Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Qatar: The New Cairo Accord?




The Qatar deal among the bickering (and sometimes warring) Lebanese factions left a bad taste in my mouth. A déja vu taste, reminiscent of the " foul fool" of the Cairo Accord of the late 60's that established a de facto PLO state within the State of Lebanon.

We now have a Hezballah state within the State, since "Qatar" implicitly recognized the terrorist organization's right to operate its guerilla, its telecommunications network and other institutions within Lebanon, and with total impunity.

The parallels are striking, I can only hope that the results will be less devastating to Lebanon.

Another consequence of Qatar was to provide Heballah and its allies (aka the "opposition") with a veto power within the Lebanese Cabinet.

It is no wonder that Syria and Iran hailed the accord, but it is surprising that the West was "satisfied".

Has Lebanon just been sold to the Syro Iranian axis? What is the West getting in return?

Quoting a generally well-informed Middle East analyst: "The Qatar deal marks the most resounding strategic debacle the West has experienced [in the Middle East] since Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and Israel’s failure to defeat Hizbollah in 2006."

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