Key Hezbollah commander assassinated in Beirut

Top, Lakkees' funeral in Baalbek. Center, Lakkees and son Ali Reda, who was killed in 2006

A senior commander of Iran’s cat’s-paw in Lebanon, the militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, has been killed at close range in Beirut.

Hassan Lakkees was killed near his home in Hadath, seven kilometers southeast of the Lebanese capital Beirut. He was buried in the town of Baalbek.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killing -- a charge Israel strongly denied

Little is known publicly about Lakkees, but he was reputedly close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and an expert in weapons manufacturing, particularly drones.

Thousands of people turned out for Lakkees' funeral in Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon.

Lakkees' coffin, draped in the Hezbollah flag, was carried through the streets of Baalbek.

The news comes a day after Hassan Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was behind last month's bombings outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to Syria to back the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

A report on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel Wednesday said Lakkees was killed as he returned home from work around midnight. It said Israel had tried to kill him several times previously.

Two neighbors at the quiet residential complex where Lakkees lived said he arrived home alone shortly before midnight and just got out of his car – a 4x4 Jeep Grand Cherokee -- in the parking space beneath his apartment block when he was shot four times in the head and neck at close range by two or three attackers apparently lying in wait.

They said two men were seen running away across some waste ground leading to boulevard Camille Chamoun nearby. The neighbors had no idea he worked for Hezbollah.

Some sources say Lakkees was shot with a 9mm silenced gun.

Israel denied any involvement in the death.

"These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. "They don't need evidence, they don't need facts. They just blame anything on Israel."

Shiite Hezbollah emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.

Hezbollah fought a destructive 34-day war with Israel in Lebanon in 2006. One of Lakkees's sons – named Ali Reda -- was killed in that war.

Dr Ronen Bergman, a writer on military intelligence affairs for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, told the BBC Lakkees "became known in Hezbollah as the guy in charge of manufacturing sophisticated weaponry, explosives, booby traps, he was a technical guy.”

He added: "Hassan was the leading figure who received Iranian guidance, he studied in Iran the issues of micro warfare, terrorism, counter-terrorism, and he brought this knowledge with him to Hezbollah, so he was one of these channels through which the Iranians gave Hezbollah their assistance."

“You’re not helping me cast out sectarian bigotry”

Saudi national flag (top) and a Shiite banner 

By Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s authoritative political analyst, author and kingpin of the impending Al Arab TV news channel, writing in Arabic today for the mass circulation newspaper al-Hayat

If we were to map out Syrian regime supporters, we would regrettably find them mirroring the minority Shiite population’s distribution in the Muslim world.

In this, we are excepting a few voices heard here and there.

Among them, for instance, are Shiite intellectuals in Lebanon issuing a statement, or Hezbollah defectors going live on Arab TV networks, to declare the party does not represent them.

Or to express concern their community is being dragged into a sectarian conflict for which they would have to pay in a predominantly Sunni environment representing most of the Ummah.

The aforesaid exceptions prove, rather than undermine, the premise.

On the fringes of this Shiite landmass stretching from Iran to Iraq and Lebanon, there are in Arab capitals tiny and hardly discernible patches of nationalist intellectuals, Nasserite politicians, or Baathists rooting for Bashar al-Assad.

They also parrot the theory of an American-Zionist conspiracy aimed at undermining the bastion of contrariety and resistance and the ultimate Arab army.

Like the Shiite fundamentalists shepherding the Shiite general public to back Syria’s regime, they do not see the limpid, unobstructed and good-sized “banner of freedom” the Syrian people have been raising for more than two years.

But they clearly notice the Takfiris, the eaters of human organs and the suicides.

They make these out to be the Syrian Revolution, which at heart is nationalist, Islamist, moderate, broad-based and genuinely representative of all spectrums of the Syrian population.

Yes, there are Takfiris linked to al-Qaeda and to hardline Salafist currents fighting in Syria.

True, they are motivated by their hatred of Shiism, modernism and all “The Other.”

They don’t strive for democracy or a modern civil state in which all Syrians are equal.

They can’t be part of a Syrian national body politic, whether headed by a turbaned sheikh or its current leader George Sabra.

