Military option [in Lebanon] is not an option

If Hizballah refuses to disarm, or to incorporate their fighters into the army, there is nothing that can be achieved by force. Unless the international community sends troops there, and even in this case, what can they do? Take the houses one by one? How do you fight loyalty to a cause? To an ideology? With arms? I don't think so. The military option is not a real option.

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Why is Israel helping Hizbullah

Michael Young wrote yet another good op-ed on Hizbullah, and I'd like to point out few ideas:

There is the project of the state, which Suleiman and the parliamentary majority embody, assuming the president abides by his public statements; and there is the project of a non-state, supported by Hizbullah and its allies.

If that wasn't plain enough, then consider what happened on Monday night, after Suleiman had spent his first day at the Baabda Palace. Hizbullah and Amal partisans, as has become their habit lately, fired in the air to celebrate Nasrallah's speech, then took to the streets and began firing at their political adversaries. In the Bekaa Valley, very much of the same thing happened. There was a message there, perhaps more a Syrian one than an Iranian one this time around, and it was that the new president should not imagine he will be able to build up a state against Hizbullah."

Did the crisis end?

After 18 months of political drama and so called civil-disobedience - a politically correct term for saying that an armed group bullied the people while sending a message to the feudal and warlord leaders: 'mess with us and you're finished' - Lebanese leaders kiss and move on. If the former is custom, I have serious doubts about the latter.

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Hizbullah's temporary triumph

All pictures in this entry were sent to me by friends and colleagues in Beirut. A.M.

As I start to write this post, a friend wrote to say that,

The fighting has spread throughout the country. In Tripoli and Akkar in the north, Sunnis are fighting and killing Alawites and vice versa. Hizbullah and the Druze PSP have been settling scores in the Chouf Mountains just east of Beirut, including heavy shelling. Muslim-on-Muslim, Sunni-Shi'ia violence has broken out in the ancient cities of Sidon and Tyre in the south and the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border. The way it looks now, things will be getting a lot worse before they get any better; the dieing continues. To date, the minority Christian population and the Palestinians have managed to stay out of the fighting. However, with would-be president General Michel Aoun gloating on TV yesterday about the successful siege of Beirut having "put the cart back on the right track" and that we can now return to business as usual, it seems to be only a matter of time before his predominantly Maronite Free Patriotic Movement starts taking some flack from the utterly humiliated Sunni and Druze population."

In these past few days I've spoken to many people in Lebanon . The division could not be clearer. Some were glad that Hizbullah and Amal took the streets. Well, they were glad that the above-mentioned private armed forces took, and I quote, "Hariri's gang down", "cleared the streets of PSP and Future Movement thugs", and that Hizbullah protects the country against conspirators that want to transform it into a second Iraq. Oh boy!

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Hizbullah vs the State

Is this the beginning of the end for Hizbullah?

It may very well be so that if the army splits and the clashes go beyond Beirut. While Hizbullah threatens the government, a group of Lebanese lobbyists are in the United States asking the UN to place Lebanon under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. If and when that happens, Hizbullah will be buried, but it may take Lebanon with it too.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani warned against the consequences of the strike that developed into a riot, on Wednesday in a live address to the Lebanese people.

"We thought Hizbullah was concerned with resisting Israeli occupation, and yet it (Hizbullah) has begun to occupy Beirut," Qabbani said. "What happened today was an attack on homeland security and on the security of the Lebanese people in Beirut and other areas ravaged by the occupiers." "We look to the Arab world to tell them that Lebanon is being subjected to the domination of the party with external support, under the pretext of resistance," he continued.

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Why not neutrality?

I don't care that Syria doesn't want it, or the Palestinians, Iran, the US or the Saudis. To heck with them all! Why can't the Lebanese stand up and say, 'we have had enough of all your plots and we refuse to be used as tools. Is it better to have the ongoing dialogue of the deaf?

If and when that happens, it will be the start of Lebanon's rejuvenation. The idea in itself is not revolutionary. If anything, it is common sense. That is what is lacking in Lebanon's political leadership. From Amal to Hizbullah, to the Lebanese Forces, to Jumblatt's PSP, to Kataeb, communists, leftists, Sunni extremists - all blame the other (s) for asking and following orders from outside.

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Hizbullah makes history

Hizbullah makes history - that is the claim of  Nawaf Moussawi, the party's public relations officer. I'd say that Hizballah is on the verge of burning down the house. The downside is that the party itself will also be trapped between the walls.

UNIFIL admitted publicly that Hizbullah continues to smuggle weapons and armament south of the Litani. That in itself is not news, because Hizbullah never stopped doing it.  

I went to the Blue Line, and truth be told, UNIFIL or no UNIFIL around, that is a Hizbullah area. Period. Due to UNIFIL's presence Hizbullah is more careful, but UNIFIL alone cannot do a thing against Hizbullah, and the state through the army is not willing to take actions.

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Losing the cause

Do not isolate the Shias because of Hizbullah. Not all support the party and many would stop supporting the party given a chance to do so. I have actively advocated this idea for a long time now, and I am glad to see this is the message Walid Jumblatt sent in one of his recent editorials for Al Anbaa.

Hizballah will always have a core of passionate supporters. However, I have seen no serious attempt to work with those who feel compelled (for financial reasons) to follow Hizbullah and take them away from the party.

An important development, if true, is the revelation of the Syrian Al-Hakika daily that Mugniyeh's body has been taken out of Damascus at the direct request of Sheikh Nasrallah, before the Syrian investigation into the assassination.

More than Hizbullah

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Michel Pharaon of the March 14 block said recently that "it is in our interest to have the international community protecting Lebanon pending regaining its sovereignty." (Naharnet) I've heard this idea before. Just not from someone who holds an official political position. We have bits and pieces in the media, but these people do not speak on their own. This is how an idea gets out on the market. This is one of the best methods to measure the masses' reaction.

What exactly does it mean? Perhaps to put Lebanon under Chapter 7 of the UNSC or bring NATO troops into Lebanon. I personally do not see how either can happen under these circumstances. Not to mention that Lebanon is not Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo.

I'd say that those who push this idea see it as the only option to disarm Hizbullah, bring the country to a functioning condition and restore the rights of the Christians.

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The presidential 'consensual candidate'

Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian Vice President, who lives in France claims that President Assad put his brother in law, Maj General Assef Shawkat, head of the military intelligence, under house arrest. Apparently, Shawkat was on the Bashar Assad's black list since 2005 - the same year that Rafiq Hariri was killed. More recently, Mugniyeh was assassinated and it seems impossible to believe that it was done without some help from the Syrians. Now Khaddam claims that the "Syrian regime had attempted to assassinate Mugniyeh through Gen Ali Mamlouk, head of Syria's General Intelligence Department, who was personally tasked with this mission."

Daniel Bellemare, head of the UN probe into the assassination of former Premier Rafiq Hariri will brief the Security Council on April 8. Thus far he's said very little about his work and spoke of a network that carried out the assassination and is likely to be involved in other assassinations. I particularly liked what Prof. Chibli Mallat -a human rights lawyer, Islamic law scholar and presidential candidate - has said about the investigation.