New president calls for unity in Lebanon

The Guardian
May 26, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/26/lebanon

By Hugh Macleod
Beirut

Lebanon's new president, striving to heal two years of violent rifts centered on the status of Hezbollah's arms that recently tipped the country to the brink of civil war, yesterday called for a new national defence strategy to include the Iranian-backed militant group.

"The resistance is a strategic need to liberate the land that is still under occupation," former army chief Michel Suleiman said after being sworn-in in front of a parliament packed with delegations from all 22 Arab states.

"This makes it urgent for us to find a defence strategy and to benefit from the power of the resistance," he said, referring to Hezbollah, which led the opposition to the Western-backed government and earlier this month routed Sunni and Druze pro-government forces after being challenged over the status of its secret infrastructure.

Though having withdrawn from Lebanon in 2000, Israel occupies a small, disputed territory at the borders of Syria and Lebanon which Hezbollah says is occupied Lebanese land.

The US, which has led international calls for Hezbollah to disarm in line with UN resolution 1559, yesterday welcomed the deal brokered in Qatar.

"I am hopeful that the Doha Agreement ... will usher in an era of political reconciliation to the benefit of all Lebanese," said President George Bush in a statement.

Security analysts said President Suleiman's direct reference to Hezbollah and its status within a national security strategy was an acknowledgment of the pressure he will face from the international community as well as Sunni regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, alarmed by the surge in power of the Shia group.

"It's not easy to incorporate a non-state militia into an army, particularly when Hezbollah have always said they will not share their command structure," said Timor Goksel, a long-time Lebanon security analyst and former spokesman for UN peacekeeping troops in the country.

"Suleiman is the right man to do it as he has Hezbollah's confidence, but the timing is not good."

The election of Suleiman caps the worst period of instability in Lebanon since its ruinous 15-year civil war ended in 1990. Since the assassination in February 2005 of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the country has been rocked by a string of assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists, a month-long bombardment by Israel in its July 2006 war with Hezbollah and a bloody insurgency against the army by Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants.

Acknowledging the sour relations between Syria and the outgoing government, which blamed Damascus for Hariri's murder, President Suleiman called for the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two neighbours.

"We look strongly to brotherly ties between Lebanon and Syria in the context of mutual respect of the sovereignty and borders of each country and diplomatic ties which will bring good for both of them," he said.

Among café goers in the Hezbollah-stronghold south of Beirut there was a mixture of relief and anxiety as Suleiman was sworn in.

"Suleiman has proven he supports the resistance and perhaps he can be the man to join Hezbollah to the army," said Hassan Khalil, a local tailor.

Fatima Melham, a 25-year-old English teacher from the neighbourhood welcomed Suleiman as president but said she feared for his future in the maelstrom of Lebanese politics.

"May God protect him," she said. "There are many people outside Lebanon who have no interest in a Suleiman presidency and who do not want to see the country grow strong."