Fear exposed: Iran poised to destabilize Lebanon*

Tehran, Syria slam Annapolis on verge of peace conference

Posted: November 25, 2007

With the Annapolis summit scheduled to begin Tuesday, top Israeli
government policy officials have expressed 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.