Lebanese Christian minister killed

[Gman]

There seems to be some debate on who killed Pierre Gemayel. The Syrians or Hezbollah... I guess it doesn't matter since they are practically the same.. I'm wondering if this could spark a civil war or something.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15829846/

John, could you fill us in again? Thanks..

[Byblos]

There seems to be some debate on who killed Pierre Gemayel. The Syrians or Hezbollah... I guess it doesn't matter since they are practically the same.. I'm wondering if this could spark a civil war or something.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15829846/

John, could you fill us in again? Thanks..

Terrible news indeed. It seems that the Lebanese Christians are destined to defend their country with their blood. I spoke to my family this morning and the mood is bleak at best. Anxiety and fear are gripping the country. Everyone does still believe that a civil war is out of the question (at least for now) given that the March 14th alliance (of which the assassinated minister was a member, and who also hold parliamentary majority) includes Moslems (Sunnis and Druse). But no one really knows what will happen next. There are foreign hands trying to once again make Lebanon the center of regional and international power struggles. The West, Europe, and Sunni Arabs (Saudi Arabia) on the one hand, and the Moslem extremism (Syria, Iran, and by extension Hezbollah and the Lebanese Shiites) on the other.

Two days before the cabinet was set to vote on the U.N. sponsored international court to try the assassins of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, Hezbollah ministers resigned from the cabinet in an effort to bring it down, thereby delaying the vote. They did so under the guise of wanting a national unity government (as opposed to the current one whose majority is from the Cedar revolution or the March 14th alliance). Hezbollah did not succeed in bringing the government down as, in order to do so, a 3rd is required to resign and Hezbollah didn't have enough ministers.

The cabinet approved the U.N. court without the Hezbollah ministers. Yesterday, a Christian minister was assassinated. Their aim (and we all know who they are) is 1) To intimidate the majority into agreeing to give Hezbollah more power (through the national unity government), 2) To bring the government down by killing enough of them to reach the 3rd resigned or dead, and 3) By scoring points against the West, particularly the U.S. who threw its support behind the current government.

The hands of Syria and Iran are all over this. The classic struggle of the regional powers with the Lebanese people caught in the middle.

John.

[Judah]

The Lebanese crisis explained by Roger Hardy, Middle East analyst, BBC News.

Lebanon is the most politically complex and religiously divided country in the Middle East, which is what makes it such a potentially explosive factor in an unstable region.

Tiny Lebanon baffles outsiders. Even people in the Middle East find its politics confusing.

Set up by France after World War I as a predominantly Christian state, Lebanon is now about 60% Muslim, 40% Christian.

It has 18 officially recognised religious sects and sharing power between them has always been a complicated game.

Lebanese Muslims have tended to look east for support from the other Arab states and from Iran. The Christians have tended to look west to Europe and the United States.

The country's proximity to Israel - and the presence of a large number of Palestinian refugees on its soil - mean it is also intimately tied to the Arab-Israeli dispute.

While Lebanon has plenty of problems of its own, it has also become the arena where many of the region's conflicts and rivalries are played out.

Syrian influence

The long conflict which ravaged the country from 1975 until 1990 was both a civil war and a regional war.

It left Lebanon firmly under Syria's thumb, and with a southern strip of territory occupied by Israel as a buffer zone.
Israel has repeatedly intervened in Lebanon to protect its northern border.

The civil war also drew in Iran to fight Israel and support the Lebanese Shia.

In 1982 Iran created Hezbollah, the Party of God, which has evolved into a major player in Lebanese politics and an important ally of Iran and Syria.

Israeli forces eventually withdrew in 2000 and Syrian forces in 2005.

But while Syria no longer has a military presence, it has retained political influence through its relationship with Hezbollah.

Israeli onslaught

It is against this backdrop of conflict and polarisation that the war on the Lebanese-Israeli border unfolded during the summer.

The capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah provoked a month-long Israeli onslaught.

The areas where the Shia movement enjoys support - south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut - bore the brunt of the Israeli offensive.

This caused large-scale death and destruction but failed to secure the soldiers' release or Hezbollah's defeat.

Hezbollah claimed it had won a "divine victory".

In the aftermath of the war, the country began the task of physical reconstruction - but still plagued by its old divisions.

Polarisation

The government is badly split between anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions.

The first is a loose alliance of Sunnis, Christians and Druze (a heterodox offshoot of Islam) and enjoys the support of the United States.

The second is an essentially Shia grouping dominated by Hezbollah, with the backing of Syria and Iran.

Symbolising the polarisation is the fact that the president is pro-Syrian and the prime minister anti-Syrian.

Two things have served to raise the temperature to boiling point.

One is Hezbollah's threat to bring its supporters onto the streets unless there is a cabinet shake-up which would give it veto power over government decisions.

The other is the string of assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians, the latest of whom is Pierre Gemayel.

Seldom has Lebanon looked more fragile.

The outcome of the crisis will influence not just the fate of a small country but the balance of power in the Middle East.