From Beirut to the Beltway

The votes that didn't count... and the speech that did

Berri noted that today coincides with the 8th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal, and the end of the Nahr el Bared battle. After claiming that parliament was "never closed", citing the sacrifices those assassinated, and going over the events of the past 18th months, thanking all dignitaries and world leaders in attendance, including the Emir of Qatar and the Unites States "which seems to have come to the conclusion that Lebanon cannot be the birthplace of its Middle East project", and after a long speech,  he swore in Michel Suleiman as the republic's 12th president.

Suleiman was elected by 118 votes out of 127. One vote went to Nassib Lahoud, once one of March 14's candidates. One vote went to MP Jean Obeid.

And one vote went to "Rafik Hariri and the martyr MPs".

There were six blank votes.

Update. A good part of Suleiman's speech focused on youth, and the need to let them lead the way and build a nation they can be proud of. He also called for recognizing the rights of immigrants. He said immigrants are more deserving of citizenship than some of those who received it. He also talked about the importance of decentralization

He affirmed his commitment to the Hariri tribunal to bring the killers of Hariri and others to justice.

On the resistance: he said the occupation of Shebaa calls for a defense strategy and dialogue to make use of the resistance capacity and to make sure its accomplishments are not invested in the wrong place.

He called for diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Syria, to ensure good relations.

He said the Palestinian cause should not be used as a pretext to carry weapons, citing what happened in Nahr el Bared.

He called for a keeping a minimum of consensus to avoid the events of past weeks, when people started doubting the Lebanese army's abilities to maintain peace.

The speech was not bad. It is closer to a March 14 speech than Hizbullah, which is an encouraging sign.

The Doha accord

According to As-Safir and al-Akhbar, an agreement has been reached between March 14 and the “opposition”. It is not clear whether the agreement has the consensus of all parties involved, but it appears that Hariri, Jumblatt and Hizbullah, and the Qatari backers, have given their approval. 

According to as-Safir, Berri will call parliament into session in 48 hours to elect Suleiman. The agreement stipulates a 3-11-16 composition of the new "national unity" cabinet, with 16 going to the parliament’s majority, 11 to the "opposition" and 3 to the president. The majority will still hold the right to name the premiere, according to as-Safir, although Siniora’s chances of returning are slim, considering that he was pretty much left on the cutting room floor during the making of this episode.

The bottleneck, the electoral law, will be largely based on the 1960 law, with one exception: Beirut, which will be divided into three districts reportedly guaranteeing a chance for Hariri to win a majority of seats, and Aoun to conveniently use the Armenian vote.

Reportedly, the agreement will include a part about the use of weapons to settle political scores. The president, once elected, will call for dialogue to define the relationship between the state and the armed groups.

The prince of Qatar had to intervene personally to force the two parties, and especially the opposition, to pick a solution. According to the pro-March 14 media, the Qataris and the Arab delegation were upset with the opposition for rejecting two proposals, describing them as “non existing” at some point, and going out of their way to sabotage the talks. The opposition was then reportedly given 24 hours to “take it or leave it”.

Regardless, by the time you read this, and if the reports are true and the opposition does not shift the goal posts again, this act of the Lebanese drama will be over.

Samir Geagea, who is probably the least excited about all this, did well to remind everyone earlier tonight that Hizbullah’s weapons are the real issue, and that people like Aoun lie when they claim to defend the Christian vote. Sadly, it was Aoun whose ego the Qatar prince had to massage, not Geagea, and not the Christians of March 14, who appear to have lost again. But that's another story. Let's wait for the full details first.

Update. Suleiman will be "elected" Sunday. As to how an army commander can just waltz into this post without a constitutional amendment, it is not clear, but I am sure they'll figure it out.

Michel Aoun was interviewed by Future TV, and Saad Hariri was photographed kissing Mohamad Raad of Hizbullah.

Hizbullah has started dismantling the tents in downtown Beirut. Solidere stocks are up through the roof. Both Syria and Iran have blessed the agreement.

Speaking of Syria, note the timing of this announcement:

Syria said it was conducting indirect peace talks with Israel through Turkey, confirming an earlier announcement by the Jewish state.
   
