Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Pegging Participation to A Seat II: The Hizbullah-Amal Foreign Mine

Last week, in his post FPM - Future - Cabinet , Raja toyed around in the comment section with the idea that Hizbullah might peg its dissolution into the Lebanese Armed Forces to being granted the Defense Ministry portfolio.

It's not quite that case, but Hizbullah-Amal have set up a mine for Siniora: the Foreign Ministry portfolio. Word is out that they want Yassine Jaber in (Berri ally) to replace Mahmoud Hammoud (another Berri ally) who headed the Ministry twice in three years. We all of course know what it meant back then when a Berri ally had a hold of the foreign affairs portfolio; it meant that our foreign policies came in cans, ready-made and shipped from Damascus. What will it be this time around?

Hizbullah and Amal have been maneuvering in a smart way these days. Berri needed Hizbullah during the elections; Hizbullah needed Berri to head the Parliament. And now Hizbullah is hiding behind Berri to pass the Foreign Ministry debacle.

But if Hariri's justification for picking Berri for the Parliament Speaker was his promise to heed the call for reform, no justification could be made for yet another "free" round of holding the Foreign Ministry a prisoner to parochial interests.

Siniora is not giving in. But my belief is that the real mine will be forthcoming: the Negotiations with President Lahoud.

"Nobody knows how many rebellions, besides political rebellions, ferment in the masses of life which people earth."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It really doesn't matter who the Foreign Minister is...the policies come from the PM and parliament..the FM is just the executor and the guy who runs the department....

You guys get pissed over nothing....its not like the Finance ministry or Tourism where the policies actually count