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<h3 style='background:white'><b><font size=4 color="#333333"
face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-size:12.5pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode"'><a
href="http://beirutbeltway.blogspot.com/2005/11/can-lebanon-leave-syrias-orbit-updated.html">http://beirutbeltway.blogspot.com/2005/11/can-lebanon-leave-syrias-orbit-updated.html</a></span></font></b></h3>
<h3 style='background:white'><b><font size=4 color="#333333"
face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-size:12.5pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode"'>Sunday,
November 13, 2005</span></font></b></h3>
<h2 style='background:white'><a name=113189080561813755></a><font size=5
color=black face="Arial Black"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Can Lebanon leave
Syria’s orbit? (updated)</span></font></h2>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=3 color="#111111"
face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode";
color:#111111'>On my last night in Lebanon, members of Amal and Hizbullah were
roaming the streets of Beirut vowing eternal support for Syria and Bashar.
Through obnoxiously loud speakers on generic looking cars, they offered their
blood and their souls to Bashar, much to the dismay of many of their
compatriots.<br>
<br>
An LAU student I spoke to on the evening following the LAU student election
that saw the Hariri and PSP (Jumblatt) lists defeat an alliance of Aounists,
Amal and Hizbullah, relayed an unsettling picture from his small Beirut campus.
He said scores of Amal and Hizbullah students gathered to pledge support to
Syria’s Assad, who came third after Allah and Muhammad in their loud
Ashoura-style chanting. Their style clearly turned the majority of the students
off, driving them to vote for the Mustaqbal and Ishtiraki list.<br>
<br>
During my short stay in the country, I would hear statements by Hizbullah MPs
and officials that are not different from Bashar’s Thursday <a
href="http://beirutbeltway.blogspot.com/2005/11/bashar-declares-war-on-lebanon.html">speech</a>,
even if they didn’t resort to name-calling. Mohammad Raad, on one
occasion, accused Mehlis of running his report by the Israeli foreign minister
before submitting it to Annan. On Saturday morning, at Beirut’s Rafik
Hariri International airport, Naim Qassem could be heard on the small
television screens near the departure gate loudly promising Bashar that Lebanon
would not be a passage for conspiracies against Syria.<br>
<br>
Any objective and non-sectarian observer would note that Hizbullah’s talk
of saving Lebanon from destruction is at odds with their insistence to keep the
country in a state of chaos by allowing fringe Palestinian militants to roam
freely in the country practicing offensive self-defense and receiving arms
through a loose border with Syria. In Hizbullah’s outdated and
destructive rhetoric, Lebanon has only one option: war. Lebanon’s enemy
is external and Satan-like in its omnipresence. The only way to confront it is
through a military fight. All internal problems are swept under the Syrian rug
of resistance. In Hizbullah’s world, the concept of dialog is very much
like Syrian cooperation: an exercise in time buying until Providence sends an
emissary to nuke Satan. Lebanon’s fate, meanwhile, is made to <a
href="http://www.lebaneselobby.org/News__index/news%202005/10%2028%2005%20Nasrallah%20Aligns%20Hizbullah%20with%20Assad%20Regime%20Right%20or%20Wrong.htm">depend</a>
on the fate of a dying regime—a death wish.<br>
<br>
I used to think that Hizbullah’s participation in the government was a
positive development. But Hizbullah has been using it to <a
href="http://www.iht.com/getina/files/288801.html">bully</a> the cabinet and
obstruct any attempt to refocus policies away from a destructive subservience
to Syrian ones. Emile Lahoud might be on his political death bed, but Hizbullah
and to some extent Amal, have taken over his obstructionist role. Sadly,
Hizbullah’s growing influence never translates into work that could
benefit their voters in the south and the Bekaa or even the Shia community as a
whole. It is safe to say they are using their new power to obstruct and buy
time for the cornered Syrian regime, and for themselves. Siniora even had to <a
href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=19924">postpone</a>
the international donor's conference because Hizbullah and Amal still view
foreign aid as a form of international hegemony.<br>
<br>
Citing an American security official, <a
href="http://www.alshiraa.com/alshiraa/index.asp">al-Shiraa</a> reported in its
14 November issue that security officials from Hizbullah and Amal continue to
hold regular meetings with their Syrian intelligence counterparts in Damascus
to coordinate strategies. Hizbullah is also reportedly providing logistical
