Thanks to the patronage of the Syrians and the political aspirations of the Mullah-bucks, Hezbollah only needed to survive the Israeli onslaught in order to be in a position to co-op the Lebanese government and take charge of Lebanon in the post-war devastation/aftermath.
I referred to Hezbollah as the Iranian Foreign Legion at the time. No one paid much attention to my ideas or theories at the time, and of those who did; many thought it was an extremist view with very little hope of ever being considered a realistic interpretation of events. It’s absolutely amazing to look at current events in light of my analysis.
Hizbullah and Amal cabinet ministers resigned from the Lebanese government on Saturday, Hizbullah's al-Manar TV Station said. However, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora announced Saturday that he refused to accept the resignation of ministers. The resignation of five Cabinet ministers from Amal and Hizbullah throws Lebanon's political landscape in chaos, though it does not automatically bring down the government.I don’t remember which of the Lebanese bloggers I reading last summer who wrote this little piece of gallows humor; “It’s official. Hezbollah is Lebanon and the rest of us are just tourists.” But he summed it aptly enough.
But by quitting, the five Shiite Muslim cabinet ministers remove the political cover from the country's main sect and would make it difficult for Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to govern. More than eight Cabinet ministers would need to resign before the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is considered dissolved.
Nonetheless, it would also be extremely difficult for Siniora to appoint new Shiite ministers in the Cabinet -which has to be half-Muslim, half-Christian- because an overwhelming majority of the Shiite legislators in Parliament belong to Amal or Hizbullah.
Al-Manar said the ministers from the Hizbullah guerrilla and allied Shiite Muslim Amal party stated they were resigning because all-party talks have fallen through and the government was trying to impose conditions for negotiation on a new government.
2 comments:
Doesn't shock me. You always seem to be ahead of the game on this stuff.
If I want info, or to understand something, I come here.
Canadi-anna, you flatter me, my head grows big, I must go wake up one of the children for the swelling to subsize.
Steve, you bring up an interesting point. Our media is operating on an old paradigm wherein civilian populations were thought to be hapless victims of the dogs of war rather than enablers and reports it as such. Reporters seem to have little understanding of insurgent dynamics and what is necessary for insurgent militias to flourish. I see that happening in reporting from the Gaza Strip all the time. Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad has the overwhelming support of the alleged moderate civilians.
The reality is that South Lebanon is run by Hezbollah who has had 20 years to consolidate their position. For insurgent militias to operate effectively it needs at the least the tactile consent of the local population. To say that one has little choice is to belie reality. Even with the Syrians running the show there was nothing to stop one from selling the family homestead and move to the north or Beirut.
Surely, 20 years is sufficient planning time to get out of Dodge? The only exception to that would be the families of SLA members who were in fact held hostage by Hezbollah but I saw no reports from Reuters or AP reporting on the small number of Christian Lebanese who used the opportunity of the conflict to cross over into Israel to seek asylum and be reunited with their families in Israel.
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