They are the same underground movements Syrian Intelligence used to send to Iraq, prompting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (in 2009) to press for the trial of Syria-based terrorists by a UN tribunal.

That was two or three years before the outbreak of Syria’s uprising.

The uprising saw Maliki bury old differences, switch sides, and become Bashar’s partner – a bizarre turnaround that can only be explained by sectarian motives.

Thieves, highway bandits and opportunists joined the mavericks infiltrating the Syrian revolution since revolutions don’t attract honorable people only.

But to put those in the spotlight is sheer escapism, which Bashar cheerleaders use in order to justify turning their back on a bona fide revolution against a tyrant and a repressive regime that people have been itching to bring down for decades.

Bashar’s non-Shiite disciples, on the other hand, can find an excuse for their evildoing.

For example, Lebanon’s Maronite Marada Movement thrived on the Syrian regime’s protection and was able to challenge Lebanese Maronite parties hostile to Bashar. The Marada in other words has a political, albeit contemptible, motive.

That is also the case of Lebanese Gen. Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, except that Aoun will be the first to jump ship when Hezbollah and Bashar lose out.

There are also politicians and journalists endorsing Bashar simply for cash.

In South Lebanon’s port city of Sidon, there is the Popular Nasserite Organization, which suffices with its Nasserite credentials to account for its stance.

The organization’s icon in Cairo is former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi who doesn’t hide his affinity for Bashar.

Other than those, you hardly find in Arab capitals any Bashar partisans, except perhaps the habitués of state-run Syrian TV.

They are what I would call “Speakers’ Corner forces” or “political megaphones” with no presence on the streets or in national assemblies.

One exception perhaps is in Jordan, specifically in its al-Karak city, which is home to some members of the pan-Arab Command of the Syrian Baath Party who are now lying low in view of the circumstances.

All the tiny pockets cited above are swamped by an Arab torrent sympathetic to the Syrian people.

Taking a second look at the Shiite landmass in our midst, we come up against a cohesive bloc ready to fight and die on Bashar’s side.

That’s what Hassan Nasrallah did in Qusayr and is still doing elsewhere in Syria.

Likewise, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is propping up the Syrian regime with arms and oil and allowing Iraqi Shiite volunteers to stream into Damascus. He is very familiar with the regime they will be fighting for.

These volunteers include politicians and clerics entrusted with the task of exonerating crimes committed by Shiites against their Sunni brothers.

A Kuwaiti parliamentarian has also openly defended and backed the interventions.

The sectarian commitment we are seeing is both unparalleled and alarming.

Even the Marjas (or highest authority on religious laws in Shiite Islam) who regularly issue fatwas and opinions have fallen silent.

They neither spoke in the revolution’s favor nor denounced the Shiites’ intervention in favor of the offender.

In my country, Saudi Arabia, the Shiite religious scholars and dignitaries kept mum on happenings in Syria.

They seem perturbed when asked, “What’s your position on the affront of the century that has seen the death so far of 100,000 Syrian Muslims?”

One cleric mouthed off: “Are we supposed to issue a statement on each occurrence? It’s a sedition and we’re distancing ourselves from it.”

My Shiite friend wanted to be amiable. He wrote to me saying, “I sympathize with the Syrian people. They deserve better than the regime killing them. But they also merit other than the Free Syrian Army.”

He probably believes he made me a big concession by saying what he did.

My answer is this: “My friend, I don’t want to be sectarian. I hate my growing sectarian penchant. But you’re not helping me.”

Hezbollah dubbed “enemy of Arabs and Muslims”

More than two-thirds of participants in a four-day online survey that ended yesterday believe Hezbollah, Iran’s cat’s-paw in Lebanon, is the new adversary of Arabs and Muslims.

The one-question survey by Aljazeera.net asked: “Do you think Hezbollah has turned out to be an enemy of Arabs and Muslims?”

A total of 453,943 respondents (or 72.8%) said yes, compared to 169,605 (or 27.2%) who said no.

Almost half of the respondents (49.18%) were from Saudi Arabia. The others were from Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Palestine, Morocco, the UK, Germany, France, the U.S., Canada and Australia.

One-question surveys are event driven, allowing respondents to give an immediate response with just one click to an important event.

