Lebanon

Following up Bryan’s blurb on the fall of the Hariri government in Lebanon, the impetus for the resignation of opposition cabinet members was the evident failure of a joint Syrian-Saudi effort to negotiate an end to a standoff over imminent indictments by the Special Tribunal of several high ranking Hezbollah members. The terrorist group/political party wants Prime Minister Hariri to disavow the Tribunal and brand it a US-Israeli plot.

But Hariri, who is in Washington for talks with the president and State Department, has said that there will be no disavowal of the Special Tribunal, no matter what The Hez does with the cabinet.

He is saying that now. But Hariri and other democrats in the March 14th Coalition government have been known to cave in to Hezbollah pressure in the past. Many observers believe that Hariri, in order to avoid a possible civil war that the Sunnis and Christians would almost certainly lose to the well armed, well trained Shia terrorist group, will reluctantly accede to Hezbollah’s wishes and eventually issue a statement condemning the Tribunal.

Lebanon’s fall from being an independent nation to now existing as just another satellite of the Iran-Syrian axis is almost complete. It probably won’t be a Hacha moment where Lebanon hands its sovereignty over to Syria in the dead of night after President Assad browbeats the younger Hariri — just as he browbeat the elder Hariri just days before his assassination. But the surrender to those with the guns and the demonstrated will to use them will be just as obvious.