Word: nasrallah
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Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, was so struck by the daily street protests unfolding on the streets of Beirut--full of flag-waving demonstrators demanding Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon and an end to foreign meddling in the country--that he decided to hold a party of his own. He summoned his supporters to Beirut last week for a counterdemonstration, which drew hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites and other pro-Hizballah Lebanese into the capital's Riad al-Solh Square. Addressing the crowd from a balcony above the square, Nasrallah praised Syria, denounced the U.S. and made...
With the country's political future in question, Nasrallah is determined that Hizballah will help control its destiny. Hizballah's show of force has emboldened Syria and its allies to reassert their influence. Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's pro-Syria President, announced the reappointment of Prime Minister Omar Karami, who had resigned during the freedom protests. Syrian President Bashar Assad gave U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen a timetable late last week for pulling all Syrian forces out of Lebanon. While that assurance may temporarily placate U.S. demands, President George W. Bush has vowed to keep up the pressure on Syria...
...Syrian withdrawal may be a major setback to Hizbollah, because Syria guarantees the air bridge from Iran that keeps Nasrallah's militias supplied with weapons. (For Damascus, enabling Hizballah in this manner was considered a strategic trump card in pressing Israel towards concluding a peace deal that would return the occupied Golan Heights to Syria. ) But the U.S. has made shutting down the movement's armed wing a priority, shared by Israel and, of course, legally mandated by Resolution...
...decade, with a massive welfare operation among the Shiite poor and by contesting parliamentary elections - Hizballah is currently the single largest party in Lebanon's patchwork parliament. Its share of parliamentary seats may even grow if the Syrians depart, since Hizballah advocates have long believed the Syrians actually cheated Nasrallah's movement out of a few seats in order to bolster the parliamentary presence of its own Shiite favorite, the Amal movement of Nabi Berri, the speaker of parliament...
...Nasrallah may be hoping to convince the leaders of other factions to put the issue of Hizballah's militia on the back burner, arguing that it's a necessary hedge against any Israeli intervention. He may eventually even pursue the same option as have the Kurdish parties have in Iraq, maintaining their private militias on the basis that they'll be nominally integrated into the national army. Many in the Lebanese opposition may be inclined to accept this proposition, at least for now, not allowing the issue of Hizballah's arms to detract from the broad support for Syrian withdrawal...