Hassan Nasrallah The Manipulator

This article first appeared in The Huffington Post

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is -- in principle -- a man of religion. However, in addition to commanding an illicit militia and ordering bloody wars, Nasrallah is a manipulator, an odd characteristic for a man commanding the so-called "Party of God."

In 2007, the Security Council created the Special Tribunal for Lebanon -- under the mandatory Chapter VII of the UN charter -- in order to bring to justice the perpetrators of the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The UN took such a draconian measure only after Nasrallah and his allies had shut all doors in the face of justice being served domestically after the 2005 crime.

Today, rumors have it that the tribunal is about indict members from Hezbollah. Nasrallah went ballistic. In two successive speeches, he described the tribunal as a scam.

In the first speech, Nasrallah said that an indictment would be tantamount to an Israeli aggression against his party. Thus, those Lebanese who support the tribunal should prepare for a repeat of May, 2008, when the Hezbollah militia swept Beirut, killing opponents and burning down a TV and a newspaper.

Supporters of the tribunal expressed dismay at this preemptive threat, arguing that only the guilty in Hariri's murder might fear a coming indictment.

In his second speech, the Hezbollah chief intended to clarify his earlier stance. He said that anyone under suspicion has the right to defense. Thus Nasrallah showed his party as the victim, in order to justify any bloody reaction that it might undertake in the future.

But notice how, in Nasrallah's mind, defense against an indictment is never through lawyers, but rather through violence. If tribunal points fingers at Hezbollah, the militia will simply kill whoever supports the tribunal under the pretext of "self-defense" against an "Israeli concocted conspiracy."

In the second speech, Nasrallah went further in his preemptive efforts. Why wait until the indictment is issued? Nasrallah wants his opponents, Prime Minister Saad Hariri the son of his slain predecessor and the most-popular Christian leader Samir Geagea to regret all the "mistakes" they've committed since February 14, 2005, the date of the Hariri murder.

In the aftermath of the Hariri assassination, Saad, Geagea and a flip-flopper politician, leader of the Druze minority, Walid Jumblatt, formed a coalition that came to be known as March 14. With foreign assistance, this group ejected Syrian troops from Lebanon after 29 years of occupation, forced the creation of an international investigation commission, and later a tribunal, and dismantled the Lebanese-Syrian security system that had been ruling the country with an Iron fist.

March 14 was strong enough to eject Syria and force Hezbollah into retreat, but not enough to take the country into stability, which was compromised through ongoing Syrian sabotage, Hezbollah's bullying, and ongoing assassinations of March 14 lawmakers and activists.

When all the Syrian-Hezbollah terror failed in dislodging March 14, which called for state sovereignty and the disarmament of Hezbollah, the party sent its fighters to kill opponents. Hezbollah succeeded in winning back the upper hand in ruling the country.

But despite all its success, Hezbollah and Syria were unable to stop international justice and found themselves in confrontation with the world and a big number of the Lebanese. When fighting the world, Nasrallah follows a classic template: Hezbollah is right, patriotic and practicing self-defense, all its opponents -- whether Lebanese or world governments -- are puppets of Israel and its conspiracy.

To Nasrallah, supporting the tribunal means that Hariri and Geagea are offering a "hosting environment" for the conspiracy against his party. Therefore, Hariri and Geagea should not only change stance and denounce the tribunal, but should regret their past insults against former officials who were running the country when Hariri was killed.

An ever shrewd manipulator, Nasrallah does not make a single reference to all the March 14 blood spilled since 2005. All the instigation that Hezbollah and its allies practiced against Rafik Hariri and later March 14 figures who were murdered, does not count as a "hosting environment" that Hezbollah provided for criminals, according to Nasrallah's logic.

Finally, Nasrallah addressed the March 14 supporters urging them to correct course, and maybe abandon their leaders. He says Hezbollah is not afraid. Well, of course, since Hezbollah is armed and plans to kill again if it is ever indicted.

But Nasrallah is wrong. March 14 -- save for Jumblatt -- are the brave ones to fight injustice with justice and to continue their fight peacefully and unarmed. Nasrallah and his party might not be physically scared, but they certainly know that if justice was not served on the case of Hariri and others, blood will only invite more blood, and there will be a vicious circle of revenge.

