DUBAI — First of all, thanks to people for writing to check on me. The long radio silence has worried people, but there’s a reason for it. My wife and I left for Dubai back in February, and there’s not been much to write about from here. Anyway, we’re perfectly safe here. Bored, too.

I’m greatly wishing I could get back to Beirut right now. But the airport is closed, and we’re hearing that Hezbollah is attempting to close Beirut’s port, too. In fact, from the sounds of it, Hezbollah is taking the city — at least the western part of it. This was the threat, and it seems like they’re making good on it.

At the moment, it appears the only way in is overland through Syria via Tripoli — although even that road may have been blocked. NOW Lebanon is currently reporting it’s blocked by burning tires. Not sure who is doing the northern blocking, but that’s a heavily Sunni area, so local Salafis might be attempting to block infiltration of forces from Syria. Masnaa, the other main land crossing was closed by Salafists last night. They have good reason to fear reinforcements from Syria or Iran. When I entered Lebanon on July 13, 2006 to get to the war, an Iranian man came in at the same time — I saw his passport. We exchanged glances and went our separate ways.

Friends in Hamra and nearby ‘hoods report that Hezbollah gunmen have taken the streets and are telling people to stay indoors. They’re also taking pro-government people from their homes. One friend near Sporting Club reported a Shi’ite man in her (mixed) neighborhood was taken by gunmen as he was screaming, “I’m from the Dahiyeh!”

Reports coming in right now report that RPGs are hitting Qoreitam, Saad Hariri’s home in West Beirut.

Streets are being sectioned off by sectarian division. There are reports of Hezbollah checkpoints around the information and defense ministries. Young men’s IDs are being checked.

Meanwhile, in the eastern, mainly Christian, part of the city, it’s quiet. Most stores are shuttered and many residents have apparently fled for the hills and mountains north and east of Beirut — the traditional Christian heartlands of Lebanon.

LBC, one of the main broadcasters, is showing patriotic songs on its satellite feed — usually a bad sign.

Mustafa Alouch, a Future Movement MP from Beirut is on Al Jazeera right now saying Hezbollah is the only organized force in Lebanon. The Sunnis fighting back are just citizens defending their homes, he says. This is patently untrue, as Hariri’s Future movement has a militia. It’s just not as adept as Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah has been victorious,” he said. “It has taken over Beirut. But this is a wound that will not heal. … The state of Hezbollah wants to dominate the Lebanese state. … Hezbollah represents in Lebanon an Iranian proxy. This is not a local conflict.”

He’s right. This currently has all the earmarks of a Sunni-Shi’ite scrap as you’ve been seeing in Iraq. Lebanon is — again — a front line in a conflict between Iran/Syria and the U.S.

UPDATE 1148 +4 GMT: Hezbollah and Amal militiamen have cut off the road near the Phoenicia Intercontinental Hotel near where former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated. Speculation: Hezbollah may be plannin to take the hotel, as it housed members of parliament during the long siege of the Serail. I’ve head they’ve since left, but Hezbollah may think some are still in there, given that they’ve already taken over the homes of other pro-government MPs.

Also, the Port of Beirut is apparently in Army hands. There’s light traffic around the port, but it’s calm there.

I’m starting to think this is a calibrated show of strength by Hezbollah. Based on the neighborhoods they’re going into — mainly Sunni and mixed ‘hoods in West Beirut, along with symbolic attacks on Hariri landmarks — his home, his TV station — it appears Hezbollah is showing that it can take over if it wants to. This, in fact, was a threat made by Hassan Nasrallah yesterday when he said if the group wanted to stage a coup, government leaders would be in prison or the sea by dawn. Likewise, Hezbollah is organized enough that if it wanted to take West Beirut completely, they could. (East Beirut is another story. That’s an express trip to Civil Warville, and Hezbollah doesn’t want to be the one to fire the first shot on that conflict.)

I could be very wrong, but I predict the fighting will be over later today or tomorrow and Hezbollah will begin turning the areas its taken over to the Lebanese Army. People taken will be released — most of them. Hezbollah won’t pass up the opportunity to take care of some political enemies and people it considers traitors.