In this case, the survey that closed yesterday got underway last Saturday, when Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, whose militiamen are openly fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army, told supporters Assad’s war “is ours, and I promise you victory.”

In his televised weekend address to Hezbollah loyalists in Mashghara, Nasrallah said his party would not let Assad fall to the U.S., Israel and the (Sunni) Takfiris.

He said, “Syria is the linchpin and backbone of the Resistance” and his party “cannot stand, arms folded, while its back is broken.”

To underscore the Syrian regime’s military alliance with Hezbollah, Assad’s office says he is set to give an interview to Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel tomorrow, Thursday.

The interview would be broadcast simultaneously on Syria's official television channels at 9 p.m. local time (18:00 GMT), the president's office announced on its Facebook page.

Today, member states of the UN Human Rights Council will consider a resolution condemning the presence of foreign combatants in Qusayr, as fighting over the strategic town in Homs province intensifies.

The draft resolution, referring to Hezbollah, condemns the presence of foreign fighters siding with the government as a serious threat to regional security.

It demands access for United Nations and other humanitarian agencies to all civilians affected by the conflict by authorizing cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid as an urgent priority.

Hezbollah seems to be shrugging off the international outcry over its involvement in the Syria war and a 24-hour ultimatum set yesterday by General Salim Idriss, chief of staff of the Free Syrian Army, to end it.

Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP news agency today Hezbollah has sent extra fighters to link up with Syrian elite Republican Guards troops in the assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr.




“The preparations indicate they are gearing for a major offensive” on neighborhoods in the north and west of the town the rebels have been holding for a year, he said.



“Despite the intense bombardment, the rebels are resisting fiercely,” Abdul Rahman said.



He said Sunni militiamen from Lebanon had joined the battle on the side of the Syrian opposition fighters.

“The fighting is becoming more and more sectarian (Shiite vs. Sunni) in character,” he added.



Strategically placed close to Syria’s border with Lebanon, Qusayr is home to 25,000 people, most of them Sunnis.

Syria’s regime is dominated by Alawite Shiites, while the majority of the population is Sunni.



Control of Qusayr is essential for the rebels as it is their principal transit point for weapons and fighters from across the border in Lebanon.



It is also strategic for the regime because it is situated on the road linking Damascus with its coastal heartland.

Struggle for Syria is now the Shiites’ holy war

Public funerals for Iraqi (top) and Lebanese (below) Shiite fighters killed in Syria

Whipped up by Shiite Iran, the struggle for Syria has degraded into a Shiite holy war.

Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite fighters have been trickling into Syria for months.

Effectively, their charge is to prevent the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

But the “rallying banner” used for their recruitment is to protect the revered Sayyeda Zeinab shrine in Damascus.

For a comprehensive background of the clarion call by Iran to shore up Assad, please refer to my April 26 post, “Iran’s Shiite counterattack… from Syria to Iraq.”

The longer the fighting continues in Syria, the greater the risk of exposing fault lines between Shiites and Sunnis in both Lebanon and Iraq.

Whereas Iran is 90 percent Shiite, Syria is 75 percent Sunni and 10 percent Alawi-Shiite.

In Lebanon, Muslims are very roughly divided into two quasi-equal Sunni and Shiite halves.

Iraqi Muslims are two-thirds Shiite and one-third Sunni.

Lebanese Hezbollah’s head-on plunge to fight alongside Assad forces against Syria’s Sunni rebels is increasingly radicalizing Lebanon’s Sunnis and threatening Lebanon’s own future.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared in a televised speech last week, "Syria has real friends who will not let it fall to the U.S., Israel or Islamic radicals".

With armed opposition groups in Syria threatening to capture villages under Damascus government control, he said, it was “normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army.”

Hezbollah fighters are at the moment openly and freely waging war on Assad’s opponents in Qusayr, Homs and the suburbs of Damascus.

Concomitantly, there has been an uptick in the number of Iraqi Shiite fighters arriving in Syria to join Assad’s war on Sunni “armed gangs.”

They belong chiefly to the Abu-Fadl al-Abbas and Iraqi Hezbollah brigades, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq.

Initially the only proof of a Lebanese or Iraqi Shiite fighter killed in Syria was the occasional hushed funeral.

The funerals are now public and much more common in both Lebanon and Iraq.

