Iran and Lebanon, reflected in Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrollah's recent statement that he would look to Tehran to modernize Lebanon's army.
.....

Afrasiabi develops this theme in a second piece :

Israel, it appears, is not wasting any time in cultivating the seeds of a future conflict with Lebanon, where a military defeat for a Hezbollah-controlled government would be devastating to Hezbollah's political fortunes.

It has recently been revealed by former Israeli chief of staff General Dan Halutz that Israel failed to assassinate Hezbollah's political leader, Hassan Nasrallah, during the 2006 Lebanon war.

This, together with the Lebanese government's arrest of nine Lebanese who were spying for Israel's Mossad, reflects the basic tenor of Israel's one-dimensional security approach toward the evolving political developments in Lebanon.

Conspicuously absent in the US and Israeli calculations about the political and geostrategic implications of a Hezbollah victory is any appreciation of how this may actually deepen Hezbollah's moderation.

Pay the ticket... take the ride

Olivia Sterns of the Huffington Post took the trip across the Lebanon mountain ranges:

I recently found myself packed like a sardine with 7 strange Syrian men in a maroon-colored Denali hurdling across the border from Syria to Lebanon. Well, almost hurdling.

To be sure, the driver was speeding and swerving every chance he got, burning similarly overstuffed sedan-size "service taxis" in the dust, but every couple of kilometers we found ourselves stopped at a new checkpoint. Read more...

June elections—runners and riders

The AFP reports:

Some 587 candidates have thrown their hats into the ring for the June parliamentary election.

Three Armenians have already been selected unopposed in seats in Beirut and the Christian stronghold of Metn east of the capital after rival candidates withdrew, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud said at a press conference.

This gives two seats to the opposition, led by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and one seat for the current Sunni-led ruling majority, ahead of the June elections.

Candidates can still withdraw before June 7 but their registration fee will not be reimbursed.

* * *

Meanwhile the New York Times is pushing the idea that the elections are nor legitimate as most votes will be bought. I get the feeling that despite being accurate, this story is overblown as the pro-Israeli newspaper is worried about the outcome, and so wants to begin muddying the waters.

Here's the report:

Votes are being bought with cash or in-kind services. Candidates pay their competitors huge sums to withdraw. The price of favorable TV news coverage is rising, and thousands of expatriate Lebanese are being flown home, free, to vote in contested districts.

The payments, according to voters, election monitors and various past and current candidates interviewed for this article, nurture a deep popular cynicism about politics in Lebanon, which is nominally perhaps the most democratic Arab state but in practice is largely governed through patronage and sectarian and clan loyalty.

Despite the vast amounts being spent, many Lebanese see the race — which pits Hezbollah and its allies against a fractious coalition of more West-friendly political groups — as almost irrelevant.

Lebanon’s sectarian political structure virtually guarantees a continuation of the current “national unity” government, in which the winning coalition in the 128-seat Parliament grants the loser veto powers to preserve civil peace.

Still, even a narrow win by Hezbollah and its allies, now in the parliamentary opposition, would be seen as a victory for Iran — which has financed Hezbollah for decades — and a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the money flows.

“We are putting a lot into this,” said one adviser to the Saudi government, who added that the Saudi contribution was likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a country of only four million people. “We’re supporting candidates running against Hezbollah, and we’re going to make Iran feel the pressure.”

Mobile free-for-all

This from Wireless News:

Alfa, the mobile operator, announced that it is keeping on strengthening its network in all Lebanon by installing 16 new transmissions Stations. Including two transmission stations in Tripoli, and a transmitter each for Batroun, Achrafieh, Tal Zaatar, New Rawda, Soujoud (Jezzine Caza), Tamich and Shyah (Karout Mall).

Alfa is the brand name of one of the two state mobile networks. Alfa is managed by Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) starting February 1, 2009. Orascom is an international telecommunications company operating GSM networks in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, having a total population under license of approximately 453 million with an average mobile telephony penetration of approximately 46 percent.

Orascom Telecom operates GSM networks in Algeria (”OTA”), Pakistan (”Mobilink”), Egypt (”Mobinil”), Tunisia (”Tunisiana”), Bangladesh (”banglalink”), Zimbabwe (”Telecel Zimbabwe”), and North Korea (”Koryolink”).

Through its subsidiary Telecel Globe, OTH also operates in Burundi, the Central African Republic and Namibia. Orascom Telecom had over 79 million subscribers as of September 30th, 2008.

Orascom Telecom is traded on the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange under the symbol (ORTE.CA, ORAT EY), and on the London Stock Exchange its GDR is traded under the symbol (ORTEq.L, OTLD LI).

* * *

But according to India's Economic Times:

Telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BSNL and MTNL are looking to bid for licences and buy telecom companies in Syria and Lebanon.