UPDATE 1234 +4 GMT: This isn’t a war, this a bitch-slap. Judging from reports, the only March 14 faction targeted by Hezbollah seems to be the Future Movement, a primarily Sunni group. It’s also the militarily weakest of the March 14 factions. The PSP and Christian parts of March 14 have stayed out of the fighting for the most part. These past two days have been a public humiliation of Saad Hariri.

Already, civilians are walking the streets normally, based on Al Jazeera video. (Most of them have suitcases, indicating a desire to flee.) Most — perhaps even all? — of the press outlets associated with Hariri have been closed down. Fighting is dying down all across the city as the army and militias take control of security in their various sectors.

This wasn’t a war… This was a warning.

UPDATE 1804 +4 GMT: Actually, I take that back. This may well be a coup. It looks like most of the government may well be capitulating to Hezbollah’s actions. We’re waiting to see what Hariri, Siniora and others will do. They’re all in a big meeting at Geagea’s place. Like that won’t throw gasoline on the fire.

UPDATE 2037 +4 GMT: Well, leader of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea came out and pledged defiance to Hezbollah, saying Lebanon and Beirut would not fall. By using their weapons, he said, they have lost their right to them. Does that mean the LF is going to get into the fight and disarm Hezbollah? Not likely. Amin Gemayel spoke earlier, and mouthed similar platitudes, but based on their demeanor and lack of any offered solutions or compromise, they seemed beaten to me. Where is Saad Hariri and Fuad Siniora?

ABU DHABI — Well, I was going to blog the slaying of Imad Mughniyah earlier, but a combination of surprising barriers to getting online in Abu Dhabi, a crashed laptop and just arriving here to live put me in the slow lane on this one. I have a column coming in Spot-on.com, but I have to wait 24 hours to post that. (Contracts…) Anyway, in the meantime, check out Laura Rozen’s piece and be informed. The CIA is seriously denying this, but I for one think the agency is a bit more competent than it’s usually given credit for. Yeah, it was probably the Israelis, but hell… the CIA would love to have gotten this guy.

BEIRUT — Anyone paying any attention to al-wada (the situation) in Lebanon knows things ain’t good. The weather is affecting everything, from food deliveries to electricity. Skiing’s good up in Faraya, I hear, though.

Last weekend’s unrest was extremely unsettling. Seven people were killed and now Hezbollah and Amal are calling for revenge against the Army. March 8 — the Hezbollah-led opposition — is looking more and more intransigent, and unwilling to come to any solution other than a complete caving of the government to their demands: veto power in the cabinet, picking the president and a lock-in to the Syrian orbit.

Of course, the pro-Western government of Fuad Siniora is unwilling to do that, creating a situation that is ripe for explosion. The atmosphere is tense, and Lebanese are jumpy. Already there are small daily clashes and assaults on Army positions. Lebanese media are rife with reports that Syria now opposes Army Chief Michel Sleiman for president (not sure why, really; perhaps he’s not so in their camp as they thought he was?) and prefers former Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz for the post.

Mrs. Back to Iraq, a better observer of Lebanese politics than I am, doesn’t think last week’s protest-turned-street-battle was spontaneous. The dahiyeh, she said, is like Syria. Not much happens there without Hezbollah’s notice and approval. They’re trying to discredit the proto-presidency of Sleiman before it even happens. I agree with her, but I wonder if the protests really did start spontaneously and Hezbollah, recognizing an opportunity, allowed them to balloon into a confrontation with the state. At any rate, “Black Sunday” has led to a predictable amount of finger-pointing and blame-shifting.

My friend, Mitch Prothero, has a good piece in Slate on last weekend’s violence.

Most people I talk to think the al-wada will go on until 2009, when there are parliamentary elections. Then Hezbollah and the rest of the March 8 folks will likely win these and that will be the end of the so-called Cedar Revolution. Lebanon will return to the Syrian fold and politicians like Walid Jumblatt and Saad Hariri will be spending a lot of time in Paris and Riyadh.

That’s Hezbollah’s real goals, I think. Not to take over the country and install an Islamic state. Hezbollah is at heart a revolutionary movement and they’re smart enough to know that their popularity comes from that mystique as well as their social services that operate separately from the woefully inefficient Lebanese services.

