“Push to drive Assad out by year’s end”

Generals Haj Ali (left) and Tlass

Gen. Manaf Tlass, the highest-level defector from the Syrian regime, is said today to be returning to Syria shortly to join the Syrian National Army (SNA) headed by Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hussein Haj Ali, the revolution’s new military top dog.

The exclusive news was made on Twitter by The 47^th (@THE_47th), who has predicted several Syria developments in the past, including Tlass’ defection to France and visit to Saudi Arabia last July.

The 47^th says Tlass (see my posts of July 18, July 25 and July 26) will be assuming a combat role after the October 26 Eid al-Adha marking the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

SNA commander Haj Ali is opposed to the creation of a no-fly zone over Syria or rebel held areas in the country. He told the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat in an interview the measure has more cons than pros. “If we can secure the necessary weapons, we can get rid of this crumbling regime fairly quickly,” he said (see my posts of September 5 and September 6)

According to the 47^th:

• The United States, Turkey and opposition umbrella Syrian National Council (SNC) have given the armed opposition -- including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) led by Riad el-Asaad – an “ultimatum” to either join the SNA or be treated like outcasts.
• Once the military overhaul and restructuring is out of the way, a “final push will be made against Assad.”
• In view of that, an unnamed U.S. official “who knows Syria best” expects Assad to be out by year’s end at the cost of an extra “50,000 casualties.”

Syria watchers are linking the above to remarks by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, at yesterday’s Security Council Open Debate on the Middle East, chiefly that “the United States will not wait for all members of this Council to get on the right side of history.”

Here is most what Rice said:

“…I’ll begin with Syria, where the horrifying situation is getting worse. Escalating violence, driven by the Assad regime, has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Syrians. And there’s no clearer demonstration of the situation’s threat to regional peace and security than the Syrian government’s recent shelling of (Turkey’s villa) Akcakale, which this Council rightfully condemned.

As the violence and atrocities mount, the United States will not wait for all members of this Council to get on the right side of history. Together with our allies, we’re supporting the opposition as it moves toward an inclusive, democratic transition. We’re further pressuring the regime, and we are addressing the growing humanitarian needs in the region. At the same time, we continue to support the efforts of Joint Special Representative (Lakhdar) Brahimi to find a durable solution to this crisis.

As President Obama told the UN General Assembly last month, the future does not belong to a dictator who massacres his people. The regime of Bashar al-Assad will come to an end. Indeed, this transition is not just inevitable – it has already begun.

Assad’s merciless assault upon the Syrian people has not cowed them into submission, far from it. The opposition is getting stronger, and parts of Syria have slipped from the regime’s control. In these areas, Syrian citizens are banding together to administer towns, reopen schools, and rebuild their economy. And the United States is helping them do so, providing the unarmed civilian opposition with help to organize in support of the transition plan agreed in Cairo last July with its vision for a democratic, pluralistic Syria where all of its people have a say in how they’re governed.

More than one and a half million people have fled their homes, either to neighboring countries or to safer places within Syria. As refugee numbers climb, we commend Syria’s neighbors – including Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq – for their generosity and recognize their need for additional support. The United States has committed over $130 million in food, medical supplies, and other life-saving assistance.

We encourage all Member States to respond to the needs identified in the UN’s Syria appeals and to coordinate closely with the United Nations in responding to the crisis. As Syrians plan for transition, we are looking for additional ways to support Syrian efforts to document serious violations of international law, including indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate targeting of civilians.

No one can deny that Assad’s war against the Syrian people now poses real challenges to all of Syria’s neighbors, including Lebanon. From deadly Syrian regime attacks across the border to tens of thousands of refugees, Lebanon is already suffering the consequences of this conflict.

Hezbollah’s active and growing support for Assad’s war exposes Hassan Nasrallah’s claims of promoting Lebanon’s national interest as nothing more than a deadly form of deception. The group’s leaders may try to change the subject by invoking hollow rhetoric about so-called resistance, but the truth is plain to see: Nasrallah’s fighters are now part of Assad’s killing machine and Hezbollah leaders continue to plot with Iran new measures to prop up a murderous and desperate dictator.

