Arab media and the Saudi disappointment

Here are some of the Arab media reac­tions on the Lebanese agree­ment reflect the Saudi [and the U.S.] dis­ap­point­ment, but first let’s start with the rumors cir­cu­lat­ing in the Arab streets:

- There are talks about Syr­ian rep­re­sen­ta­tives invited Michel Suleiman appoint­ment cer­e­mony com­ing Sun­day, Syria is study­ing this invi­ta­tion and if it wise to appear in pub­lic in the ceremony.

- Hezbol­lah and Aoun [Tay­yar] put a veto on re-electing Senior for another term.

I don’t want to go through Al-Sharq Al-Awsat because I need pages to write about the anti-Lebanese oppo­si­tion arti­cles, but there is one arti­cle reflects the newspaper’s delusion:

[Lebanese sources revealed that Doha’s meet­ing suc­ceeded] because of Saudi Ara­bia and Egypt insis­tence to orga­nize this con­fer­ence … Qatar gave the Lebanese fac­tions two options to choose from, else Iran could face the Arab and Islamic world anger..

Saudi writer Idris, wrote an arti­cle about the media role in the con­flict but the real rea­son to write the arti­cle is this line:

Saudi Ara­bia never took part of any con­flict since King Abdul Aziz [1880–1953], and never been biased against any group.… But I don’t want to for­get to warn about the Iran­ian threat.

Saudi news­pa­per Okaz is very pes­simistic, its advise to the Lebanese fac­tions to wait and not celebrate:

Before [the cel­e­bra­tion] we can not for­get the role of the exter­nal pow­ers, which def­i­nitely did not like the Lebanese agree­ment to Doha.

Saudi news­pa­per Al-Watan uses a threat lan­guage against Syria reveal­ing Saudi Ara­bia next move saying:

It is true that the oppo­si­tion got its inac­ti­vated third seats in the par­lia­ment, and changes in the elec­tion law … but the major­ity got what they wanted also such as not to use arms or vio­lence to threat the sta­bil­ity of the state… which means that the oppo­si­tion are try­ing to achieve fac­tional polit­i­cal inter­ests, and the major­ity com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing the author­ity of the state.

Syria con­sid­ers the Lebanese agree­ment a vic­tory and defeat for the whole Amer­i­can project in the Mid­dle East, while the real­ity is that they want to delay the Rafiq Harir’s inter­na­tional tri­bunal .. how many gov­ern­ment seats Syria’s allies can get, they can not do any­thing to pre­vent the tribunal.

His­to­rian Bashir Musa Nafi’ [who par­tic­i­pated in the nego­ti­a­tions with all Lebanese fac­tions]:

The pro-government camp didn’t trust their inter­na­tional allies Paris and Wash­ing­ton any­more, except few state­ment show­ing the sol­i­dar­ity with the [Lebanese] gov­ern­ment, Wash­ing­ton and Paris didn’t move a finger.

Assafir counted the six “magic” point behind the suc­cess of the nego­ti­a­tion in Qatar [much bet­ter than the Al-Quds Al-Arabi’s six points]:
First: Qatar is the [coun­try] found the solu­tion, means that [the nego­ti­a­tions started with] com­mu­ni­ca­tions and agree­ments to give the green light by inter­na­tional and regional pow­ers, ended in con­tacts with Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Sec­ond: The agree­ment came after the visit of George Bush to the Mid­dle East, which was the last nail in the “Pales­tin­ian state” or the whole Mid­dle East coffin.

Third: The agree­ment fol­lowed “Hezbol­lah” cap­ture of Beirut, which was a mes­sage not directed only inter­nally, but to the Amer­i­can and Israeli sides, to remind them that “mil­i­tary adven­tures” would have dire consequences.

Fourth: The agree­ment also coin­cided with the resump­tion of indi­rect nego­ti­a­tions between Israel and Hamas via Egypt­ian Intel­li­gence Chief Omar Suleiman, which cre­ates divi­sions in Olmert’s gov­ern­ment, which is already unsta­ble because of cor­rup­tion charges.

Fifth: The agree­ment comes with the Syria’s desire to con­tact with mod­er­ate Arab states, and Qatar plays an impor­tant medi­a­tion role between Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Sixth: The entry of Iraqi and Amer­i­can forces to Al-Sadr strong­holds after an agree­ment with Muq­tada al-Sadr’s, which hap­pened because of some of Iraq’s neigh­bours pro­vided sup­port to the Iraqi government.

Aljazeera inter­viewed four Egypt­ian polit­i­cal experts warned the Lebanese fac­tions from an Amer­i­can — Israeli plot to fail the agreement.