Lebanon Surrenders

[Smurf-Herder]

Looks like Syria and Iran pretty much control Lebanon from the inside now.

Lebanon agreement shifts power to Hezbollah

"BEIRUT, Lebanon: An agreement reached by Lebanese political factions early Wednesday amounted to a significant shift of power in favor of the militant Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies in the opposition, who won the power to veto any cabinet decision.

The sweeping deal to form a new government promised an end to 18 months of crippling political deadlock here, and underscored the rising power of Iran and Syria, which have backed Hezbollah in a proxy battle against the governing coalition and its American and Saudi allies.

Government leaders said they had given way on crucial provisions because they felt the alternative to an agreement was war. They also said they had won a pledge that no faction would use its weapons internally, as Hezbollah and its allies did during street battles earlier this month in the worst internal fighting since Lebanon's 15-year civil war.

"We avoided civil war," said Walid Jumblatt, a key leader of the governing coalition. He added that the agreement calls for a future dialogue on weapons, a clause that he and other government leaders hope will eventually allow them to raise the controversial issue of Hezbollah's arsenal.

The agreement was brokered by Arab mediators in Doha, Qatar, and involved intensive last-minute diplomacy among all the major regional players in Lebanon, including Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Before the agreement, an Iranian adviser assured Saudi officials that Iran did not want a confrontation with Arab nations, said an adviser to the Saudi government, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. Iran agreed to use its influence to prevent Hezbollah from entering Sunni Muslim areas of Lebanon, as it did during the clashes two weeks ago, the adviser said."

2 page article (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/21/africa/22lebanon.php)

[Bill]

This is pretty much what I thought hezbollah was working for.

I would call this a direct result of the failure in Iraq.

Score another big win for Bush and Rice.

[Bill]

Did you read war nerd on hezbo and the shia revolution?

Good stuff, as usual.

Probably not so palatable to you tho.

http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=19027&IBLOCK_ID=35

From Lebanon To Iraq: We’re In Deep Shia Now
By Gary Brecher
FRESNO, CA — OK, we’ve just gone through a really exciting time in world military moves, so let’s test your strategic IQ. What’s the relation between these three recent developments:

1. On May 9, Hezbollah took over West Beirut against feeble resistance.

2. The Iraqi Army, such as it is, is now moving into Mosul in a major anti-al Qaeda operation.

3. At the end of March, the Iraqi Army attacked Sadr strongholds in Basra and East Baghdad, and got its ass kicked.

If you want some clues, you can read my account of event #3 in detail from my April 2nd column:

http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=18297&IBLOCK_ID=35

The other clue that might help is that Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq is totally based on Nasrallah’s Lebanese Hezbollah, so—to kinda give it away a little—in just over a month’s time, you’ve got two Shia militias stomping the better-armed and -funded old-style powers in Arab countries a thousand miles apart. Kind of a trend.

Item #2, the move on Mosul, is the trick question here, because there are no Shia to speak of up there; the Iraqi Army is moving against Al Qaeda in Iraq up there. What’s the connection?




not his best article, but still good.

Like I said, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s part of a pattern that isn’t supposed to be happening all across the Middle East: the Shia militias are kicking serious ass. In the past few weeks we’ve seen weirdly identical moves by weak central governments in Iraq and Lebanon to push back against Shia militias: in Iraq, al-Maliki’s government, acting as a front for al-Hakimi and the Badr Brigades, tried to "assert itself" against Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra and in Sadr City; and now the weak interfaith committee trying to run Lebanon moved against Hezbollah, firing their security chief at the airport and cracking down on Hezbollah’s private communication network, which apparently has 100,000 private telephone lines running.

Nasrallah, the mullah who runs Hezbollah, called that crackdown a "declaration of war" against his boys and sent them out onto the streets of West Beirut, where the rich Sunni Muslims live.

Militarily, it was over pretty fast. There’s no armed Sunni group in Lebanon that can stand against Hezbollah. The BBC is now calling Hezbollah "by far the strongest force in Lebanon," which may seem pretty obvious now but is a huge surprise to all the so-called experts. You see, the Shia aren’t supposed to count at all in Lebanon. The Lebanese constitution lays down that the President has to be a Maronite Christian, because they were the big players in 1943 when the thing was written. The Prime Minister has to be a Sunni Muslim, because they were next. Nobody else counted for much, except maybe the Druze. But the Shia weren’t consulted at all, because they were nothing—a bunch of hicks down in the southern and eastern boonies.

