I am afraid that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is putting loyalty above competence when it comes to the advisors surrounding him. After he went into hiding in the wake of the War of Summer 2006, which led him to stop dealing directly with people, except close advisors, Nasrallah has been making one mistake after another, in a manner hitherto unseen before. I even now fear that he may make a mistake in the struggle against Israel, which I want him to prevail in, and would nominate him for president of Lebanon if he did, because I have no sectarian issues of any kind. I am writing out of compassion and concern, and not to criticize him. I am with the Sayyed against Israel, and I support him from where I live in London where I confront Israel's supporters and American Likudniks, not in Lebanon where supporting Hezbollah is easier and has no immediate price. I was surprised a few months ago when Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah attributed an impossibly spurious letter to Henry Kissinger, in which he condemned himself as an Israeli agent. If I, or any colleague in Al-Hayat, were advisors to the Sayyed, he would not have committed such an unjustifiable blunder. If I were an advisor to the Sayyed, he would not have committed his recent blunder either. It was this blunder in fact that motivated me to write this article, before he commits a grave error that would benefit only Israel, which indeed benefited from all previous ones. The most recent blunder was Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's announcement that he will help the Shiites of Bahrain. I insist here that the raison d'être of Hezbollah is the fight against Israel, not helping Bahrain's Shiites or indeed any Shiites. When he makes such statements, and even if he didn't translate them into actions, he only worsens the Sunni-Shiite dispute and Israel benefits once again. I was in Bahrain, and passed through the UAE, on the way from Kuwait. I would like to tell Sayyed Nasrallah that his statement has greatly harmed the Shiite Lebanese working in the gulf and supporting their families, in a manner that even Israel failed to accomplish. In Bahrain, the Crown prince Salman bin Hamad talked to me about the dialogue table, and how the government will comply with those demands of the opposition that it finds legitimate, and which I went over with him. At night at the Pearl roundabout, I had heard young demonstrators shout slogans against the regime. Then the extremist Hassan Mushaima came from London, and called for the downfall of the regime. This prompted the regime to oust the dissenters and their demands, and Mushaima ended up being in prison. If I or one of my colleagues were advisers to the Hezbollah chief, I would have advised him to call on the Bahraini opposition to be moderate, and to wait for the right opportunity to ask for more. Politics do not deserve their name if they were not the politics of the possible. The stance by Sayyed Nasrallah did not benefit the Shiites in Bahrain, and harmed Lebanese Shiites in every Gulf country, as campaigns to expel them or not renew their residence permits are now taking place, and also harmed the whole of Lebanon and its economic interests in the rich oil-producing Arab countries. Meanwhile, I absolutely refuse the claims by Sayyed Nasrallah's foes that he is an Iranian agent, who carries out what the Mullahs' regime tells him. Sayyed Nasrallah has great respect in Iran and throughout the Arab world, and is in a position where he can give advice to the Iranian officials and tell them what to do, not vice versa. I believe that the reason behind his blunders is his disappearance away from the people since 2006, and his closest advisors' lack of awareness of Lebanese affairs, outside of the South, not to mention Arab and foreign affairs. After the 2006 War, I saw Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's pictures in shops in Khan al-Khalili and everywhere else in Cairo and Alexandria. But then these pictures were gradually taken down, with every odd stance or statement, until they were all taken down following the accusations [against Hezbollah] of planning terror attacks and monitoring tourists in Sharm al-Sheikh, and ships in the Suez Canal. Lt. Gen Omar Suleiman told me what every revolutionary in Tahrir Square would say if asked; he said that tourism and the revenues from the canal make up three quarters of Egypt's economy, and what would remain for the Egyptians if two most important pillars of Egypt's economy were struck? Even inside Lebanon, Hezbollah has started to make mistakes. Every mistake increases the popularity of the new opposition. Once again, I blame its advisors for this. I want to tell Sayyed Nasrallah with all due respect, that he needs to expand the circle of people he relies on for gathering information and then study this information well to arrive at sound decisions that protect Hezbollah's support base, which goes beyond the Shiite community to Christians and Sunnis, and all Arabs and Muslims. The last thing I want is for Hezbollah to become yet another political party in Lebanon, the country of political contradictions, or the country that I find is best when it has no government. [email protected]
