Saturday, December 02, 2006

What do you want? I am not sure. When do you want it? I don't know. Some time later. The opposition movement in Lebanon has the most bland agenda: they think that Sanyurah has collaborated with the Israeli occupation--but they don't say that officially--and yet they want the same Sanyurah to expand the cabinet to include `Awn's forces. So the chants against Sanyurah will be irrelevant because Hizbullah is still willing to enter a cabinet under his leadership. They talk about "corruption" but they don't say how they will clean it up. They remain willing to enter into a larger cabinet that includes the same corrupt and unsavory characters, and the Amal Movement is a symbol of corruption in Lebanon, just like Jumblat and his cronies. The opposition does not include in their demands any accountability for the behavior of the Sanyurah government during the war, and for the sins of delayed reconstruction. Hizbullah, bizarrely, refuses to even notice that Saudi Arabia and the Arab governments are openly siding with Hariri Inc. And--more bizarrely--Al-Akhbar newspaper still carries the bland statements by the Saudi ambassador on its first page daily--not to mention the fawning praise for Saudi Arabia in every Lebanese newspapers. New TV is the only exception, to its credit, but the connection with Qatar makes it easier. But the March 14th Movement has very limited options: what can they do? They can't cash the daily dosage of US rhetoric about "the free and democratic government" of Lebanon. I heard that talk before about the government of right-wing gangs and death squads headed by Amin Gemayyel in 1983. Back then: France, US and Saudi Arabia also supported it. We know the rest of the story and the consequences of US support for Gemayyel. Do you remember when Gemayyel threatened to bomb Damascus when he was on a visit to DC back in 1983? Only a few months later he was begging to visit Syria. Do you know that no president visited Syria more than Gemayyel? More even than Lahhud. But nobody has visited Damascus and prostrated himself before the unsavory characters of the tyrannical Syrian regime more than Rafiq Hariri. I am amused when I read in the western press references to him as "anti-Syrian". Do you know that in the last interview he gave (a day before his assassination)--to As-Safir--he praised the Syrian regime and attacked Amin Gemayyel (without naming him) and said that he would not even allow him to visit Quraytim (his headquarters)? So the opposition will declare victory if the same Sanyurah agrees to expand the government, while remaining as prime minister. OK.