Saturday, December 03, 2005

You have to read this long interview with Walid Jumblat published in Ash-Shira` magazine. This magazine, and its editor Hasan Sabra, has a checkered past. He was a leader of the thuggish Sunni militia, Arab Socialist Union, during the civil war. Its only claim to fame is that it was a vehicle of Libyan intelligence in Lebanon, and its leaders profited from Libyan money (look at the fortune accumulated by former Syrian functionary `Abdur-Rahim Murad who used to head that "union"). Sabra started the magazine and he has no journalistic skills to speak of. He established ties with branches in Iranian intelligence, and broke the Iran-Contra scandal by publishing an item fed to him by sources close to Mohtashemi in Iran about a secret US visit to Tehran. This gave the magazine publicity. He started as an Arab nationalist Nasserist, but in the 1990s was one of many publications bought by Hariri Inc, and is now a fanatic Hariri mouthpiece. In this interview, Jumblat contradicts himself several times per paragraph. Notice that Jumblat expresses deep nostalgia to the most brutal era of the Syrian regime during the days of Hafidh Al-Asad and Rif`at Al-Asad. Notice how much affection he has for former vice-president `Abdul-Halim Khaddam and former chief-of-staff Hikmat Shihabi. Both men reportedly were bought off by Hariri very early on, and facilitated his entry into the Lebanese political scence. Two of Khaddam's sons have jobs with Hariri Inc, and Khaddam stays for long periods in Hariri's house in Paris, and so do his family members when they go shopping in Paris. Shihabi, I am told, is now staying at a hotel in Paris at Hariri's expense.