Arab Leaders and Greek Plays, A Lebanese Rubicon Without Caesar, Gulf Political Blues
Are Arab states going Greek? And what is the rush?
The true blue New Middle East.
Which one is the Persian Empire nowadays?
Lebanon crosses its own Rubicon, but there is no Caesar there.
The UAE population blues.
Just like olden days, happy golden days... 
But where is King Abdul?
"Go tell it to the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, dead we lie."
Simonides of Ceos, on Thermopylae
Arab States and Greek Plays:
This past week there has been a flurry of visits and counter-visits among leaders of the moderate New Middle East, the one with the famous but painful birth pangs in the slums of southern Beirut during the summer of 2006. President Mubarak visits King Abdullah. King Abdul (de Jourdanie) visits King Abdullah. King Abdul visits Mubarak. King Abdul threatens to visit Damascus (definitely not New Middle East). Mubarak visits Hamad (king of Bahrain, if you feel that you need to know).
Saudi Crown Prince threatens to visit Qatar, which has at least one foot firmly in the New Middle East but wiggles a few toes teasingly in the Old Middle East, to the chagrin of diehard New Middle Easterners in the heartland of the true blue New Middle East- those latter are mostly in Riyadh, the new epicenter of the New Middle East.
The moderate Arabs of the New Middle East, in their desperation over the Lebanese impasse, have found a new weapon, a final straw, to push the Syrian regime toward the New Middle East which it is loath to do. They are threatening , not subtly at all, to boycott the next summit in Damascus, or to move it to one of the New Middle East capitals- they haven't suggested moving it to Washington DC yet. Unless their demands are met. And what are their demands?
Lebanese Rubicon:
They want Hizbullah and the Lebanese opposition to give in and accept the Hariri-Saniora rump cabinet as part of a presidential election deal.
It ain't gonna happen. Hizbullah takes many things from Damascus, including weapons, and it takes money and weapons from Tehran. But it does not take orders: it most likely is not the puppet the New Middle Easterners, and Old Neocons in the USA, make it out to be. At issue is a new political power structure in Lebanon, one way or another. If the current cabinet stays, this in itself would represent a shift in the power structure which the opposition will not accept- just as the rump cabinet will not accept an increase in the political power of the opposition.
In its own stealthy way, the Lebanese power structure has crossed its own Rubicon- there is no turning back. That does not mean that either Nassrallah or Hariri can do a Caesar (definitely not the Frenchified, Saudiized, soft-living Hariri), not even a Pompey. But the broken Lebanese doll will never be exactly the same, even without a Pharsalus in the Levant- even Rome never was the same.
Of course Hizbullah claims that Hariri-Saniora are Saudi puppets- well, it is more polite: it only says that they are American puppets- presumably an Arab cannot be another Arab's puppet, which is a silly argument. Now where did they get that idea from?
The Arab states are acting like the ancient Greek city states (polis), which felt threatened by each other and by the menacing Persian Empire across the water. But who plays the role of the old Persian Empire these days? Is it Iran, Israel, or the USA? Perhaps it will turn out to be the real enemy within: the al-Qaeda type Salafis.
The Gulf:
In Kuwait, the fuss over the Imad Mighniya public mourning session is nearing its end. It had threatened to exacerbate the Shi'a-Sunni divide, something that extreme fun-dementa-lists and a few in the political and legal wilderness, owners of some extreme right wing newspapers, were hoping for. Everyone now seems to be discovering that the constitution allows anyone to express himself or herself, including fundamentalist Shi'a legislators.
A couple of right wing newspapers discovered other things as well: alseyassah was suddenly reminded that it had published an article mourning Saddam Hussein less than two years ago, and he had killed many many Kuwaitis, some of them former colleagues, friends and relatives of mine. At the time, that newspaper claimed that the freedom of expression was sacrosanct, even though it evidently does not believe in such a thing nowadays. Alwatan is still dribbling out its stuff, journalistic mucous, relying on writings by discredited friends in high places, but shifting the emphasis.
Hypocritical Salafi legislators were reminded that they had attended ceremonies only eighteen months ago glorifying Hizballah's Hassan Nassrallah after the war of 2006, and that one of them had written articles recently glorifying a mass murderer named Osama Bin Laden.
Which shows that there are probably some brave and rational men left in the country, a few who are willing to express themselves against the fierce winds of demagoguery. Which shows that there are a few men wiser and braver than the current cabinet. It also shows that not all reporters, opinion columnists and academicians have been bought with 'tainted' money. Maybe a few, but not all.
An official United Arab Emirates report indicates that the total population of the federation of seven Emirates is about 5.6 million. The report indicates that natives (citizens) form only about 15.4% of the population- the rest are expatriates, legal and illegal. Most expatriates come from the Indian Subcontinent. This is a general phenomenon in most the Gulf (Sinus Persicus) states, although the percentages are not as drastic as in the UAE. Saudi Arabia has a huge foreign population, but it is still a minority.
And the basic Republicans in the US, or is it the Republican base, are worried about the influx of foreigners.
Cheers
mhg
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
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