The latest, for two members of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq who died in Syria, was held in Najaf earlier this week (see photo above).

Hawija

The Syria war is also fueling renewed Sunni-Shiite strife in Iraq, where sectarian violence is on the rise.

Iraqi security forces used “disproportionate force,” including shooting unarmed civilians, during their raid on an encampment of Sunni protesters last week that left 45 people dead.

Images of Iraqi Sunni protesters killed in Hawija

The April 23 crackdown on Sunnis in the city of Hawija in Kirkuk province who were protesting against the Shiite-led Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri el-Maliki unleashed a backlash of deadly attacks by Sunnis and battles between gunmen and security forces that have claimed more than 250 lives.

The unrest poses the most serious threat to Iraq's stability since the last American troops left in December 2011, and raises fears of a new phase of widespread sectarian fighting.

A parliamentary committee probing what happened at Hawija found this week that 44 Sunnis were killed, along with one soldier. They were all killed by gunshots and ranged in age from 13 to 55 years old, according to the report.

Seven of those killed were shot from behind, and five victims had bruises or other injuries in addition to the gunshot wounds, the report states.

The parliamentary committee report indicates that “senior officials gave orders for army, federal police, and SWAT forces, all of which fall under Maliki's military office, to invade the demonstration site, remove demonstrators and level tents," according to Human Rights Watch.

Witnesses told members of the parliamentary committee that at dawn on April 23, security forces sprayed demonstrators with hot water and threw sound and smoke bombs into the square. Black cars that federal police typically use for crowd dispersal and tanks invaded the square, “razing everything, including tents and cars,” the report quoted witnesses as saying.

The report said some of the corpses also bore abrasions, fractures, and bruises consistent with beatings, and witnesses reported that security forces wearing black uniforms beat them with batons and fired on protesters with live rounds using automatic weapons.

On the basis of these witness accounts and of interviews with members of parliament and local and federal government officials, the report concluded that 44 civilians were killed, including five children.



The parliamentary committee gave Human Rights Watch photographs it says were taken of the victims in the attack’s immediate aftermath. The photographs show the corpses of several men lying in the area of Pride and Honor Square, amid flames and burning cars. Their hands are bound and they appear -- because of the way the bodies are positioned -- to have been executed with gunshots.

High-risk

Editorially, Egyptian political analyst Imad Adeeb, writing today for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, believes Iraq is more high-risk than Syria.

His four reasons:

1. Whereas the regime in Syria is aligned to Iran and Russia and standing on its last legs, Iraq has a government that makes common cause with Iran and is likely to stay.

2. In Syria, a sectarian regime is setting out. In Iraq, a sectarian regime is sinking roots and increasingly buoying up its sect on the home front and regionally.

3. Unlike Syria, Iraq is an oil-rich country par excellence. It recently made a major gas field discovery to boot.

4. Iraq reflects the failure of an American venture that cost Washington two trillion U.S. dollars. While it is difficult to imagine U.S. troops returning to Baghdad, Iranian intelligence services and Republican Guards are already having a field day in Iraq.

Adeeb says, “This makes Iraq under the government of Maliki, and his political and sectarian alliances, pose the highest threat to the independence of a modern civil state in the Arab world.

“Under Maliki, Iraq is becoming a satellite state orbiting Iran and its sectarian scheme…

“Iraq’s Sunnis have no idea what’s in store for them. Would they be driven to fall into the lap of armed religious extremists or should they wait passively for a political organization to champion their cause?”   

Iran’s Shiite counterattack… from Syria to Iraq

From top clockwise, Lebanon's Nasrallah with Iran's Khamenei, Iraq's Maliki and Syria'sAssad

Shiite powerhouse Iran seems to have drawn the battle lines for Shiite-Sunni warfare in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq -- a total area of 634,000 square kilometers with an overall population of 58 million.

Syria’s minority Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam — dominates Bashar al-Assad’s regime while the rebels fighting to overthrow the Syrian president are mostly from the Sunni majority.

Assad's major allies – Iran, its Lebanese Hezbollah cat’s-paw and Tehran’s Iraqi surrogate Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- are all Shiite.

Iran

Closely allied with Damascus since the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Tehran remains Assad's main political and diplomatic backer, arms supplier and financier.

