Dear H,

there IS the slight detail that the March 14 group aimed to bring down a government that was allied to the Syrian occupation forces, whereas March 8 (HA + Aoun + minor others [who, for the most part are entirely dependent on Syrian patronage to an extent that March 14's Hariri/Jumblatt/LebForces never were]) cannot claim that Seniora's gov't is allied to any foreign power or occupation.

The main thrust of March 14 was against Syrian occupation/dominance. The main thrust of March 8 is to establish a system whereby HA has de-facto veto rights over any decision on the national level and where Aoun gets to be the next president.

Personally, I think that the March 8 alliance is much better organized and has more successful tactics than March 14.

And I do agree that NONE of those groups have or are addressing the fundamental problems of the Lebanese system.

--MSK

MSK: That is not true. Saniorah is intimately allied with the current American administration, and that perception resounds with supporters of Hizballah. Fatfat's soldiers served tea to occupying Israeli soldiers in Marjayoun. How can you say that this government is untainted by the perception that it is dominated by foreign influence?

homais: I think that your reading of the March 14th protest being 'more organic' is somewhat overstated. Those protests were every bit as organized from above as the ones today. The ones they organize today are even easier to distinguish. I agree, though, with the point that political leaders are doing little to respond to the peoples' grievances and will probably call an end to the protests as soon as they secure the political concessions from the government that they are asking for.

Yaman - for what it's worth, I don't think of mar 14 as all that organic. Just paraphrasing the framing I see a lot of...

Dear Yaman,

I wrote too rashly & stand corrected. Seniora is seen to be allied with the U.S. and France, and the "West".

However, regarding the Marjayoun incident, while I absolutely agree that it was a reprehensible behavior on part of the Lebanese commander (& at the time I suggested that he had committed treason and should be shot) it is by no means clear whether the gov't learned about that during or after it had all happened.

Also, the March 14 alliance was not and is not allied to any foreign power that was or is occupying Lebanon. None of its leaders are fundamentally dependent on foreign powers with a vested interest in Lebanon.

In comparison, HA receives Iranian financing of about 1 billion US-$ per annum (that is not an allegation, but HA's own number), both Suleiman Frangieh (Marada, maronite Politican and personal nemesis of Samir Geagea) and Talal Arslan (Druze, personal nemesis of Walid Jumblatt and head of anti-Jumblatt Druze party) are totally dependent on Syrian support, as are the Lebanese Ba'th Party and the SSNP is, of course, for bringing Lebanon "heim ins Reich" ("back into the Empire").

Now, I fully agree that the March 8 followers PERCEIVE the March 14 alliance to be dominated by foreign influence (USA, Saudi-Arabia, Western Europe). But that has more to do with the success of Al-Manar TV than reality. On the ground, the financial and political ties to foreign powers are stronger in the March 8 alliance than the March 14 one.

--MSK

MSK -

Where and when did HA announce that they receive 1 billion $ from Iran per year? According to my knowledge, there is no public account of their financial transactions, and I'd like to update that.

Thanks.
L.

I'm just here to say it's a pleasure to see you here. About time.

MSK -

When and where did HA reveal their funding sources from Iran? To my knowledge, there is not public account of their financial books ... so if there is, it would be good to know.

- L.

This all boils down to timing.

Either you believe, as Totten and Kais do, that Hezbollah decided on this specifically in order to end the commission looking in Rafik Hariri's assasination, or you don't. You either believe that it is acting in concert with the recent assasinations and attempt or you don't.

If you believe that Hezbollah is complicit in these crimes, then they are absolutely attemping a coup.

After all, do Hezbollah's members really object to working for Syria, or do they just count the guns and hope to be the thugs who take over.

I think it's the latter, and Hezbollah is absolutely guilty as charged. Fun with labels, my pasty white ass!

I find I don't have a hell of a lot to add to this.

In short, your politics determine your analysis. Yes, your pasty white ass is playing ideologue with labels, rather childish game play with labels.

Tom's This being a fine parable on self-perceptions.

You're arguing for logical nonsense. There's no third choice.

Either Nasrallah wants to stop the tribunal or he doesn't. Either that is the motivation for the assasinations and the protests or it isn't.

You can't just pretend the question away. And saying "I don't know" doesn't change the fact that there IS an answer, out there, in reality.

The freightening thing, the really fucked up thing is that Nasrallah's supporters aren't asking the same question because the answer doesn't matter to them at all. Think about that for a while. It means that democracy is nothing to them, fairness is nothing to them. They just want to be feared. As I said, they count the guns and smile.

Dear L,

my source for the 1 billion US-$ is a presentation on Hisbollah that sourced:

Nizar Ahmed Hamzeh: In the Path of Hizbullah, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004

The book distinguishes itself by having received good marks from both "Foreign Affairs" and As'ad Abu Khalil. It seems to be the best read on HA on the market these days.

As for HA being quite open about receiving substantial (if not the vast majority of its) funding from Iran - I don't have specific sources here. That would be a good "research project" for the Leb blogosphere, no?

--MSK

Logical nonsense is what who is arguing?

Either Nasrallah wants to stop the tribunal or he doesn't. Either that is the motivation for the assasinations and the protests or it isn't.

No, actually any non hysterical analysis would suggest Nasrallah is not in fact faced with binary either or choices with respect to the Tribunal.

He may, in fact, be indifferent to the Tribunal as such, but be concerned about longer term power-plays between the Sunni-Maronite bloc, the Druze and foreign parties such as France and the bumbling Americans.

Further, the motivation of the protests may or may not be directly connected to the Tribunal, again a political player in Lebanon has to be looking at relative power balance, and having influence over the Tribunal may play into such - or it may merely be symbolic of other interests.