"Syria has started indirect peace talks with Israel under Turkish auspices. Both sides have expressed their desire to conduct the talks in goodwill and decided to continue dialogue with seriousness to achieve comprehensive peace," a foreign ministry statement said.

Jumblatt's test

Walid Jumblatt has come out in support of Berri’s dialogue, in part to “test the opposition’s intentions”, and because “dialogue is the only solution”, he said.

By declaring his support for Berri, Jumblatt broke with his March 14 colleagues, many of whom are demanding the election of a president precede any “dialogue”, especially one that takes place outside the state's institutions.

With Geagea still in opposition, and Hariri on the bubble, Berri went ahead and set a date for the electoral session, encouraged by the “positive reaction” to his call. He said the dialogue would end with a declaration of intentions regarding two issues: the make up of the government, and the electoral law. He promised to convene parliament on May 13th to elect a president after the declaration is made.

It seems that everybody, including Jumblatt, know that this "dialogue" is a bad idea. It's been done before, and it led nowhere. I don’t think Jumblatt needs it to discover the intentions of his opponents. The days of the J&B love-hate parade are long gone. So what’s going on?

Berri: no president for you

Berri this time didn’t even bother setting a new date for the presidential election after canceling a session he had scheduled for today. In a press conference from the parliament building, he linked scheduling an election session to receiving a response to his “dialogue” proposal.

Berri, who still maintains that parliament is not closed (closed only to the "illegitimate government", he says), also said he prefers to set a date for the election through the ”dialog roundtable”.

The speaker, representing the Assad regime interests in the country, wants an agreement on an electoral law and the shape of the new government before allowing parliamentarians to meet for any purpose, including electing a president.

Constitutional expert and former MP Hassan Rifai weighed in on Berri's tactics.

Constitutional expert and former MP Hassan Rifai said that Speaker Nabih Berri has no right to postpone the presidential-election session.

“He has to be present in the parliament’s chamber of deputies, and if the required quorum is not available, then he can postpone the session,” Rifai told the Saudi daily Okaz.

“The way Berri has been postponing sessions from his office is a crime punishable by the Lebanese penal code. He has no right to close the parliament,” he added.

According to Rifai, the majority could call on Deputy Speaker MP Farid Makari to hold sessions outside the parliament, as long as they are held in Beirut, in order to elect a president and undertake legislative work.

“The parliament is not to be closed, and MPs have the duty to participate in legislative sessions, especially the presidential session,” Rifai said. (Now Lebanon)

Theater of the absurd

Nabih Berri came out with this gem during talks with David Welch:

ويبدو ان النقطة المتعلقة بتركيز ولش على أولوية الانتخاب وفتح المجلس ومن ثم الشروع في الحوار كانت محور المحادثات التي أجراها مع بري طوال 75 دقيقة. وعلمت "النهار" ان رئيس المجلس رد على استفسارات المسؤول الاميركي معتبراً ان "مجلس النواب مفتوح طوال ايام الاسبوع ما عدا يوم الاحد". ووصف القول بان المجلس مقفل بانه "كلام في كلام لا يعبّر عن الحقيقة والازمة التي وصل اليها اللبنانيون". وقال له: "أنا في لبنان لا أملك حق جلب النواب الى الجلسة بالقوة" (An-Nahar)

The talks centered around the priority of [presidential] elections, opening parliament and then conducting dialogue. An-Nanahr learned that the parliament speaker responded to questions by the American official by saying that "parliament is open all days of the week except Sunday".

Berri also told Welch that saying the parliament is closed "does not express the truth and the crisis the Lebanese are in," adding that "I, in Lebanon, do not have the right to summon deputies to parliament by force."

Sometimes Berri thinks he's so clever, he can lecture officials representing democracies about how democracy works, in addition to twisting facts and telling lies about how Lebanon supposedly works.

It had to be this quote. The Aoun-Murr drama and other, albeit more static events, failed to inspire this busy blogger. 

The boycott

The Saudis weren't kidding. As soon as Berri postponed the session to elect a president, and after the failure of the Egyptian efforts, Saudi Arabia announced that its representation at the Damascus summit will consist of its ambassador to the Arab League. Not even the Saudi foreign minister will be present to pass the torch to a humiliated Syrian president.

