By Rami G. Khouri
4 November 2006 The Daily Star
If you did not hear it, the bell for the second round of the new cold war in the Middle East rang on Wednesday, in the form of the United States and Hizbullah trading accusations against each other about assorted sinister aims. There is much that is interesting and important – indeed, historic – about this face-off, despite the silly elements.
Five years or so ago, the world’s most powerful country was firing missiles at men hiding in caves in Afghanistan – and it still fights that battle without full success. Today, that same American global power wages acute political war against a charitable society, albeit an armed and disciplined one.
As Hizbullah and the United States battle one another, they also represent wider forces that now collectively define the new ideological battlefront in the Middle East, and perhaps the world. As in much of what the US does in the Middle East, there is farce amidst the bombast.
Washington accused Hizbullah of acting on behalf of Syria and Iran to topple the Lebanese government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and pledged its support for a “sovereign, democratic and prosperous Lebanon.”
That ear-shattering noise that you may have heard when the US made that statement was the collective laughter and knee-slapping, eyeball-rolling incredulity of somewhere between 5 and 6 billion people in this world who are falling over in the aisles – because when they compare Washington’s actions against its words, they can only take this performance as comedy. [More]
In terms of conveying what I think, that’s one of the best opeds I’ve read in a while.