STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Lebanon: On The Verge Of Civil War. 

For a long time, my readers have asked me to comment on the situation in Lebanon, but I told them that in time I would respond. Well like all bad news, one never has to chase it. As one smart medical doctor/diplomat from Morocco once told me,”Why does the USA look for problems when problems will find the USA? “

How correct, he was. 

The recent news compelled me to write this blog.  On October 19. 2012  Major General Wissam Hassan, the Head of the Lebanese Information Branch [read intelligence]  was killed in a car bomb . He was a protégé of the assassinated Sunni Prime Minister’s son Saad Rafik Hariri, who vowed vengeance against the alleged culprit "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad”, an Alawite.

What makes this particular bombing far more explosive than the eight dead people and the 78 wounded innocent civilians?

All deaths are tragic and all acts of terrorism are reprehensible whenever and by whomever they are committed. 

But in this case, there was a very clear purpose for the bombing of  a significant senior Sunni military official--- and that was to create disintegration of Lebanon ---once again. 

For over ten years in the 1980’s , I had been professionally involved in evacuating our US Embassy personnel from Beirut each time the sunnis, PLOs, Shi’ites, Hezbollah or Phalangist would decide to attack another ethnic group.

At one time, I even had to personally negotiate with Arafat, at that time the Chief of the PLO, a major terrorist group in order to guarantee the safety of my embassy personnel. He was true to his word and allowed most of our US FSOs to leave safely up through the Damascus –Beirut Highway.

[Side Bar: Unlike the murder of the Ambassador Christopher Stevens we had no overhead drones or spy satellites. I simply had a phone in which, I personally took responsibility of my FSO’s despite the fact that they could have gone one thousand yards to the Mediterranean Sea where our warships were waiting for them.  But I had determined without having to ask the POTUS, the DCI, the Secretary of State  to risk a two hundred mile PLO- guaranteed land -escape over a quick , hasty unsecured escape over the treacherous one thousand yard  mine- field to the sea. 

But that’s just me.

And I also kicked President Jimmy Carter out of the Crisis Room in order to save 500 Hostages in the Hanafi Hostage Siege of 1977.  Point: Personal courage, conviction and crisis management skills always surpass “CYA group- think’. 

Back to the crisis in Lebanon. ….

Lebanon was created as an adjunct to Syria by the French after WWI. And because of the diversity of it’s ethnic groups---Sunni, Shi’ites, Christians, Druze, Palestinians, etc, it became a hot-bed of constant friction and civil wars. 

As you can well imagine, it did not take much to ignite a conflagration of one group against another group, irrespective of the reasons. The rationale for an internal conflagration could run the gamut from difference in ideology, cultural differences, monetary disputes [this was more likely] and political differences . For the most part, it was safe to say that there were three guarantors of the Lebanon’s integrity as a country: Israel, Syria and the US. 

Believe it or not, it was Israel in one of it’s many wars, that finally realized that it was futile to rule Lebanon and instead agreed to allow Syria to establish it’s hegemony over Lebanon. But Syria did not want the land of Lebanon, even though it had placed over one million workers and intelligence officers in Lebanon. The primary interest of Syria has always and still is, Lebanon’s banking system. For Syria and the rest of the Middle East, Lebanon was renown for it’s banking connections all over the world. Whether legitimate or not, Lebanon was known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East".

Now that we know how corrupt “neutral" Switzerland was and is in the banking and commercial area,  Lebanon as a totality was important to Syria and Israel. 

So what happened in this bombing? 

Rafik Hariri immediately accused Syria and Bashar Assad for this bombing.  But unfortunately, like his father who had been Prime Minister,  Rafik is not the brightest,  most honest politician in Lebanon.  Unlike Nasrallah, the head of the so-called “terrorist” organization Hezbollah,  Rafik lacks Nasrallah’s  psychological astuteness and political deftness.
  Unfortunately, Rafik,  like his Sunni father is exceedingly corrupt and politically dysfunctional.  There is no doubt in my mind and the minds of others who knew his father, that the Syrian had ‘neutralized’ his father for many reasons.  His father was exceedingly crooked.  He had bankrupted Lebanon and placed enough debt on the country so that it’s growth rated went into a negative numbers.  More importantly, those who knew Hariri , the father, also knew all too well that he was ‘bag man’ and “pimp’ for the highly corrupt, dysfunctional Saudi Royal family that used Lebanon and the Lebanese women as their summertime ‘brothel’. So it was no wonder that Hariri senior was killed by the Syrians with the approval of  Israel and the USG in order to maintain peace in Lebanon.

Now some group blew up the competent Sunni intelligence General for a specific purpose?