While Amr Moussa is still dreaming of Lebanese participation, the cabinet today is expected to announce that it will boycott the summit, which will be the right move and the right message to send. The only place to discuss the election should be in parliament, not Damascus. Syria's buddies have already warned that a boycott will push Damascus to "further complicate matters". And fundamentalist Fathi Yakan, whose own pro-Syrian organ saw hundreds defect and accuse him of being a Syrian tool, held Arab states responsible for "what will befell the regional Arab situation if the security situation in Lebanon explodes".

Berri's 17th postponement, an illegal move by the man who stole the keys to parliament, was coupled with another illegal proposal—holding a dialogue outside the state's institutions. Berri delivered his "ideas" during an interview with anti-government station New TV before the Saudi announcement. One hopes that March 14 does not cave in this time, having discovered time and time again that Berri's dialogue sessions are but time-buying measures and maneuvers to take pressure off the Assad regime, and spread false hopes.   

Something else happened yesterday. A sweaty Nasrallah delivered a speech during which he played down the possibility of another war with Israel. Although he vowed to exact revenge on those who killed Mughnieh, and eventually destroy Israel, he said he would continue to negotiate with his enemy for the sake of the detainees. So much for open war.

All must not be well with Nasrallah and his buddies. Underneath his words of defiance was an acknowledgment that the "opposition" is falling apart, or that it really was never more than a front for an increasingly insecure Iranian party, and a Syrian tool. At some point, Nasrallah must have realized that he cannot survive Arab pressure and overplayed Syrian tactics, which consist of playing different people against the government, even if the approaches contradict and lead to implosion. Nasrallah's call for a unified platform is an indication that all is not well in the pro-Syrian camp, which saw itself being pushed into Bashar's limbo land. That the Arab states aren't even bothering with going through the opposition anymore further marginalizes them, making them appear like the puppets they have always been.

March 14 puts war on the table

In one of his most aggressive speeches since the civil war, Walid Jumblatt said March 14 will go to war against Hizbullah if that’s what the militia wants. “Our existence, dignity and Lebanon are more important than anything else. You want disorder, so be it.”, he said, addressing Hizbullah and the forces he said are trying to bring back Syrian hegemony. ”You want war, so be it. We have no problem with weapons, no problem with missiles. We will take your ready-to-use missiles. We have no problem with martyrdom and suicide.”

واذا كنتم تظنون اننا سنقف مكتوفي الايدي فهذا امر من الخيال قد نضطر لحرق الاخضر واليابس، وجودنا وكرامتنا وبقاؤنا ولبنان اهم من كل شيء. تريدون الفوضى اهلا وسهلا بالفوضى. تريدون الحرب فاهلا وسهلا بالحرب. لا مشكل بالسلاح، ولا مشكل بالصواريخ، ناخذ الصواريخ منكم جاهزة. ولا مشكل بالاستشهاد والانتحار، كفانا اغتيال وكفانا تخوين وكفانا تحقير، لا يا سيد ليس هذا من مقامك ان تطل علينا في كل لحظة بهذا الكلام البذيء، اترك الغير، الحائط وغير الحائط (...) من امثال الموسوي وغير الموسوي. كفانا حرب مفتوحة مع اسرائيل تحت شعارات زائفة خدمة لطموحات النظام السوري والامبراطورية الايرانية. كفانا مربعات امنية، كفانا رفضكم للعدالة. مفضوح رفضكم للعدالة".

Jumblatt also rejected Hizbullah’s “open war” against Israel under “fake slogans that serve the Syrian regime and the Iranian empire”.

Jumblatt’s speech is a departure from the Politics of Job that have plagued the March 14 movement since its birth in 2005. At the risk of reading too much into Jumblatt’s statement, there appears to be a growing belief that the crisis will not be resolved peacefully. Last week, Hariri declared that the movement is ready for “confrontation” with Iran, Syria and their allies if “dragged” into one.

Hariri and Jumblatt have been rallying their supporters to take part in a anti-Syrian demonstration in downtown Beirut on February 14th to commemorate the third anniversary of the Hariri assassination. Hariri has just announced that he will be donate some $52 million dollars to develop Tripoli, in an apparent bid to keep his large Sunni base in that city happy, and boost the number of participants.

