There is a very lucrative plan for our country, Lebanon, which I have already explained to a number of my friends. It could bring us millions or even billions in revenues. Perhaps the project seems ridiculous, crazy or even surreal at first glance. But all the same I propose this commercial, political and artistic project: lease our country out to whichever group on the planet currently wishes to fight a war.

If, for example, Mozambique would like to fight Denmark, then the two could lease Lebanon for a year or more, while we Lebanese collect the rent money and during the course of the contract, live in either Denmark or in Mozambique. We can amuse ourselves and relax there, and when we eventually come back to our destroyed land, then it would be without anguish or remorse … and we'd still be alive.

The Lebanon which we have inherited from our forbearers who fought for her independence, doesn't exist anymore -- at the most it lives on in some of the patriotic songs of Lebanese singer and icon, Fairouz. But the country which the first intellectuals like Michel Mscheha had in mind, has now disappeared for ever.

The Lebanon in which we lived before this war between the Republic of Hezbollah and the State of Israel bears no similarity to the worst places on this planet. But, I'm sure that we will soon ashamedly be able to compare it with failed states like Somalia, if the Iranians -- with their tumultuous regime and their crazy, archaic convictions -- can abuse it even more and make Lebanon at least as terrible and ugly as Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban.

The pinnacle of the Iranian project in Lebanon, so I believe, is to use its first available atomic bombs, and launch them in our honor. They will fight the "devil" (America) and Israel down to the last Lebanese. The Iranians, which Saddam fought with the help of Arab Sunnis and the Americans, want to get revenge. The Shiite Persians will fight down to the last Shiite and last Lebanese, in order to avenge the Sunni Arabs in historical, religious and ethnic terms, so too to avenge the Americans and ultimately perhaps also the Israelis.

Iran -- drunk on billions of dollars of oil receipts -- dreams of atomic weapons and a new empire, which will revive the splendour of ancient Persia, is this not so? But whatever the explanation, Syria paved the way, the same Syrian regime, who ruled Lebanon for 15 long years and occupied the land and made all its institutions subservient -- including justice, security and the army. The country was managed by a clique -- beneficiaries who came from all the different religious denominations.

This regime, which superficially pulled out of Lebanon, doubtless helped to destroy the achievements of the much admired so-called Lebanese "Cedar Revolution". In the same way, it helped to enforce Iran's grip on Lebanon, through the Shiite, heavily-armed, illegal and completely lawless Hezbollah, which is supported by millions of dollars of Iranian funds.

The Iranian devil has crossed the gate into Damascus

The Iranian influence in Lebanon has managed in less than a year to unleash this war, in which we Lebanese are now dying. The war is a gift from Syria primarily to the Lebanese, but also to the Americans and every other power which has worked with her to expel Syria from the paradise of Lebanon.

President Rafik Hariri was murdered. It is possible that since it won independence Lebanon has not produced anyone of a stature comparable with his. Perhaps there won't be anyone else of his caliber in the future either, and perhaps there won't be even be a Lebanon any more -- I really fear that.

Hariri -- everyone knows who killed him -- wanted to make Lebanon the Hong Kong of the Levant. He wanted peace and prosperity. He loved Lebanon in the spirit of those who founded and built up the country -- and exactly how Michel Mscheha had done: A peaceful country, a transport hub between the Orient and the West, an oasis for Arabs and an exemplar for a society in which all religions, ethnicities and groups could live peacefully together.

Hariri wanted the type of country which his father, a Lebanese farmer, rooted in his country -- a patriot -- had described to him. But this love for his country was met with only jealousy and hatred, because the Syrians didn't want this model of society (the Syrian people might try to emulate it) and nor did Israelis want to have something like that in their immediate neighborhood. In the eyes of the Syrians and the Israelis there was no room for a model of coexistence, which Hariri had dreamed of and inherited from the founders of Lebanon.

For many, Lebanon represents the image of a beautiful lady who they would gladly rape -- platonic love is not found on Lebanon's borders. And, the Americans for their part, only went along with the Cedar Revolution half of the way, like a mother who simply abandons her half-grown daughter. Diverse new democracies, for which the Americans had laid the foundation -- new and still unsteady democracies -- were then abandoned. And then they demand that this headless government -- whose president everyone knew was a tool of the Syrians from the time when they occupied Lebanon -- work wonders and enforce the UN resolution 1959: disarm Hezbollah.

