BARNETT - Arafat, as always, has shortchanged his people
¦"Arafat In French Hospital, Facing a Round of Tests," by Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, 29 October 2004, p. A6.
Arafat's on his last legs, and I, for one, won't miss when he's gone. He pissed away a golden opportunity with the Oslo Accords a decade ago, and his people have paid the price ever since--the security fence being their rather just reward.
There will be a real chance when Arafat goes, because he's gone so adamently out of his way to prevent any rivals to his power from appearing on the scene. That means there should be a bit of a scramble on the Palestinian side in terms of leadership once he drops. Of course, the default mode is just to let Hamas decide things, but since Arafat has done that so many times in his career (his Nobel Peace Prize being one of the cruelest jokes in history), things can really only get better because they've been so rock-bottom bad for so long.
You have to hope our intelligence agencies have really worked this angle, scoping out the likely replacements, because there really should be a decent window there once the old man, decrepit as he is, finally goes.
As for the decrepit part, check out Ion Pacepa's book, Red Horizons on Ceausescu (Pacepa being his former intell boss). Pacepa tells many sick stories about Arafat's personal preferences for physical indulgences. Here's hoping whatever god's in charge of his afterlife has reserved a particularly harsh spot in hell for Yassir. |