If they “took over” and became the government, they would lose the revolutionary aura. From Hezbollah’s point of view, It’s much better to be a network of guerilla commanders in southern Lebanon fighting Zionist occupiers than to be in charge of fixing potholes and making sure the electricity is on. Because they don’t get blamed for the screw-ups then. (And Lebanon is nothing but one big screw-up when it comes to basic infrastructure.)

It works like this: If Hezbollah gives up its weapons — as every other militia in Lebanon did at the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War — they lose their value to Iran and Syria as a force on the northern flank of Israel. They would be just another political party in Lebanon. Without that firepower, what reason is there for Syria and Iran to continue funneling money and matériel to the group? And without the money, those much-admired social services will come to an end. Lebanese are easily bought, frankly, and their loyalties are not usually so ideological. They follow leaders who deliver on patronage, jobs and services. Without the loyalty of the Shi’ites, primarily bought and paid for with those services — not, as is claimed, because of an inborn revolutionary mindset — Hezbollah would quickly fall apart.

That’s what’s at stake here. That’s why Hezbollah must have veto power and control the presidency — to prevent any decision regarding its weapons; to remove UNIFIL as an irritant in the south; to prevent the Lebanese government from extending authority to south Beirut and other areas of Hezbollahstan.

Samir Geagea, a March 14 leader, said the goal is to so paralyze Lebanon that Syria will be asked to intervene again, as it did in 1975, but he inflates the issue, I think. I think Syria very much wants a return to preeminence in its tiny neighbor, but troops are not in the cards. The plan is to return to the 2004 status quo ante, as Condoleezza Rice intoned so often during the Israel-Hezbollah war. They want to get back to a protected status in the south, being a free-range guerilla movement. They want to preserve their weapons, which is their real constituency.

Hezbollah’s plan, when it comes to Syria and its weapons, is to paralyze and protect.

OK. Having watched the video of the Iranian speed boats “swarming” the U.S. naval vessels, I’m left with a strong sense of being underwhelmed. That’s it? Something out of “Miami Vice”? Where are the white boxes that were spoken of in the initial reports? What’s the deal with the weird robotic monotone? And again, why was this put out when it was, on the eve of President Bush’s trip to the Middle East in a bid to round up opposition to Iran?

Mind you, I am not questioning the performance or patriotism of the sailors involved. They performed exactly as they’re supposed to. What I am saying is that something’s off about this on the Pentagon’s end.

Hey everybody! I’m back after a long hiatus, honeymoon and oodles of time with the in-laws. But I’m back in Beirut now and ready for action.

And what a day to come back to work. In a very disturbing development, five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed three big U.S. naval vessels in the Arabian Gulf, nearly sparking a sea battle, according to the Pentagon. Over the weekend, the five smaller vessels threatened an American frigate, destroyer and cruiser in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Five small boats were acting in a very aggressive way, charging the ships, dropping boxes in the water in front of the ships and causing our ships to take evasive maneuvers,” a Pentagon official said. There was also communications between the Americans and the Iranians, which the Pentagon described to the effect of, “we’re coming at you and you’ll explode in a couple minutes.”

The story doesn’t describe them beyond “small boats,” so they could be patrol boats or the Iranian equivalent of the American RHIBs (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats), but even so, they could do some real damage. The U.S.S. Cole and the UK 15 are high on everyone’s mind in the Gulf, as is the attack on the U.S.S. Firebolt).

And from my time with the American, British and Australian forces in the Gulf, I can tell you the Iranians are considered the foremost threat. As I wrote back in July last year:

The Iranians are a constant presence in the Gulf, which is natural considering its long coastline on the Gulf. And not far from KAAOT, they’ve made a naval base on a crane that sunk during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. (Part of it still sticks up out of the water.) You can see it with the naked eye and American commanders say the Iranians are conducting recon ops on the Coalition forces.

The Iranian Navy gets some respect from [Cmdr. Jim Aiken, 40, who captains the American guided missile destroyer Chung-Hoon] and other commanders, who told me that when passing through the bottleneck to the Gulf called the Strait of Hormuz, a passing Iranian Navy ship presented colors and her sailors saluted, holding fast to naval traditions the world over. But the IRGC Navy is a different story. The Coalition sailors I spoke with called them thugs and accused them of basically running a protection racket on dhows that venture into their part of the Gulf.

