The tiny Arab emirate of Qatar is actively seeking to become a land where extremes coexist.

Can Bin Jassem seal the deal?

When Aljazeera was first launched in Qatar, it sported a slogan considered to be a novel idea back then in the Arab world: “The opinion and the other opinion”. Their Anchor Faysal el Qassem became notorious for banging heads from opposite sides of political spectrums together, resulting in spirited and often nasty debates.

Qatar, a tiny state with one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, raised many eyebrows by managing to simultaneously host Aljazeera (an Arabist, sometimes demagogical pan Arab TV station), the largest American Military Air base in the region and conferences which invite Israeli officials like Tsipi Livni to Doha to address Arab leaders.

It seems Qatar has a unique ability to have things both ways. It has managed to have a good relationship with both Syria and Saudi Arabia (a relationship that has thawed considerably of late), it gets along with both Hezbollah and Israel, it hosts both Ahmedinejad and Bin Laden, and it pleases both the American military elite and the much vaunted anti-American “Arab street”

Today will mark the start of the ultimate trial for Qatar: Will it be able to use its skills to fudge a deal between the two most irreconcilable of foes, the Lebanese majority and its opposition?

The Democratic presidential candidate revisits his previous statement on the events in Lebanon.

When Hezbollah begun its punitive actions against the Seniora government, Sentaor Barack Obama released a statement that Left many Lebanese bloggers unimpressed. Abu Kais spoke for many when he wrote:

Oh the time we wasted by fighting Hizbullah all those years with rockets, invasions of their homes and shutting down their media outlets. If only we had engaged them and their masters in diplomacy, instead of just sitting with them around discussion tables, welcoming them into our parliament, and letting them veto cabinet decisions. If only Obama had shared his wisdom with us before, back when he was rallying with some of our former friends at pro-Palestinian rallies in Chicago. How stupid we were when, instead of developing national consensus with them, we organized media campaigns against Israel on behalf of the impoverished people who voted for them.

Abu Kais wasn’t alone. American pundits were also surprised, and the New York Time’s David Brooks decided to investigate:

Is Obama naïve enough to think that an extremist ideological organization like Hezbollah can be mollified with a less corrupt patronage system and some electoral reform? Does he really believe that Hezbollah is a normal social welfare agency seeking more government services for its followers? Does Obama believe that even the most intractable enemies can be pacified with diplomacy? What “Lebanese consensus” can Hezbollah possibly be a part of? If Obama believes all this, he’s not just a Jimmy Carter-style liberal. He’s off in Noam Chomskyland.

So Brooks called Mr. Obama and asked him to elaborate further on his comments, and Mr. Obama obliged (apparently impressing the conservative Brooks):

Right off the bat he reaffirmed that Hezbollah is “not a legitimate political party.” Instead, “It’s a destabilizing organization by any common-sense standard. This wouldn’t happen without the support of Iran and Syria.”

I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform. He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites “to peel support away from Hezbollah” and encourage the local populace to “view them as an oppressive force.” The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.” He knows these movements aren’t going away anytime soon (“Those missiles aren’t going to dissolve”), but “if they decide to shift, we’re going to recognize that. That’s an evolution that should be recognized.”

Obama being Obama, he understood the broader reason I was asking about Lebanon. Everybody knows that Obama is smart (and he was quite well informed about Lebanon). The question is whether he’s seasoned and tough enough to deal with implacable enemies.

“The debate we’re going to be having with John McCain is how do we understand the blend of military action to diplomatic action that we are going to undertake,” he said. “I constantly reject this notion that any hint of strategies involving diplomacy are somehow soft or indicate surrender or means that you are not going to crack down on terrorism. Those are the terms of debate that have led to blunder after blunder.”

Obama said he found that the military brass thinks the way he does: “The generals are light-years ahead of the civilians. They are trying to get the job done rather than look tough.”

I asked him if negotiating with a theocratic/ideological power like Iran is different from negotiating
with a nation that’s primarily pursuing material interests. He acknowledged that “If your opponents are looking for your destruction it’s hard to sit across the table from them,” but, he continued:

“Thereare rarely purely ideological movements out there. We can encourage actors to think in practical and not ideological terms. We can strengthen those elements that are making practical calculations.”

My question to myself and to other Lebanese like Abu Kais. Should we be convinced?

Two veteran American commentators who have spent time in Beirut and who are sometimes referred to as the “Liberal Neocons”, have seen what happened in Lebanon and reached similar conclusions.

David Ignatius, in “Iran is winning; can the US bolster the Arab center?”

The center is under siege in Lebanon and across the Middle East as the region becomes more polarized between Iranian-backed extremists and United States-backed forces. Iran’s proxies strike at will - seizing control of Beirut neighborhoods in a naked show of defiance; lobbing missiles into Israel from Gaza to disrupt peace talks; creating havoc in southern Iraq and Baghdad.

And then, with the cunning that makes Iran such a difficult adversary, Tehran’s friends retreat - striking deals that tilt each time a bit more in favor of the radicals. It’s a familiar pattern: Iran unsheathes the sword, bloodies the moderates enough to show its power, and then puts the sword back in the sheath. Would that America were so deft in helping its friends.

Thomas Friedman in “The New Cold War”:

the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. [..]

For now, Team America is losing on just about every front. How come? The short answer is that Iran is smart and ruthless, America is dumb and weak, and the Sunni Arab world is feckless and divided.

This narrative is popular in the Middle East, Iran and in Israel, but it is yet to be accepted by the majority of the American people.

A little clarification on the political views expressed in this weblog…

In a previous post, many readers expressed a form or another of disappointment — in comments and in emails– that I’m becoming less fair and less balanced.

I want to make it clear that I never suggested before that I was somehow dissociated from what is happening in Lebanon, and I never suggested that I was a “neutral” observer. Perhaps I should have made this clearer before, but I do wear a lot of hats in Beirut Spring, and those are not just the writing, the design and the programming.

Here’s a rule of thumb for the extra sensitive readers: In posts with the category “Plain Talking”, I write with a layman’s voice, without trying to be measured, fair or balanced. I just write whatever comes through my sometimes-angry, sometimes silly and sometimes rude head.

It is in posts with the category “News Analysis” where you should expect the more equanimous, analytical and “balanced” tone that lead some of you to think that this blog was “neutral” . I confess, those are much harder to write (and re-write), and I wish I could write more of them.

Now that Hezbollah has proven that it can block government decisions it doesn’t like, should it still insist on having a blocking third share of the government?