VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHAM #6222 2280944
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 160944Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3205
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK IMMEDIATE 0418
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS IMMEDIATE 1343
RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUMICEA/USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL//CCPA// IMMEDIATE

UNCLAS AMMAN 006222 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, I/GNEA, B/BXN, 
B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR TSOU 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO
 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON MIDDLE EAST 
 
Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "A look at Assad's speech" 
 
Columnist Oraib Rantawi writes on the op-ed page of center-left, 
influential Arabic daily Ad-Dustour (08/16):  "Whoever listened to 
President Assad's 'great victory speech' would have thought for a 
split second that the 34 day battles had gone on in the Golan 
Heights and that Mr. Hassan Nasrallah is no one but a reserve member 
in the Socialist Arab Ba'ath Party and that Siniora is the prime 
minister of Syria and not Lebanon....  Lebanon's strongest 
characteristics in peacetime is its democracy and the strength of 
its society, and in wartime is its organized resistance on firm 
popular foundations.  Where is Syria from all these lessons? Why 
does not Assad establish a stage of strengthening the society and 
democratizing the state? Why does he not launch the Syrian national 
and Islamic resistance that he so admired on the Lebanese front? Why 
does he not reproduce it on the Syrian level? And when the 
Palestinian and Lebanese people are waging the most honorable of 
resistance battles and wars and they are doing that in word and 
deed, why does Assad not allow the Syrian people to exercise such a 
right and duty?" 
 
-- "Assad's resistance" 
 
Chief Editor Ayman Safadi writes on the back-page of independent, 
centrist Arabic daily Al-Ghad (08/16):  "Assad spoke as if he had 
just returned from the battlefront.  He lectured about the 
steadfastness and the resistance as if the Golan itself was on fire 
in the face of the occupation.  He forgot that people have memories 
and ears and eyes that did not register any Syrian action of 
resistance for decades and that have not seen from the Syrian 
anything other than empowerment over Lebanon and the Syrian people 
and subordination to Israel.  Today, and after Lebanon came out of a 
destructive war throughout which they preserved their unity and 
their steadfastness in the face of the Israeli war machine, Assad 
comes out before them and the Arabs with a speech of betrayal and 
instigation that stirs dissention in Lebanon and plants the seeds of 
fighting and chaos....  The funniest part in Assad's speech is when 
he spoke about the resistance.  The road to achieve peace, the 
Syrian president says, is the negotiations, and if they fail then 
the resistance in its various forms will constitute the alternative. 
 Well, the negotiations have failed, so where is the Syrian 
resistance?  The Syrian regime has not right to employ the Lebanese 
resistance as ammunition for its verbal and rhetorical arsenal.... 
The Syrian regime should have stayed silent since the war on Lebanon 
has removed its mask of nationalism." 
 
-- "31 days changed everything" 
 
Columnist Fahd Fanek writes on the back-page of semi-official, 
influential Arabic daily Al-Rai (08/15):  "The sixth Israeli-Arab 
war, which has lasted one month and which has ended without a victor 
or a vanquished, will enter history as the beginning of a new era 
and the end of an old era.  Pre-war Israel is not post-war Israel 
and pre-war Hezbollah is not post-war Hezbollah.  So are Lebanon, 
the Arab world, and perhaps the Damascus-Tehran axis.  Israel has 
been cut down to size. Its image as a strong nation that possesses 
an invincible army has been shaken, not only in the eyes of the 
Arabs and the world, but also in the eyes of its own people....  The 
Arab states have correctly reconsidered their position, first, to 
bridge the gap that has widened between the Arab governments and 
their peoples, second, because of the war's course and Israel's 
military failure, and  third, because the Lebanese government has 
proved its unity and effectiveness on all levels - something that 
has not  been expected.  If it is true that Iran was behind this 
crisis with the aim of dangling its cards and deflecting attention 
from its nuclear program ... then the course of events has turned 
against Iran and its project to spread its influence in the Arab 
region has received a strong blow....  The Iranian influence in 
Lebanon and the rest of the region after the war is different to 
what it was before the war.  The bubble has burst.  It has turned 
out to be an air bubble.  By the way, this will not be the only 
bubble that has burst or the only myth that has fallen. " 
HALE