What does this mean? I’m not sure yet; it could be just one of those things but it’s interesting that the IRGC took over Iran’s naval command in the Gulf back in November, according to the U.S. Navy. It could be a probe, a provocation or some yahoos out of control. The IRGC isn’t the most unified or disciplined of armed forces. But no matter what, the Iranians have given President Bush some fresh PR to use against them when he comes calling on the region this week to shore up an anti-Iran coalition among Arab states.

UPDATE 1/8/08 10:36:24 AM: Folks more knowledgeable than me are chewing this over, and they’re smelling a rat. It is awfully convenient that an incident happens on the even of Bush’s visit to the region where containing Iranian aggression is high on the president’s agenda. And the Navy claims the IRGC-N is running protection rackets and smuggling. Could the dumped white boxes have been Iranian attempts to dump contraband? On the other hand, the U.S.S. Cole incident has made the Navy understandably twitchy. Those guys out there are switched on, big time. And Iranian explanation that they didn’t recognize the ships is implausible at best. A cruiser, destroyer and frigate aren’t small ships, and the only naval power of force in the Gulf’s international waters are going to be either American, British or Australian. The Iranians knew with whom they were playing chicken. Perhaps this was an indication from Iran that it can cause trouble on multiple fronts for the U.S. and its allies?

There’s also a history of Iranian aggression in the Gulf during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and the war of the tankers. The Iranians laid mines in international waters that led to the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts incident.

So, in short, there are good reasons for both sides to provoke the other, and it remains to be seen what — if anything — will come of this. In all honesty, probably nothing, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Posted without comment:

From W. Thomas Smith Jr.: “After much reflection and consideration, I am withdrawing from my professional relationship as a regular freelancer with National Review Online.”

Kathryn Jean Lopez weighs in:

I apologize to all of our readers. We should have required Smith to clearly source all of his original reporting from Lebanon. Smith let himself become susceptible to spin by those taking him around Lebanon, so his reporting from there should be read with that knowledge. (We are attaching this note to all his Lebanon reporting.) This was an editing failure as much as it was a reporting failure. We let him down, and we let you down, and we’re taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Smith has, on his own, decided that he will no longer write for NRO. We respect his decision.

SINGAPORE — I know, I know… I said I was taking a break while I get married, and all, but I’m in Singapore waiting for a refuel, and I saw that HuffPost has finally taken down that clown of a journalist, W. Thomas Smith Jr. Smith alighted in Lebanon back in September for a few weeks and his accounts of my adopted home are risible.

I was a source for this story — I called him a “fabulist” — because I always intended to blog on Smith, tearing down his crap, but to be honest, I was going through a rough blog patch and couldn’t seem to work up the proper dudgeon.

Still, in one of his more fantastic posts, not mentioned in the HuffPost article, he claimed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps tried to assassinate an anti-Hezbollah Shi’ite politician with an “acid-weapon.”

I interviewed Sayed once. Had coffee and sweets with him in his office. Conducted a reconnaissance mission with one of his armed men and two of mine in one of Sayed’s cars. I rode with him during a second recon in another of his cars. And yesterday, members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (here in Lebanon) attempted to kill Sayed and his family by sabotaging his vehicle (the first one I rode in). They planted a delayed acid-weapon on his car’s undercarriage, which ate through the chassis and caused the vehicle to basically break in half while he was driving.

Indeed. Too bad his stories are ridiculous falsehoods.

UPDATE: So, some are reporting that I notified Kathryn-Jean Lopez of Smith’s stories six weeks ago. This is true, however, I sent the email to tank@nationalreview.com. Did she get it? Did anyone? Hell if I know since I never received a response. Here’s the text of the email I sent on Oct. 6:

Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3)
Message-Id: 6994FFC1-C88D-4EDB-9C96-47630C6C3C31@mac.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=Apple-Mail-2-701486348
To: tank@nationalreview.com
Subject: Accuracy alert
From: Christopher Allbritton callbritton@mac.com
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 21:39:27 +0300


--Apple-Mail-2-701486348
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=WINDOWS-1252;
delsp=yes;
format=flowed

Sirs—

Your posts by W. Thomas Smith Jr. are hilarious! Great fiction reading.