We encourage the international community to counter Hezbollah’s terrorist activity and do more to expose Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in Assad’s war…”

Syrian regime killing its people with cluster bombs

Human Rights Watch report

NEW YORK (Human Rights Watch) – New evidence has emerged that the Syrian air force has used cluster munitions in recent days, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of the strikes were near the main highway that runs through Maarat al-Nouman, the site of a major confrontation between government and rebel forces this week.

Videos posted online by Syrian activists on October 9-12 showed cluster munition remnants reportedly in or near the towns of Tamane’a, Taftanaz, al-Tah, and Maarat al-Nouman, in the northern governorate of Idlib, Eastern Bouwayda and al-Salloumiyeh in Homs governorate, Tel Rifaat in Aleppo governorate, the countryside in Latakia governorate, and Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus.

The cluster bomb canisters and sub-munitions shown in the videos all show damage and wear patterns produced by being mounted on and dropped from an aircraft.

Residents from Taftanaz and Tamane’a confirmed in interviews with Human Rights Watch that helicopters dropped cluster munitions on or near their towns on October 9. Human Rights Watch does not yet have any information on casualties caused by the recent cluster munition strikes.

“Syria’s disregard for its civilian population is all too evident in its air campaign, which now apparently includes dropping these deadly cluster bombs into populated areas,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Cluster bombs have been comprehensively banned by most nations, and Syria should immediately stop all use of these indiscriminate weapons that continue to kill and maim for years.”

Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned by the risks posed by the unexploded sub-munitions to the civilian population, as men and even children can be seen in the videos handling the unexploded sub-munitions in life-threatening ways.

Syrian activists have posted at least 18 videos on YouTube showing the aftermath of the cluster munition strikes in recent days. They are the latest in a continuous stream of videos showing ongoing fighting, and the Human Rights Watch interviews with residents of two of the affected towns corroborate the use of cluster munitions.

Eliot Higgins, who blogs on military hardware and tactics used in Syria under the pseudonym “Brown Moses,” compiled a list of the videos showing cluster munition remnants in Syria’s various governorates. Human Rights Watch reached residents in Taftanaz and Tamane’a who confirmed the strikes on their town, but has not been able to reach residents in the other towns featured in the online videos.

Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the remnants shown in the videos are RBK-250 series cluster bomb canisters and AO-1SCh fragmentation bomblets. Jane’s Information Group, a publishing company specializing in military topics, lists Syria as possessing RBK-250/275 and RBK-500 cluster bombs. These cluster bombs and explosive sub-munitions are Soviet-made, but there is no information available on how or when Syria acquired them.

In July, Human Rights Watch identified an RBK-250 series cluster bomb canister and AO-1SCh bomblets, apparently found in Jabal Shahshabu, Hama province, from a video. Video footage posted in August from Talbisah in Homs governorate and from Abu Kamal in Deir Ezzor governorate also show cluster munition remnants. The August cluster munition strike on Abu Kamal appears to have involved a different type of sub-munition, the PTAB 2.5M, which is an anti-tank bomblet.

A resident of Taftanaz told Human Rights Watch that Syrian forces had been attacking the town for the past six weeks and that on October 9 a helicopter “dropped a [bomb] and as it fell it broke into half and released smaller [bomblets]. I heard one [initial] explosion. But after the sub-munitions were released I heard several [further] explosions.” The strike hit a field of olive trees south of Taftanaz, two to three kilometers from the airport. There were apparently no casualties. The resident said he saw around 30 unexploded bomblets when he went to the site.

 Another resident of Taftanaz interviewed separately described another cluster strike north of the town.

He told Human Rights Watch:

On October 9, I heard a big explosion followed by several smaller ones coming from Shelakh field located at the north of Taftanaz. We went to see what happened. We saw a big [bomb] cut in half and several [bomblets] that were not detonated. I personally found one that was not exploded. There were small holes in the ground. The holes were dispersed and spread around over 300 meters.

