Tomorrow the vacationers shall leave. They will pack their luggage, laughter, and memories, and leave. When they do, autumn will hit. It will strip the trees of their attire, the sky of its blue color, and the Lebanese miracle of its fig leaf. Tomorrow they shall depart, leaving Lebanon to the Lebanese. And that is a terrible thing. The Lebanese will discover they are alone – prisoners on a little map. Concerns will mount among sects and communities. This beautiful land is an open opportunity for conflicts. The summer truce has ended and the Lebanese have to go back to their ordinary lives – go back to conflicts. Vacationers are cold-hearted. They come and they go. They have passports as security blankets. They go back to their homeland and sleep in their states. There, they have policemen who dare to arrest perpetrators and courts that rule in conflicts. They have the tent of stability at least. They can plan for the coming month or year; for their children, degrees, and work. We used to blame their countries for lacking the Lebanese vitality. Today, we congratulate them for it. We envy them their luck. I wished President Michel Sleiman would address an exceptional message to vacationers in which he would ask them to extend their stay in our country. They are an element of revival, stability, and reassurance. They are sophisticated, friendly and civilized interim forces. But I retracted myself, as my idea is unrealistic. Vacationers have work to do in their states. And who can guarantee that an astute politician will not suddenly accuse us of promoting nationalization? It is a new and exciting occupation that covers your neglect of your country with an attack against nationalization – God forbid. The large number of vacationers spares the Lebanese, albeit temporarily, from pondering their condition – which is dreadful and terrifying. I felt greatly embarrassed when the politician reassured me: Do not worry, remember the previous years. This is an exceptional country. It can live without a President of the Republic. The [presidential] palace was empty many times. It can live without a government, and in the shadow of two governments. It can also live in the shadow of a parliament that suffers from a forced extended coma; and in the shadow of small mobile civil wars. The politician smiled. Our story is long. We are bound to wait. We have to wait for the details of the Saudi-Syrian relations. We should look at Iran, which must not be isolated and cannot be ignored. In order to allow Iran to take part in the weaving of the governmental carpet, we are bound to look at its nuclear issue; the dialogue opportunities between Ahmadinejad and Obama; the future of the situation in Iraq. We should tackle the thorny issue of the Houthis. Also, we cannot ignore Egypt; the inter-Palestinian reconciliation; the Sunni-Shiite tensions in the region; the Turkish role and fingerprints of Ahmet Davutoglu; and the conjectures related to the presumptive decision. I felt afraid. I concluded from his words that forming the government could take forever rather than a month, and that Saad Hariri must attend a strict training in carpet making – with all of what this implies in terms of patience, determination, and skills in flattering local and regional threads, attracting them, controlling knots, and organizing their coexistence. I do not approve of the campaign targeting Minister Gebran Basil and presenting him as the knot that is preventing the governmental carpet to see the day. I do not know this nice and ambitious young man. Targeting him because he is the son-in-law of the Third Republic is not acceptable. To pretext his failure in the elections in order to keep him away is a blood-chilling stance. It is a malicious and vengeful stance against a young man who does not ask for more than to turn into a pole in the Lebanese carpet. They turned him into a minister. You have stolen the presidential palace from the General and given it to a General, and you have no right to steal the Ministry of Telecommunications from his son-in-law. I write about the departure of vacationers from Beirut with an eye on Baghdad. Two years ago the Lebanese army prevented the winds of Iraqization from blowing on Lebanon through the Nahr el Bared battle. Preventing the birth of the governmental carpet puts Lebanon again in the winds of Iraqization. I hope I am mistaken.
