Leaders must act to halt slide toward violence (Lebanon)

[JCMach1]

New troubles in Lebanon...spill-over from Syria...

Carol Maalouf, a political analyst, also voiced fears of Lebanon drifting toward sectarian violence as a result of the spillover of the turmoil in Syria. She also said the Lebanese government’s dissociation policy on Syria had proven its failure.

“Lebanon can no longer dissociate itself from the events in Syria because the events are spilling over into Lebanon, mainly through the border in the north which is a Sunni stronghold that supports the Syrian revolution against the regime there,” Maalouf, also a lecturer in political science and political history of Lebanon at Notre Dame University, told The Daily Star. “The government’s policy on the Syrian crisis has failed as was manifested in the recent two incidents. The government is reacting to what is happening on the ground rather than adhering to its declared policy of dissociation.”

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/May-22/174227-leaders-must-act-to-halt-slide-toward-violence.ashx#ixzz1vagHdsJb
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

[Alamuti Lotus]

1. certain leaders are too busy building that slide and making it slippery..

Hariri Inc & their Saudi masters are in fine form at the moment with the current events in Tripoli. The riots initially had nothing to do with Syria -- the CIA tipped the gov't off about a bona fide al-Qai'dah commander operating in the area and had Mawlawi arrested. He did some fine work in Iraq, building bombs and killing Shiites, before deciding that Syria/Lebanon was a better place to blow things up. Hariri Inc and his Saudi masters threw a major fit and Mikati caved in--of course. Seems Mawlawi is something of a local hero and it sparked at first relatively small protests before that happened; Mustaqbal MPs (such as the pro-West/binLadenite MP Khaled Daher), militias and their local firebrand Salafist preachers raised the stakes by shelling Nusayri areas of the city and inciting against all Shiites in general, and good times just progressed from there--and suddenly that constitutes "Syrian violence spills over" by reporters who are paid very well to know no better and just want to weave a pretty storyline. The beautiful part going on at the same time is how they managed to try and settle old scores with local Mustaqbal defectors like Birjawi, a former commander in the M14 militias--also suddenly "Syrian violence", probably directed by Assad himself if the reporters on Saudi/Qatari payroll are to be believed. And why not--get the preachers to fire the kids up with a little fury, might as well sneak in a few grudges at the same time.
Saudi/American policy since 2008 has been to promote a fiery Sunni rival to Hizbu'llah; well, they got it. Enjoy your monster now, chumps.

[azurnoir]

2. If I'm reading this right it sounds a bit of divide and conquer

keep them busy fighting each other ect...... or am I giving too much credit?

[Alamuti Lotus]

3. 'divide & conquer' sounds about right

'create chaos and keep the money flowing' is about as much as any of these twits have on the docket. They're so desperate to counter Hizbu'llah that there's nothing on the table that would be considered too insane by the Saudi and US ambassadors; Jeffrey Feltman, in a variety of positions (Ambassador from 2004-2008, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs since then--though I've heard he's stepping down from that soon, possibly to a position in the UN--horrifying thought but whatever) has led the charge with this bonkers approach, it looks like he thinks he runs the Lebanese government sometimes. Giving al-Qai'dah and its kindreds Tripoli as a base for blowing things up?--on paper that seems nuts, but that's been officially unofficial US/Saudi/Hariri policy since about 2008 (possibly before then, but certainly after the brief conflict in 2008 showed how absolutely inept M14's militias would be against Hizbu'llah and its allies).

Israel's former proxies have been so thoroughly defeated and discredited that the zionists actually have little effective influence on the ground. They try to plant spies within Hizbu'llah, but the latter's counterintel apparatus is very effective at sniffing out foreign operatives, reference the remarkable operation uncovering CIA operations over the last couple years that so thoroughly embarrassed the Agency that they shut down almost all active ops on the ground.

It's all from the "West" and the Gulf now, mostly Saudi Arabia. The bandit kingdom does nothing except sow chaos as a basic principle of foreign policy, which incidentally also has a pretty high batting average for "blowback". Their one and only move is to promote the most fanatic preachers with loads of cash and guns and send them out to do their thing--which is exactly what's going on at the moment. The basic plan, in as much as there is one, is to keep Hizbu'llah and the government busy fighting salafist militias in the north and in Syria, so they cannot pose any possible resistance to the aggressive US/Saudi/Israeli policy against Iran.
It was a barely covered story, but there was recently an alliance engineered by Qatar between Hariri Jr's "pro-West" Mustaqbal (Future) Party and the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood--the same organization dominating the opposition in Syria. Tripoli is something of an economic backwater in terms of the rest of the country, which makes it a good recruiting ground for aforementioned preachers. And they have very close ties to the armed gangs blowing things up in Syria, some experienced commanders on the ground from the war in Iraq as well. Fun times to follow. I should be visiting the area later this summer, hopefully my friends aren't dead then; that always puts a downer on vacations.