Iranian advisers help man Assad’s war room and Iranian Revolutionary Guards are present in Syria in numbers ranging into the hundreds, though exact figures cannot be determined.

Last January 48 Iranians held hostage by rebel fighters in Syria were released in exchange for 2,130 prisoners held by the Syrian authorities.

The Syrian opposition said the 48 Iranians captured in August 2012 were members of the Revolutionary Guards on their way to join pro-Assad forces. Iran said they were simple pilgrims on their way to the Shiite shrine of Sayyeda Zeinab in southern Damascus.

Shiite fighters from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq are now deployed in the Syrian capital’s Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood.

Ten weeks ago Iran’s point man in Lebanon and Syria was ambushed and killed by Syrian opposition forces while travelling overland to Beirut from Damascus.

The semiofficial Fars news agency identified the slain Revolutionary Guards commanding officer as Hassan Shateri. In Lebanon, Shateri was posing as “Hessam Khoshnevis,” head of an Iranian agency set up to help rebuild Hezbollah-controlled areas devastated by the 2006 war with Israel (see my February 14 post).

More recently, Iran and Hezbollah built a 50,000-strong “People’s Army” of Syrian militiamen to bolster Assad’s depleted regular army.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah is now playing a more deepening and barefaced role in the Syria war just across the Lebanese border.

Assad warplanes this week provided Hezbollah fighters with aerial cover to help them advance near the strategic town of al-Qusayr in Homs province.

The border region near Homs on the Syria side is strategic because it links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria's Alawites and is also home to the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.

The battle for al-Qusayr has inflamed tensions in Lebanon, where two Sunni clerics this week called for volunteers to head to Syria and defend the oppressed in al-Qusayr and Homs. 

Iraq

In Iraq this week, the killings of scores of Sunni protesters by forces of the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government have raised fears of a return to all-out sectarian war.

The trouble began on Tuesday when the army stormed an encampment in the village of Hawija, where Sunnis had been holding protests since late December, leaving dozens dead and injured.

That incident set off a wave of revenge attacks that hit five different Sunni-majority provinces, killing dozens more people and culminating with Sunni gunmen taking control of the town of Sulaiman Bek in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, on Wednesday.

The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that erupted some four months ago in Sunni areas of the Shiite-majority country.

The Sunni protesters have called for the resignation of Shiite Prime Minister Maliki and railed against the alleged targeting of their community by the authorities.

“The Sunni uprising, having now turned violent, represents a significant challenge to Maliki, whose consolidation of power over the security forces and the judiciary, and his targeting of high-level Sunni leaders for arrest, has raised alarms among world powers,” according to The New York Times.

“Mr. Maliki has presided over an unwieldy power-sharing government, which nominally gives prominent roles to Sunnis but in reality has resulted in political stasis, and he has signaled in recent months that he would prefer to move to a majority government, dominated almost solely by Shiites. On Tuesday, two Sunni ministers quit to protest the raid in Hawija, and the largest bloc of Sunni lawmakers suspended participation in Parliament.

“Mr. Maliki made no public comments on the situation Wednesday, but on Tuesday, after being pressed by American officials and the United Nations, he said he would open an investigation into the events in Hawija, and promised to hold military officers accountable for any mistakes.

“The deteriorating situation in Iraq highlights the sectarian tensions that have risen across the region, particularly amid the raging civil war in Syria…

“In Iraq, the central government has aligned with the Syrian government and its greatest ally, Iran, while Sunnis here have sided with the rebels, and they now appear to be emboldened by the events in Syria to challenge their own government.

“The sectarian fissure is evident in the rhetoric of the Sunni rebellion here [in Iraq]: militants over the last few days have referred to Iraq’s army as a force loyal to Iran, while many Shiites here have cast the formerly peaceful Sunni protesters as Muslim extremists beholden to al-Qaeda…”

John Drake, an Iraq specialist with risk consulting firm AKE Group, was quoted this week saying “the fact that this is a predominantly Shiite government and it's predominantly Shiite security forces opening fire on predominantly Sunni individuals (civilians or militants) is going to have an impact on sectarian relations and could prompt a rise in sectarian violence as a result."