Such as this one:

“The general briefed me regarding the battlefield at Nahr al-Bared, near his camp, and what I would see today as the first American journalist to visit the site of Lebanon’s defeat of Al Qaeda-affiliate Fatah al Islam.”

Ah, no.

You do know that almost every American journalist living in Beirut has been up to Nahr el-Bared several times during and after the fighting? I myself filed stories for the Washington Times and the Newark Star-Ledger, the day after the fighting stopped — and I was in a hell of a lot more danger than your man is in today. (Star-Ledger seems to have archived the story, so that link goes to my personal site, but that’s the story that ran there. WaTimes is still available.)

You know, for a publication that went after the New Republic so hard for its soldier-in-Iraq stuff, your guy here is horribly, horribly inaccurate and sensationalist. I’m an American and I never have bodyguards and never needed one. He is making Beirut seem much more dangerous than it is. He also is — as are you, since I assume he’s expensing it — getting fleeced by some Lebanese con artists. He doesn’t need weapons and he’s making a big problem by carrying them and publicly writing about his “recon missions” in the Dahiyah. That’s not what journalists do; it’s what spies do, and by his actions, he’s making everyone suspicious of western journalists. That is the height of irresponsibility.

Secondly, he’s a liar. Hezbollah never invaded east Beirut on the 29th. And they don’t have 200 “heavily armed” militiamen downtown. I passed by today. There are about 40 guys down there with no weapons at all. They sit around, smoking shisha in jeans and t-shirts.

Perhaps your man in Beirut should not rely solely on March 14 guys and get a wider perspective. And stop lying and making careless errors. It’s your credibility on the line, after all.

Sincerely,

Christopher Allbritton

BEIRUT — This will likely be the last post of the year on B2I, as in two days I leave for Australia to get married. There’s also the little matter of holidays and declining interest on the part of the major papers in Iraq. I figure it will pick back up next year once the campaign gets into full swing and Iraq is a major issue again. I hope so anyway.

Lebanon is a mess, but it looks like things are moving again. I suspect it will be sorted out in a week or so. Don’t look for a presidential vote tomorrow, though. The Lebanese have to amend the constitution first, and there could be some legal wrangling. At the very least, there’s some paperwork of some kind and that won’t be done by tomorrow.

Iraq is improving, for sure, on the security front and the Bush foreign policy team isn’t as abjectly horrible as it has been in the past. But the real question, still, is whether the security gains matter. Are we looking at another example of Col. Tu’s comment to Army Col. Harry Summers? There’s some evidence the various factions are merely taking a breather. I hope it is a lasting decrease in violence leading to actual peace, but I wonder. …

Anyway, like I said, this is probably it for 2007. It’s been a rough year in some ways, but a blessed one in others. Wish us all luck over here in this part of the world.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released the results of its survey of Western reporters working in Iraq, and — for those of us who have been there — its results are unsurprising. (Link contains PDF file.)

From a survey of 111 Western journalists who worked or are working in Iraq, almost two-thirds of the reporters said most or all of their street reporting was done by local citizens. Yet, 87 percent said it wasn’t safe for their local staffers to carry notebooks, cameras, IDs or anything else that identified them as journalists. And two-thirds said they worried that their reliance on local stringers would produce inaccurate reports. (The right-wing bloggers are going to have a field day with this one. Charges of hotel journalism will ring out again and accusations of working with al Qaeda will soon be heard.)

Some excepts from the executive summary:

Above all, the journalists — most of them veteran war correspondents — describe conditions in Iraq as the most perilous they have ever encountered, and this above everything else is influencing the reporting. A majority of journalists surveyed (57%) report that at least one of their Iraqi staff had been killed or kidnapped in the last year alone — and many more are continually threatened. “Seven staffers killed since 2003, including three last July,” one bureau chief wrote with chilling brevity. “At least three have been kidnapped. All were freed.” …

“The dangers can’t be overstated,” one print journalist wrote. “It’s been an ambush — two staff killed, one wounded — various firefights, and our ‘home’ has been rocked and mortared (by accident, I’m pretty sure). It’s not fun; it’s not safe, but I go back because it needs to be told.”

Whatever the problems, a magazine reporter offered, “The press….have carried out the classic journalistic mission of bearing witness.”