According to the resident, soldiers from the rebel Free Syria Army informed him that 20 unexploded bomblets were found in Taftanaz.

A resident of Tamane’a told Human Rights Watch that around noon on October 9, a low-flying helicopter “released a [bomb] that split in half and released smaller [bomblets]” and “the [bomb] split open between two schools, Intermediate and Elementary, very close to each other. The schools are called Zaid Abil-harissa and Mustapha el-Bakri respectively… in Ibn Batouta neighborhood.”

The resident said, “The [bomblets] that exploded were the ones that hit the ground on the tip; we collected the ones that didn’t explode, their tip didn’t touch the ground.”

A video posted online on October 10 clearly shows remnants of an RBK-250 cluster bomb and AO-1SCh bomblets at al-Tah, another location near Tamane’a.

These unexploded sub-munitions are armed and can explode at the slightest touch or movement, yet civilians can be seen in some of the videos carrying the sub-munitions around, banging them on objects, and throwing them on the ground. A video filmed at Tamane’a shows several men handling unexploded AO-1SCh bomblets, an act that is extremely hazardous. A Tamane’a resident told Human Rights Watch that people have been taking the bomblets and remnants as “souvenirs.” In a separate video from August, a young child is filmed holding an unexploded sub-munition.

“The cluster munition strikes and unexploded ordnance they leave behind pose a huge danger to civilian populations, who often seem unaware how easily these sub-munitions could still explode.” Goose said. “There is an urgent need for the government to facilitate risk education and emergency clearance efforts.”

Human Rights Watch also called on television stations widely watched inside Syria, such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, to run announcements alerting the population to the risks of handling these munitions.

Cluster munitions can be fired by rockets, mortars, and artillery or dropped by aircraft, including helicopters. They explode in the air, sending dozens, even hundreds, of sub-munitions or “bomblets” over an area the size of a football field. These bomblets often fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that act like landmines and explode when handled.

A majority of the world’s nations have comprehensively banned the use of cluster munitions through the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which became binding international law on August 1, 2010. Syria is not a party to the convention and did not participate in the 2007-2008 Oslo Process that led to the creation of the treaty, which bans cluster munitions and requires clearance of contaminated areas and assistance to victims. A total of 77 countries are party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions while another 34 have signed but not yet ratified.

Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the international Cluster Munition Coalition, the civil society campaign behind the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Syria images: The dance of life and death

One side is beginning to die

One Syrian side is beginning to die.

It is President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime, which has bombed Syria to smithereens.

Inside the captured state missile defense base

Yesterday, the regime lost al-Taaneh missile defense base east of Aleppo in northern Syria that had been the source of regular attacks on surrounding villages.

Insurgents surrounded the base overnight and fought with soldiers for hours. They overran the base around dawn, killing dozens of troops and rounding up others.

Video recorded shortly after the battle shows multiple missiles pointing in various directions, some on the back of trucks, and a radar tower. Opposition activists said they were S-75 surface-to-air missiles.

Rebels took weapons, including antiaircraft machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and armored vehicles before retreating to the outskirts of the base.

Watch the video:

The other side is fighting to live

Insurgents against the regime are fighting to live.

The Syrian city of Maarat al-Nouman, a strategic link between Damascus and the cities of Homs, Aleppo, Latakia and Tartus, is the latest flashpoint in the conflict.

After members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) gained control of the city last Tuesday, following a two-day battle, the Syrian army bombarded the city of 150,000 Wednesday.Heavy clashes between government troops and the FSA at checkpoints just outside Maarat al-Nouman continued Thursday morning.

Syrian forces fired long-range heavy artillery at targets in Maarat al-Nouman early Thursday, hitting the city’s National Hospital.

FSA fighters made their way into the hospital and moved out under fire a total of 15 preterm infants from incubators.

