The results of the American policy in the Arab region and the fast developments were discussed at Issam Fares Center for Lebanon, at a seminar about ‘Washington’s view of the Arab World: a Mistake or a Tragedy’. The lecturers were the manager of AlJazeera offices in Beirut Ghassan Bin Jeddo and the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center Doctor Paul Salem. It was attended by a number of personalities and interested people among them former Justice Minister Bahij Tabbara, the head of the Syriac League Habib Efram and the Jordanian Islamist Leader Leith Shoubeilat.
First, there was an introduction by the Director of the center Ambassador Abdullah Bou Habib who asserted that “the current situation in the Arab world requires from the United States radical changes in their methods and politics to encourage reform and enroot stability. It is imperative not to ignore the Palestinian cause which stays the main obstacle to stability in the Middle East.”
Then Salem intervened and highlighted the numerous mistakes of the US policies in the Middle East and the contradiction between the American support for Israel that seems more important than any American state and achieving Washington’s interests in the Middle East. Although the United States possess the power and the knowledge, they do not plan the future in a proper way and they do not have a policy ready to deal with the dramatic changes that are taking place in the Middle East, and their role in the region witnesses a decline that cannot be evaluated right now. Lebanon is not a priority for the United States and the Lebanese camp allied with the US suffered a major blow, assuming that after the indictment storm, the 14th of March Alliance might head the government again.”
Bin Jeddo considered that “the reality on the ground indicates consecutive and successive setbacks to the American policies in the region in favor of the resistance and opposition axis, even though we cannot talk about a full collapse. The American prestige was hit in the heart and its Arab and regional policies became a tragic sin because it is a premeditated erroneous policy.” He added that “US allies in Lebanon notice the American degradation. The media and intellectuals loyal to America lost their credibility and their influence on the public opinion due to the US policies biased towards Israel.”
At the end, there was a lecture by the Jordanian Islamist opposition personality and former head of the Syndicate of Engineers Leith Shoubeilat who insisted that “fighting moderate Islamists leads to extremism.” He talked about his own experience in trying to convince the late King Hussein that not all Islamists are extremists and therefore some of them should be granted amnesty.