Frustrated Arabian Tea Parties, Aborted Pax Petroliana…………
“Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese MP and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, has made a public apology for "indecent comments" he made in the past against Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.Jumblatt, who was part of the anti-Syria March 14 movement, had described al-Assa in 2007 as "Damascus' dictator", "a savage" and "an Israeli product". Participating in Hiwar Maftouh (Open Dialogue), an Al Jazeera Arabic talk show, Jumblatt said his comments were made out of anger, amid stressful atmosphere and at a time the sectarian and ethnic split in Lebanon was at its peak. He said: “My remarks were indecent, out of context and go beyond the political manners."………”
All that was in the old heady days. When Arab potentates and oligarchs thought Bush and Cheney were about to send the marines to sweep the beaches from Tyre to Latakia, securing the coast for the moderate New Middle East. Securing it for the “representatives” of the sectarian tribal absolute Kingdom flush with petro-cash.
They were feted at the White House and at Foggy Bottom, these smirking Lebanese right-wingers and their despotic Arab potentate supporters. Interviewed on Fox News and CNN. They had plans to remake the rest of the Middle East in their own image even while the bodies were still warm in the Southern Suburb of Beirut. Even the Weekly Standard thought of some of them as Arabian Tea Baggers that they could tolerate (long before the American Tea Parties of mostly Bourbon and Beer drinkers).
The Syrian regime is not a particularly pleasant one: no dictatorship ever is, nor is any absolute monarchy. But the Middle East would be less interesting place if every dictator toed the line. What would all the Arabists, Orientalists, think-tank thinkers, Defense Contractors, and bloggers like yours truly do?
Then take Iran out of the picture as well: there were dreams, Neocon and Arab and Salafi dreams, of an assault across the Persian Plateau to liberate Tehran and Qom. Then what would you have? A bleak, fundamentalist conformist one-sided region of absolute monarchs and dictators, with not a ruling mullah within sight. Coast to coast. Pax Petroliana. Boring.
Cheers
mhg
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