So much is going on in the world that a large roundup of Lebanon has been hard to do, but there’s been quite a bit of news lately so it’s certainly a good time to do one.

News:
Over the past week and a half three bombs exploded near Beirut in mainly Christian suburbs. Christians have been one of the major backings in Lebanon (as well as Ukraine) in the opposition protests. But this is not the Lebanon of 25 years ago. This is a Lebanon that is united for their own sovereignty above what Syria will do to them, so there is likely no chance whatsoever of a civil war.

In demonstration of this solidarity, a protest of all women demonstrated against the attack.

Thousands of women from all Lebanese confessions have staged a demonstration at slain ex-premier Hariri’s graveside, shouting impassioned chants that the recent wave of bombings in and around Beirut would not break the national unity generated by Hariri’s blood.
Brandishing Lebanese flags and chanting “We Want the Truth. Ask the Sister,’ the women marched from the scene of Hariri’s assassination at central Beirut’s St. George seaside resort to the tomb at the downtown Martyrs Square, where hundreds of opposition activists have been maintaining a graveside vigil said the Feb. 14 murder. The ‘sister’ in the chant was a reference to Syria.

Leading the demonstration were legislators Naila Mouawad, widow of slain ex-President Rene Mouawad, and Ghenwa Jalloul, of Hariri’s bloc in Parliament. A poster reading in English “Stop State Terrorism” was waved over the front row of the demonstration, referring to the bombing attacks in Jdeideh, Kaslik and Dekwaneh.

“Enough blood, enough assassinations and enough bombs,” other posters hollered, blaming the bombing wave on Lebanon’s Syrian-controlled security services.

Here are more pictures from that demonstration. It looks like they are more of the MILF type though. Protest babes come in all ages!

The petition to release Samir Geagea. leader of the Lebanese Forces, from jail has gathered steam as a demonstration took place.

Lebanese Forces activists have staged an Easter demonstration at Samir Geagea’s hometown of Besharri demanding his release from nearly an 11-year imprisonment as a drive for a parole gathered steam in parliament.
Legislator Nicholas Fattoush has added his signature to a parliamentary petition for an amendment of a 1991 post-civil war amnesty law to allow the LF commander to be set free from jail at the Defense Ministry compound in Yarze, where he spent more than 10 years in solitary confinement.

“I am signing the ‘free Geagea’ bill because his freedom is an essential requirement of a genuine national reconciliation,” Fattoush said as he signed at Geagea’s suburban house north of Beirut in the presence of his wife Strida and parliament member Nihmatallah Abi Nasr Monday, An Nahar reported on Tuesday.

Abi Nasr is one of the six legislators who signed the bill last week. The draft needs between six and 10 signatures to set the amendment move in motion at the 128-member legislature.

Hundreds of LF activists brandishing Geagea’s portraits in a forest of LF and Lebanese national flags paraded in the streets of Besharri, shouting slogans demanding his unconditional release as a precondition for national reconciliation.

The LF has forcefully joined the opposition drive to end Syria’s tutelage over Lebanon in the wake of ex-Premier Hariri’s assassination. So did exiled Gen. Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement. Activists from the two far-right groupings are taking part in the 43-day-old non-stop vigil at Hariri graveside.

This is one of the demands, pretty much that political exiles and prisoners be allowed back. Another big one is the resignation of the security bosses, and the head chief has just taken a “vacation.”

The chief of Lebanese military intelligence, whose resignation the opposition is demanding, stepped aside Tuesday by taking a one-month leave, a military official said.
Maj. Gen. Raymond Azar, the director of military intelligence, took a one-month “administrative leave,” the official said.

The anti-Syrian opposition has been demanding the resignation of Azar, five other generals and prosecutor-general Adnan Addoum in the wake of the Feb. 14 assassination of ex-premier Rafik Hariri, which the opposition has blamed on Damascus and its allies in Lebanon.

General Georges Khoury, head of intelligence in the Mount Lebanon province, was appointed to fill the post in Azar’s absence.(AP)

The opposition is still holding out for the resignation of four other security chiefs as well as the prosecutor general.

Another big hit comes with Karami. Even though he was recently reappointed as prime minister, he hasn’t been able to form his “national unity” bipartisan government. The opposition wants to see a neutral government concerned with overseeing Syria’s withdrawal and free and fair elections. With Karami’s failure to establish a new government, he has yet again resigned.

The pro-Syrian prime minister in Lebanon said Tuesday that he would step down because he could not persuade anti-Syrian opposition figures to join a national unity government to lead the country to elections due in May.

In a move that could delay those polls, the prime minister, Omar Karami, told reporters that he was not willing to lead a cabinet that did not include both pro-Syrian loyalists and opposition.

“I ‘m not willing to form a government of this sort and I came to put the speaker in the picture,” he said after meeting Parliament’s speaker, Nabih Berri. “I am going to see the president to inform him of this decision.”

President Lahoud and the opposition are finally beginning to work on this transitional government, however, through the intervention of the Maronite Patriarch.

