The negotiations over the government seats continues.
"Efforts are being made to find a solution to [General Michel] Aoun's insistence on handling a sovereign ministry, the Finance Ministry," the source said.
The source also said that Aoun has agreed to a proposal giving him the right to name someone to him as general director of the Finance Ministry, but he demanded that Elias Al-Murr not be named defense minister.
On the other hand, the source said that Hezbollah agreed on the appointment of the new army commander on the condition that Aoun agrees as well.
… there are two candidates for the post of army command: Brigadier General Goerge Khoury and Brigadier General Marwan Bittar.
Question. Michel Aoun asks the Finance Ministry because:
1) he wants to fight corruption and put the country on the right track? 2) he did not want Michel Suleiman as President, he surely did not want Siniora as Prime Minister, and now he is merely showing his true feelings?
Michael Young on the danger Lebanon faces post-Doha. More here.
The most worrying development in the coming months in Lebanon may be only partly visible today: a concerted effort by Syria, Iran, and Hizbullah to undermine United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which, with Resolution 1559, is at the core of international decisions to bolster a sovereign Lebanese state with absolute control over its territory.
…. Hizbullah's Nawwaf al-Musawi said something both revealing and remarkable. He observed that upcoming security appointments were important because they “affect the security of the resistance.” At this stage it's official, any government decision that Hizbullah opposes can be described as harming the resistance.
Michel Suleiman's election as president means a successor needs to be found as army commander, which suggests that someone new is also expected to take over as military intelligence chief. The Abdeh explosion was Syria's message to Suleiman and the army that it wants individuals it can trust to be named to senior military positions. That's because for all the debate over Fatah al-Islam's origins during the Nahr al-Bared fighting, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the organization, or what remains of it, is mainly an instrument of Syrian policy today – a stick to destabilize Lebanon under the guise of Sunni militancy.
What's the objective?
Some have suggested Syria, Iran and Hizbullah want a new arrangement in the South similar to the April Understanding of 1996, legitimizing Hizbullah military action through new “rules of the game” between the party and Israel. That seems a plausible theory, if it can be managed. But there are some question marks. In the long term, Hizbullah would welcome a Syrian return to Lebanon, but realizes that any final Israeli-Syrian settlement, even with Lebanon in Syrian hands, could be curtains for the resistance. It's equally unclear how Hizbullah might use possible attacks by alleged Sunni Islamists against UNIFIL to validate its own military operations. And will the Lebanese Army be as pliant as Hizbullah and Syria want it to be, or does the presence of Michel Suleiman, no enemy of Syria but also the main beneficiary of a stronger Lebanese state, make this less likely?