[semperfi]

What connects Lebanon and Iraq is not the Shia religion as but a political system (imposed from outside) that separates its citizens by their ethnicity and/or religion. The French did it to Lebanon- they realised that they couldn't control a united Lebanon, so they designed a constitution that legalises ethnic division.

After the USA occupied Iraq, and after they realised that Iraq wasn't just going to turn into a free market democratic paradise overnight, they set about creating a government that would be permanently hobbled by political rivalries between competing henchmen that are conflated into sectarian wars.

By ensuring that the Shia are fighting the Sunni, and the Arabs are fighting the Kurds, there can be no united front against the Americans. Thus, the Americans get to stay in Iraq for as long as there's a sectarian war. A war which, thanks to the US-gifted constitution, should go on forever if all goes according to plan...

[Bill]

I'm going to disgree about the influence of the growing shia powers.

But the rest sounds about right.

[Smurf-Herder]

What you should be thinking about is, how will Lebanon be used strategically, by Iran and Syria.

Hezbollah can basically bring anything they want into the country. They've already held UNIFIL troops at gunpoint, who had tried to confiscate a truckload of rockets coming across the Syrian border.

Now that Hezbollah has control, what will they do with it?

Phase 1 complete .......... ?

[Bill]

Technically, your side should have thought about that before they invaded Iraq.

This type of destabilization was predicted by nearly all of the independent (read - not bought and paid for by the bushes and republicans and defense industries) experts I was reading at the time of the build up to the invasion.

It's going to get far worse. We've literally GIVEN Iraq to Iran, and there isn't a thing we can do about their eventual takeover of the western middle east.

We've created a shia empire, almost singlehandledly in the last 30 years, and brought it into full power in the last five.

This is just the beginning.

But mong away, it's quite entertaining.

I just wish your side would stop with the girly yakkity yak and actually do something.

[Smurf-Herder]

Technically, your side should have thought about that before they invaded Iraq.

This type of destabilization was predicted by nearly all of the independent (read - not bought and paid for by the bushes and republicans and defense industries) experts I was reading at the time of the build up to the invasion.

It's going to get far worse. We've literally GIVEN Iraq to Iran, and there isn't a thing we can do about their eventual takeover of the western middle east.

We've created a shia empire, almost singlehandledly in the last 30 years, and brought it into full power in the last five.

This is just the beginning.

But mong away, it's quite entertaining.

I just wish your side would stop with the girly yakkity yak and actually do something.


the "girly yakkity yak"?

All I ever hear from your side is the cranky old lady bitching, or the psycho-flamers.

We are doing something. You guys just don't like it. And you'll never blame Iran for their own actions - only your political adversaries.

[Moby]

We can blame Iran all we want but they're getting what they want.

OK. Iran is bad.

Now what? They have oil. They have power. They have the Iraqi President. They have more money then they ever dreamed.

So now that I blamed them. What do we do now?

[asroc]

smurf, you're confusing "whining" with "bothered to think more than one move ahead"

[Smurf-Herder]

We can blame Iran all we want but they're getting what they want.

OK. Iran is bad.

Now what? They have oil. They have power. They have the Iraqi President. They have more money then they ever dreamed.

So now that I blamed them. What do we do now?

Are they getting what they want? All or part?

I really believe Maliki wants an Iraq that is not a puppet of Iran; but can coexist. Or why would he have been fighting the shia that were more directly supported by Iran? That was certainly not Iran's decision for him to do that.

Eventually, we're working towards a blockade, in some way.


I have this feeling though that we may not get that far, before Israel decides it's window is closing.

[Moby]

Maliki spent a good portion of his life in Iran and had strong affiliation with them. Right now he's bank rolled by the USA and has to do our bidding or we'll simply replace him. Any leader in Iraq can be replaced in a matter of months.

I guess time will tell. I always thought that putting leaders with strong ties to Iran was a terrible idea and since the war has gone on 10 times longer then expected and there's no end in site I could be right.

[Bill]

We are doing something.

So strap on a pair and attack already.

But you won't - you'll just wring your hands and make pretty noises.

[Smurf-Herder]

So strap on a pair and attack already.

But you won't - you'll just wring your hands and make pretty noises.

This isn't just black and white, Bill.

I'm appauled at the logic of looking at all this so simplistically.