Last week, the Syrian government announced that it would soon put up the country’s third mobile licence for auction. Besides, it also wants to privatise state-owned Syria Tel Mobile Telecom.

Similarly, Lebanon has two state-owned mobile companies and its government has announced that it wants to privatise both the companies.

* * *

While Reuters reports that:

Emirates Telecommunications Corp ETEL.AD (Etisalat) posted on Monday a 4 percent rise in first-quarter net profit and said it was interested in bidding for telephone licences in Syria and Lebanon.

Etisalat said in a statement it was on the lookout for investment opportunities and seeking to grow in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

"Etisalat is working through a conservative policy to search for investment opportunities that might emerge as a result of the global crisis," said Chairman Mohammed Omran.

"We will continue to observe and study various markets in the Middle East, Asia and Africa since they are high density."

"Etisalat has a great interest in competing for the licences available in Syria and Lebanon once they are officially put to bid."

Code Pink on Iran

This from Haaretz... be warned:

Israel is stepping up its public relations effort to discredit Iran within the international community, and part of its new campaign focuses on Tehran's abuse of human rights and sponsorship of terrorism.

"We have to lay the foundation in the world, and particularly in Europe, in order to be able to take harsher steps against Iran, especially in the economic sector," said one senior political source in Jerusalem.

The new campaign, to be overseen by the Foreign Ministry, aims to appeal to people who are less concerned with Iran's nuclear aspirations and more fearful of its human rights abuses and mistreatment of minorities, including the gay and lesbian community.

The campaign plans to recruit the international gay community, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed in 2007 when he said there were no homosexuals living in his country.

The campaign will also reach out to Jewish groups who want to bring more attention to Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and some members of the Iranian regime's anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist views.

About NIS 8 million have already been budgeted for the new campaign, which also includes increased briefings for foreign journalists on the Iranian nuclear program and greater use of the Internet and sites such as YouTube.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman want to broaden the PR campaign on the subject of Iran in the wake of increasing international willingness to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program.

One political source said there appear to be greater expectations in the U.S. and in Europe that diplomacy will solve the nuclear dispute.

However, the assumption in Israel is that dialogue will not lead to fundamental change in Tehran's stance and that the regime will not relinquish its nuclear aspirations, even in exchange for an incentives package from the international community.

The senior political source in Jerusalem said it is necessary to lay the groundwork now for the possible diplomatic failure.

Despite talk of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, the current campaign focuses more on harsh economic sanctions against Tehran.

Meeting

يدعوكم التجمع اليساري من اجل التغيير الى

عرض فيلم: نوبة صحيان، المدة: 10 دقائق

يتبعه ندوة تحت عنوان:

الحركة العمالية المصرية: بين قمع اجهزة الدولة ومعركة الاستقلال النقابي

يتكلم فيها: عمر سعيد، عضو في مركز الدراسات الاشتراكية في مصر

وذلك مساء الثلثاء 21 نيسان 2009، الساعة السادسة والنصف

المكان: بيت زيكو، اول شارع سبيرز، الصنائع، بيروت

Israel's spy

This from LA Times:

A former Lebanese security officer and his wife have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.

The intelligence branch of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (ISF) have locked up a retired brigadier general identified only as "Adib A." and his wife on suspicion of belonging to an Israeli spy network.

[Note the Tayyar website identify him as Retired General Adib Alaalam]

The general was described as a “valuable catch” in the left-leaning daily Al Akhbar by an unnamed high-ranking security official. Though retired, he continued to maintain an office at the general directorate of the ISF, which he allegedly turned into a communications center for passing information to the Israelis.

News of the arrests comes just one month after military prosecutor Rashid Muzhir said he would seek the death penalty for two brothers arrested and charged with espionage last year.

According to another security source quoted by Al Akhbar, the retired general has confessed to working with Israeli intelligence services for the last 10 years, but insists his role was limited to gathering information and that he never carried out assassinations or bombings.

Suspicion fell on his wife as an accomplice based on information she gave during questioning.

Both hail from Lebanon's Bint Jbeil area along the border with Israel and could potentially have access to information about Lebanese security forces and militant groups there.

The official said ISF intelligence has been monitoring a group operating throughout Lebanon and especially south of the Litani river for several months now, indicating that more arrests are probable.

The network was reportedly uncovered after a young man was detained for possession of a large weapons cache. The youth was later linked to Israeli intelligence agents in Europe, but the charges could not be proven and the case was left to European spy agencies.

The paper went on to note that the investigation is expected to reveal even more sensitive information, “especially since the directorate [of General Security] has started coordinating with more than one party relevant to intelligence operations in Lebanon,” referring, most probably, to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group.

Twice in the last seven months, Hezbollah has handed over suspected spies to the Lebanese army after conducting its own investigations.

