Lebanon talks fail for tenth time

Lebanon's political crisis has deepened after the failure for the 10th time by rival parties to agree on a way to elect a president. Some say the latest postponement meant that the opportunity to find a replacement for Emile Lahoud, who stood down on Nov. 23, had been lost forever. Despite mounting international pressure from France and the US for Lebanese parties to elect the army chief of staff, Michel Suleiman, as a consensus president, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, on Dec. 21 again postponed the planned election until Dec. 29, amid claims by Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun that negotiations had completely broken down. "There is no agreement," said Aoun, who has been representing the Hezbollah-led opposition in the negotiations. "All lines of dialogue are broken." The present difficulties in Lebanon, still recovering from last year's war with Israel, have worrying echoes of its civil war when the country descended in sectarian and factional bloodshed. Today the pro-Western majority is backed by the West, most vocally the US and France, while the opposition, led by the Shia-Hezbollah movement, enjoys the support of Syria and Iran. Under Lebanon's sectarian political settlement, the position of president traditionally goes to a Maronite Christian politician. The lack of a president is the first such hiatus in Lebanon since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. Aoun's comments came as Hezbollah reacted furiously to demands by President Bush that Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentarians should push through their own choice for president if agreement cannot be reached. Bush also warned Syria against interfering in the election. Syria denies doing so. The increasing sense of pessimism over the political impasse was reflected in the comments of the Christian Maronite Patriarch, Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, in his Christmas address. "The presidency is lost and we have not been able to elect a head of state for the first time in the history of the republic. [And] parliament has been crippled for more than a year," he said. Although the appointment of Suleiman had been agreed in principle, his election has been blocked by the inability of the different factions to decide on a series of key issues, including who should lead the government and the allocation of seats in the cabinet -- in particular whether the opposition should have sufficient seats to wield a veto. The opposition includes figures with close ties to Damascus, while the present government is backed by the West. Hezbollah and the opposition have been demanding at least 11 ministries to exercise a veto to prevent any disarming of Hezbollah's military wing at the request of the US and Israel. Bush recently dispatched diplomat David Welch to Beirut to meet pro-US leaders, a move pounced on by Hezbollah officials as proof that the government is collaborating with its enemies. "No, Bush, your orders cannot be implemented in Lebanon and your tutelage is rejected," Hezbollah's number two, Naim Kassem, said late on Dec. 21. The situation has been exacerbated by the attitude of Parliamentarian Saad Hariri -- son of the former prime minister, Rafik Harriri, who was widely considered to have been slain by Syrian agents in early 2005 -- who has been leading the ruling coalition. He has surprised even some of his own supporters with his belligerence towards compromise, a position some of his allies believe stems from the US and French government positions. "Bush and the French seem intent on keeping Hezbollah out of the government, they are telling us not to compromise," one political veteran and supporter of Hariri confided anonymously. "Saad still wants revenge for his father and appears all too willing to indulge this stalemate."