Ali Abunimah Interviews As'ad Abu Khalil (Angry Arab) About Lebanon

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"EI: There is clearly an American hand in this. We saw the Lebanese government request military assistance, including ammunition and equipment from the United States, as a direct response to the events in Nahr al-Bared. How do you see the United States' role and let me broaden the question a little bit. How are the events in Lebanon linked to what is happening in Gaza and does the United States actually have a strategy for the region? What is the big picture here?

"ABUKHALIL: Certainly there is a heavy-handed American role in all this. A mere week ago the American Undersecretary of State for the Near East, David Welch, was visiting Lebanon. He met in an unprecedented manner with the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army. This never happened in the past. We do not know what was discussed but the Lebanese press -- even the press loyal to the government -- indicated how unprecedented it was that Welch met with the commander-in-chief.

"As far as the Americans are concerned, we also have to note that first, there was an American official announcement that the Lebanese government made a request for emergency military assistance. And yet the Lebanese government promptly denied that it made such a request. And later they are denying the denial. Why are there these confused signals? What is being cooked behind the scenes? I think the answer to that is we have to look at the map of the Middle East to see the extent to which there are events that are quite related to one another.

"You look at Gaza and you find that the American funded, financed and armed militias of Muhammad Dahlan and [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas were tasked with fighting and killing other Palestinians. You look at Lebanon today and you find a Lebanese government financed, funded and armed by the American government and they are doing the same. Palestine and Lebanon have become more important not so much because of any attention that the US administration is willing to pay to those places, but particularly because of the failure of the American project in Iraq. So with victory eluding Bush in Iraq there is a desperate attempt to make some progress -- to use that cliché -- somewhere other than Iraq. And the places favored are Palestine and Lebanon because in those places there are US-armed and financed puppet militias that the US can use against its enemies and the enemies of Israel.

Via Electronic Lebanon