Video shows the infants being wrapped, hand-carried and tiptoed out by the insurgents to a safer makeshift field hospital through a back exit hole to avoid sniper fire.

Talking to Aljazeera TV off camera, the makeshift field hospital’s Dr. Hani Maarouf, said one of the five preterm infants who were kept there died and the four others are now in stable condition.

The remaining 10 have been hospitalized “elsewhere near Maarat el-Nouman or in neighboring countries. “

Asked why the regime was targeting medical facilities and hospitals, Dr. Maarouf said snappily, “Because it’s a criminal regime.”

Watch the video:

Iran is in “Mother of All Battles” over Syria

Putin with Maliki yesterday (top right) and with Khamenei in 2007

Emboldened by his one-on-one talks yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Iran’s emerging surrogate Nouri al-Maliki told Turkey to end her “presumptuous” verve and keep her hands off Syria.

The Iraqi prime minister’s blatant support of the Syrian regime came soon after he revived military ties with Moscow (see previous post).

Maliki said Syria was not threatening Turkey, and Ankara should not seek NATO’s intervention.

“Turkey is being presumptuous, you could say, as if it were taking responsibility for solving the Syrian conflict instead of the Syrian people and wants to impose its own solution. For this reason, the international community needs to stop Turkey from intervening,” he told the press in moscow.

NATO must not use protecting Turkey as a pretext to intervene in Syria, he said.

Maliki said Iraq's position on Syria is similar to Russia’s as both countries are calling for peaceful resolution of the conflict.

He also dismissed charges that Iraq allowed Iran to deliver weapons to Syria through its airspace.

“This is not true,” he told Interfax yesterday, suggesting the claims are politically motivated.

“We have been doing random checks of aircrafts and have not discovered any weapon aboard. We found no evidence of Iranian planes ferrying weapons to Syria. We clearly told Syria and Iran that we allow delivery of diverse cargo, but not weapons,” he said.

Putin meanwhile postponed a scheduled visit to Ankara because of his “busy schedule” this month, the Kremlin press office told RT (Russia Today).

The Russian president’s decision to postpone the visit comes amid mounting tension between Turkey and Syria.

Editorially, a Syria and Iran watcher, who is a confidant of the two countries’ decision-makers, says Tehran considers the battle for Syria the “Mother of All Battles.”

Grounds for Iran’s mindset, the man tells pan-Arab al-Hayat’s editor-in-chief Ghassan Charbel on condition of anonymity, are as follows:

*** Contemplate the region in the few years preceding the Arab Spring. Iran was in the driving seat. Its clout in Iraq was waiting in the wings for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Its relations with Syria were solid and titling in its favor. Its leadership was in the saddle of the Axis of Resistance, which stretched from Tehran to Syria, to Lebanon, and to Palestine via Jihad and Hamas.

*** Between 2000 and 2010, Iran scored spectacular successes: the 2006 Lebanon War, the debut of Iranian missiles in Israel’s security equation, and the Gaza War that consolidated Iranian presence on the Palestinian scene with Sunnite and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas.

*** Iran became the Number One player in Lebanon after the 2005 withdrawal of Syrian troops in the wake of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. From thereon, Hezbollah became the conduit for Syrian presence in Lebanon.

*** Via Hamas and Jihad, Iran was able to abort Palestinian-Israeli negotiations under both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.

*** With the U.S. pulling out of Iraq and Maliki remaining at the helm there, the Axis of Evil came to include Baghdad, which fully espoused Iran’s Syria policy.

*** The Arab Spring startled Iran. Hosni Mubarak’s flaccid regime was an easier pro-American target for the Axis of Resistance. Mohamed Morsi’s election as president of Egypt at the peak of the struggle for Syria dealt Iran a body blow. Morsi has been unequivocal in wanting President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

*** Iran is now running into a regional brick wall. You can call it a Sunnite brick wall, given Morsi’s alliance with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the pair’s cooperation with Gulf Arabs, especially on the Syria file. This reality has shuffled the rules of play in the region.

