Baghdad rules and Hama rules — Tom Friedman
It is often very informative to read Tom Friedman when he is not talking about the Bush administration. Here he invents the terms Baghdad rules as the hopeful successor to Hama rules:
Message from the Syrian regime to Washington, Paris and Lebanon’s opposition: “You want to play here, you’d better be ready to play by Hama Rules – and Hama Rules are no rules at all. You want to squeeze us with Iraq on one side and the Lebanese opposition on the other, you’d better be able to put more than U.N. resolutions on the table. You’d better be ready to go all the way – because we will. But you Americans are exhausted by Iraq, and you Lebanese don’t have the guts to stand up to us, and you French make a mean croissant but you’ve got no Hama Rules in your arsenal. So remember, we blow up prime ministers here. We shoot journalists. We fire on the Red Cross. We leveled one of our own cities. You want to play by Hama Rules, let’s see what you’ve got. Otherwise, hasta la vista, baby.”
It is a measure, though, of just how disgusted the Lebanese are with the Syrian occupation and Hama Rules that everyone – from senior Lebanese politicians, like the courageous Walid Jumblatt, to street protesters – is openly accusing Syria of Mr. Hariri’s murder.
What else can the Lebanese do? They must unite all their communities and hit the Syrian regime with “Baghdad Rules,” which were demonstrated 10 days ago by the Iraqi people. Baghdad Rules are when an Arab public does something totally unprecedented: it takes to the streets, despite the threat of violence from jihadists and Baathists, and expresses its democratic will.
Friedman is a veteran, as is a close friend of mine, of reporting from Beirut during the 1970′s, and he has seen a lot of war. It is all the more exciting, therefore, to see his genuine excitement at the changes occurring, even in nascent form, in the Middle East.