Word: beirutization
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...that we're staking our hopes for the region on ... Saudi Arabia. In the past month, Saudi King Abdullah has emerged as the most energetic dealmaker in the Middle East, brokering a tentative power-sharing agreement between rival Palestinian factions and mediating between the pro-Western government in Beirut and representatives of Hizballah, who want to topple it. Riyadh is also suppressing the price of oil, in what many observers see as a bid to undermine Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by starving his government of cash. And the Saudis have quietly backed the U.S.'s troop surge in Iraq. Every...
...Administration is frantically trying to assemble a bloc of friendly regimes to contain Tehran--with Saudi Arabia, Iran's longtime rival in the Persian Gulf, as the linchpin. The Saudis have been working hard to make sure Iran's ally Hizballah doesn't overthrow Fouad Siniora's government in Beirut. They've been trying to reconcile the Palestinians, partly to wean the militant Hamas from its funders in Tehran. Some even speculate that Riyadh is making overtures to Syria, trying to lure it too from the Iranian fold...
Worse, there are clear signs that Iraq's malice has an echo in other parts of the Middle East, exacerbating existing tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites and reanimating long-dormant ones. In Lebanon, some Hizballah supporters seeking to topple the government in Beirut chant the name of radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is blamed for thousands of Sunni deaths. In Sunni Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, sympathy for Sunnis in Iraq is spiked with the fear, notably in official circles, of a Shi'ite tide rising across the Middle East, instigated and underwritten...
...Lebanon today stands in marked contrast to the heady optimism, two years ago, of the so-called Cedar Revolution, the month-long series of street demonstrations triggered by the killing of Rafik Hariri and 22 other people in a massive Valentine's Day truck bomb explosion, which tore through Beirut's plush seafront hotel district. Hariri had been on the verge of leading an electoral campaign aimed at ending the dominance of Lebanese politics by neighboring Syria, a goal that many Lebanese believe cost him his life. "The Syrian regime killed my father," said Saad Hariri. "Bashar al-Assad gave...
...Apart from attending the memorial beside his father's tomb in downtown Beirut Wednesday, Hariri will be confined to his massive fortified home, forced to stay there by security concerns. "I live between the second and fourth floors of this building," he said with a regretful look. "It has been a difficult two years. It's been difficult because for me my father was also my friend, and tomorrow is the day where I will be remembering the good moments I had with my father, remembering his beliefs, his teachings, his smile, his love and his care." Does he still...