Hizballebanon Update. "Lebanese Rivals Reach Agreement Seen as Major Triumph for Hezbollah," from the Associated Press, May 21:
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's feuding factions reached a breakthrough deal Wednesday that ends the country's long political stalemate, but also gives the militant Hezbollah group and allies the key power they sought — a veto over any decision of the U.S.-backed government.
The deal, reached with the help of Arab mediators, was immediately praised by Hezbollah's backers Iran and Syria. But it seems certain to accelerate fears in the West over Hezbollah's new power.
Pro-government politician and parliament majority leader Saad Hariri seemed to acknowledge that his side had largely caved in in the talks — spurred by a sharp outbreak of violence earlier this month after 18 months of deadlock.
"I know that the wounds are deep and my injury is deep, but we only have each other to build Lebanon," he said after the deal was announced in Qatar.
Parliament is now expected to elect a compromise president — the head of Lebanon's mostly neutral army — on Sunday, the state news agency reported.
The Hezbollah-led opposition won both its demands with the deal: veto power in a new national unity government, and an electoral law that divides the country into smaller districts with the aim of better representation of the various sects.
Hezbollah's chief negotiator, Mohammed Raad, downplayed Hezbollah's win.
"Neither side got all it demanded, but (the agreement) is a good balance between all parties' demands," he said.
The Bush administration seemed to try to put the best face on the deal even though it gave more power to Hezbollah, considered a terrorist group by Washington and Israel. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch called the agreement "a necessary and positive step."
A few bursts of celebratory gunfire broke out in Beirut after the announcement. Television stations, which broadcast the Qatar ceremony live, showed Lebanese politicians and their Arab hosts congratulating and hugging one another.
The mood in Beirut's streets was jubilant, with Lebanese, tired of the protracted deadlock, greeting each other with "Mabrouk," or "Congratulations" in Arabic.
The talks in Qatar and the deal were a dramatic cap to Lebanon's worst internal fighting since the 1975-90 civil war — a series of violent street clashes between pro-government groups and the opposition raging in Beirut and elsewhere earlier this month. At least 67 people died.
As Lebanon came close to an all-out war, Arab League mediators intervened and got the sides to agree to hold negotiations in Qatar on resolving the crisis that has paralyzed the country.
The deal that resulted was a major victory for Hezbollah.
Opposition-allied Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said an opposition tent encampment across from the government building in downtown Beirut would be dismantled Wednesday.
Berri, who participated in the Doha talks, called that action a "gift" from the opposition and hailed the agreement.
Within an hour, pickup trucks began hauling mattresses and supplies away from the encampment, which has paralyzed the commercial heart of the Lebanese capital for more than a year. Opposition supporters dismantled tents.
In Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the deal was an "example of regional integration for achieving stability and tranquility."
Syria also promptly endorsed the deal.
No surprises there.
Another 'necessary and positive step' is hustling President Bush off to retirement in Crawford.
Hizballah successfully held off the IDF from its base in Fortress Labanon. Can there be any real doubt as to who controls the land of the tall cedars?
Hezbollah held off the IDF because UNIFIL was helping them. The next time the IDF will take UNIFIL out.
Hezbollah has control of Lebanon and is gaining control of its army. The next step will be to declare: The Islamic Republic of Lebanon and then to attack Israel. Those are their goals.
Educated young people will emigrate. In the long run, this is a Pyrrhus victory
If Iran and Syria like the results, it's a bad deal for the Christian and Druze coalition.
Keep a close eye out Israel, war is on the horizon.
Hezbollah held off the IDF because UNIFIL was helping them. The next time the IDF will take UNIFIL out.
Hezbollah has control of Lebanon and is gaining control of its army. The next step will be to declare: The Islamic Republic of Lebanon and then to attack Israel. Those are their goals.
Posted above
It was alot of reasons why Hizballah held off IDF, starting with the Israelis leadership, Olmert, Peretz, Livni and Halutz with his obsession with an air campaign. It was a poorly orchestrated goal with unclear objectives. The US told Olmert that they couldn't hold Lebanon responsible for Hizballahs' actions, basically putting Lebanon off limits which just started the confusion.
It was more than UNIFIL giving away troop locations. The Lebanese army was painting IDF troop locations for rocket attacks. The Lebanese army assisted in the rocket attack on the Israeli War ship with that Rador guided missle in the early days of the war. The Lebanese army provided Hizballah with troop locations. The Lebanese army also was paying dead hizballah soldiers families pensions that should only be reserved for the Lebanese army not a terrorist organization.
The russians were invovled, tipping off HIzballah passing on intel they'd gathered through listening devices.
