Internationalization seems to be a major concern for Syria at present. This has led the regime in Damascus to sign the Arab League protocol allowing Arab monitors into Syria to protect the civilians there, in a move by the regime to avert measures from being taken at the UN Security Council (UNSC), culminating in international sanctions against Syria.

In a consequent reaction, the explosions in Baghdad followed Nouri al-Maliki’s accusation of Tarek al-Hashemi and Saleh al-Mutlaq of being involved in acts of terrorism.

Man has known around 500 thousand languages over 160-200 thousand years of speech, of which the majority has disappeared leaving only 6909 remaining languages today, while many are under threat.

The Iraqis did not take very long to offer American President Barack Obama a token of long partnership enhancing his credibility, seeing how he will be launching the campaign to renew his term at the beginning of 2012. Prior to the return of the last American soldier from the Land of the Two Rivers, the president said “we have left behind a stable country” with the completion of the occupation’s mission. However, the Iraqi leaders responded with a shower of random accusations, warnings against what will happen on that day and calls to avoid the collapse.

A few days prior to the full withdrawal of the American combat troops from Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki’s government carried out a wide scale campaign of arrests which affected hundreds of people in the various regions, under the pretext that the latter were Baathists planning on staging a coup to change the regime.

Jacques Chirac will enter French history as the one who dared oppose the American decision to send French troops in the war against Iraq. He is the president who spared his country military casualties in a war he knew would cost his country dearly. May the great Palestinian thinker and writer Edward Said rest in peace; a month before his death, he bet that France would not use its veto, and would enter the war with America’s allies and the British in Iraq. In a phone call from Al-Hayat’s New York office, Said stated that it would be impossible for France to stand against the US.

The following article was written last week, but I had put off its publication pending the Syrian National Council (SNC) conference in Tunisia. However, having followed the results of the conference, I find no reason to change or amend what I wrote, and so I publish the article exactly as it was written:

The Syrian opposition is divided; should it engage or boycott the regime? Should it accept or reject foreign intervention? Should the uprising be armed or should it remain peaceful?

There are many obstacles in the path of Arab observers in Syria, and a debate is underway about the mission that they will carry out, even before they arrive.

That country is truly untainted. The Arab Spring did not dare come close to it. And the same goes for the contagion of democracy, the madness of human rights, and the fad of civil society.

This was perpetrated by the founder who came from the arms of Joseph Stalin, and he locked the country down all too well. It is a fortress that laughs in the face of storms, a fortress of power, aggressiveness and paranoia. Every question reveals a spy, and every dispassionate gaze exposes an imperialist plot.

The followers of the Orthodox sect in Lebanon want to elect their representatives in the parliament. The Maronites liked the idea and commended it. But both sects missed one important detail: it is impossible to match the elections that they are aspiring for with equality between Muslims and Christians.