In Rome yesterday, the US obstructed peace efforts, trading an immediate end to the war for a "New Middle East" riding on the back of Israeli military might. This will only stiffen resistance, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif As Israel's assault against Lebanon enters its third week there is no sign of a ceasefire. The Rome meeting ended on a sour note exposing the divisions among world powers over the means to end Lebanon's humanitarian catastrophe which has so far claimed some 420 lives and injured approximately 2,000 others -- mostly civilians. It was primarily thanks to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's insistence that "there will be no going back to the status quo ante," that Israel's massacres in Lebanon will continue unabated -- for a few more days at least. Rather than press for an immediate cessation of attacks, Rice has instead suggested, cold-bloodedly, that the crimes against humanity committed by Israel are but the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East. Asked what he understood by the New Middle East, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement in Egypt, did not take long to answer. "It is an old ploy made new. It is not about new alliances being struck but about the same old alliances, between corrupt and autocratic regimes and the US and Israel, seeking to terminate all forms of resistance, political or otherwise, to the US's grand designs in the region," Mohamed Mahdi Akef told Al-Ahram Weekly. Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary-general, underlined his reading of what Rice's new Middle East actually meant in a televised speech aired yesterday. "It is," said Nasrallah, "a region where the US wants to be exclusively in control. It is a Middle East that has no place for resistance movements, in Palestine or Lebanon, because they are the main obstacle standing in the way of the historic American project." This new Middle East promised by Rice, argued several Arab commentators, currently being mid-wifed by Israel's ruthless war machine, aims to neutralise any resistance. "So it takes the destruction of three Arab countries -- Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq -- for Rice's new Middle East to be born," wrote Talal Salman, publisher and editor of the Lebanese daily As-Safir, on Monday. "This is no more than another attempt by the US to buy more time for Israel to continue its wanton destruction of Lebanon and its people." Rice appears to be spearheading Washington's latest repackage of its schemes for the region. "It is déjà vu," says Munir Shafik, a Palestinian commentator. "We have heard this rhetoric before, when they attacked Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq, and then when they crushed a democratically elected government in Palestine." Some analysts suggest that not returning to the status quo ante implies, among other things, a redrawing of political alliances in the region as an axis emerges led by what the American administration dubs "moderate regimes" in the region, a euphemism for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, all of which condemned Hizbullah after its capture of two Israeli soldiers. This will be accompanied by attempts to redraw Lebanon's domestic political map, leaving Hizbullah weakened and giving greater influence to pro-American forces in Lebanon -- mainly the 14th March camp. Regionally, the alliance aims at further isolating Syria and Iran, regimes deemed by the Bush administration to be undermining US interests. "There is a clear American interest in capitalising on Israel's military campaign to continue its attempt to change the political landscape of the Middle East," says Shafik. John Bolton, Washington's envoy to the UN, made the US administration's position crystal clear when he stated that his country was using Israel's bombardment of Lebanon to pressure both Syria and Iran. Like other leaders of Islamist movements across the Arab world, Akef believes Rice's new Middle East essentially targets them. "The aim is to undermine Islamist movements and render them irrelevant in a new political order," he said. But Washington's attempts to further its designs on the back of Israeli aggression are unlikely to find a smooth passage. One fall-out of Israel's attacks on Lebanon is a striking increase in the popularity of Hizbullah across the region. Demonstrations in solidarity with the group and its leader have taken place in many parts of the Arab world, and that support could easily transform into actions that seek to destabilise those regimes seen to lend themselves as willing stooges to the American plot. The war could easily act to radicalise the region's population and strengthen the popular base of Islamist movements, and few expect the idea of resistance to disappear any time soon from the map of the Middle East. "Many people view these resistance movements as reflecting genuine popular will, unlike the autocratic regimes, something that the increased sympathy with Hizbullah across the region reinforces," believes Shafik. Amr Hamzawy, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, could not agree more. "The regimes which the US will be counting on to launch their new Middle East all lack popularity or legitimacy in the eyes of their own people." Rice's statements, says Hamzawy, seem less the product of comprehensive strategic thinking than a desperate attempt to formulate "an exit strategy". Shafik is not alone among Arab commentators in concluding that Rice's birth pangs could well be a harbinger for "the death throes of the US project in the region".