In November, the group arrested brothers Youssef and Ali Jarrah for their alleged link to the assassination of Hezbollah official Imad Mughniyeh, and in February, Marwan Faqih was detained and accused of supplying bugged cars to the militia. All three were handed over to the Lebanese army.

Israel above the law

This from the AP newsagency:

Israel is unlikely to cooperate with a Gaza war crimes probe because it distrusts the UN agency sponsoring the investigation, an Israeli government official said.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers said they would work with investigators from the UN Human Rights Council which ordered the investigation in January, shortly after Israel’s three-week military offensive in Gaza.

The Israeli government official said Israel sent its response concerning cooperation to the UN agency a week ago.

He said Israel is “very unlikely” to cooperate. He spoke on condition of anonymity and said he could not elaborate because it’s not clear whether the head of the investigation, Richard Goldstone has been briefed.

Israel’s likely refusal to work with Goldstone raises questions about whether he will be able to carry out his mission.

Investigators have not yet said when they will visit the region, but without Israeli cooperation they would be denied access to crucial information from the military.

Goldstone, 70, is Jewish, has close ties to Israel and is known for his impartiality.

But Israeli diplomats said their opposition has nothing to do with who heads the investigation.

Yousef Rizka, an adviser to Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said that the investigators “will find full cooperation of the Palestinian government and Palestinian people because the crimes of the occupation are clear and no one can underestimate them.”

Armenian vote

The BBC has an interesting piece on the Armenian-Lebanese:

In the upcoming parliamentary election in June, the main Armenian political party, Tashnak, looks set to play kingmaker.

The vote of the 150,000-strong Armenian community may sway the outcome of the bitter and close race between the pro-Western government and the opposition led by Hezbollah, a Shia group backed by Syria and Iran.

In the run-up to the election, politicians from both blocs have been fighting for the Armenian votes.

But of the three Armenian parties, Tashnak enjoys most support and it has already made its choice, joining the Hezbollah-led alliance.

"What makes us strong is our unity. That's how we survive as a community, that's how we preserve our identity - and that's why I'll vote with everyone else," Mr Havatian says.

But voting for the opposition is also highly unusual for the Armenian community, which has traditionally gone with the government, not against it.

In Lebanon's confessional political system, Armenians - like other major religious and ethnic communities, have an assigned number of seats in parliament.

For years, these seven seats were always won by the Tashnak Party.

But in 2000, a new law backed by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri redrew the electoral map of Beirut, dividing the Armenian neighbourhoods among districts with Sunni Muslim majorities.

As a result the Tashnak party lost seats to lesser-known Armenians who supported the Sunni Muslim prime minister.

"We were forced to go to the opposition," says Tashnak MP Hagop Pakradounian. "We simply cannot trust the government anymore."

For the Tashnak party and its supporters, the June election is a chance to re-establish its parliamentary foothold.

More toys for the army

According to the PA:

The US Embassy says the US will provide Lebanon will 12 unmanned military aircraft in the coming months.

Since 2006, the US has provided Lebanon with more than a billion dollars in assistance, including $410 million to support security.

The US hopes a strengthened Lebanese military would spread state authority across a country buffeted by political and sectarian divisions. An Embassy statement Tuesday said Lebanese air force members are training on the Raven.

Picture above: How to launch a Raven using the delicate steps of a ballerina. As part of the new cultural sensitivity approach favoured in the US, the Lebanese army will be taught to launch the drone while dancing the dabke.

So farewell, dear brother

A personal note. I want to say farewell to my dear brother Carlos who died last week. He fought for reason in a world that is cruel and brutal and shallow. He finally made that gesture of ultimate protest when he took his life. We lay him to rest on Saturday.

I have few words to describe the grief I feel, not just for Carlos, but for all those who have been taken before their time.

This from the revolutionary poet Percy Bysshe Shelley:

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

US obsessed by July war

The US and Israel keep reminding us that they beat Hizbollah in the July 2006 war. Still all the news emerging from the Pentagon confirms what even the most simple minded Israeli politician knows—they lost, and lost bad.

So take a look at the row raging inside the US military, reported here in the Washington Post:

Soon after the fighting ended, some military officers began to warn that the short, bloody and relatively conventional battle foreshadowed how future enemies of the United States might fight.

Since then, the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe.

U.S. military experts were stunned by the destruction that Hezbollah forces, using sophisticated antitank guided missiles, were able to wreak on Israeli armor columns.

Unlike the guerrilla forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, who employed mostly hit-and-run tactics, the Hezbollah fighters held their ground against Israeli forces in battles that stretched as long as 12 hours.

They were able to eavesdrop on Israeli communications and even struck an Israeli ship with a cruise missile.

Remove sectarianism