Enclave

Lebanese political analyst Elie Chalhoub, writing for the Beirut daily al-Akhbar, which is close to the Syria-Hezbollah-Iran-Iraq alignment, says official opinion in Baghdad is divided.

Political sources close to the Maliki government suspect outside forces –“including Syrian armed gangs and regional forces” -- are trying to exploit the Hawija events to help carve up a Sunni enclave in Iraq.

Military sources on the other hand blame the violence on “measures taken by Iraqi army units along the border with Syria in the last 10 days. Let’s not forget Hawija, on the Iraqi side of the border, sits opposite Deir Ezzor, which is Jabhat al-Nusra’s nerve center.

“Iraqi forces succeeded, to a large extent, in tightening the noose on Takfiri groups that sneak fighters and arms into Syria from Iraq.”

Clarion

Walid Choucair, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat’s Beirut bureau chief, today blames turmoil in the region on “The clarion call by Iran to shore up Assad.”

The Syria crisis, he explains, “has entered a new phase of intense Iranian involvement.”

The reason is Tehran cannot continue seeing its regional cards come under threat as they are in Syria, Iraq, the Gulf and Yemen.

It is no coincidence, says Choucair, that most live events in the region bear Iran’s signature. For example:

• “Hezbollah’s overt and unabashed participation in fighting alongside Syrian regime troops to recapture territory from opposition forces as deep inside Syria as Homs.”
• “Execution by Maliki, Tehran’s favorite point man in Baghdad, of his threat to crack down on opponents and tribesmen who have been challenging his policies for months in al-Anbar province, and by ordering the army to bomb protesters west of Kirkuk and then in Baghdad.”
• “Assad’s warning that terrorism will come back to haunt the West and his latest pep talk to a visiting deputation of regime loyalists from Lebanon (see my post, “Assad on Black Sunday...”).
• Release of a photo showing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei receiving Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The still aims to tell Lebanese Shiites that Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in Syria has the blessing of Vali e-faqih (or Guardian Jurist).

Counterattack

Also writing for al-Hayat in the same vein -- under the title, “The counterattack… from Syria to Iraq” – is Zuhair Qusaybati.

“Any parallel,” he wonders, “between the Iraqi army’s storming of the Sunni protesters’ encampment in Hawija and the joint campaign by Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces on the rebel-held area of al-Qusayr?”

Yes, says Qusaybati.

The similitude is that Tehran’s allies in Iraq and Syria “are implementing what can be described as an Iranian counterattack” in anticipation of “the grand bargain” between the United States and the Islamic Republic over the latter’s nuclear program.

America suffices with watching for the time being. It is hedging its bets on Iran drowning in quagmires of religious and sectarian wars.

Bane

Jordanian-Palestinian writer Yasser Zaatra, in a think piece for Aljazeera portal, speaks of Iran becoming a bane to Shiite Arabs.

Initially, he says, Iran leaders described the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt as an “Islamic revival.” They changed their minds when the Arab Spring reached Syria.

Zaatra says most Shiite Arabs subscribed to Tehran’s immoral stand, causing a serious sectarian split in the region – whether in places like the Gulf and Lebanon, where Shiites are in the minority, or in predominantly Shiite countries such as Iraq and Bahrain.

Iran’s mobilization of Shiite Arabs against the majority Sunnis in Syria triggered an unprecedented backlash among the historically tolerant Sunnis of the Arab and Islamic worlds, according to Zaatra.

The cause of this sectarian polarization is chiefly Syria and what happened earlier, when Iran put Iraq under its thumb and dictated a sectarian agenda on Iraq’s new Shiite rulers – who incidentally “entered Baghdad riding U.S. tanks.”

Shiite Arabs – whether in Iraq, Lebanon or the Gulf -- have no interest in a confrontation with their neighbors or fellow citizens and vice-versa. Ethnic and sectarian wars leave no winners, Zaatra remarks.

“The arrogance of power has got to the Iranian leaders’ heads. It made them lose sight of the true balance of power in the Islamic world, where Shiites are in a minority of only about 10 percent – and a lower percentage in the Arab world…”

Assad’s crime, Hariri’s jet and Nasrallah’s bus

Houla bodies awaiting burial (Photo from BBC.co.uk)

Rage at the Houla massacre by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad is universal.