“Welcome to the new world of journalism, boys and girls. This is where we lost our innocence. Security teams, body armor and armored cars will forever now be pushed in between journalism and stories,” one bureau chief declared.

What’s going to drive some war opponents into rage, however, is the generally positive views of embedding the respondents hold.

More than eight-in ten journalists (85%) surveyed have embedded with U.S. troops. And most of them see the program as the best available way to report on the actions, both large and small, of U.S. troops. It also is often the only safe way to gain access to Iraqi civilians in cities and towns beyond Baghdad.

A majority of those surveyed (60%) tend to think embedding gives them access to places and people they could not otherwise reach. Only 5% say they see embedding as mostly helping the Pentagon control what is being reported. …

“There is no problem with embedded reporting, unless it is relied on as the primary source of info on Iraq,” wrote one bureau chief. “If used as it should be — to provide another layer of understanding of what’s going on there — it is a very useful tool. And we have to remember that not every embed will produce strong stories.”

(Full disclosure: I participated in this survey, but none of the quotes are I’ve seen in the survey are based on my responses. Nor do I know who the other people are, but I can guess.)

BEIRUT — Well, well… It appears at first blush that things must have gone well for Syria in Annapolis. Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman has gotten the nod from Hariri camp inside March 14 as a consensus candidate for Baabda Palace. This is curious because many in the pro-March 14 press have been labeling him as sympathetic to Syria.

Hezbollah, too, seems to be inching toward Suleiman, giving only lukewarm objections on procedural grounds. “To me, at the personal level, I believe a constitutional amendment in parliament is possible after resignation of Fouad Saniora from the government which is neither constitutional nor legitimate,” said MP Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc. But he stressed his views were entirely personal. “We will not block any consensus possibility if the intro to it is a constitutional amendment, provided that all opposition factions have agreed on it.”

Even that old warlord Samir Geagea, one of the most anti-Syrians of the March 14 coalition said the constitutional amendment allowing Suleiman into the presidency was “an option.”

So what happened? Well, as I wrote on Sunday, Syria got the Golan Heights on the table at Annapolis. And I predicted then:

A success in Annapolis might mean the beginning of a real discussion of a Grand Bargain for the region, not just another fitful start to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The thinking is that if the Syrians are shown some flexibility on the Golan, they might also show some flexibility in Lebanon, which is in the midst of its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War — a political crisis stoked in large part by Syria and its allies in Lebanon.

Now, it’s too soon to tell what is going down, but the fact that everyone started talking nicely to each other here in Lebanon the day after Annapolis is pretty significant. Does it mean Syria has had a change of heart regarding Lebanon? Not likely. The international tribunal is still a Sword of Damocles over Bashar al-Assad’s head, and the Golan hasn’t been returned yet.

But my feeling is that the Americans softened their support for Lebanon’s March 14 alliance a bit. There wouldn’t be this talk of Suleiman otherwise. Still, he’s not totally pro-Syrian and the opposition has its doubts about him, so no one got a total victory if this thing goes through. What’s this mean for U.S.-Syrian relations? Sounds like the hints of a thaw, which can be a good thing for almost everyone but anti-Syrian factions in Beirut.

And what’s next? Ah, I have a text message that Serge Brammertz just delivered his final report on the assassination of Rafik Hariri to Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and he allegedly names names. Wanna bet it’s the four he named last year — a list that includes Assad’s brother-in-law?

Hang on, we’re not out of the woods yet.

Sorry for all the emails today. I didn’t realize until not long ago that updating old entries — even if just to change the text formatting — would send out emails. For everyone who got spammed, my sincerest apologies.

BEIRUT — With all eyes turned to Annapolis, another significant development happened regarding Iraq. President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a “Declaration of Principles” that would pave the way for a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) on a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq. (And by “long-term” I mean longer than 2013.)

Coincidentally — or not, giving the political season upon us — the deadline for finalizing the agreement, which would include the number of U.S. troops as well as the length of their deployment, is set for July 31. That’s just in time for heating up the 2008 presidential campaign! Ah, I can see it now. Victory parades, bilateral agreements with a sovereign Iraq, Democrats on the defensive. Nicely played, Mr. President.

