Afghanistan turns a corner

Already, Washington is gunning for Lebanon's Hizbullah organization, slapping an executive order on the group at the beginning of the month to freeze its assets. Lebanon faces the possibility of sanctions if it fails to comply with the order. But the Lebanese government considers Hizbullah a legitimate political party and resistance group.

George Bkassini, writing in Al-Mustaqbal newspaper, which is owned by Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, asks whether Iraq would be the next Afghanistan. "The US-led Western offensive against Afghanistan is hardly over. But already Arab leaders are concerned about the next phase," the columnist said.

In fact, by yesterday, local media had dropped its heavy coverage of Afghan events and returned to reporting the fate of Hizbullah and the possibility of sanctions against Lebanon. Mr. Hariri is touring Europe to drum up sympathy for Beirut's point of view and to reiterate his support for a war on terror that differentiates between terrorism and legitimate resistance.

Neighboring Syria, the dominant powerbroker in Lebanon, is also looking beyond Afghanistan. Damascus supports Hizbullah and hosts several radical Palestinian groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is also subject to President Bush's executive order.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, there is both disappointment and hope.

"Nationalists and Islamists, I think, feel disappointed because they expected so much from Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda," says Reda Helal, deputy editor of the government-backed Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram. For Egyptian moderates, he adds, the speed of the Northern Alliance is good news. That is because the government's repression of militant Islamic groups in Egypt has also stifled moderates who would like to push for greater democracy and respect for human rights, says Mr. Helal. Moderates thus have much to gain if the Islamist threat is undermined around the world. "If America succeeds in Afghanistan," he says, "I think it will be a defeat for Islamic violence."

"Most of the people in Kuwait are very happy" with the Northern Alliance advances, says Kuwait University political scientist Shamlan Al-Essa. Most surprising, he says, has been "the efficiency of the allied forces and the exposure of what the Taliban has been doing."

Even before Kabul fell, international television coverage illuminated life under the Taliban as never before. Dr. Essa cites in particular a recent documentary aired repeatedly on CNN and the BBC, which depicts Taliban executions and other human rights abuses. "Those were things we didn't know about."

The events of Sept. 11 and recent events in Afghanistan signal the end of extremism in the Arab world, Essa says.

Just as Israel's crushing defeat of Arab armies in 1967 meant the end of "pan-Arabism," he says, so Sept. 11 will undermine "pan-Islamism."

Reported by staff writers Peter Ford in London, Cameron W. Barr in Jerusalem, and special correspondents Lucian Kim in Berlin and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut, Lebanon.

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