Maysaloon - ميسلون

Anne Penketh has written a pretty good article that pierces through the smokescreen being used to cover the US/British defeat in the Middle East. She has summed it up nicely as follows:

"The new watchword is "recalibration". Do not expect any recognition in the coming days that the new policy of Tony Blair and the US is capitulation, or even a U-turn, as they go cap in hand to the leaders of Syria and Iran, accused of fomenting trouble in Iraq and supporting terrorist groups in the broader Middle East."

The only mistake she makes is to assume that somehow things have worked out to the advantage of Iran and Syria. That is not the case at all. As a very good friend of mine pointed out, a resistance cannot continue fighting for three years if it is not being supplied on a massive scale from somewhere, every good general and strategist knows that there must be a supply line. Bullets, explosives, radios, batteries and cellphones amongst many other things. Taken with this understanding, we find that the United States has actually been thwarted in it's grand vision for a New Middle East in spite of a full engagement. This was also the case in Lebanon with the defeat suffered by Israel, as Penketh does point out:

"But one thing has changed in the three years since the US and Britain invaded Iraq. And that is the rapport de force in the region, where Iran and Syria hold the upper hand after the Lebanon war. Mr Blair and Mr Bush - and Ehud Olmert of Israel - now have the role of lame ducks."

What does this all mean? Well it appears that like it or not both the US and Britain now have what Penketh describes as a "belated recognition of where the real power in the land lies.", regardless of what Mr Blair says at expensive dinner parties.