*** The Axis of Resistance has lost its sole Sunnite offshoot, Hamas, which has moved out of Syria.

*** Iran is waging a “Mother of All Battles” in Syria in that it is defending there its role, its borders, its investments over the years, a crossroads, a corridor to Hezbollah, and its gains in Iraq and Lebanon.

*** Hezbollah is in a life-and-death battle in Syria. The “Party of God” is aware it needs the Syria corridor to remain a regional player and retain the ability to wage war or face one. Otherwise, it would metamorphose into a local player in Lebanese politics.

*** Iran recognizes the Syrian regime’s fall and the rise of a substitute pro-Turkey regime could create new facts on the ground in Iraq and Lebanon. That would bring down the curtains on Iran’s role as a major player and undermine the image of its leaders as they struggle with U.S. and European sanctions and regional commitments.

*** It is difficult to imagine the Syrian regime returning to a status quo ante the Arab Spring. Iran is mindful of this, but chooses to extend the regime’s lifespan despite the costs. Such policy could turn Syria into an Arab Afghanistan worrisome to Turkey, Israel and other states.

*** Iran is waging a “Mother of All Battles” in Syria because it cannot bear losing two battles: the role battle and the battle for the bomb. 

Swap on the cards: Iraq-Maliki for Syria-Assad

Maliki (top) and Assad in meetings with Khamenei

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is playing his regional trump card: Iraq to replace Syria and Iraq’s powerful Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to supersede Syria’s embattled Alawite President Bashar al-Assad.

Tehran’s theocratic government and Baghdad’s Shiite-dominated leadership have been moving closer all the time. And both share a similar interest in supporting Damascus.

Iraq abstained from a 2011 Arab League vote to suspend Syria’s membership. It is now quietly shipping crucial fuel oil supplies to Assad’s regime.

Iraq has also been laundering money for the Islamic Republic to help it overcome sanctions and ferry weapons and fighters to the Assad government.

Since it promised to ask Syria-bound airplanes passing through its airspace to land for random inspections after Washington said they could be ferrying arms to Damascus, Baghdad searched one cargo plane only.

At the same time, an agreement between senior Iraqi and Iranian officials allowed Tehran to make larger and more systematic transfers of weapons and fighters to Syria overland via Iraq.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be travelling to Baghdad shortly to confer with Maliki.

Maliki, who is in Moscow on a working visit to consolidate political, economic and defense ties and discuss developments in Syria, meets later today with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A joint statement issued after Maliki’s talks on Tuesday with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev said more than $4.2 billion in arms deals were agreed between the two sides as part of a tighter military cooperation plan.

Moscow will supply 30 Mil Mi-28NE night/all-weather capable attack helicopters, and 50 Pantsir-S1 gun-missile short-range air defense systems. The contracts are among the biggest ever signed between Iraq and Russia.

Further discussions were also said to be underway for Iraq’s eventual acquisition of a large group of MiG-29 fighters and helicopters along with heavy weaponry.

Russian arms industry analyst Russian Pukhov of the Center for Analysis of Strategy and Technologies, a Moscow-based think tank, tells Novosti the deal showed Baghdad's desire to break Washington's monopoly of arms supplies to Iraq.

"It's clear that America's influence on Iraq has been excessive. The Shiite government of this country is starting to conduct itself more independently of Washington, and more looking toward Iran," he said.

Russia is seeking to take its ties with Iraq to a new level and win almost certain support for its position on Syria.

Baghdad needs Moscow’s help in defense and military areas and needs arms to “defend itself and fight terrorism,” Maliki said in the Russian Foreign Ministry mansion on Monday.

Tariq Alhomayed, editor-in-chief of the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, believes Maliki aspires to be Assad’s “substitute” in the region.

Alhomayed explains in today’s leader:

The Iraqi premier’s visit to Russia and his signing of a large arms deal with Moscow evoke ruminations to ponder as to strategic choices and regional power balances, chiefly as regards Syria

Maliki is obviously trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. He is after simultaneous alliances with Tehran, Washington and Moscow, something no one was able to do in the region.

