Elliot Abrams's Victories in Lebanon
Mostafa Zein Al-Hayat - 22/12/07//
Before his visit to the Middle East at the beginning of next month, President George Bush reassured the Lebanese about the exhaustion of his patience with President Bashar al-Assad. He no longer wanted to hear his name. There is no possibility for any dialogue between Washington and Damascus. His administration is united in this approach. It is not possible to say that in his administration there are hawks who take orders from his vice-president Cheney, and doves who incline toward Minister Rice. He sent to Beirut Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams.
The Lebanese know the American officials well. The first barely left Beirut at times of crises. The second participated in the planning for the "Cedar Revolution" with a number of them in the year 2000. They issued a document entitled "The Role of the United States in Ending the Syrian Occupation of Lebanon." With him were Ziad Abdelnur, Samir Bustani, Nabil el-Hajj, Habib Malek, Daniel Nassif, Charles Sahyoun, and others. The document called upon Washington to remove the weapons of mass destruction from Syria, and to remove Syria from Lebanon by force. His interest in this question matured at that advanced stage, and perhaps before it. At that time, the division between the Lebanese was not as clear. The Syrian army was still firmly established in Lebanon. Rafiq al-Hariri was prime minister and Walid Jumblatt was still a friend of Ghazi Kanaan and then Rustum Ghazaleh. Samir Gaegea was in prison, Hizbullah was getting ready to liberate the South (the document was written before May 2000).
It is the man's biography that he believes in achieving peace only by force. His star began to rise in the era of former President Ronald Reagan. His name was connected with the "Contra" scandal and the arming of it in Nicaragua. He only sees in the Middle East the interest of Israel. He stood with the hawks of Likud, such as Sharon and Netanyahu. He was against Oslo. He criticized Bill Clinton sharply because he became engaged in the negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In 1997 he signed with many Likudists "the Project for the American Century, which calls upon Washington to increase military spending and to bear its responsibilities in spreading democracy by force in the world. He also participated in the signing of a letter that was sent to Clinton (1998) that calls on him to get rid of the Iraqi regime because it was no longer possible to ascertain the extent of its armament, and it had become a danger for the United Sates and Israel. He has worked toward and is still working toward strengthening the relationship between Zionism and Christian fundamentalism.
In January 2006, Abrams visited Beirut. He came to examine his accomplishments and they had been realized. He came to witness the realization of his dream with the transformation of Lebanon from a country that supported Palestinian rights, united around the resistance, to a country where anarchy reigned. He came with Welch to visit and support his friends. He justifies the Israeli aggression and emphasizes that the Hebrew State was not defeated in the July 2006 War. He listens for a long time to "the arms of treachery." He loved to hear this expression, which means that Israeli was right.
After one year exactly, Abrams returns , with Welch, taking on themselves the same mission: to strengthen the determination of friends, and to stand by their side, since their alliance was almost coming to an end, after Walid Jumblatt discovered the secret, during his trip to Washington. He returned to Beirut to announce his retreat from all of his previous positions, for fear of an American-Syrian deal at the expense of March 14, and "to preserve the gains that have been realized by the alliance, as long as the defeat occurred and so that we do not relinquish more and to protect the resistance."
Abrams returned to Beirut to celebrate his victory once more, and to verify that Lebanon was on the edge of the abyss. His presence among sincere friends is sufficient so that this conclusion is correct. How if we joined that with the exhaustion of Bush's patience with al-Assad?
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