Lebanese army won't take on Hizbollah

The Telegraph ^ | 5/11/2008 | Carolynne Wheeler, Middle East Correspondent, and Ben Gilbert

[bruinbirdman]

The Lebanese army has defied the country's government and bowed to demands by pro-Iranian Hizbollah militants who brought the country to the brink of civil war.

Senior officers refused to implement a decree from the prime minister, Fouad Siniora, who had ordered the dismantling of Hizbollah's telephone network and sacked an airport security chief sympathetic to the Shia militia.

The government's plan provoked Hizbollah into sending its gunmen on to the streets of Beirut, sparking three days of intensive fighting that left half the capital in the militia's control. Hizbollah's move was denounced yesterday by Mr Siniora as a "coup", and the prime minister went on television to declare that he refused to back down.

But, faced with the prospect of fighting a bloody civil war against a militia whose Shia Muslim faith is shared by many of its soldiers, the army announced it would restore the sacked security chief and merely look at Hizbollah's telecommunications system.

The army is drawn from all strands of Lebanon's fractured society and did not intervene when pro-government militia groups confronted Hizbollah.

Although it has also urged all gunmen to leave the streets, its decision to back down is a serious embarrassment to the prime minister. In his passionate speech yesterday, Mr Siniora said: "The dream of democracy has been dealt a poisonous sting.

"Your country will not succumb to those behind this coup and the Lebanese people will not allow the return of hegemony and terrorism."

Mr Siniora said there was room for movement on earlier decisions, but said that Hizbollah's weapons could not be tolerated.

Immediately following Mr Siniora's speech, 10 gunmen from both sides were killed in exchanges in the northern village of Halba. Earlier, in Beirut, six people were shot dead when attending a funeral in a Sunni area.

The foreign ministers of the Arab League meet in emergency session today at the request of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who are worried that Iran is using Hizbollah to try to dominate Lebanon. Syria, which is allied to Iran, said the violence was a purely internal matter.

[af_vet_1981]

"Your country will not succumb to those behind this coup and the Lebanese people will not allow the return of hegemony and terrorism."

Actually it will. Lebanon has failed and its army is responsible for that failure.

[Thomas W.]

This is why I have faith in Iraq.

The mostly Shi’ite Iraqi government and army are willing to take on the Shi’ite militias.

Sectarian loyalties are gradually giving way to the rule of law.

Strange that the same isn’t happening in Lebanon, which was a much more cosmopolitan and nominally secular state than Iraq.

[ZX12R]

Strange that the same isn’t happening in Lebanon, which was a much more cosmopolitan and nominally secular state than Iraq.

Lebanon doesn't have U.S. boots on the ground, whose wearers are willing to fight and die for a cause that might change the face of a country in the middle east. Quite frankly, Lebanon is lost. Short of an invasion, Hezbollah has successfully infiltrated and taken over Lebanon.