What could that be?

  From my point of view, there is only one reason and that is to destabilize Lebanon at all costs. 

And in the intelligence world , we ask the one question : who really has the most to gain from a destabilized Lebanon?

Does Syria? 

No. At this point in time,  Bashar has a full time civil war in his country.  And the Russians and Iranians are helping him as they should be.  Saudi Arabia , UAE, Israel and Turkey opposed Bashar.  But in my opinion , after having come back from that region and interviewed key players, I oppose the sentiments of our CIA and other intel units and see a longer tenureship for Bashar than anyone would have expected. This is true because of the incredible support of the Putin, Iran and other countries. So Bashar, Russia and Iran have no basic interest in creating another civil war when their respective plates are already full with their own civil war in Syria which I predict (despite the wishful sentiments for our Republican neocons and novitiates) will continue for some time longer.

Then let’s ask about he perpetual bogey man in the Middle East?   Israel!!
Again, I think not.  Israel, despite Bibi's recent bluster of war against Iran and all ‘terrorist’ organizations has a very cordial relationship with Hezbollah [which has become part of the official Lebanese government and is performing extremely important social services in Southern Lebanon] and often supports the Lebanese Army which is quite ineffectual. So Israel has no desire whatsoever to destabilize Lebanon right now or even in the near future.  Israel is in the midst of it’s own destabilizing problem ---1.5million Ultra-Orthodox Jews who refuse to work, serve the state and in simple words are ‘bums’ on the ‘state dole’.  So Israel has no real need for a destabilized Northern Border. 

What about the PLO and Hamas ? Terrorist Groups? 

Not really. The country that set off the bomb made one big mistake .  And that mistake is obvious to an ‘operative’ like me.
The same group that blew up the car also assassinated General Command Leader of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine----Adel Hasan.
Now why would I pick up on this seemingly irrelevant episode when it was hardly reported and connect this with the recent bombing??

In the world  of ‘regime change’ or if you want Psychological Warfare, in other words, in my world of professional expertise, there ARE NO COINCIDENCES. 

That is a very very important point to remember. Nothing in the world or political psychology or real HUIMNT [human intelligence which the USA is severely deficient by the fact that we have so many useless organizations in the intelligence community that they have literally allowed ‘murders to occur’ and are a detriment to our national security] is ever an accident. 

So let’s go back to the bombing of the Sunni Intelligence General and the killing of a Sunni leader of a major Palestinian group [ one in which I worked against—especially it’s very talented ex-leader Dr George Habash M.D, a Christian]  and ask who has the most to gain from these two precipitants for Lebanese Civil War? 

In my opinion, there are two or more Middle East countries responsible –Saudi Arabia and the UAE!

Why?

The Saudis and the UAE are running out of oil. They are no longer a valuable asset to the West.  They are in fact , like Israel, a major strategic liability.  While USG interest has correctly shifted to Asia and the SE Asia , Saudi Arabia has been in the process of trying to attract US interest  and commitment. The only organization in the way of protecting the Saudis are the US oil companies [ you remember ‘dumb and dumber’—Cheney and Bush jr] and the CIA.   I doubt that the CIA would be stupid enough at this time and place as to blow up a car in the middle of Beirut. But I do know the name of one or two of DCI Casey’s incompetent henchmen who tried that and failed, killing thousands of innocent Lebanese.  But if in fact the CIA was or is involved, rest assured my readers, I will be the first one to engage in ‘active measures’.

  But once again, I go back to the cowardly, corrupt Saudis who would want nothing more than to destabilize Lebanon in order to keep the US involved in the Middle East and create a strategic weakness on Bashar’s/Iranian’s southern flank of Syria.

But that, in my opinion,  is where the Saudis along with their equally corrupt UAE subalterns, made very serious strategic mistake. 

Whereas the Saudis had the Shi’ites as their principal enemy, they have inadvertently created another very serious enemy---the Palestinian People, who have long suffered under both Israeli and Saudi oppression. This time, with the brave citizens of the dysfunctional Saudi ersatz state attempting an “Arab Spring’ against the “Diaper Boy Princelings", Saudi Arabia will now encounter the justifiable wrath of a wonderful people long abused by the Saudis---The Palestinians!

  To my Palestinian friends, let us teach the Saudi cowards the lessons that Dr Habash had inculcated into you all---“terror against the oppressors"! 

Those corrupt Saudi infidels who defame the Holy Books-the Koran, The New Testament as well as the memories of valiant warriors who fought in the name of peace for all mankind---Muslim, Christian, Jew, or Hindu. 

 Long live terrorism in the name of the justice and the Holy!