Word: lebanons
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...normal democracy, the resignation of a few ministers wouldn't spark a constitutional crisis. But Lebanon is anything but normal - it's a sectarian democracy, based upon the balance of power between religious groups. And that balance is now collapsing...
...Sunday, Hizballah, the militia and Shi'a Muslim political party, pulled out of the governing coalition along with Amal, another Shi'a political party. Hizballah and Amal, which together represent almost all of Lebanon's Shi'a, had been demanding four new cabinet positions on the grounds that their resistance against Israel during the war over the summer merits greater representation in government...
...Lebanon's current internal political breakdown is in many ways a reflection of the wider Middle East clash between East and West. The war between Israel and Hizballah was in some ways a proxy battle between the United States (which supplies money and weapons to Israel) and Iran and Syria (which supply money and weapons to Hizballah), and the country is very much divided along those same lines. Hizballah's desire for greater say in the government reflects its concern that Siniora and his allies will cooperate with the U.S. and the United Nations to disarm Hizballah, which...
...first time I met Bob Gates was by chance. I was on the 7th floor, the CIA's executive suites, seeing an old friend, Gates's special assistant. I had just gotten off a plane from Lebanon. Gates must have overheard us talking, because he popped out of his office and stuck his hand out at me: "Bob Gates, great to meet you. Tell me what's happening in Beirut." He pulled up a chair and listened for the next half hour...
...This was July 1986, and the Reagan Administration's Middle East policy was in shreds. The cornerstone of that policy, the May 17th Agreement, which was supposed to bring peace to Lebanon and Lebanon's recognition of Israel, was clinically dead. The CIA's chief in Beirut had been murdered the year before. Iranian-backed groups were holding dozens of American hostages. It was hard to imagine things getting worse. They did. Four months later the Iran-contra scandal broke...