The Great Miscalculation

Hassan Nassrallah’s opposition will fail because of one grave error: The misreading of the Sunni public opinion.

Omar Karami was supposed to show up and make a speech on December 10, but he didn’t. Not even Karami wants to be the “Clean, nationalist honest Sunni with integrity” that Nassrallah had promised will lead the next government.

But still, the opposition dug and dug, and the only Sunni they could find was an obscure Fathi Yakan, a northern figure so marginal that even his neighbors hardly knew existed.

Nassrallah is stuck: the Sunnis won’t play ball. What’s the deal? What’s with all those angry people in Tripoli? Where are Hoss? Mikati and Solh?

I talked about this before, but it’s too important to be said just once: When it comes to the Sunnis, Hassan Nassrallah seems pathetically clueless. By his calculation, the anti American, anti zionist rhetoric should at least have split the Sunnis. It worked with Aljazeera’s Sunni Arab readers, why isn’t it working with the Lebanese?

Why are Mikati, Karami and Hoss all calling for resolving the matter away from the streets? Why is the mufti declaring that toppling the Prime Minister is a red line?

I don’t have a real answer, but I’ll venture some suggestions:

Perhaps because a Christian leader, who only months ago declared that he would not allow the President to be brought down in protests, screamed from a podium to hundreds of thousands of Shiaas and a handful of Christians that he would “sack” our prime minister and replace him with another Sunni?

Or is it perhaps because the Shiaa leaders are condescendingly promising the Sunnis that they would “take good care of them and put them in their hearts” once they usurp power?

Or maybe because they are protecting the killers of the most prominent Lebanese Prime Minister in Lebanon’s recent memory?

As any visitor to the North, Beirut or Saida can attest, Saniora is no longer a prime minister, he has become a symbol.

As my cousin puts it: “I always hated the Hariris, but this is no longer about a party or a group. This is an attack against all of us, and for now, we are all Saniouras”

Too bad for Nassrallah.
Perhaps you could find us a prime Minister in Syria?

**Update**
Even Fathi Yakan has abandoned the lets-overthrow-Saniora Camp. He has just released a statement criticizing some of the opposition figures (Aoun) for “not consulting with their opposition partners” before making “unilateral” statements about overthrowing the government, conquering the Serail or forming a second government. He also said that the Premiership is a red line.