Turkey’s zero-problems foreign policy finds Ankara today immersed in the region’s problems. Independently of policy, problems pop up even when you ignore them. And they will drown you if you don’t tackle them properly.

A huge Russian arms deal won’t rebuild the Iraqi army, not when the U.S. continues to train and equip the Iraqi military.

It is an open secret that Moscow’s chief arms clients are either isolated Arab regimes, or ones trying to blackmail the U.S. and Europe for political gain.

If Iraq wanted to be an active Arab power player supportive of democracy and stability, why do a deal with Moscow, chief spoiler of a UN Security Council solution for Syria?

All evidence suggests Maliki yearns for superseding Assad. He is reassuring Moscow that it has a client ready to buy Russian weapons at present.

What Iraq has done is simply gift the Russians an alternative to Assad’s regime. Moscow can now claim it is far from being isolated in the Arab world.

Maliki hankers after superseding Assad in the region, albeit rolled out in new packaging. The new packaging will prove faulty nevertheless, for how can Maliki square the Tehran-Washington-Moscow circle or forge exceptional ties with his fellow-Arab countries?

Maliki’s wish to serve in Assad’s stead in the region transpires from his own remarks – that Baghdad needs Moscow’s help “to fight terrorism.”

Russia has been regurgitating “to fight terrorism” since the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution.

With the Russians taking “terrorists” to mean “Sunnites,” Maliki comes along to seek their cooperation in fighting them.

No need to think long and hard: Maliki aspires to supplant Assad in the region as the protector of its minorities and all the rest.

“Syria, heartland of the world”

From top, Red Square, Tiananmen and Umayyad squares

The Syria crisis sprung many surprises in the 17 months since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution.

What looked like one more of the Arab Spring waves of democratization originating in North Africa turned out to be much more turbulent, according to veteran Lebanese political analyst Jihad el-Zein.

True, he writes for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, the waves of Arab revolutions represented per se a new phase of dramatic political and ideological change across the region. The change calls to mind (Francis Fukuyama’s essay) “The End of History” and the ascendency of democratic thought in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union.

These were preceded by the wave of democratization in Latin America in the seventies and early eighties, Zein notes.

All this is true. But the interplay and aggravation of past and present events in Syria precipitated confrontational twists and turns in international relations – so much so that the new world order’s image will be shaped by the outcome of the struggle over Syria.

The said twists and turns, according to Zein, brought about a series of seven major surprises:

1. The first underscored not so much Iran’s all-important status and role in the region’s future, but Russia’s part in reordering international relations.

2. The other was Beijing choosing to side with Damascus – a sort of discordant Middle East diplomacy outside the bounds of the Far East and Southeast Asia – amidst mounting political strains in China’s immediate milieu, which is becoming the hub of global economic vitality.

With both Russia and China on board, Syria sees its borders stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia. And with the United States preaching “soft power,” Damascus’ Umayyad Square now adjoins Red Square in Moscow and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The common peril of liberal democracy is binding the three regimes’ together.

3. The third was Turkey’s rush to come nearer the Arab Spring waves when unprepared. The hurried move to drastically change premises set by Kemal Atatürk in 1923 and turn around to the Muslim East will consequently determine the future in power of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

4. The AKP’s passionate Syria approach triggered a fourth surprise. It exposed the affinity between Turkey’s Alevis and Syria’s ruling Alawites. In other words, the Syria saga unmasked a sectarian divide in Turkey.

5. Not counting paramilitary forces, Syria’s 200,000-strong, heavily armed and highly mechanized army is startlingly still capable of handling the threats it is dealing with.

6. Perhaps the most spectacular surprise is the level of destruction in Syria. The devastation exceeds that seen in Iraq or the one suffered by Lebanon in the course of 15 years of infighting.

7. Lastly, Christian support of the Syrian regime, subtly by the Catholic clergy and vociferously by the Russian Orthodox Church, which is openly aligned with the Kremlin. 