It was at this time, during a period of national dialogue, a period of transition, when the Iranian demon marched via the gate of Damascus into the weak and impotent Lebanon.

Suddenly the Iranian regime decided, under the leadership of the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take on the Arab-Israeli conflict, utilizing all of the collected prejudices from the time of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser until the rotten slogans of the Baathists of both regimes, Iraqi and Syrian: The same slogans which most Arab states, including large and influential countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan and others had long ago renounced.

The Iranian regime managed to reawaken religious passions, to construct and exploit old feelings of failure and defeat, to connect Shiites, and in particular the Arab Shiites in Lebanon. Under a pluralistic and democratic system they had the chance to get revenge for their suppression by Sunni Arabs in most other Arab states. That the Lebanese Shiites then developed feelings of superiority was in no way due to the Lebanese system, rather it was the result of a desire to avenge history -- a desire which possibly stretches all the way back to the death of the grandsons of the prophet, Hassan and Hussein.

The Iranians also managed to export their so-called "culture of death", which was soon taken over by the Shiites in Lebanon as a social and political way of living. The defeats during more than one Israeli invasion in the days of the Palestinian presence of the 1970s and 1980s until their withdrawal in 2000, had their part in spreading this "culture."

Aside from that, they (supporters of Hezbollah) all collect in an area in the southern suburbs of Beirut and don't mix positively and actively with the broad spectrum of Lebanese society, particularly in the Lebanese capital where this social mosaic should be a fertile soil "to wear down the edges", as one says in Lebanese politics.

The enforced but also freely chosen isolation of this faction, and the suffering that it had to endure for more that 10 years during the Israeli occupation of the south, made possible the implementation of other projects and plans of violence and destruction.

Lebanon is heading towards destruction

I repeat again: This fevered Iranian religious belief and this delusion, including Syria's slyness, will sooner or later result in the final disappearance of Lebanon. The Lebanon, which we know now, and which we have known since its independence from "caring mother" France, is heading towards doom.

Between Israel -- which wants the inviolacy of its state and its people -- and Iran -- which wishes to eradicate the existence of Israel -- lies Lebanon. And, I firmly believe that of the three countries, Lebanon is the only one which will actually disappear. This country does not have the strength, to bear the troubles of all this madness.

The Iranian atomic threat is serious. And Israel, just like all western powers, knows that all too well. These fears are surely justified and it is the main reason for the war which Israel is currently waging against Lebanon and against its largely innocent -- or more correctly, fickle, people. The Saudis say sneeringly that the UN delegation should go to Iran and not to Lebanon in order to solve the problems of this war, and they are surely right. A plague on all their houses. Lebanon dies and head towards destruction -- and everyone else continues to hide behind a mask.

Nothing bears a closer similarity to hell

Somebody once said hell is found on earth and in this life. We in Lebanon believe the veracity of this expression. There is really nothing which bears more similarity to hell than to live between neighbors like Syria and Israel.

But, there are certainly gradations of hell, and surely we have been despatched to the worst, deepest level. If you talk about these things in Lebanon, or even write about them, then you are soon branded an "enemy." You violate the feelings of one or other the religions which regards itself as the only purveyor of truth, while all others are tainted by mistakes.

Hezbollah dominates the whole Shiite denomination and intellectually suppresses everyone else -- although there exists a large intelligentsia. But it also suppresses the other religious denominations with its weapons, because it represents the only armed party. They threaten the country with civil war, so long as another group or denomination stands opposed to them, restricts them or even simply criticizes them. When TV comedian Hassan Nasrallah parodied them, a civil war almost broke out.

What else? We are a people who adore freedom and life. On the whole we are a people of self-serving traders. Even if we have many flaws, we also have the right to live all the same. Perhaps chaos is our more obvious characteristic, but without any exaggeration this small land has always been a cultural beacon and a democratic oasis for the whole Middle East.

This time it is at an end, and this feeling is certain. No Lebanese people see any future any more for their children in this country: everyone wants out. This feeling was already there before this current war, whose arrival only served to confirm it.