My friends will tell you I’m an unabashed Mac guy. I love Apple products for their smoothness, their workability, their iconic and reassuring workflows. The Soon-to-be Mrs. Back-to-Iraq rolls her eyes at my obsession… Likewise, as you can imagine, I’m no great fan of Windows.

This morning, as I listened to my friend’s complaints about the unpredictability of Windows — sometimes things stop working and then start again for no apparent reason whatsoever — I realized that Lebanon works exactly the same way. And with the current, stupid crisis in Lebanon paralyzing this place — locking it up, so to speak — it occurred to me that Lebanon, such as it is, must be using Windows as its operating system. Some similarities:

• It doesn’t feel well put-together. It’s a house of cards with an inconsistent, incongruous interface. Where Mac OS X feels all of a piece, Windows (and Lebanon) feels cobbled together. It’s as if someone just slapped some legacy religions and/or code together and said, “Go to town, play nice.” Well, .dll files aren’t always compatible, and, Sunnis and Shi’ites, for example, don’t always get on together. Usually they do, but when they don’t, look out.
• Following that, both Windows and modern Lebanon were designed not with the users in mind, but the designers. In Microsoft’s case, Windows primarily exists to make money for Bill Gates and Microsoft. Its reliable cash stream come from big business, which tends to lock its employees into using an OS that is obviously on its last legs. Same for Lebanon. It was designed by the French using legacy Ottoman code which it stole — much like Microsoft did a shady deal to get MS-DOS — and set up to serve colonial interests, rather than that of the Lebanese.
• Modern Lebanon is, specifically, like Windows Vista. It’s shiny, nice to look at and easily seduces. But the moment you actually try to work with it, the nasty underpinnings — whether it’s sectarianism or that damned Windows registry — come up and bite you in the ass.
• It’s prone to viruses/outside interference by foreign powers that gum up the works. These can lead to…
• … Lock-ups that paralyze the entire computer and/or country. One difference: In the case of Lebanon, rebooting is a total hassle.
• It can be used to spew out junk email and/or jihadis if taken over by a hostile outsider.
• And finally, when it crashes, it crashes hard. Blue Screen of Civil War, anyone?

I know, I know… I’m opening myself up to fans of Windows who will tell me they’ve never, ever had a computer crash or a virus. Likewise, I’m opening myself up to partisans of Lebanon who tell me that the place works just fine if you know how to work it. Obviously, I don’t or I’d be happily ginning up my wasta and/or bleakly submitting to the mess that’s Microsoft Office.

That’s not to say Lebanon and Gates’ little piece software don’t have their charms. The biggest one: In both cases, whether it’s politics or software, there are more games.

My last column of the year is up at Spot-on now, looking at the dynamics of Syria’s participation in the Annapolis conference. An excerpt:

There’s a Middle Eastern proverb making the rounds these days: You can’t make war without Egypt and you can’t have peace without Syria. And if Syria’s sitting down at the table, as it’s indicated it will do at next week, it’s a safe bet that the fate of two key parts of the region — the Golan and Lebanon — are up for discussion.

In two of the most intractable problems of the region — Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the Syrian regime has been the immovable obstacle. Because outside the U.S., the Middle East isn’t just defined by the Israeli-Arab conflict. It’s a Gordian Knot of conflicts involving Israelis and Palestinians, Israel and Arabs, Arab Shi’ites and Arab Sunnis, Arabs and Iranians and the West and Iran. They’re all intertwined, but the common thread in this tangled skein is Syria and the regime of its President Bashar al-Assad.

And in the past 48 hours, there has been signs of movement that might, just might signal some kind of accord that the Syrians will accept. The Golan, the uplands seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war, is reportedly on the table at the Annapolis conference which begins Tuesday. This was the precondition for Syria to attend the conference, said its foreign minister, Walid Muallem.

That’s very good news for the Americans, the Israelis and possibly the Lebanese. Why? Because with Syria’s participation — along with Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states at the ministerial level — a success in Annapolis might mean the beginning of a real discussion of a Grand Bargain for the region, not just another fitful start to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The thinking is that if the Syrians are shown some flexibility on the Golan, they might also show some flexibility in Lebanon, which is in the midst of its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War — a political crisis stoked in large part by Syria and its allies in Lebanon.