On Saturday Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa left Lebanon after failing to broker a settlement allowing the election of Michel Suleiman as president. Michel Aoun, who renewed his vows with Hassan Nasrallah last Wednesday on national television, refused to budge on the demand for veto power in the next government.  Nasrallah’s Christian cover reportedly bragged about the “opposition”'s ability for obstruction from outside the government, suggesting that the parliament majority should not be afraid to give them veto power inside the government, given their power to bring the country to a halt without being in the government. An-Nahar reported inconsistencies between Berri and Aoun. The former had proposed a 10-10-10 power sharing formula for the post-election cabinet, something that Aoun said he wasn’t aware of. When asked about the inconsistency, Aoun reportedly left his meeting with Moussa, Hariri and Gemayel to make a phone call. He returned with “yes, but only if there is prior agreement on the identity of the next prime minister and top security officials”.

With Aoun reducing himself into a Hizbullah tool, and the patriarch calling on the international community to intervene, March 14 finds itself before an opportunity to be more aggressive. They probably have all the international support they could ask for to embark on an aggressive approach. The Saudis have finally agreed to fund the Hariri tribunal, and have grown exasperated with the Assad regime after the sabotage of the Arab initiative. Even Sarkozy, who had tried what Barack Obama is now preaching, is calling for a unified European voice against the Assad regime’s obstruction of the Lebanese presidential election.  And now, Jumblatt and Hariri are, for the first time perhaps, putting a military conflict on the table.

There are those who could argue that another civil war is inevitable. Nothing else will stop the Hizbullah machine and the Assad regime agents. In their response to Jumblatt, Hizbullah described his statement as an “ant threatening a lion”. I highly doubt that Hizbullah’s opponents can be easily crushed, as the Hizbullah official seems to think. Hizbullah might have a temporary advantage should a war break out tomorrow, but it stands to lose a lot in the long run.

Regardless of what will happen, it’s about time someone on the March 14 side showed some muscle.   

When time is not on your side

The Assad regime is not ready for the Lebanese presidential election. Period. It needs more time to kill more politicians and security officials. Any serious presidential candidate is to be eliminated immediately, either through character assassination or by targeting his support network.

That's the official position in Damascus, the capital of Arab culture, which Fairuz celebrated last week. The search is now for another time-buying tactic to relieve Damascus of any Arab or international pressure.

It's not like it hasn't been working. We've watched the world's top suits play the Assad game only to find themselves back in square one after each round. How much time is the world planning on giving the Assad regime?  Don't ask me.  It's getting really, really hard to repeat myself.

The latest Syrian time-buying proposal was delivered by Qatar to Nicolas Sarkozy. According to al-Hayat, Damascus offered to pressure its allies to abandon the demand for a blocking vote if Suleiman's candidacy was taken off the table. Right.

Poor Suleiman. He had to tell his visitors that he never really announced his candidacy, which is true: others did it for him, and he thought he could pull the independent candidate act and not alienate his former Syrian master. Tonight, he will watch his former friend Hassan Nasrallah, and his Christian cover Michel Aoun on television making Suleiman's candidacy obsolete by burying the Arab League and their "Syrian-backed" initiative.

Some in March 14 are probably asking, what have we gained by not electing a president through a simple majority when we could have, and by agreeing to sell time to the Assad regime? We lost colleagues, two of the country's top watchmen, and we're about to lose our army to a militia and a crazy former general.

Nothing is sacred for this "opposition". Everything is fair game for the Assad regime. The more you wait, the more you will lose. Bullies aren't punished by letting them do what they want and by watching them destroy your house brick by brick while you read the book of Job.

But you know, we will show them on Valentine's day, when the people of the revolution will descend on Martyrs' square to commemorate the assassination of… who was it again?

Right. Time does that. Makes you forget. Yep.

One dead Shia at your service

General Suleiman's investigation into the murder of Shia youths on Sunday is being made to appear as pivotal for his presidential aspirations. Pro-Syrian rags warned that the "opposition" will wait for the results of the investigation before deciding on whether it will support his candidacy.

