Impossible Missions

Ghassan Charbel
Time is running, so hurry up. Your coming trip is historic indeed. Your Saudi stop is highly important due to this country’s weight on the Arab, Islamic, political and economic levels. Your Egyptian stop is also highly important, as Egypt’s weight is incontestable. Your choice to address the Islamic world from deep-rooted Cairo is a message that reflects your wish to eliminate misunderstandings and turn the page of hasty and rash policies. It is no secret that you have gotten yourself into a hard test. Your success will depend on your ability to address the Hebrew State whose policies poison your relations with the Arab and Muslim world; to address it is to force the settlement and hatred government into accepting the necessary conditions for a just and comprehensive peace. Without this peace, the region will continue to drown in extremism and despair, and will produce even more adventurers and suicide bombers.
Mr. President Barack Obama, I know that you are a very busy man; that the financial crisis keeps you up at night; that leaving Iraq isn’t an easy task; that staying in Afghanistan is costly and pointless; that Pakistan is even more dangerous than Afghanistan; that reaching an understanding with Ahmadinejad isn’t easy; that arranging coexistence with Kim Jong-il is like drinking the hemlock. But we need you in other missions. If only you could stay longer in our region so that you can become an honest intermediary in crises that trouble us.
The situation in Yemen is getting worse. If only you could convince the inhabitants of that blissful country that a unified Yemen can accommodate Northerners and Southerners alike; that exchanging concessions is better than exchanging strikes and corpses; that the state’s umbrella, even if it causes injustice, remains more merciful than the umbrellas of divisions; that the troubles of marriage are much less intense than those of the return to divorce.
I know you are the president of the sole great power, but we need you in these issues. If only you could organize a round table that would rehabilitate the Aden Gulf pirates and urge them to return to land; as well as another round table for the clashing Somali organizations. There does not remain in Mogadishu anything worth fighting for, taking over, raiding, or calling for help or interference.
How great our joy would be if you could find time to look into the bloody misunderstanding among the Palestinian brothers and make them feel how shameful it is to fight under occupation while you are busy seeking to end settlement activity. The two camps have committed to the ceasefire with Israel in order to better wage a civil war. They adopted the two-state solution, one in Gaza and the other in Ramallah. It is fine, oh visiting president, for you to get involved in the Fatah movement issues despite their enormity; and to help the movement’s wings and barons organize a conference under one roof.
I beg you not to forget Lebanon, the country of Gibran Khalil Gibran – who might ask for an immigration visa for his remains. If only you could convince Shiites and Sunnis that the country can accommodate them both; soothe the fears of Christians as they await to get their immigration visas to Canada and Australia. If only you could help us find an exit for the guaranteeing and the blocking third. It would be better for you to sponsor the elections. They say that the Batroun battle is tough, and that the third republic’s son-in-law is not in a very comfortable position; that the electors of Beirut’s first district could push General Issam Abu Jamra to retire and write his memoirs just like the French did with General Charles de Gaulle. The former was not lucky enough to have an event as huge as WWII. We must not forget that the conflict on who killed the Christians is aggravating; that whoever listens to the General’s speeches gets the impression that he was not in the country during the civil war and that he prefers the sound of canaries to that of canons.
Try, oh young president, even if we know that stability in Yemen is critical; that waging wars in Somalia has turned into a sort of addiction; that Palestinian reconciliation is thorny; that the establishment of the state in Lebanon is unattainable ‘as long as the sky is blue’ (slogan of Future Movement during the 2009 parliamentary elections).