I can say this: everybody who sang a song or wrote a word in praise of Rafiq Hariri did so either because he/she was paid, or because he/she hoped to be paid. But this Hariri cult has no roots, and will not leave a deep impact. It is based on money and money alone. I was told that Hariri spent $35 million on the election in the North alone (in 2000, the deputy Muhammad As-Safadi--partner with the new Saudi ambassador in US, Prince Turki--spent $15 million, and this figure according to his former advisor who shall remain unnamed). The US, if you read the signals from Rice's trip to Lebanon this week, hopes to achieve what it could not achieve in 1983 when the US/Israel pushed the May 17th Agreement on Lebanon. Back then, the political leadership of the Maronite community was the pillar of US policy in Lebanon. Now the US is more aware of the demographic realities in Lebanon, and the US wants the Sunni political leadership represented by Sa`d Hariri, to lead the push for another version of the May 17th Agreement. It will not work; not only because Sunni public opinion would not go for it, but because the key questions on national security cannot be decided by one side. According to Ta'if accords, if they are to be respected now that Syrian troops have left Lebanon, the government rules not through the prime minister or the president but through the collective body of the cabinet. Thus, the Shi`ite bloc, not to mention others, will not allow US wishes to pass. The US also does not know this: Sunnis (as city merchants don't) do not fight, and have not fought in Lebanese history. Druzes, Maronites, and Shi`ites do the fighting and dying in Lebanese civil wars, and the Sunnis largely stay on the sidelines edging this party or that on. Does the US think that Sa`d Hariri will march with his accountants to disarm Hizbullah? Fat chance. Not even if Sa`d Hariri is invited to Crawford, Texas. But why should those who more than blundered in Iraq not blunder again in Lebanon? You can blunder in more than one country, you know. Ask Bush about that. Wait. Don't ask him. He has no clue. He still thinks that he is making progress in Iraq, Afghanistan, and anywhere else where he has dropped bombs.