The UN has confirmed the deaths of at least 90 civilians in the Syrian town, including 32 children under the age of 10 (see yesterday’s post).

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the massacre was a “flagrant violation of international law.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the atrocity “appalling,” saying Assad’s “rule by murder and fear must come to an end.” She added in a statement, “Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague was heading to Moscow today to discuss Syria. “Will call on Russia to support rapid and unequivocal pressure on Assad regime and accountability for crimes,” he wrote in his Twitter micro-blog late on Saturday.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is making immediate arrangements for an immediate meeting of the “Friends of Syria” group.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan called for an urgent Arab League meeting.

But Saudi daily al-Watan’s leader writer remarks, “While its appears the Assad regime wants to live all alone in Syria, the Damascus tyrant and his corrupt clique seem fully convinced all international efforts to save the Syrian people from their atrocities are not serious… The Great Powers’ intricate national interests and political calculations preclude all root solutions liable to end the bloodbath in Syria.”

Tariq Alhomayed, editor-in-chief of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, says the Houla massacre “is not the regime’s first and won’t be its last.”

Like always, the regime chose an opportune occasion to commit the outrage “when the whole region was busy following the outcome and implications of the presidential elections in Egypt.”

Alhomayed says the problem is not with the lack of words condemning Assad’s rule, but in the lack of deeds. “Assad overstepped all taboos and red lines and committed all sorts of crimes against humanity. He did everything and the international community did little other than issue statements, knowing that their economic sanctions are being flouted by Iraq, Lebanon and Russia…

“What Syria needs today are not declarations, or extending and fiddling with the Annan mission, which is suspect anyway. What Syrians need is foreign military intervention to stop the killing machine that has been running far too long and is now mowing down children and their mothers.”

Jet versus bus

Separately, the fate and whereabouts of a group of Lebanese pilgrims who were abducted in Syria earlier this week (see May 23 post) remains shrouded in mystery.

Ahmad Ayyash, writing for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, notes, “`Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah did not go to Bintjbeil in southernmost Lebanon to mark the 12^th anniversary of Liberation Day. He remained stuck underground in Beirut’s southern suburbs and addressed the Bintjbeil crowds by TV link. So, after all these years, the South returned to Lebanon without Nasrallah returning to the South.

“In the other setting, Saad Hariri’s diligent initiative to end the plight of the Lebanese abducted in Aleppo, and his dispatch of his private jet (to Turkey) in preparation to flying them home, earned the former prime minister praise from the audience in Hezbollah’s southern suburbs stronghold. That was unthinkable before the Lebanese bus travelers were nabbed in Aleppo.

“But like Nasrallah, Hariri is stuck somewhere outside Lebanon because of fear for his life. Proof was last month’s attempted assassination of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea (see earlier post).

“Whereas the Lebanese travelers’ incident caused a stir internally, it did not change Nasrallah or Hariri’s priorities.

“The former thanked Syrian President Assad after God for efforts to solve the case of the missing Lebanese travelers. The gratitude sounded shocking for the flimsy reasons he cited to laud Assad.

“The latter (Hariri) chose to place his initiative in its Lebanese context, thus putting his solidarity with the missing Lebanese travelers on a par with his commitment to the just cause of the Syrian revolution.”

With Syria’s inferno raging out of control, Ayyash continues, word came that the abducted Lebanese were safe, allaying fears of a repeat of the Ain el-Remmaneh bus massacre that sparked off the Lebanese civil war in April 1975. This is to say the Syrian rebels proved to be “more civilized than the Lebanese,” even though Hezbollah destroyed the reputation of Lebanon’s Shiites in the eyes of Syria’s rebels and the Aleppo bus passengers of the same sect.

“It is extremely insensitive to see Lebanese, chiefly Nasrallah, link their fate to the Syrian tyrant’s. When Nasrallah was expressing his gratitude to Assad, the latter’s shabiha (thugs) were committing one of the most atrocious massacres of modern times in Houla, near Homs. Weren’t Houla’s tiny victims worthy of a tear?”

Ayyash says while Hariri’s jet remains on standby to fly back the abducted Lebanese home, “Nasrallah seems to belong to the ‘Ain el-Remmaneh bus’ generation.”