That said though, I'm not so sure that Hizballah wants to take over LEbanon, or at least visibly be responsible for it. It's in a much stronger position to have no responsibility for Lebanon, and continue to wage its war from the North. It doesn't need declare the Islamic state of Lebanon in order to have control of the country. They already have the country hostage.
If Hizballah wanted to take over Lebanon they could have last week. I think they like their sweet deal better. Iran's arm is long.
I think the biggest mistake of the Bush presidency was not demolishing the Syrian Ba'ath regime shortly after he did the same to Iraq. A democratic (or at least quiescent) Syria would have meant a secure western border for Iraq, allowed Lebanon's brief flirtation with democracy to flower, and isolated Iran. Instead, we now have jihadists flooding into Iraq through Syria, Lebanon's democracy destroyed, and Hezbollah preparing for genocide against Israel under the eyes of UN "inspectors." A prime directive of strategy is keeping the initiative. Bush learned to surrender the initiative from his father. Now the Iranins have the initiative and our politicians don't even recognize it.
If Iran and Syria like the results, it's a bad deal for the Christian and Druze coalition.
by walterc
I heard on one of the channels that Hezbollah has Christians among its allies. Where did this idea arise? Are there Christian groups allied with Hezbollah in Lebanon?
If Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization and they now wield official state power in Lebanon, does that make Lebanon a terrorist state?
Is it not possible now to hold the Lebanese government responsible for future actions of Hezbollah conducted from within Lebanon?
If Hezbollah is known to be a proxy army/militia for Iran, how do current calls for "talks" with Iran, without precondition and in light of these developments, compare to appeasement of the Nazis and the Sudentenland?
Is it just me or is this the new Munich Agreement?
Carpet bomb the place..
The "compromise" president is going to be the head of the military?!?
Wow....
The Hesbos are a cancer in the body politic of Lebanon.
The only solution, Jimmy Catta, is to kill them dead. Only then will they be peaceable and a good (and quiet)partner in government.
This islam tells us so.
The Alawite despotism may seem to be calling the shots in Lebanon, but it is Hezbollah that, by enraging the Sunnis in Lebanon, may cause all kinds of problems for the Alawites of Syria.
Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood started to attack the Alawites in force. They murdered 82 Alawite cadets -- the entire graduating class -- of Syria's military academy. They attacked police and other symbols of government authority. Finally, Hafez al-Assad took the Alawite-officered army right to Hama, surrounded the city, and then systematically moved in, with the soldiers having been given orders to kill anyone who cried "Allahu Akbar." At least 20,000 people were killed. And then corpses of Ikhwan members were brought to other cities, and dragged through the streets of those cities, and everyone was ordered to stand outside, or on their balconies, and clap at the site. And anyone who did not clap and cheer was in danger of being noted by the army, and dealt with, on the spot, in a similar way.
But the passage of time has dimmed the memory of that terror. And the Alawites, knowing that their worship of Mary prevents them from being regarded as full-fledged Muslims, sought several years ago to obtain, from Shi'ite clerics in Iran, a fatwa entitled them to be considered as orthodox, albeit Shi'a, Muslims. Such a fatwa was issued. And now Syria supports Hezbollah, by helping Iran transfer weaponry to that group in Lebanon, for two reasons.
The first reason is that the Syrians need Iran, or need that legitimacy, that Iran's clerics can, so the Alawites think, confer on them, and allow them to present themselves as real Muslims, rather than heretical syncretists.
The second reason is that Syria, virtually without resources, has always regarded Lebanon as the source of funds -- funds in particular for Syrian generals and othes in the Alawite elite. And a united Lebanon, a Lebanon run by those who deplore the Syrian influence and meddling, would threaten that source of wealth for Syria's rulers. So they have a stake in a Lebanese government incapable of standing up to Syria -- a paralyzed government, or a weakened government, or a government that cannot function because Hezbollah stands in the way.
There is a way to get Syrian cooperation. It would require that American policymakers understood the weakness of the Alawites, and of how fearful they are of internal opposition from the Ikhwan. If the American government were to explain to the Alawites that it knows how worrisome such a charge can be and knows just how dangerous it could be for every Alawite village if Sunni regimes -- say that of Saudi Arabia -- were suddenly to turn up the volume on its coverage of the "Alawites" and to depict them as Infidels, working with the "Rafidite dogs" of Iraq and the "Persians" -- that this would get the attention of Bashir al-Assad and his military henchmen in a way that nothing else could do.
It is certainly worth trying, in order not to eliminate the Hezbollah threat but at least to make it harder for Hezbollah to obtain arms, in the hope that the Sunnis, and the Druze, and the Christians are now arming themselves, having learned a lesson, and will, if the Syrian-Iranian support for Hezbollah can be stopped, and arms shipments ended or interdicted more successfully, be ready to take on a weakened Hezbollah and to teach it a lesson that will take a long time to unlearn.