Fingers on a racing pulse

From the window of his Beirut home, Robert Fisk witnesses shootings, violence and bloodshed every night. It has become a common sight on the streets of the Lebanese capital, which, according to the award-winning British journalist, is now firmly controlled by Hezbollah fighters.

Speaking to Weekend Review in Dubai recently, Fisk said he believed the situation in Lebanon could deteriorate in the months ahead. The 61-year-old also doesn't see any hope for the Middle East, particularly Iraq.

“Iraq is a disaster, a total failure. The government doesn't rule, the Americans can't rule and the Iraqi government has been forced into a treaty with the Americans.

The majority of people spend most of their time in the Green Zone or travelling around Iraq because they are too frightened. Everyone else fights each other,'' he said.

“We're always promising democracy and I believe the Iraqis want some of our democracy. But they want freedom from us and we don't intend to give them that. The Americans must leave. They will leave but they can't, and that is the problem,'' he added.

Fisk is an authority on the Middle East, having spent the past three decades living and working in the region. His illustrious career spans the 1970s Belfast, Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution, the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War — also encompassing the 1979 Iranian Revolution — the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Where there is oil

“Why are we in Iraq? If the country's national products were asparagus and carrots I don't think we'd be there. Obviously, oil is bound up in all of this.''

“I recently contacted one of my former Latin professors at a university in Rome. He referred to the Roman Empire as having ‘manic energy', which is rather what the Americans have.''

Fisk, who still writes regular columns for Britain's Independent, was in Dubai to promote his new book, The Age of the Warrior, which contains numerous articles from his career.

The inspiration for the book's title came from an article Fisk published about Donald Rumsfeld, the former US secretary of defence, regarding a new soldiers' card for US troops abroad. Unlike previous versions of the card which read: ‘I'm a national soldier', the text on the new card reads: ‘I'm an American warrior'.

“The card doesn't contain any of the human rights cautions of the earlier cards so that's why the book is named the Age of the Warrior.

“The book is divided into things about films, the Titanic, the Middle East, death, Iraq, the use of words, journalism, all my petty obsessions. A good friend of mine summed it up best when he said: ‘Well that's you Robert.'''

Fisk has received criticism from some quarters, particularly on blogs, over some of the writings in his previous book, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, with some people concluding that he “almost hates himself for being a Westerner'' — an accusation Fisk denies.

“If you read The Great War for Civilisation, it's the most scathing attack I've ever read, let alone written, about Arab regimes and the cruelty of the Muslim world. I don't use the internet because I don't have the time.

But inaccurate information on the internet and online criticism is certainly an issue and a great problem for me personally.''

Call for information

Much of the criticism stemmed from Fisk's supposed anti-US stance. He has questioned the truth about the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center.

“There are certainly some inconsistencies and things that we do not know about. The events of that day have been manipulated to forge an illegal war. I feel we ought to know more about it.

“Rather than wage war on Iraq, we should have set up an international court with lawyers from all over the world as well as an international police force through the United Nations.

“The accused should have been put on trial and there should have been a prison for them. They should have been interrogated in front of the world. But, instead, we have torture chambers.''

Fisk told Weekend Review he had been informed by friends and colleagues in Washington that the US wanted to attack Iran.

“If it does happen, the West has to get out of the Middle East. Do you think if the US does strike Iran, Hezbollah will just sit around doing nothing?

"When you live in the White House bubble it can be difficult to see what is going on in the outside world. They don't realise that the Middle East is a total disaster — from Islamabad to the Mediterranean.''

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to insist his country's nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. But the US is becoming increasingly concerned and believes Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

An attack on Iran in the near future remains a very real possibility, adding credence to Fisk's assessment that the future for the Middle East is bleak.