Seniora, Sleiman React Differently to Winograd Report.

It is worth comparing the reactions of the hopeful president with that of the sitting Prime Minister to the Winograd report.

A victory to some… (AFP)

The Winograd report gave Mr. Sleiman an excellent excuse to suck up to Hezbollah. He told Assafir:

“[the report] makes us, as a military institution, stress on the joint victory of the resistance and the Lebanese army during the 2006 July War that led to the defeat of the enemy,” Sleiman said.”

He actually said that with a straight face. Perhaps he forgot that the Lebanese army didn’t shoot one bullet at the Israelis and instead kept a low profile to avoid being targeted. Or maybe he forgot that the mantra that “the army and the resistance won the war hand in hand” was simply a face-saving device for Hezbollah to explain why the army took over policing the south after the war.

But then again, perhaps all of this is just another brilliant ploy by Mr. Sleiman to regain Hezbollah’s favor -and save them face-, while keeping the army’s zero-tolerance strategy towards troublesome street demonstrators.

A more honest reaction to the report came from Mr. Seniora, who expresses important misgivings about the report:

“The report did not include anything on the cluster bombs used by the Israeli army or the part of Security Council Resolution 1701 laying responsibility on Israel and the international community to implement Resolution 425 on restoring Shebaa farms to Lebanon through the United Nations,”

“In spite of noting the Israeli army’s failure to achieve its objectives, the report calls on Israel to prepare itself for coming wars, as if it hasn’t learned anything from its failed aggression on Lebanon,”