By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

The current diplomatic crisis in the region because of the ganging up of four Persian Gulf states against Lebanon has exposed barely hidden realities which the oil rich potentates had tried in vain to conceal with the backing of their masters in the West.
The crux of the problem is the issue of legitimacy which is conspicuously absent, and along with it freedom of expression, political parties representing people of various walks of life, independent analysts ready to focus on facts, and of course, masses willing to take to the streets – either to express support for the wise moves of the authorities or to protest any measure by the government that is a violation of the Islamic shari’ah and is harmful to Arab solidarity.
In other words, regimes that are not just rootless and unrepresentative of the people they rule, but obediently take orders from Washington and London (and for late from Tel Aviv as well) in violation of religious laws to fund terrorists for destabilizing fellow Arab states or audaciously invading them to kill people and destroy the infrastructure, are now trying to trigger the collapse of an elected government in Lebanon that was formed with the consensus of all political parties.
What is the reason?
Nothing but a wholly unconvincing pretext to force a Lebanese minister to resign for having spoken the plain truth as a political analyst (months before being given a government portfolio) that Yemen’s invasion by Saudi Arabia and the UAE is a futile war harmful to Arab solidarity, and that the Yemenis led by the popular Ansarullah Movement have every right to defend their country.
George Kordahi, a Christian who supports the oppressed Palestinians against the illegal Zionist entity, has refused to step down from his post as Minister of Information, while the four Persian Gulf states who in spite of their claim to be Muslim have turned a blind eye to the almost daily desecration of Islam’s first qibla, the al-Aqsa Mosque, by Israel with whom they have established diplomatic relations, have resorted to a multi-million dollar media campaign against Beirut.
They are also using mercenaries in Lebanon (by exploiting that country’s freedom of expression), to come out on the streets with the Saudi and UAE flags in a bid to try to pressure Prime Minister Najib Miqati into submission.
Democratic Lebanon (whether or not it is cash-strapped) cannot do the same in the undemocratic and unrepresentative societies of the Persian Gulf states.
Even if we leave aside the tens of thousands of Lebanese nationals working in the Persian Gulf states who face deportation on the slightest sign of support for their government, the millions of local Arabs who oppose the treason of their regimes against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, and Yemenis, face arrest, imprisonment, torture, death, and mass massacres in any expression of solidarity with fellow Arabs and Muslims.
The result has been mixed reaction by the political factions in Lebanon, which is trapped into an economic crisis by the US. Some are calling for compromise to defuse the diplomatic row while others are demanding apology from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
The fault of the government in Beirut in the eyes of the superrich Arab states whose brutalities have not prevented Yemen from slowly but surely emerging as an independent country opposed to the US-Zionist hegemony and legitimately representing the various sections of the Yemeni society, is the democratic nature of Lebanon.
Lebanon is a state where all the religious and political parties are represented, including the legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah, which along with the Amal Movement, speaks for the country’s largest single group, the Shi’a Muslims who account for over 40 percent of the national population.
This is anathema to the cultish and clannish regimes in the Persian Gulf states, where the long oppressed Shi’a Muslims abound – ranging from overwhelming majorities in Bahrain and the eastern oil-rich part of Saudi Arabia to sizeable minorities (of at least 30 percent) in Kuwait and the UAE.
Now, if the various tribes of Yemen who despite their jurisprudential differences are traditionally loyal the cause of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) rally under the banner of the popular Ansarullah Movement that represents over 50 percent of the total national population (the Zaydi Shi’a Muslims being the absolute majority in the north), the impact is obvious in neighbouring Najran, or for that matter in Hijaz and the Eastern Province, especially in view of the fact that Iraq today is governed by its long-oppressed Arab Shi’a Muslim majority.
Legitimacy and representative rule will eventually triumph, as the Islamic Republic of Iran has showed the way, whether the US and Israel like it or not.