Meanwhile, the pro-opposition al-Akhbar newspaper said Hizbullah and Amal movement were waiting for the results of the investigation into Sunday's riots before announcing their stance regarding their support for consensus presidential candidate army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman. The paper said Hizbullah and Amal would convey their stand to Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who is expected to return to Beirut soon to resume efforts to implement an Arab plan aimed at ending the prolonged political crisis. (Naharnet)

So Suleiman will be scurrying about, trying to find the snipers who shot the agitated youth under his army's watch. And he'd better do a damn good job, because if he doesn't, he will be held accountable by Allah's watchmen and the friends of the dark lord next door.

What a farce.  Suleiman lost the presidency the second March 14 announced its support for him. We have been reading media reports about the Syrian loss of faith in him for weeks now. His "election", what should have been a simple procedure, was turned into a complex equation that kept the French and the Arab League busy for months.

And it's not like this is about his election. As Tony reminded us, it is all about the Hariri tribunal.

The Kuwaiti al-Qabas ran a report today quoting Arab ministerial sources on the "difficult" Arab FM meeting that was held in Cairo on the 27th.

The report carried quite the interesting nugget regarding the gigantic elephant in the room -- the tribunal. Amr Moussa reportedly said, according to the same Arab ministerial sources, that he "found that the Syrian president had a different agenda than that of his allies in Lebanon. For he, i.e. Assad, gave absolute priority to amending the international tribunal, and to its fate, and didn't care about the presidential void or the formation of a Lebanese cabinet."

While we all waste our brain cells trying to absorb the presidential election drama, more Shias are being used as target practice. Hizbullah, which farmed them and brainwashed them into believing the state is pure evil, and that the prime minister is "Allah's enemy", now has good reason to set them against yet another state institution, the army. What's a few Shias killed in the name of the great design to carve a state within a state? Today they look like a sacrifice for the Assad regime, tomorrow they will be the pillars of a new nation.

Something is cooking or same old failure?

Amr Moussa was last seen flying his Damascus woven carpet, looking for that magical solution to end Lebanon’s woes. “Moussa is trying to invent new idea to repair internal Lebanese relations”, headlined al-Hayat. Moussa’s mission was made impossible last week by Syria’s allies in the country, with their varying and contradictory formulas for the future government’s makeup. The Arab League secretary-general, who boasted of Syrian cooperation, found himself trying to reason with the Lebanese political equivalent of a never-ending soap opera: a bratty and self-obsessed bunch of power hungry maniacs who sold their country for a handful of weapons and illusions of grandeur.

Moussa’s magical solution so far seems to consist of dialogue revival. According to al-Hayat, Nabih Berri (who, surprise surprise, came up with the idea) had the audacity to tell Moussa that his presence was not enough to relaunch “dialogue”. Berri wants Arab foreign ministers, including Syria’s, to come to Beirut or else “inter Lebanese dialogue is absolutely impossible”. In other words, bring Syria back through the Arab league and give it the role of referee in its own game. The speaker, who like Hizbullah, was marketing a formula of 10-10-10 for the post-election cabinet, is also saying that dialogue is not possible without a meeting between Hariri and Aoun to precede a wider dialogue. Berri was quoted by al-Hayat as saying that such a meeting, even if unsuccessful, will force March 14 to acknowledge Aoun’s alleged political weight in the Christian street.

Mind you Aoun has his own conditions for dialogue, and formula for the cabinet, which is at odds with his allies’. He wants Suleiman Franhjieh to attend, and 11 ministers for the opposition. Meanwhile Hizbullah wants former prime minister Omar Karami to be included in the talks. 

This absurd situation yet again shows the world that Syrian regime has delegated obstruction to its allies. Moussa, by seeking to revive dialogue, has subscribed to the Syrian notion that it’s an internal Lebanese matter. Even Mubarak, who is supposedly pressuring the Assad regime, warned that Arabs will wash their hands of Lebanon if the Arab plan is not implemented. Mubarak made no similar public threats to the Assad regime following their terrorist attacks on Lebanon.

This begs the question, how do you implement a plan that calls for an immediate election of the president by engaging in time buying in the form of dialogue revival?

I may not be privy to what’s happening behind closed doors, and to the so called “pressure” that Arab leaders are allegedly putting on the Assad regime. But it does seem like this Arab effort to elect a Lebanese president is quickly turning into another exercise in futility. When Mubarak and his other friends don’t have the balls to name the real obstructionists, we can rest assured that they will do nothing useful.