Lebanon is Hanging by a Thread

Diplomatic Pleasantries Have Been Discarded

By KARIM MAKDISI
(Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Dept of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon)
CounterPunch

".....The core of the dispute in Lebanon-of which the election of a President is only a part-revolves around the role of the Resistance and the status of Hizbullah's weapons. The opposition insist that the Resistance represents the only deterrence to Israeli aggression and larger US plans to re-divide the Arab world, and it will therefore only countenance debate about such weapons as part of an internal national dialogue. March 14 call for the immediate disarming of the Resistance (which it considers an existential threat to the State), and the dissociation of Lebanon from the larger regional problems that they claim has stifled Lebanon for decades.....

The next 48-72 hours will be decisive as the political and constitutional crisis reaches its apogee: at midnight on the November 23, President Emile Lahoud must step down from office and the Siniora government must resign in line with the constitutional process.....

Second, and more importantly, the most significant international sponsor--the US--has thus far blocked any agreement that denies the realization of its own principle goal in Lebanon, namely disarming the Resistance and accomplishing what Israel could not do by force during its July 2006 invasion. US success in Lebanon would also be used to reclaim the initiative in its otherwise catastrophic 'war on terror' in the region.......

While the UN has little decisive influence on the ground in Lebanon, the epic battle between the contradictory imperatives of Resolution 1559 and Resolution 1701 is represents the larger struggle the UN, and the international community in general, has faced since the end of Cold War and the rise of US unilateralism and global hegemony. If Larsen's influence on the SG prevails in tandem with the US's continued reliance on military confrontations and divisive diplomacy, then the region will be at war for years to come and the UN as a whole will continue its dangerous spiral towards illegitimacy in a region whose people increasingly identify the UN with US policies......."