Word: lebanons
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...Lebanon has entered a perilous and unprecedented constitutional vacuum following the departure midnight Friday of the pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, with no elected successor. The two rival factions - the Western-backed March 14 block, which holds a thin parliamentary majority, and the pro-Syrian opposition, spearheaded by the militant Shi'ite Hizballah - are locked in a tense standoff, both waiting for the other to make the first move...
...nearly three years in the making. It began with the assassination in February 2005 of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese Prime Minister. His death, which many Lebanese pinned on neighboring Syria, triggered mass demonstrations in Beirut which, along with U.S. pressure, forced Damascus to end its direct domination of Lebanon. A Western-backed government was elected in June...
...moment, Lebanon was held up as a rare success in the Bush Administration's floundering effort to promote democracy in the Mideast. But the pro-Syrian opposition, headed by Hizballah, began to fight back, asserting that Washington's version of Mideast democracy had more to do with protecting Israel from its Arab enemies than promoting genuine freedom...
...forms the backbone of the government, and the pro-Syrian opposition was the fate of Hizballah's formidable military wing. The March 14 block seeks Hizballah's disarmament in line with U.N. resolutions. It fears that Hizballah's weapons are really intended to serve its patron Iran, thus dragging Lebanon into the frontline of the power struggle between Washington and Tehran over the latter's nuclear ambitions. Hizballah maintains that its weapons are the only means of deterring Israeli aggression against Lebanon and that calls for its disarmament serve a pro-Israel agenda...
With time running out, many jaded Lebanese are pinning their hopes on the election of a consensus president, even if that means prolonging Lebanon's political and economic impasse. Better that, they say, than the very real possibility that the emergence of two rival governments will spark street violence and possibly civil war. They know that even if consensus over a President is reached, it will not signal the end of Lebanon's grinding political crisis. The confrontation will move onto the identity of the next Prime Minister, the formation of the new government, and key appointments in the security...