Word: consensus
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...level of hostility throughout the population toward Israel and the U.S. Even if Siniora wanted to back Washington's plan to keep Israeli forces in the country, he'd be restrained by the massive political risk involved. Lebanese politicians fear that if decisions are taken without a national consensus, the result could be a new civil...
...Still, there is consensus in the Israeli leadership that even if Hizballah agrees to stop pelting Israel with hundreds of rockets every day, calling off the Israeli offensive right now would mean admitting failure. Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem, summed up the opinion of many Israelis: "If Israel withdraws from Lebanon without striking harder at Hizballah, we will have accomplished nothing for all our suffering...
...Maliki is getting very little help from other Iraqi leaders. The national-unity government is anything but unified. Shi'ite and Sunni ministers routinely contradict one another. It's hard to get consensus even among his fellow Shi'ites. His offer of amnesty for Sunni insurgents was compromised when a powerful Shi'ite leader publicly disagreed about who should be pardoned. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim said insurgents who had killed U.S. service personnel should be pardoned, directly contradicting al-Maliki's promise that those with American blood on their hands would not qualify for amnesty. Al-Maliki's plan...
...even once consensus is achieved, the long-term role of the Lebanese Army in protecting the border would require a massive modernization that would take at least three years and cost upward of $1 billion, according to Dr. Riad Kahwaji, the Lebanese founder of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a think tank in Dubai. Right now, its 1960s-era American and Soviet armor is so obsolete that spare parts are no longer available. Its only air force consists of 16 very old Huey helicopters that pilots call "flying coffins"; it has no navy except for four...
...Lebanese Army is weak not just by neglect, but also by design, however. Like the Lebanese government, the military allocates power and position on the basis of maintaining the delicate sectarian consensus that ended decades of bloody civil war. Domestic political stability rather than military effectiveness has been the guiding principle of its development. "The Lebanese army is a mirror of all the country; its job is to maintain stability in the country," said Retired General Salim Abu Ismail, a former military attache to Washington and the managing editor of Al Defaiya Defense Magazine. "During the Civil War, every sect...