support to Iranian intelligence officers, who are monitoring “the
political and security developments” in Lebanon from their headquarters
at the Iranian embassy. In countries where rule of law and some degree of
healthy patriotism prevail, this amounts to treason.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, Islamists continue to pour into the country from Syria, taking up
positions in the refugee camps of Ein el-Helweh and Borj Barajneh and in the
north of the country. The word on the street is that it is a matter of time
before these groups, funded by Iran and supported by Syria, begin <a
href="http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-13T120017Z_01_KWA339192_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-JORDAN.xml">blowing
up</a> hotels and other places in Lebanon. Al-Shiraa mentions the “Ansar
Allah” group, headed by former Fateh official Jamal Suleiman, as one such
group that is training militants in al-Sufsaf in Ein el-Helweh and forming
cells in other camps in Tyre and Beirut. The Lebanese weekly also reported that
the “al-Da’wa al-Salafiya” group headed by “Abu
Ibrahim” is “holding meetings in Tripoli with a group of Pakistani
Salafists.”<br>
<br>
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports, but they do seem to confirm
that Syria’s plan of attack is nearing the implementation phase. If
Hizbullah and Amal continue to buy time for Bashar and his group, the country
will be plunged into mini conflicts featuring these groups and the Lebanese
army. <a
href="http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2005/11/interpreting-bashars-speech.html">Judging
</a>from Bashar’s speech, the Syrian regime is incapable of realizing
that such ploys will neither distract the international community nor pressure
the Security Council into abandoning the Hariri investigation. After all, what
options does a dying star have except collapse under its own gravity and suck
everything around itself? It’s Lebanon’s misfortune to have been
left in Syria’s orbit for so long.<br>
<br>
</span></font><b><font color=black face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span
style='font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode";color:black;font-weight:bold'>UPDATE</span></font></b><font
color="#111111" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode";
color:#111111'>. Al-Mustaqbal <a
href="http://www.almustaqbal.com/stories.aspx?CategoryID=3&IssueID=962">claims</a>
that Aoun, who finally <a
href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=20013">broke</a>
his silence over the Bashar speech, has been sending his son in law and
representative Gibran Bassil to Damascus to discuss destabilizing the Siniora
government. The Hariri-owned daily said Bassil was in Damascus just days ago.
Aoun, al-Mustaqbal argues, had reached a dead end in his quest to become
president and is now taking the "non-democratic" Syrian route via
alliances with Hizbullah and pro-Syrian groups to reach Baabda.<br>
<br>
Patriarch Sfeir, in a significant move Sunday, <a
href="http://www.alqanat.com/news/shownews.asp?id=64489">broke</a> with Aoun by
saying that Lahoud has to decide for himself whether “his remaining as
head of state serves or harms his post.” The patriarch added that
Christians alone cannot select the president and that a consensus similar to
the one that led to the withdrawal of the Syrian army is needed to select a new
president. (The Daily Star completely <a
href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=20010">missed</a>
the significance of Sfeir's comments). With Siniora becoming increasingly
popular in Christian circles, even beating Aoun, and the rising popularity of
Geagea, I think Sfeir can now more comfortably express his divergence from
Aoun's <a
href="http://beirutbeltway.blogspot.com/2005/10/hizbullah-and-aoun-are-playing.html">obsessive</a>
policies. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=3 color="#111111"
face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode";
color:#111111'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><font size=2 color="#444444"
face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode";
color:#444444'>// posted by </span></font><font size=2 color="#444444"
face="MS Mincho"><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"MS Mincho";
color:#444444'>王瘢雹明志</span></font><font size=2
color="#444444" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style='font-size:9.5pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode";color:#444444'> Kais @ <a
href="http://beirutbeltway.blogspot.com/2005/11/can-lebanon-leave-syrias-orbit-updated.html"
title="permanent link"><font color="#935781"><span style='color:#935781;
text-decoration:none'>8:55 AM</span></font></a></span></font></p>
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