Stir the soup and thicken The Plot

The last 48 hours haven't been good for the Mideast, and they haven't been good for anyone who believes in the perfectibility of human society.

For believers in The Plot and for enemies of secular democracy it's been a pretty good couple of days.

From east to west: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt. It's late, and I'm only going to talk about the last two.

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I happened to be doing an interview yesterday evening when both of the other people in the room got simultaneous phone calls from worried family members. A massive car bomb had just gone off a couple of miles from where we were sitting.

A couple of miles in this town can mean a lot. In this case, it means a different place entirely on the communal map of Beirut, and across the lines of sectarian control. The bomb went of in a Shia' area under the control of Hezbullah, clearly meant to 'punish' it for its support of the Assad regime in Syria.

The people who were killed and injured were just plain men, women and children. Complete innocents in every sense of the term. They were simply the people who happened to be shopping or chatting or driving by at that exact instant.

This, to tell the truth, is what I still get stuck on, even after all these years. The idea that one sends 'messages' by massacring at random, that one seeks justice by acting as if human life had no value whatsoever - this seems like the ultimate proof that man is unfixable at the core.

Be that as it may, the message was sent, and received. As one would expect, it only served to redouble the resolve of the targets, who will almost certainly now find some way to strike back. Hezbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech today basically vowed to increase the group's support for the Syrian regime. Behind the scenes, it's likely that revenge is on the menu, especially as this is the second bomb in just over a month to go off in that neighborhood.

Syria may be weakened, but its arm is still long enough to reach any part of Lebanon. And in the last several decades it has never hesitated when some opponent or rival required elimination. Lately, its preferred method has also been the car bomb, but any method that works is an option.

In another indication of the deeply sectarian nature of the conflict, the group claiming responsibility for the bombing - which may have been a suicide operation - calls themselves the 'brigade of 'Aisha, mother of the believers'. Here's their self-portrait:

The drapery says 'There's no god but
Allah and Muhmmad is his prophet'. In
other words, a creed common to both
Sunni and Shia'.

This is a reference to one of the prophet's wives, who was involved in the early battles that split Shia' from Sunni Islam. Sunnis hold her in reverence, while Shia's tend towards the opposite view. It's as if since the founding of Christianity one group had considered the Virgin Mary as chosen by god for a divine mission, while another group considered her a prostitute.

So, instead of a disagreement over, say, socialism vs capitalism - in other words, something where a compromise might be hammered out - or even between a Shia' and a Sunni view of Shariah law, we have a bitter bloodfeud over the honor of a woman who died a millenium and a half ago.

Thus, Lebanon takes one step closer to the brink, beyond which lies the chaos and collective insanity of its own not-too-distant past, and Syria's present.

As the Brits like to say, we are really in the soup.

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Meanwhile, what is to be said of the killing of hundreds in Cairo, all in the name of democracy?

Let me be entirely clear: I have absolutely no political sympathy for the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood). I have no political sympathy for any religio-political organization that proposes to rule by fatwa, scripture, torah, gospel or veda. To me, every single time in human history when some guy has suddenly gone cross-eyed and thought the angel of god was speaking inside his head has only served to make things worse than they already are.

But, inconveniently, the Ikhwan just happened to win the first democratic election in the known history of Egypt. And, as we know, the known history of Egypt goes back quite a ways. The pyramids were already ancient tourist traps when the people we call the 'ancient Greeks' were wandering around in togas. That's a long time without an election.

Those opposed to Morsi - certainly a clear majority - have been saying for the last couple of months that elections and democracy are not the same thing. Of course they're not. One can have elections without democracy. But can one have democracy without elections? If democracy is the 'rule of the demos' - the people - how can that rule be exercised, if not through clear and transparent structures? The whole point of the election process is to maximize clarity and transparency. Running a country via rival demonstrations and sit-ins is neither democracy nor workable. Annuling elections because the results aren't acceptable - even when done by the majority - is a dangerous precedent to set. Mob rule is an ever-present danger, and can be reliably expected to lead directly to dictatorship.

In a previous post I made reference to the secular forces retaking control of Egypt after having understood that the Ikhwan were never going to promote any politcal and social vision but their own. At the time I felt guardedly positive, reasoning that the process hadn't yet been irredeemably broken. This was just a few days ago. What a difference a few days makes! It is certainly broken now.

Those who argue that there was no other choice or that the bloodshed was instigated or that the pro-Morsi demonstrators somehow 'deserved' what they got have not been paying attention, or are arguing from prior conviction. Virtually all the live reporting from the scene is unanimous regarding the overwhelming imbalance of power and the apparent decision by the government to use lethal force from the outset. Meanwhile, a process that really looked like it had a chance to lead to a secular, democratic outcome has been broken, and no one seems to have an idea how it might be fixed.

Worse - if worse is possible - the US once again comes under suspicion of sabotage. Online and in conversation the question keeps being repeated: why didn't Obama prevent this? Why did he keep mumbling about human rights while shoveling money at the Egyptian army? And, as always, there's only one answer: Israel. The US doesn't care about democracy in Egypt. What it cares about is ensuring the peace agreement with Israel, for which $1.5 billion is the annual premium. That's why we didn't put the brakes on the Egyptian army.