Perhaps more than others, Nasrallah -- who annually laments the murder of the third Shiite Imam Hussein in 680 CE -- knows that some crimes live for generations. If justice is not served on the Hariri case, Nasrallah should be afraid. There will come a day when Nasrallah's arms, manipulation, charisma and shrewdness will not stand in the face of truth and justice. As a Shiite, Nasrallah might understand this lesson best.

Book Review: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This is a book that captures you so much that you only put it aside to search for more Richard Dawkins books to buy.

Dawkins carefully builds his argument to reach the conclusion that with the evidence at hand, it is almost certain that no supreme being stands behind the so-called "intelligent design," which was not "created" as many believe, but has rather been the result of the accumulation of a process of "natural selection," as was first described by Charles Darwin.

Even though the book is well organized, it feels at times like a chitchat session with the author, who delves into socio-political debates, which are currently in the news, and argues for women's rights, abortion and homosexuality, among other issues. By the time you finish reading the book, you will find a list of links to websites of like-minded organizations. Dawkins also recommends books of a similar nature.

In the final tally, Dawkins goes beyond presenting a scientific, social, psychological and anthropological argument against the existence of god. His book becomes an ideology pamphlet for like-minded atheists, agnostics and humanists. This adds to the book's allure.

What also makes the book interesting is Dawkins' wit. Dawkins strikes the correct balance between his entertaining sarcasm and the serious tone required in books like The God Delusion.

For those interested in the intellectual debate over the existence of god - like the one presented in this book - you might enjoy parts more than others. Those who are into scrutinizing divine texts to determine the authenticity of their call have to wait as they read Dawkins chapter after chapter. Perhaps not originally planned as such, The God Delusion first presents the scientific debate (Darwinism), then the philosophical debate (social Darwinism), and last tackles texts from the Old and New Testaments.

Dawkins, a scientist by training, which makes him excel in the scientific debate, also does a wonderful job in the human sciences part of his book.

Dawkins brilliantly drives home the idea that morality is not rooted in religion, but in human genes. He also shows how the exclusivity of religions, what he calls the in-group call for justice and bonding, is in fact a source of division if taken in a bigger context. While religions introduce noble and fairly humane (though male chauvinist and anti-women's rights) practices within their own groups, they shamelessly call for ruthlessly annihilating other groups that endorse different creeds.

Dawkins correctly, yet briefly, argues that within each religious scripture there are the verses that call for moderation, and the ones that encourage devilish behavior. Those who call themselves moderates, in every religion, are the ones who cherry-pick by rejecting whatever radical text and endorsing the moderate parts. Those who are fanatic, such as Islamist radicals and what Dawkins calls the "American Taliban," are the ones who endorse their creeds - in their entirety including the non-moderate teachings - and live by them.

The only downside to this book is its brief treatment of Islamic texts, a limitation that Dawkins - born and raised in a predominantly Judeo-Christian world - noted in his preface.
The God Delusion is a great work. It will be a long time before the world's intellectuals produce such a valuable book.

America's Unjustified Fears

This article first appeared in The Huffington Post

An unjustified sense of doom preoccupies the mind of almost every American. Military overstretch, debt, political corruption and the rise of rival global powers are often cited as indicators.

America's anxiety is unjustified. Predictions are wrong. The United States will remain a superpower.

America's prowess was never about its currently unmatched military might. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union commanded the world's biggest army with advanced technology. Today China, the presumably rising superpower, can certainly muster more boots than America. Beijing military spending is catching up with Washington too. It is very conceivable China's military will soon stand ahead of its American counterpart, just like Russia in the past.

America's power has not been about its economic prosperity either. While a cornerstone of the nation's supremacy, the economy has always had its upturns and downturns. None of the downturns was, or will be, as debilitating as some might suggest.

On the contrary, economic slowdowns have always served as wake up calls to cut excesses and correct the market through regulation or deregulation. An economy is like a human nervous system, if exposed to long stretches of either happiness or sadness, it will break down.

