The new international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, tells Lyse Doucet why he is "scared" of his role
Posted on 09/03/2012 1:13:12 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Lakhdar Brahimi has embarked on one of the world's toughest jobs.
But as one of the UN's most experienced troubleshooters, he may offer the skills needed in a conflict where both sides seem to believe they have no choice but to fight to the end.
Mr Brahimi often deployed a "no victor, no vanquished" power-sharing approach in previous mediations, including the 1989 agreement that ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war.
UN sources who have worked closely with Mr Brahimi over many years say he will be more involved in the minutiae of the process, engaging personally with all the key players, and drawing on his own extensive experience and contacts in the region and beyond, not to mention his understanding of Arab politics and language.
He plans to base his office in Damascus if possible, or in Cairo, and to spend as much time as possible in the region.
But for the time being, there is little optimism anywhere that much can be done. Even Mr Brahimi sees his job as keeping expectations low.
Activists say 20,000 people have died since the uprising against the Syrian government began last March.
On Sunday, the pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 5,000 people were killed in August alone.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
The new international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, tells Lyse Doucet why he is "scared" of his role
Syria says envoy can only succeed if rebels lose outside support
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/03/us-syria-crisis-zoabi-idUSBRE88209Y20120903
Let ‘em kill each other and let God sort it out.
The UN can’t blame the problem on the jews so they do not know what to do...
Give ‘em time.
Hey, as long as we make sure no one in any faction in Syria runs out of ammo, it can’t help but end well. :’)
G’night all.
Israel will probably exhibit restraint similar to that which was seen during the Gulf War, when Saddam kept firing missiles into Israel.
lol no victor no vanquished? I guess they don’t like to do research on what actually happened when the lebanese civil war ended. One christian leader was assassinated, another exiled and another sent to jail. The christian presidents power became virtually non existent turning him into a impotent figurehead, the power went to Sunni muslim prime ministers, the parliament got turned from a majority christian(it was afterall a majority christian country upon creation) to 50:50 split(eventhough there are more christian lebanese abroad than total lebanese living in lebanon). The sunni minister was quick to naturalize some 400,000 palestinians(equalling about 15% of the lebanese population and including the very same palestinians that tried to wipe out the christians).
So yes there was a victor and this cunt Brahimi can go f himself.
The Lebanese civil war began as a consequence of the PLO’s sudden ingress; they’d been ejected from Jordan, where they’d tried to overthrow the regime. It didn’t take long for them to destabilize Lebanon and turn into the throbbing tumor it remains today.
Eventually, in response, the Syrian army rolled in and destroyed the then-latest carefully negotiated and very fragile political settlement as well as independent Lebanon. One of the things they did to that end was shell the presidential palace and murder the Christian president. For almost thirty years Syria held much of the power in Lebanon and undermined any internal political settlement.
The Syrian regime was also behind the Marine barracks bombing.
Subsequent to 1970, the Muzzies in charge in Lebanon were *not* Sunni, they were Shiites, primarily the Hizbollah (Iranian proxies) and Amal (Syrian proxies). Since the mid- to late 1980s, they and the Maronite militias have mostly fought each other (Maronites vs Maronites, Shiites vs Shiites), and only in the past ten years or so have the Sunni militias revived.
No... First off hezbollah was not created until 1982, at least not officially and at the very earliest it would not have been until 1979 during the islamic revolution of iran. The Sunnis and the Druze were firmly backing the palestinians against the christians at the onset of civil war. The christians and the shiites were allied in the south of lebanon forming the South Lebanese Army which would soon be very closely allied to israel and made up of majority shiite members, most of the members of the SLA now reside in Israel. After 1982 yes there were some christian-christian skirmishes mostly dealing with succession of power after Gemayel was assassinated and Amal did fight with hezbollah, and right before the end of the civil war there was another christian skirmish between the christian general of the lebanese army and the head of the lebanese forces, altho what occurred was that most of the lebanese forces disbanded since they were not content to fight christians leaving only a core of soldiers and was not a protracted fight.
The point is, that the sunnis were clearly the victors in the war securing much more political power for themselves giving them the ability to completely run the country from the position of prime minister, they gained more parliament seats and they naturalized 400thousand SUNNI palestinians to ramp up the number of sunni muslim lebanese.
Both of them gained butit was mainly the sunnis who gained from the civil war is my point.
The Christians were shelled the Syrian army; the Syrians also used the Druze to attack Christians in Lebanon. The (nominally Sunni) PLO meanwhile trained the Shiite Amal militia, which became the Syrian proxy in Lebanon. The current power-sharing (such as it is, since the gov’t of Lebanon is mostly in name only) is Christian, Shiite, and Druze.
The official formation of Hizbollah is largely meaningless, as Iran started its proxy war using Shiite recruits and non-Lebanese volunteers, and did so prior to 1982. The PLO attacks in Tel Aviv led to the IDF invasion of Lebanon, which had as its purpose the destruction or expulsion of the PLO. That succeeded, but the ever-helpful Europeans made sure the PLO was safely evacuated instead of annihilated.
The Sunni groups in Lebanon used to have a good-sized but still minority position in Lebanese gov’t; the slow population shifts and past conflicts led to a sort of 50-50 arrangement between Maronites and Sunnis, with the Shia and Druze having a smaller role all along the way, but no one was left out.
The point is, the Sunni were pushed to the fringe by all other parties, including the Syrian invader and occupier, which is what the Assad dynasty has been for more than a generation. The Syrians were clearly the victors in the civil war. Eventually (after decades) enough Lebanese factions got sick of the Syrians and pushed them out. Next to go should be the Hizbollah, but only the Israelis can do that. They’ll be better off using bunker-busters.
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