February 16, 2005
ACTUALLY, IT'S LEBANON AND SYRIA THAT WILL BENEFIT:
From Baghdad to Beirut (Pepe Escobar, 2/17/05, Asia Times)
Blame it on Syria. Blame it on al-Qaeda. Better yet, blame it both on Syria and al-Qaeda. Without a shred of evidence - or perhaps profiting from "intelligence" amassed by the Pentagon, the Israeli Mossad, or both - the Bush administration immediately blamed Syria for the bombing that killed "Mr Beirut", former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. And Washington recalled its ambassador to Damascus, Margaret Scobey.Taking Baghdad to Beirut may be read for what the denomination implies: the destabilization of Iraq - a key Washington neo-conservative objective - exported to the wider Middle East. What many had feared - the "Lebanonization" of Iraq, bringing back the tragic memories of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 - might be forced, with this assassination, to happen in reverse: the Iraqification of Lebanon. [...]
Only Israel appears to benefit from Hariri's assassination. Significantly, one of Hariri's consultants, Mustafa al-Naser, told Iranian state news agency IRNA on Monday that "the assassination of Hariri is the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad's job, aimed at creating political tension in Lebanon".
And so we swing once more from the moron Bush, chastened by failure in Iraq, to the evil genius Bush executing the Jewish master plan. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 16, 2005 6:52 AM
You know, I think Bush has actually moved a year or two ahead of Reagan -- it took him until late 1986 or early 1987 to finally have the "evil genius" tag applied by the left, in the wake of the Iran-Contra revelations. Bush is being reassessed as eviler than he looks a mere month into his second term.
Posted by: John at February 16, 2005 9:18 AMI think the consensus Left position is that Bush is a moron, Rove an evil genius.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at February 16, 2005 1:29 PM