A critic amid cheers for Hezbollah--Druze leader Walid Jumblatt

Chicago Tribune ^ | August 10, 2006 | Liz Sly

[Ooh-Ah]

Lebanon's Druze leader says militants' agenda will lead to disaster

MUKHTARA, Lebanon -- Ensconced in his ancestral castle, perched high in the mountains above Beirut, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt is articulating some boldly unorthodox views on the conflict engulfing his country.

As a fierce critic of Hezbollah and its role in provoking a war with Israel, Jumblatt has emerged as a lone voice of dissent amid the clamor of pro-Hezbollah cheerleading that has gripped much of Lebanon and turned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah into a national hero.

"If I were opportunistic, I would tell you now, `Long live Nasrallah.' I am not going to tell you that," he says in an interview at the 300-year-old castle. "I know my position is not popular, in the Arab world or in Lebanon. But I will stick to my position."

In the view of this one-time warlord turned politician, Hezbollah is fighting not on behalf of Lebanon but as a proxy of Syria and Iran, pursuing an agenda to challenge America that ultimately will lead to Lebanon's ruin. That Hezbollah ultimately will win he does not doubt.

[Brilliant]

He'll be dead in a week.

[HAL9000]

He'll be dead in a week.

Not necessarily. He's managed to survive for a long time. He's an interesting character.

[aynrandfreak]

One man does not a movement make.

[Gay State Conservative]

A coward he is not.

[lesser_satan]

He's been saying these things for years, and nothing's happened to him.

[romanesq]

He has an enclave of protection but he's played both a delicate dance up until the Syrian assassination of the Lebanonese PM. When he spoke of it, he was warned then told he was a dead man - by the Syrians.

He's decided he's going to go out in style and fight them to his last breath.
It may be today tomorrow or ten years, but the Syrians are out to kill him.

Honorable.

[Americandruze]

The Druze are much more powerful and complex then one might think, they represent only 5% of Lebanon but because of their strategic locations in Lebanon,in Syria and specifically the Israeli occupied Golan Heights,they cannot be easy pushed around as say the Christians, or Sunni Lebanese.
1. If Syria wants the Golan Heights they cannot be going around killing Druze in Lebanon. (The Golan is mostly Druze)
2. The Lebanese Druze influence upon the Syrian Druze cities is much stronger than the leaders in Syria are lead to believe.
3. The mass immigration of Druze during the early 1970s has produced a new generation of a more pro-western society and pro-Jumblatt international Druze communities.
4. The Druze are no longer just farmers with sticks or cows, they cannot handle the killing of their leaders and unlike the Sunnis in Lebanon, they are violent when threatened, The Druze aren't fools if they do respond to threats it is expected to be in Syria.

God bless Lebanon and it's people!!