When terror struck the Western world in the 1980s and 90s, the inevitable prime suspect was Lebanon, which had developed an international reputation as a rogue state and safe haven for known terrorists.
In sharp contrast, today the country is at the bottom of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of suspects in the audacious spell of terror which struck the US financial and military nerve centers, humbling the invincible superpower.
An important vote of confidence in Lebanon’s “new look” has come from US Ambassador Vincent Battle, who arrived in Beirut to assume his post Tuesday, half an hour after the chain of airborne suicide attacks began in New York and Washington.
Significantly, the ambassador has kept to a schedule that was drawn well before the tragedy. He presented his credentials in Baabda Palace on Wednesday and held high-profile introductory meetings in Beirut on Thursday.
His mission in Awkar stuck to “business as usual,” when US diplomacy elsewhere in the world had come to a standstill after the blows that sent the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center tumbling to the ground and set the Pentagon on fire.
For a political establishment grappling with a credibility crisis on the domestic level, these were welcome signals of support.
They were matched by expressions of extreme condemnation and deep sympathy for the US plight by some of Washington’s most virulent political foes, such as Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the fiery anti-US spiritual guide of many of the world’s Shiites.
But for the local intelligence community, this meant doubling the effort to eliminate potential loopholes that could reverse the recovery of Lebanon’s standing in the world community.
Since Tuesday, military and security establishments have been closely following the terror blitz in the United States, where early evidence has pointed to Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden as the main suspect.
Bin Laden has developed a complex network of Islamic extremists, which includes a presence in Lebanon and among Palestinians living here.