Until now I’d been trying to stay away from posting political comments on my blog, but I’ve decided to share my knowledge and comments with the world. It’s a free world (on the internet I mean).
Now the Lebanon issue -
Before any discussions about the current crisis, you should know about Lebanon’s history (during past couple years):
In Lebanon, the parliament has certain number of seats assigned to different religions (64 Christians, 27 Sunni, 27 Shi’a, 8 Druze, and 2 Alawite). (Side note: 59% of Lebanon’s population is Muslim (Shi’a & Sunni). Also, certain areas of Lebanon are supposed to elect their member of parliament from an assigned religion regardless of the popular religion in that region. So a Shi’a majority section might have to elect a Christian parliament member and so forth.
In 2005 there was a parliament election in Lebanon. Hasan Nasrallah (the Shi’a leader), formed an alliance with the Christian and Druze party. He did not send any opposition candidates against the Christians and Druze candidates for them to be elected. So Shi’as and Christians would have the majority in the parliament and the road would be open for Siniora (current prime minister) to become the prime minister.
Nasrallah agreed to the alliance under certain conditions. First, the Lebanon’s government would not try to take Hezbollah’s weapons from them. Second, the government would not form alliance against Hezbollah with international forces.
In short, Siniora got power because of Hezbollah. Now, his government is breaking the alliance he had with Hezbollah and Hezbollah is trying to force him to resign.
Siniora is saying he will not step down unless the parliament tells him to and for that to happen, 80% of the parliament should vote for his resignation (which of course with his current majority will not happen).
Rafigh Harriri’s assassination and the international tribunal:
The international tribunal that would decide about the case includes France, U.S, and Germany’s judges (all from countries who have already decided that Syria and certain other people have had hands in the assassination). Therefore, it would not be a fair trial anyways.
