Like Hezbollah’s weapons, the American destroyers will not be used against the Lebanese people. But their mere presence will shift the strategic balance.

To many Lebanese, it will seem insane to compare American warships to Hezbollah’s weapons. After all, Hezbollah is a local resistance movement that is exclusively meant to fight Israel, while America is a trigger-happy foreign power that is trespassing our sovereignty to bomb our brains out. Right?

But who said anything about the US warships invading or bombing Lebanon? The USS Cole and the other ships coming soon to our neighborhood are just going to hang around. In fact, they’ll be so far we won’t be able to see them.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t make a difference. Lebanon is divided into two, roughly equal groups that are struggling for power. One is backed by Iran and Syria and the other is backed by the west and the rest of the Arab world. Hezbollah had an advantage: It possesses an Iranian arsenal that it’s using for leverage in internal politics. The pro-westerns were being outgunned, and their American allies have decided to fix the situation by lending them some deterrence of their own.

But isn’t it unpatriotic to use American guns against fellow Lebanese?

Not necessarily. Hezbollah’s weapons are from Iran, a persian country in south-west Asia. The party of God regularly promises that it won’t use them against fellow Lebanese, but their threat remains an undertone. Besides, can’t we say the same thing of the American warships? If they’re just going to sit there (being “in the vicinity” as the US chief of staff puts it), sooner or later everyone (except Hezbollah and their backers) is going to forget about them.

Now that the threat of mutual destruction is established, the two sides can hammer a deal out and hopefully progress can be made.

Our Minister of education and culture loves Lebanese books. But that doesn’t prevent him from boycotting the International Book Fair in Paris because Israel will be named “Guest of Honor”.

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The most progressive Lebanese electoral law proposal is gathering dust because none of the parties wants real change.

One of the most notable exchanges in yesterday’s stalemated quadripartite meeting is the one that took place between Mr. Hariri and Mr. Aoun over the adoption of the 1960’s electoral law.

According to Annahar, Mr. Hariri refused to use the law in future elections. He also said that he doesn’t mind people saying that he was against it because “a lot has changed since 1960.” Of course Mr. Aoun rushed to score political points since the pre-Taef 1960’s law, with its small districts, is seen as favorable to Christians.

Mr. Hariri is right, a lot has changed since 1960s. But neither he, nor Mr. Aoun cared to mention, let alone discuss its modern alternative, namely Mr. Fouad Boutros’ progressive proposal.

The law proposal which was commissioned in 2005 and released in May 2006 was revolutionary by Lebanese standards. It was a hybrid of winner-takes-all and proportional representation. It lowered the voting age to 18, allowed the diaspora to vote, proposed an independent electoral commission and included a quota for Women.

All this proved too much for our politicians who are dreading the wave of new voters (youngsters and the diaspora). In all their meetings to reach compromise, non of our esteemed leaders brought up Mr. Boutros’ law.

A cynic would think that they were all happy that the July War killed it before parliament had the chance to vote on it.

Here’s a great quote from March 14 leader Samir Geagea in reply to Sayyed Nassrallah’s finger-wagging.

If your Sayyed-ness believes that the majority of the Lebanese people, the Lebanese government, the majority of Arab states, the security council and the international community are all wrong, then perhaps that means that you are the one who’s wrong, Sayyed.

Mr. Geagea also challenged Sayyed Nassrallah to a public debate, as opposed to the Lebanese habit of preaching to the choir.

The tiny gulf nation is finding itself at the heart of the Arab-Iranian cold war.

When Imad Mughniya was killed, there was a polite public consensus among Lebanese politicians to treat him as a heroic resister to Israel. The pro-western Lebanese media and Mr. Seniora spoke of him in relatively good terms (to the outrage of their grass root)

The trend seemed pan-Arab at first, but a Kuwaiti official came up on Al-Jazeera and blasted Mughniya in terms not even the Israelis have used. The Kuwaitis, it seems, believed that Mughniya was involved in past plane highjacking and bombings that targeted their country. The feeling runs so high in Kuwait that when two Kuwaiti Shiaa MPs joined a commemoration for Mughniya, the Kuwaiti establishment and its media were outraged.

If one adds Kuwait’s newspapers, which constantly break tabloid-style, often unsubstantiated stories against Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, one would understand the background against which the latest harassment of Kuwait and Kuwaitis is taking place in Lebanon.

Hezbollah supporters defiantly put a large graffiti of Mughniya on the wall of the Kuwaiti embassy in Beirut (see picture), while an “anonymous” caller threatened to blast it with two missiles.  At the same time, a high-ranking Iranian official accused “Arab Intelligence” of involvement in assassinating Mughniya.

Buckle up. This is going to be quite a ride.

The opposition tries to portray the 10-10-10 formula as a compromise.

It happened in the last meeting between Messrs. Amro Moussa, Amine Gemayel, Michel Aoun and Saad Hariri, when a stalemate was reached. An angry Hariri decided to prove to the Arab League’s Secretary General that the opposition is stalling. So he looked into Mr. Aoun’s eyes and asked him: “Let’s suppose we do accept the 10-10-10 formula, would you then accept the immediate election of Mr. Sleiman?”

Mr. Aoun stumbled a bit then unleashed a series of new demands. He said that he wanted discussions on who the next Prime Minister should be. He brought up demands on filling high security ranks and ministerial positions, and then went back to insist on the blocking third.
Mr. Hariri rested his case.

Now, as Mr. Moussa gets ready to come back to Lebanon and re-host the quadripartite meeting, the opposition floated the 10-10-10 idea again. Mr. Berri, not a stranger to chutzpah, used the exchange above to suggest that Mr. Hariri had accepted the 10-10-10 proposition, and casually included in the package a string of unspecified ministerial arrangements where the Majority’s Christians would be significantly under-represented.

Rubbish! Mr. Hariri thundered to his Almustaqbal TV channel yesterday. The opposition is “distributing roles”, between a hardline Aoun who’s insisting on a blocking third, and a “made-in-Syria” proposition (10-10-10) floated by Mr. Berri. The formula, as regular readers to this blog know, is nonsensical.

Mr. Aoun is now saying that since the Majority won’t agree with the 10-10-10 formula, Mr. Moussa should not bother coming to Lebanon. The opposition, it seems, is in no hurry to untangle Lebanon.