Posted on 03/09/2005 5:56:06 PM PST by bamaborn
BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 9 - Nine days after Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister, Omar Karami, was forced to quit under pressure by opponents of Syria's occupation, he was voted back into the post on Wednesday by the Lebanese Parliament.
Mr. Karami was chosen by 71 deputies out of a current total of 126, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation television. The president, Émile Lahoud, is bound by the choice of Parliament - which is dominated by pro-Syrian deputies - and will appoint him on Thursday.
The nomination of a Syria supporter angered those who have sought an end to the influence of Damascus in Lebanon and threw the political system into deeper turmoil. Opposition members of Parliament have said they would not join a government that failed to meet their demands, which include the dismissal of the Lebanese security chiefs and the full withdrawal of Syrian troops.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for May, but with a purely pro-Syrian government in charge of setting up the election, accusations of impropriety and gerrymandering are bound to create further tension.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No suprise.
Civil war will break out (again) very soon in Lebanon.
Yep.... I think we should bomb Syria for a little hint...
Yup. No surprise. The parliament is still a Syrian Rubber Stamp, and Hezbollah's rent-a-demonstration yesterday gave them an excuse to take this measure.
what was did Rush say?
Uh-huh. Syrian Parliament re-elects a Syrian puppet. A Syrian dicattors pays and threatens Syrians to invade lebanon to stage an orchestarted protest.
Is anyone in the world, other than Kofi? buying this? I doubt it. It's become a comedy hour, though it's heart is extremely serious.
Hezbollah and Syria remain very popular with a great deal of the Shiites. They also stand to gain in the next parliamentary elections. Right now Hezbollah is limited to 12 seats in Parliament due to restrictions that allocate seats based on religious sect. Once open elections for Parliament, they should gain considerable influence over the government.
In Lebanon, Shiites make up about 40% of the population.
It will take blood over there.
Lebanon has had open parliamentary elections for years.
The situation isn't as black and white as many would like to make it appear. One of the leadiing opponents of Syria, a Druze leader named Walid Jumblat, once complained that Paul Wolfowitz wasn't hurt in an attack on his hotel, and has blasted the U.S. invasion of Iraq, claimed we had installed a puppet government, and claimed that the U.S. was repressing the people of Iraq.
Is this the kind of guy we want to side ourselves with?
Fortunately we have President Bush who will stop this comedy/tragedy and force the Syrian terrorist regime to withdraw its troops and oppressive intelligence apparatus completely out of Lebanon before the Lebanese Parliamentary election this spring, and the Lebanese will have the freedom to elect the real Lebanese patriots.
Agree........
Kind of Ironic since Syria was initially encouraged by the U.S. to move into Lebanon (as well as the Lebanese Christians now calling for their departure.
Unfortunately, after they invaded they sided against the Christians and with anti-Israeli terrorist groups.
Lebanon is another of those artificially created countries, like Iraq, with deep ethnic diversity (and tensions) that go back hundreds of years. It was artificially created by France after WWI out of an area controlled by the Ottoman empire. It was created out of a combination of Syrian and Maronite enclaves in what was originaly greater Syria.
It's always helpful to understand the history of places such as these.
Hezbollah's real power comes from the fact that it is the only organization that is armed. So long as that is the case, it's effective power will remain considerable. Of course, if the limit in parliament is removed and they are able to gain more seats, then it can start exercising its influence in a more overt manner.
I have no doubt that Hezbollah is popular among some Shia, and indeed other groups, since in addition to terror they also pedal social services. But I doubt that every Shia is solidly behind the Party of Allah. We'll see how it plays out (and here's hoping that the May elections are actually free).
Lebanon isn't Iraq. They've had open and fair parliamentary elections for decades. The only thing keeping Hezbollah from having a greater influence in government has been restrictions on the number of seats that can be held by each religious sect. That restriction is being abolished in the next election, meaning that the likely outcome is a greater number of seats being held by Hezbollah. (They now have 12).
Agreed, from what I've read their base of support is poor Shiites.
The middle east is a strange place. In Lebanon you have Shiite support for Syria and Sunni opposition. In Iraq, it is reversed (though the main reason the Shiite support Syria is that Syria provides a free flow of money and arms from Iran.
Unless I'm much mistaken, Jumblat the same guy who recently recanted his anti-Iraq war views and said "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Berlin Wall has fallen."
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