Word: beirutization
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...will be a crisis manager, not a crisis resolver," says Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Center in Beirut. Prior to his election as President, Suleiman was commander of the Lebanese army, an appointment he was accorded in 1998 under the auspices of Syria, which then dominated Lebanon. Since Syria disengaged from Lebanon in April 2005 following mass street protests, Suleiman has steered an even course amid feuding Lebanese factions. His priority has been to preserve the integrity of the Lebanese army, widely regarded as almost the only functioning state institution. Suleiman's profile rose considerably...
Welcomed by a 21-gun salute and a military band, Michel Suleiman, Lebanon's new President, took up residence Monday in the modern concrete-and-glass presidential palace set among the hilly suburbs of Beirut...
...then news reached Lebanon on Tuesday morning that the talks had produced an agreement that may end the country's 18-month-old political crisis. The Beirut stock market jumped, and opposition leaders announced they would dismantle their protest campground in downtown Beirut that has clogged traffic, destroyed local businesses, and become the tattered symbol of Lebanon's dysfunction. But the relief among war-weary Lebanese is unlikely to be echoed in Washington, Paris and Jerusalem, since the new arrangement is bound to reverse years of effort to blunt Hizballah's influence...
...disarm the militant anti-Israeli group. When the Lebanese government refused to back off and went further to accuse Hizballah of orchestrating a Syrian and Iranian-inspired coup attempt, opposition protests devolved into a series of street clashes, culminating earlier this month when Hizballah fighters decimated loyalist militias in Beirut. The speed and ease with which Hizballah overran the government's supporters, surrounded the homes of cabinet ministers and occupied offices belonging to the ruling parties gave the government little choice but to submit to Hizballah's demands...
News that Israel has for months been secretly negotiating with Syria has sent a frisson of excitement through the Middle East - overshadowing, at least momentarily, the new political deal in Beirut. The standoff between Syria and Israel has historically been much more intractable than that between Lebanon's warring factions, so any exchange between Damascus and Jerusalem that doesn't involve invective or military ordnance deserves to hog the headlines...