Adonis Diaries

Bi-Weekly Report (#21) on the Middle East and Lebanon (May 9, 2009)

The US Administration keeps flopping between the policy of a peace treaty (Israel/ Syria) first, or a Palestinian homeland in the Near East. 

So far, the US Administration has changed priority more than once in a single month and the US delegates are cruising the regions for a hint and a suggestion while carrying all kinds of tentative projects. 

The energumen Israeli foreign affairs minister, investigated for criminal activities by the Israeli police, is visiting a few European States to confirm his opposition for a Palestinian State. 

Thus, the US is pleasuring Israel by shifting its priority to (Israel/Syria) peace treaty first.

Anyone of these projects to take off there need to satisfy conditions of a few powerful regional powers.  This is no longer a State to State treaty but a regional status of dignity that no usurper is to enjoy advantages by military forces.

For Syria there are Iran and Turkey that should cooperate fully and sign their agreements. 

Iran would First pressure the US, to handle the nuclear arm policy equitably, since Israel owns one too many nuclear arms; since the sixties’, and Second, that the treaty preserves unconditionally the sovereignty of Syria in the Golan Heights.

Turkey would insists that France drops her veto to a potential attachment of Turkey to the European Union. Otherwise, why Turkey would go at such length and effort to get re-immersed in regional quagmires?  (It is Not probable that Turkey would desist from expanding its political strategy, even if promised integrated to EU)

The other condition of Turkey is that Muslim Syria is not pressured into “losing face” and thus, exacerbates the sense of humiliation and desperation that the Arab World has been subjugated to for centuries.

One policy that the US Administration has decided on and is executing with the support of the Pakistani army and government is to defeating the military power of the Taliban style ideology in northern Pakistan. 

Pakistan is the main source of instability in order to re-arrange the Greater Middle East stability. 

I hope that the Barack Administration has already extended its military policy in Pakistan into including the social and economic stability and viability of the Pakistani State.  Pakistan is worth heavy investment in money and time until the Taliban (Wahhabi sect) ideology prevalent in Saudi Kingdom is contained and controlled.

For the Palestinian homestate to take off there are Egypt and Saudi Kingdom to be satisfied, assuming that Syria has signed a peace treaty with Israel (Not a chance in the foreseeable future). 

Egypt would First insist that its enjoys the status of the most preferred nation in Gaza, kind of practical mandate if not diplomatically; and

Second, that Israel relinquishes any kinds of controls in the Palestinian State that Egypt might be denied, and

Third, (during the Mubarak dictatorship) that Hamas is not to be the most powerful faction in the Palestinian government and Parliament: Mubarak understands that the “Muslim Brotherhood” party in Egypt has more legitimacy among the population than his regime.

Saudi Kingdom would insists that the clerics to the Mosques that it invested in building or maintaining in Palestine be hired by the Wahhabi sect and answering directly to the “fatwas” emanating from the Capital Riad.

The President of Lebanon, Michel Suleiman, has declared yesterday that after the Parliamentary election in June 7 the Dawha agreement will have been satisfied and the Taef Constitution will be applied: The winning coalition in the parliament will govern and the losers will oppose. 

The leader General Michel Aoun of the Tayyar al Horr (Change and Reform Party), and currently the dominant “Christian” representative in the parliament, has been promoting the advent of the Third Republic to replace the governing system imposed on Lebanon since 1993 during the Syrian mandate and after the withdrawal of the Syrian troops in 2005. 

The polls favor the opposition (Tayyar, Hezbollah, and Shia Amal of Nabih Berri) to gain 65 deputies out of 120. 

Michel Aoun has decided to run in the district of Jezzine (a Christian enclave) with his list of 3 candidates when all the attempts for an agreement with Berri failed. 

Berri is the Chairman of the Parliament and the leader of the Shia Amal Party that represented the Shia during the civil war but was supplanted by Hezbollah. 

Berri understands that his weight and standing in the political structure are solely based on heading the parliament and all his machinations are to securing this post that he chaired for over 20 years now.

Regardless of the winning coalition, the Taif Agreement will be re-applied in its entirety with various success and time span.

For example, a second confessional Parliament of the 19 official religious sects will be formed so that the popular Parliament will be elected devoid of sectarianism and hopefully according to a new law based on relative percentages (nisbia) and not on majority.

If the Tayyar returns with additional gains into the Parliament then the application of Taef Constitution will accelerate with modification after substantial lapse of time such as providing the President of Republic additional leverage and imposing time constraint on the government (mainly the Prime Minister) to ratifying decision as it is imposed on the President.

In case the Tayyar loses then a dangerous cycle await Lebanon with end results of sharing power not on the basis of 50/50 between the Muslim sects and the Christian sects, but on the basis of three major sects, the Shia (the most populous), the Sunni, and a combination of the Maronite and Christian Orthodox.

Lebanon is a precarious State depending on many foreign interests in the Middle East and not specifically for the sake of Lebanon.   

In any case, a stable Lebanon is connected with a stable Syria that is satisfied with Lebanon’s foreign administration of relations. The fundamental interests of Syria cannot be circumvented and supersede the USA if Lebanon is to enjoy security and stability.