A consensus is shaping up between President Lahoud’s Syrian-backed regime and Lebanon’s opposition front on a political truce to allow the formation of a transitional government of 6-to-10 elder statesmen to conduct the spring parliamentary elections on schedule or with a delay of up to three months, An Nahar reported Tuesday.
The crux of the developing accord came out from an Easter meeting between Lahoud and Patriarch Sfeir, which was welcomed by most of the effective forces on Lebanon’s political spectrum and conveyed to Premier-Designate Omar Karami, who said he needed some 48 hours to make up his mind, An Nahar said.

The Beirut media was unanimous, however, that Karami was bent on turning down anything short of a national unity government made up of the opposition and loyalists, invariably quoting him as saying he would see Lahoud at the Baabda palace Wednesday to tell him ‘I am quitting.’

Outgoing economy minister Adnan Kassar and ex-premier Salim Hoss have been tipped as front-runners to head the new government of elders if and when Karami steps aside. Former Foreign Minister Fouad Butros, ex-Premier Rashid Solh, former Justice Minister Nasri Maalouf and ex-Information Minister Michel Edde are widely tipped as members of the concise cabinet.
…
The opposition is contending that the delay should not exceed May 31, when the mandate of the current parliament expires. But the loyalist camp is pressing for postponement ranging from three to six months, according to An Nahar

There isn’t enough reason to put off the elections, though. This government can easily be formed and, if Assad continues to withdraw, Syria will be out by the middle of next week.

The deadline has been pressured from two months down to 20 days as of last Wednesday. This made the middle of next week the historic date for the departure of the last Syrian soldier from Lebanon, An Nahar’s Domestic Affairs Editor Nicholas Nassif reported.

Assad’s decision was conveyed to the Lebanese army command in the latest of three unpublicized meetings held by the Lebanese-Syrian joint military committee March 18, 21 and 26, Nassif wrote.

“The decision quickens the pace for a complete termination of Syrian military and intelligence presence in Lebanon to strip the U.N. Security Council from any alibis to keep Syria under pressure,” An Nahar’s Nassif stressed.

I’m less concerned about the soldiers and more so about thei ntelligence and collaboration between them and Hizb’allah, however. They have right to be concerned, with the UN report condemning them and the backed Lebanese government in Hariri’s murder, as well as establishing an international investigation that they have agreed to because they really have no other choice.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has pledged full cooperation with the United Nations in order to bring to justice the assassins of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Mr Lahoud “stressed his commitment to do whatever it takes to reveal the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, in cooperation with the United Nations by whatever method it adopts in order to know the identity of the perpetrators of the crime,” a statement said.

The president also called for “the heaviest sanctions to be imposed on those the investigation proves hatched the plot, those who carried it out and those who helped with its execution”.

“The measures will affect all those who, according to the results of the inquiry, are proved to have been negligent in their duties or who committed errors that damaged the reputation of Lebanon, its institutions and its security services.”

The presidential statement came after the foreign minister, Mahmoud Hamoud, said Lebanon would agree to the creation of an international commission of inquiry if it is called for the UN Security Council.

A video has also been captured showing the suspect car in the Hariri blast.

Meanwhile on the Hizb’allah front, the opposition seems to be trying to neutralize them on the pro-Syria front by saying they should keep their arms.

Lebanon’s most prominent anti-Syrian opposition leader said yesterday that Hezbollah, the Syria-backed Shiite Muslim group, should keep its weapons until Israel withdraws from Shebaa Farms, a tiny disputed border enclave on the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The meeting between Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the first between the two prominent figures since last month’s car-bomb assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, could signal a thaw in frosty relations between the opposition and Hezbollah.

Indeed. Now that they have their only demand fulfilled, they are put into a position where they effectively must coordinate with the opposition or be seen as truely Syrian-controlled (something not all so popular as you can imagine). Certainly, with the change in Lebanese politics since February, whether or not they have arms may not make a difference if they are legitimately voted down a notch.

Blogs:
Tony has a brilliant analysis on the compromise with Hizb’allah. One thing he notes is that Jumblat did not announce this compromise before consulting with U.S. officials, and since it is the case that President Bush has already said Hizb’allah might have a place in Lebanese politics, I think it is clear that once elections are held, Hizb’allah will be forced to moderate or begin to lose.

The Head Heeb has part five of his introduction to Lebanese politics.

Amer Chehab wonder what all the explosions mean for Lebanon’s stability while Mustapha recalls Hama Rules for us. Luckily, it hasn’t come to anything like that yet. But the posts certainly highlight the worries about Syria that many Lebanese have.

This Reuters analysis thinks that Syria’s influence won’t end with the pullout (duh). Tony goes further, noting the vast cash cow Syria has to lose there, and the Lebanese Political Journal notes some business connections between the two.

Lastly, Michael Young has a pretty damning editorial about the UN investigation with regards to the Lebanese government.

The Fitzgerald report is much more than an investigation into a murder. It is, first, an accusation against both the Syrian and Lebanese security services, suggesting they were responsible for creating a climate that led to Hariri’s assassination, even as it strongly implies they were also directly responsible. Second, it is an expos???? of how the Lebanese authorities sought to manipulate evidence at the crime scene, perhaps behaving criminally. Third, it is an indictment of the Syrian-dominated order in Lebanon. And finally, it is a proposal to dismantle that order.

Lastly, John Chilton of The Emirates Economist notes that the Arab media is catching on to our fascination with their women!