Big changes

From Missing Links

"AlQuds al-Arabi, in its lead editorial yesterday (Tuesday May 27), said Nasrullah's Liberation Day speech has region-wide importance, and in that respect they focus on his remarks about Iraq. The editorialist, after discussion domestic Lebanese implications of the speech, writes:

His remarks on Iraq were perhaps the most surprising and noteworthy in his speeh, because when he calls on Iraqis--government and people, Sunni and Shiite--to resort to resistance to liberate their country, and when he stresses the failure of the political process which emerged from the womb of the occupation--when he does that he is also replying in a very direct way to all the criticism that has been directed against him and against the resistance which he leads, for leaning in favor of the sectarian government [in Baghdad] and in favor of the Shiite parties that are involved in it, and for failing to support the resistance to that government and to the American occupation.........

Actually two things are happening here: One is the change the editorialist refers to in the position of Nasrullah--namely the embracing of all Iraqis under the aegis of resistance, and the abandonment of any apparent or alleged sectarian bias in favor of the GreenZone parties. The other change is in the attitude of AlQuds al-Arabi itself, which has been the strongest pan-Arab voice in support of the Sunni armed resistance in Iraq, and which seems now prepared to give up any apparent or alleged sectarian pride of place for the Sunni resistance, in favor of likewise embracing all Iraqis under the aegis of resistance to the occupation. It is as if the one change immediately triggered the other in a kind of anti-sectarian logic, which, as the editorialist notes, could soon start manifesting itself on the Iraqi scene."