Political corruption, also, will not lead to America's downfall. Political jockeying has been a staple of all democracies, America included. America's political system has proven to be one of the most resilient in the world. Since 1789, the nation has elected 44 presidents and 111 Congresses. Freedom of expression, a precious element of democracy enshrined in the constitution, is as sacred as it can get.

Rotation of power, checks and balances, freedom of expression, equality for all - native and immigrants -- have always helped pump new blood and new ideas into the American system. The election of an African-American president remains the best proof that America is still improving. According to an old wisdom, things that change don't die.

American fear of world competition is inflated too. China, the expected superpower, is the world's biggest sweatshop. Its budgetary surpluses are not enough to turn the country into a superpower. Only democracy, a system the Chinese regime rejects, might turn Beijing into such a power.

In an essay in Foreign Affairs in June, Richard Levin, President of Yale University, argued that China realizes that it cannot depend on cheap labor forever, that in a decade or so it will lose this competitive edge, and will eventually need skilled workers, who in turn require competitive universities with faculty promotion based on merit and peer review. This means that China will have to scrap the powerful position of Communist Party Secretary General at its colleges.

Beijing knows that if it loosens its grip on universities, academics might become independent and critical. This would jeopardize China's non-democratic system. Therefore universities in China will not produce skilled workers, competitive at a world level, until China democratizes.

So, when China loses its cheap labor, it will have to either democratize in order to compete in research and development, or its economy will overheat, lose its edge and hit a ceiling. If China democratizes, its already aging population, just like their peers in Western democracies, will demand life luxuries.

A consumer middle class is a threat to China's surpluses. Such consumers might also grow a taste for democracy and give the regime a headache. And, while the Chinese middle class is expanding, China's sweatshops will be contracting.

For China, it is either democracy and normal economic growth, or an unsustainable super growth.

Over the past century, America has been the world's superpower because it has endorsed and defended a system of values that was the product of the European Age of Enlightenment.
Democracy, equality, freedom of expression and human rights - among other invaluable concepts - have been the source of America's power. America's system of governance is not perfect, but certainly the best humanity has so far produced. Such a system is a prerequisite for the emergence and preservation of any superpower. Without it, the Soviets, the Chinese and many other growing countries might shine for a while, only to see their glow later dimming.
Europe was the cradle of enlightenment. But its nations, at times, strayed away by either conquering and enslaving other peoples, going to war with each other, or decimating their own populations, like during the Holocaust.

Despite strokes of imperial behavior, like in Vietnam in the past or staying pointlessly in Afghanistan in the present, America has genuinely tried to play the role of liberator, rather than conqueror. The United States has always been the world's beacon of democracy and freedom to the extent that the world's autocrats cry foul and accuse America of intervening in their affairs.
A few centuries after its inception, America has been powerful because of observing its values. America will stop being a superpower only when humanity invents a new system of government that beats the values of enlightenment. In such case, America will either have to endorse the new values, or lose its supremacy to whoever does.

The downfall of the once great Roman Empire, an example often drawn when talking about the end of American power, did not happen because of Rome's military expeditions -- the source of its supremacy in the first place.

Rome died because humanity had discovered a better system that called for equality between Roman citizens and non-citizens. A new Christian Constantinople, more adaptable to the changing human needs, replaced the old polytheistic Rome that was going against history by refusing to adapt.

America is not Rome. As long as the United States preserves its values and constantly improves them, it will remain the world's only superpower.

Peace Will Never Come to the Middle East

This article first appeared in The Huffington Post

A halal Muslim butcher recently opened shop in Beirut's traditionally Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh. While insignificant by itself, this piece of news tells of an ongoing trend: The Christian community in the Levant is vanishing. In countries like Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon, Christians are often violently harassed by Muslim majorities. In Saudi Arabia, Christian residents are punished if found with a bible on them.

But Christians in the Middle East are not targeted because of their faith. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim Kurds in Syria are not allowed to obtain identity cards. They are often driven out of their villages and replaced by Muslim Arab settlers. In Iraq, Sunni Muslims kept Sunni Shiites out of government until America toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Since then, the two groups have been locked in a bloody conflict. In Sudan, the Islamic government demolishes thousands of houses of its opponents, while Persian Iran oppresses two million Arab Iranians in the south, and thousands of Kurds in the north, along political opponents at large.

