Region reaches stalemate

BEIRUT - Alternative Staff

March/April 2006

Until the time Alternative went to press, the Middle East was as volatile as ever. In Iraq, the situation deteriorated with the bombing of two Shiite shrines that provoked wide Shiite protests and retaliation against Sunni mosques and civilians. The Shiite anger never reached such levels even when terrorism had killed scores of them.

The worsening security situation further complicated an already complex process of the formation of a new Iraqi cabinet. The Kurds and the Sunnis backed down on their willingness to support Ibrahim Jaafari's premiership, much to the distress to the Shiite who was named to his position by the Shiite bloc.

The formation of the cabinet was apparently heading toward an impasse at the time Iraq suffers an unbearable security situation.

In Palestine, another Middle Eastern stalemate came to the fore front after Hamas had swept elections and was entrusted to form a government. Despite its official status after elections, Hamas still refuses to admit to the existence of Israel, a fact that makes Israel declare the Palestinian Authority as being an enemy. The international community also said that Hamas would be sidelined should it persist with its current position. Hamas, for its part, offers a long term truce with Israel saying that peace might come should such a truce sustain itself. Yet Israelis realize that Hamas' truce is an ideological bluff through which Hamas aims at imitating the prophet of Islam who held to a 10-year truce with his infidel enemies before he abrogated it and defeated them by conquering Mecca.

Meanwhile, the situation in Lebanon was also stalling. After the killing of former premier Rafik Hariri in Feb. 2005 had led to a Syrian withdrawal, a political reshuffle made it hard for the independence coalition, known as March 14, to pursue an effort of cleansing the state of Syrian regime loyalists, known as March 8, including President Emile Lahoud.

The March 14 March 8 showdown has punctured the cabinet's performance freezing most of the nation's major decisions. March 14 wants to sideline of the greater regional conflict between Syria and Iran on the one side and the US and the West on the other. March 8, however, want to keep Lebanon embroiled in the regional showdown.

Initiatives, both regional and domestic, were underway to find compromises between the two factions.

In the interim, March 14 flexed a muscle on Feb. 14, 2006 when it rallied around one million Lebanese on the first annual commemoration of the Hariri crime. The protest came as part of a whole popular activity package that also includes a petition to unseat Lahoud and another possibly huge demonstration on March 14, 2006.