Since the beginning of the demonstrations and confrontations in Syria, the regime has been using violence as its only means of response. However, the last four months have shown that violence will not solve anything; instead, the crisis has become worse. Even so, the violence is continuing and there are victims every day. The government and the opposition have gone beyond the point of no return, and it remains for one side to learn that leadership means action and not the mere holding of a government post; the other side, meanwhile, must ask for something feasible, to see it happen. It is a suicidal policy, and the worst thing about it is that it was not the only policy available at first, and alternatives continue to exist today. However, the regime is moving ahead with the use of force, while issuing talk about reform projects, while the opposition wants everything. Each side is behaving as if it wants to win a war against an earthquake; thus they will lose, and the loss will go beyond Syria's borders. Changing the regime, or the ruler in Egypt, does not frighten me. In the end, a Sunni president departed, and a Sunni president will come. In Syria, change is frightening because the country has minorities. There is the danger of civil war or a massacre, even if those involved deny this. There is no one left today from the 1950s generation of national leaders, and the alternative is frightening, even if the opposition denies this. Personally, I can barely believe what is happening. A year ago, I was listening to a Sunday BBC radio program, a one-hour love-fest about sectarian coexistence in Syria. The program presenter was a reverend who was astonished by the existence of mosques next to churches, and seeing veiled women attend the wedding of a female friend of theirs, in a church. A few months ago, I wrote in this column that Syria could be the Singapore of the Middle East, based on the idea of my friend Nemir Kirdar, the head of the Arab investment bank Investcorp. I reviewed the details with him and added information I had from my own research. Where is the coexistence, and where is the Singapore today? We are now facing calls for sanctions on Syria; three members of the United States Senate, and along with them the pro-Likud media, are putting pressure on Obama and inciting him to act. I hope that President Bashar Assad changes his method of dealing with the demonstrations, but I do not expect this. I want the demonstrators to test the intentions of the government within a very short and specified time-frame, but I do not expect this either. The official media sees the demonstrations only as the work of extremists and armed gangs, while the news of the opposition is anonymous and gives the foreign media what suits its needs. Meanwhile, the truth is being trampled under the feet of both sides in the struggle, to the degree that neither side is seeing the Western threats against the regime to intervene, and this is something that no sane, patriotic Syrian can accept. I will stay with this topic as I move to Hezbollah. The situation in Syria has taken the party into a crisis made by others, which means a coming Lebanese crisis. For example, when Saddam Hussein found himself confronting the world after the invasion of Kuwait, he launched missiles at Israel, which killed one Israeli – who died of a panic-induced heart attack. Nonetheless, while this bought Hussein some cheap popularity for a short period of time, it did not fend off the inevitable ending. Will we arrive at a situation in Syria where Hezbollah launches missiles at Israel, to change things in the region? This is not my question, but it is being bandied about every day in the Western media, which quotes officials and intelligence sources, think tanks, and others. These people say that Hezbollah, after the summer of 2006, received missiles that were more potent and long-range than it previously had. I heard information about this from General Omar Suleiman, whom I trust, although I am now reading additional information, about rockets with a range of hundreds of kilometers. Some of them can hold a one-ton warhead, and are extremely precise. Is this true, or it is an enemy psy-ops media fabrication, aimed at creating a climate that justifies striking Syria and Hezbollah? I do not know. However, there is a consensus in the west that Hezbollah does not decide things, but does what Iran and Syria ask. It might begin a confrontation with Israel to reduce pressure on the regime in Damascus. The damage from such a confrontation will be much greater than the consequences of the July War of 2006, and I do not believe that it will reduce or increase the difficulties of the Syrian regime. Instead, this confrontation represents an Israeli desire, since Hezbollah is the greatest current danger to Israel, much more dangerous than the Iranian nuclear bomb in the future. This is because Hezbollah's missiles, and I rely here on the information of General Omar Suleiman, cannot be defended against, because of their proximity to Israeli targets. Israel cannot launch strikes on Iranian nuclear installations before it neutralizes Hezbollah's capabilities. The West sees Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, as if it were the party's middle name. However, I consider Hezbollah to be a national resistance movement and Israel a terrorist organization. I hope that the party suffices with liberation, because this is its raison d'etre. I hope it refrains from going into Lebanese domestic politics, so that I do not have a difference with it at all. Meanwhile, the situation in Syria is bad, and will get worse if the government does not alter its violent method of dealing with the opposition. [email protected]
