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With the Annapolis summit scheduled to begin Tuesday, top Israeli government policy officials have expressed to WND concerns Iran is on the brink of destabilizing Lebanon.At issue is the stalemate over selecting a new president to succeed President Emil Lahoud, whose term expired last week.On Friday, Hezbollah blocked another parliamentary vote for a new president, forcing the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to exert emergency powers and assume the powers of the presidency.Today, Syria's foreign ministry announced a decision to send a lower level of representation to attend the Annapolis meeting.To underscore Syria's continued close relationship with Iran, Syria's President Bashar Assad allowed Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to publish in an Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency report a telephone conversation in which the two leaders affirmed their support for the creation of a Palestinian state. In a comment designed to undermine the Annapolis conference, the IRNA reported, "Only the real representatives of the Palestinian nation are eligible to decide their own destiny, said the two presidents."The report ended stressing, "The two presidents underlined that the upcoming Annapolis conference is doomed to failure."Israeli officials are concerned no solution can be reached over the formation of a Palestinian state as long Iran continues to pursue uranium enrichment in open defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. Security Council.Hezbollah owes its origin to spiritual leader Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, who got the inspiration to create the Hezbollah from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s, when Fadlallah studied under Khomeini while the two were in exile in Najaf, Iraq.Iran currently funds both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza, even though Hamas is a Sunni organization that owes its origin to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.In Lebanon, Hezbollah supports the candidacy of Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian politician who has reversed his previous anti-Syrian position to support Syria, after Syria withdrew its military from Lebanon in 2005, in the wake of Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanon former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.Now, Aoun openly supports Hezbollah, defying the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon's population, as reflected in the parliamentary alliance that created the Siniora government in Parliament.Under the Lebanese Constitution, the president must come from the Maronite Christian community, while the jobs of prime minister and parliamentary speaker are earmarked for Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. Experienced Middle Eastern observer Amir Taheri wrote last week, "Within the next week or so, we'll know whether Iran (acting through proxies in Beirut) will trigger a new civil war in Lebanon."Hezbollah deputy leader Sheik Naim Kassam asserted last week the Siniora government has no right to assume the powers of the presidency."This government is illegitimate and unconstitutional," Kassam said in a speech last week. "It doesn't exist, so it can't rule and it can't exercise the role of the presidency."Kassam also denounced the Annapolis conference, http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-30680720071125 calling it "a media show in favor of Israel."Taheri reported most Lebanese Christians and Sunni Muslims want a president who would "symbolize Lebanon's independence from both Iran and Syria."
Taheri also reported a majority of the Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon, almost 40 percent of the population, is split between Hezbollah, which follows directives from Iran, and the Amal Movement, led by Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri.While Amal has close ties now established to Tehran, Berri still prefers Syrian influence in Lebanon.The Amal Movement, founded in 1975 by Iranian-born Lebanese Shi'a religious leader Musa al-Sadr, formed an important militia in the Lebanese Civil War.In the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s, Amal embraced the support of Syria in a campaign against Palestinian refugees in what became known as the "War of the Camps" and attacked Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.Hezbollah and pro-Syrian Shi'ite groups such as Amal have been insisting on a two-thirds vote in Lebanon's parliament to select the next president.Taheri noted a win for Iran in the selection of Lebanon's next president would confirm Ahmadinejad's claim that the United States is already preparing the "last helicopter" to flee from Iraq the moment a successor is chosen to President Bush.Ahmadinejad's "last helicopter" reference is drawn to the fall of Saigon and the famous photograph taken by Dutch UPI photographer Hubert van Es on April 19, 2005, showing Vietnamese civilians desperately trying to board an American helicopter on an apartment roof.While the debate in the Lebanese parliament has thus far remained civil, history leads experienced Lebanon observers to be concerned the controversy could spill into volatile street protests if the deadlock over the selection of a new president is not resolved soon.
As in the days of Noah...