Iraq et al: Without electricity -- كهربا ماكو

Sulaymaniyah (top) & Erbil are well-lit but Baghdad is trapped in a maze of snatched cables 

The colloquial Iraqi expression “ماكو for maco,” means “without,” “deprived of” or “lacking.”

Sulaymaniyah and Erbil (also written Arbil or Irbil) are the major cities in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in northern Iraq.

About 100 miles separate Sulaymaniyah from Erbil, which is the capital of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.

A trip to the region by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, must have elicited his think piece, published today in Arabic:

Three men from different backgrounds chose to renew their old friendship in Sulaymaniyah.

The three had paid dearly for dreaming early on of an Iraq free of Saddam Hussein.

One of the threesome had fought for years in the rugged mountains. The other had spent a good part of his life as a subversive. The third got to serve time in an assortment of Baathist jails.

I chanced to attend their cheerful get-together.

After an absence of about two years, I was overawed by Erbil’s evolution.

Erbil is in a race against time, hoping to become another Dubai: high-rise buildings, shopping malls, exceptional vivacity, a rush of entrepreneurs and investors, and homes and streets full of light.

Sulaymaniyah is following suit.

It seems the people of Iraqi Kurdistan are bent on making up for time lost.

There was little in the dinner conversation about the pains of bygone years, but much about progress, reconstruction, investment and stability.

The person sitting next to me at the dining table asked about my impressions.

I said I was pleasantly surprised but passed up critical queries about travelling through the outskirts of Kirkuk.

I was heartened to learn that to forestall fraud and corruption, the Kurdistan Region had a few years back devolved the issue of electric power to the private sector.

The result is the Kurdish Region enjoys 24-hour electricity and is currently selling excess power supply to governorates in the vicinity.

I was overjoyed because, being Lebanese, I suffer from the “electricity complex.”

The Lebanese civil war plunged my native country into decades-long power cuts that have yet to end despite the wastage of billions of dollars and the ceaseless shuffling of crooks and charlatans.

I did not tell my dining companion I was envious, especially that I believe darkness in Lebanon caused by outages is only part of the pitch-black darkness likely to envelop the country.

For some reason, however, envy electrified the conversation at the dinner table around midnight, when the man sitting next to me burst out: “Imagine, my friend! Historically, Iraq was home to the oldest civilizations in the world. It now rests on a sea of proven oil reserves. Its annual budget exceeds $120 billion. It spent tens of billions to restore power supplies. Still, electricity is wanting: كهربا ماكو.

“We brag about Iraq recouping its regional clout, about having balanced relations with the United States and equitable ties with Turkey and Iran, and about our new, strong and promising country. But electricity is wanting: كهربا ماكو.”

He said sharks were gulping down Iraq’s wealth and that corruption is boundless – “worse than in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriyah, Najaf and all other cities, he said, swim in a sea of darkness and are sinking under the weight of snatched electricity cables and power generators.

He said power cuts and shortages were part of a tragic overheating of coexistence power lines connecting Iraqis.

He feared a growing preparation for a divorce between Sunnites and Shiites, especially if the emotional separation gripping Syria’s components -- due to the wholesale mass massacre going on in Syria -- culminated in divorce.

The power lines of coexistence in the Middle East region are cut.

True, a popular revolution is sweeping Syria. But also true, scenes of the former Yugoslavia are being replayed there, foreshadowing a long agony.

In Egypt, one rumor about a kidnapping or a mixed marriage is enough to see Muslims and Copts confirm a break in the power lines of coexistence. The lines are also out of service in Bahrain.

In Lebanon, a heated debate over a new electoral law risks splintering its constituent communities.

The cut in the power lines of coexistence make all our cities with (ethnically and religiously) mixed populations resemble Kirkuk.

Depression, darkness and fear permeate our cities.

The power lines of citizenry, of the state electricity authorities and of public institutions are down.

We stand at the threshold of a prolonged blackout, In fact, كهربا ماكو