Ethno-religious conflicts have always shaped the Middle East. With the exception of the Jewish minority, living as a majority in Israel, three ethnicities have dominated the scene: The Turks, the Persians and the Arabs.

These ethnicities are divided into two Islamic groups, the Sunni majority and the Shiite minority. The Sunnis and the Shiites have been the only two groups on the rise, often displacing minorities, and displacing each other during their 14-century ongoing conflict. But within the Sunni realm, Turks, Arabs and Kurds have been brutalizing each other for centuries. Within the Shiite world too, Arabs and Persians have been jockeying for power.

The Israelis, for their part, know that the region is a tough neighborhood. They know that the principles of a modern secular state based on equal rights for all citizens, regardless of ethnicity or faith, mean little anywhere in the region. When in the Middle East, Israelis do like Middle Easterners do, gang up ethno-religiously and bully everybody else.

In the Middle East, you either kill, or get killed. Whenever there is no killing, it does not mean peace has come. It rather means the regional conflict has moved from high to low intensity or, in political jargon, from "hot" to "cold" war.

When the conflict is "cold," the different communities indoctrinate their youngsters, stock arms, build alliances with world powers, and - most importantly - try to expand demographically and settle territories of their opponents.

Starting 2008, the Middle East went into "cold" war mode. Yet every Middle Easterner knows it is not lasting. Every group is waiting for the coming twist, whether it is a US strike on Iran against its potential buildup of a nuclear arsenal, a possible implosion of the Iranian regime, a UN tribunal on the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri that might indict Syria and Hezbollah, or a second Israeli attempt to wipe out Hezbollah.

During the Middle East's cold war, the demographic conflict reaches a climax. Whether it is the Muslim butcher in Beirut's Christian quarter, Shiite encroachment into Sunni West Beirut or Druze Mount Lebanon, or whether it is Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, Kurds trying to retrieve what they claim was their territory in oil-rich Kirkuk before Saddam displaced them, everybody is trying to settle the land of everybody else, before the next round of fighting breaks out again.

When the West blows its whistle against displacement of civilians anywhere in the Middle East, the region's players -- like in any sports match -- all raise their hands crying foul and claiming rights to the land. Meanwhile, all the players reiterate their calls for peace, probably only to look good in the eyes of the West.

Peace in the Middle East will never come through territorial swaps no matter how many times President Barack Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or with Arab leaders.

For peace to strike root, every state in the Middle East should become blind to the ethnicity and faith of its citizens. When people start having equal rights, they will forget their need to gang up in tribes that require defined territory to defend for their livelihood.

In Israel, a state-run agency owns all the land. In Lebanon, the Maronite Christian church
recently created a fund to buy any land Christians might want to sell in order to prevent Muslim encroachment.

These Jewish and Christian trust funds, their fight to survive as minorities in a predominantly Muslim Middle East, and the dominant bloody ethno-religious politics will always prevent the different groups from mixing and melting into states where citizens enjoy equal rights.

Absent modern secular states, like in the US or Europe, peace will never come. Like roses that cannot grow among thorns, modern states in the Middle East cannot coexist next to Islamic theocracies, whether they call themselves "republics" or "kingdoms." It is either all modern states, or none.

In the Middle East, peace will come only comprehensively, and unfortunately we're not even on the right track yet.

How Far Can Democracy Go? The Case of Lebanon 2005

On March 14, 2005, more than one third of Lebanon’s 4 million people took to the streets demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops and the disarmament of local Lebanese and Palestinian militias. The rally inaugurated what came to be known as the Independence Uprising, or the Cedar Revolution. However, the popular drive toward independence

and democracy lost steam before it could celebrate its fifth anniversary. Reasons included change in Western governments and agendas as well as defeat of Lebanese pro-democracy forces facing domestic and regional bullying. Through the Lebanese experience, this paper will examine the viability of democracy in the Middle East at large.

Read the full paper here