Lebanon Crisis: January 24, 2011

Hizbollah said they wanted a national unity government.  And Druze leader Walid Jumblatt decided to support Hizbollah and their allies.  He also referred to Hizbollah as the "resistance."

So the new Prime Minister, courtesy of Hizbollah, will probably be Najib Mikati, a billionaire, and former PM.  And the Sunnis are really upset.  Mikati has said he'll try to be a unity figure, but the Sunni's aren't buying it.  They're calling this "Hezbollah's coup" (as quoted in the article).

Mikati's web site.

Lebanon on the Brink?: Update II

A possibly damaging tape has come to light.  It's from 2005 or 2006, and it's Saad Hariri talking with a man who was later discredited as a false witness, Muhammad Zuhair Siddiq.  As the post I've linked to points out, Hariri is not doing anything wrong on the tape.  He is listening to the witness, whom he appears to believe, and this is before the witness was discredited.  But considering the timing, it could be damaging.  Hizbollah timed their parliament resignation for Hariri's US visit, and now this tape comes out just before a new prime minister is in the works.  We'll have to see how Hariri resonds.

Lebanon on the Brink?: Update I

The President of Lebanon will start talking with the different factions on Monday, to try and find a new prime minister.  Hizbollah, of course, wants the new guy to be one of their allies.  They're claiming that their faction (called March 8) has a majority in parliament.  And since Israel is on the southern border of Lebanon, the Israelis are on alert (or not) in case things turn violent, although Hizbollah leader Nasrallah says it won't.  Everyone is concerned about what's going to happen next.  Even the Lebanese stock market fell.  Let's hope that Nasrallah is sincere, and that this fight stays strictly political.

Lebanon on the Brink?

Hizbollah has left the Lebanese government.  Eleven members left the 30-minister government, just enough to bring it down and force a new one to be created.  The UN's Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has been looking into the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri for a while now, and is expected to hand down indictments soon - specifically, indictments involving Hizbollah.  Saudi Arabia and Syria have been trying to keep the government together ahead of these indictments, but it looks like that's over now.  Hizbollah is blaming that on the US, while they also try to thwart the STL.

At the moment, things do not look good in Lebanon.  Once the expected indictments come out, Hizbollah and its allies are not going to be happy.  The current situation arose when a power-sharing agreement was reached in November of 2009.  But as Hizbollah was implicated in the Hariri assassination, things began to go downhill.  Let's hope the situation doesn't disintegrate into violence.


More from the BBC.

Hariri

In 2005, the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated. The Syrians were originally blamed for it, but now Hizbollah is saying it was the Israelis. Hizbollah claims to have evidence and will turn it over to the Lebanese authorities.

Who is really to blame? At this point, it's anyone's guess. Syria is still a strong contender, and last year a German paper suggested Hizbollah was involved (see the last link above). We may never know for certain.