By Robert Fisk
".....No one in their right mind would think that al-Qa'ida would burn its energies on such a petty – though revolting – act in Lebanon. But al-Qa'ida does exist in Lebanon. We have President Bashar al-Assad's word on that. Indeed, it's interesting to hear what Assad actually said on the subject last week – since his relationship with Shia Hezbollah and Shia Iran makes him no friend of bin Laden's outfit. In an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper, he said "We talk about al-Qa'ida as if it exists as a well-structured, unified organisation. This isn't true. It acts more as a current of thought that calls itself al-Qa'ida. This organisation is the result (of a situation) and not the cause. It is a result of chaos, of weak development. It is a result of political errors and a kind of political direction." To say that this organisation "exists everywhere, in Syria as in all Arab and Islamic countries, does not mean that it is widespread or popular".
Yet Assad can't absolve his own regime or those of the other Arab states whose security laws ban any political meetings – other than those approved by state officials – and thus long ago forced Muslims to discuss politics in the only institution they regularly visit: the mosque. And of course, the supreme irony this week has been to hear our lords and masters praising the helpfulness of the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia for alerting the West to the aircraft package bombs when it was this same Saudi Arabia that nurtured Osama bin Laden and his merry men over many years.
Because the Middle East's dictators also like to scare their populations. Egypt's poor are disgusted by their ruling elite but that elite wants to ensure there are no Islamic revolutions in Cairo. And the West wants to ensure that there are no Islamic revolutions in Cairo, or Libya, or Algeria, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia. (You name the rest.) The immediate problem is that al-Qa'ida is trying to undermine these regimes as well as the West. And so they lump Iraq itself – whether it is a democracy is a bit irrelevant when it doesn't have a government and is too busy executing its old Baathist enemies to protect its own people – along with the country's Christians and its Shias. And we are continuing to stage drone attacks on Pakistan and bomb the innocent in Afghanistan and tolerate the torture regimes of the Arab world and allow Israel to steal more land from the Palestinians. I'm afraid it's the same old story. Justice will bring peace – not intelligence wars against "world terror". But our leaders will still not admit this."
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