Thursday, January 25, 2007

Protests in Lebanon

The Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora is in Paris while there are severe protests in his country calling for the resignation of the government. Rule number 1 of Politics: Always be there. It reminded me of what happened to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand a few months ago and part of me is thinking that Siniora may not come back to Lebanon as Prime Minister. As for Hezbullah, it looks like this is the crunch point. There is no turning back now and now way other than forward. I think with hindsight one can see how they quietly let Resolution 1701 pass. At the time I thought this might be because they had just finished a war(and Israel's military superiority) but my delusion is that this has been in the pipelines since. 1701 was a sword of Damocles that would have eventually castrated Hezbullah and firmly placed Lebanon in the "moderate" Axis of American led countries in the region. If the opposition stands firm and succeeds in forcing the resignation of the the Siniora government or at least gains the concessions it is demanding, Lebanon will be safely outside the Israeli/American sphere of influence. Till then, things appear to be balanced on a knife edge.

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