Your simple minded binaries aside.

You can't just pretend the question away. And saying "I don't know" doesn't change the fact that there IS an answer, out there, in reality.

Without speaking for the respondant, there may be answers in the plural out there, but that does not mean they fit into simple-minded binary either/or whanking on.

Indeed, given the multi-sided coalition politics of Lebanon, one has every reason to suspect that in in reality - that is oustide of partisan political posturing and long-distance ideologically driven whanking on - there are without doubt several answers.

The freightening thing, the really fucked up thing is that Nasrallah's supporters aren't asking the same question because the answer doesn't matter to them at all.

So you are inside the head of Hezbullah now?

In any case, I don't find the proposition "frightening" in the ordinary English language meaning of the word, any more than I found the simplistic martyrdom posturing around Hariri to have been frightening.

Part of the political game. Perhaps the masses really believe in the snow white character of their own movement or are unconcerned about the corrupt core or foreign backing of their movement (be it Hariri or Hezbullah & Aoun).

Perhaps they do not.

In many ways that is utterly besides the point, which with great celerity one can see as being the essentially clan-communal drivers in the current face off and the problem, as Tom Scud noted, of the real tendancy of both sides to utterly exclude the legitimacy of the other.

Rather makes political solutions harder. And if not a political solution, then.... boom boom.

Think about that for a while.

No need, it's a trite game of pretending to be inside Hezbullah's head for the sole sake of engaging in the ideologue's game of

It means that democracy is nothing to them, fairness is nothing to them.

No, it doesn't, not even by your childish binary fantasies. It means that neither the Hariri led block nor the Hezbullah led block are fully accepting of a political game - of course in Lebanon the rules are stacked against the Shia from the get go, and on the other side of the equation, the Maronite and Sunni communities have a vested interest in a fundamentally "unfair" system, which they are likely to go to some length to preserve.

They just want to be feared.

Or rather, they want to have a greater share of power commensurate with their demographics, as a genuine democratic system would provide.

Insofar as the system is a thinly disguised communitarian power-sharing agreement dressed up in "democratic" clothing, forcing issues at the core of each side's interest is almost inevitable - again leaving aside childish binaries and partisan distortions.

As I said, they count the guns and smile.

Your "saying" is of profoundly little interest, really.

MSK -

There is no need to validate Hamzeh's book with Angry Arab's approval :) ; it is indeed a good book (although I had found Qassem's a more interesting read).

However, you misquote Hamzeh. He writes that Hezbollah is not afraid of admitting that Iran is a primary source of funds, and then writes that there are, and I quote, "no specific figures ... made available by the pary on Iran's funding ... it is estimated that the annual funds stands at one billion dollars."

It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.

- l.

Dear L,

as I wrote above, I didn't quote Hamzeh. I attended a presentation on Hisbollah (part of a lecture series on Lebanon I'd organized) and remembered that the presenter mentioned the sum of 1 billion US-$. And when I contacted her yesterday to verify the number and give me her source, she confirmed the 1 billion and gave as source Hamzeh's book.

And I trusted her.

If you look at all the services HA provides & the sheer organizational expenditures, plus weaponry ... then 1 billion is a reasonable number.

Still, I think it would be a good project to have the Leb Blogosphere assemble some info on what exactly HA officials have said about sources and amounts of their funding.

And happy travels to you. I was THIS close to drop by Beirut before the holidays but, alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Have an Al-Maza @ The Dragonfly for me.

--MSK

You know, I get the feeling that there's nothing Hezbollah could do that you wouldn't make an excuse for.

"Wow, they're standing around (in, admittedly, rather large numbers and an inconvenient place) and listening to speeches. What further atrocities could they commit that would bring you to condemn them?"

What further atrocities could they commit that would bring you to condemn them?

Oh, I don't know, I think the assassinations so far, and the attempt to protect Syria from the consequences of previous assassinations deserve notice.

There's one hell of a lot more, but the assassinations are the most relevant starting point.

I notice that you didn't write "peacefully standing around" since standing around while making threats (if implied ones) is not really most people's definition of peaceful.

More of your hand waving and shrieking? I get the point already, you have the binary world view of a small child. It's boring, and the sort of simple minded idiocy that has gotten Americans into a world of shit in MENA.

But why change a losing approach?

"hysterical" "simple minded" "simple-minded" "whanking" "whanking" ""frightening"" "simplistic martyrdom posturing" "trite game" "pretending" "childish" "fantasies "of profoundly little interest"

"hand waving" "shrieking" "world view of a small child" "boring" "simple minded idiocy"

I'd say you're doing a great job of hand waving rather than arguing yourself.

You should really learn how to spell "wanking" though.

So do you actually have even the slightest scrap of evidence linking HB and the assassinations?

(Admittedly, you're a nobody, and nobody cares if you assert random shit you have no way to prove. Political leaders should be held to higher standards, and I doubt Naswallah has a scrap more proof than you do.)

Bleah, okay, that link went nowhere. This is more or less what I was talking about:

He claimed that members of the government, whom he did not identify by name, had asked US envoys to get Israel to destroy Hizbullah because "the Lebanese couldn't" and tried to help Israeli forces determine his whereabouts during the war.

Well, idiot-boy, there is nothing to argue with you about as you're merely shrieking on about supposed connexions implied without a shred of genuine evidence. As you were unable to reply beyond hand waving to my note supra re a non-binary analysis, I have no more use for you.

Oh, and re You should really learn how to spell "wanking" though: I spell whanking as I like, and how I like to whank is with an H. Don't like it, fuck off.

I wonder if Nasrullah genuinely believes that Tom? If so, it may explain the bras de fer.

Oh, I think most of these people genuinely believe the worst of each other. It's what makes this so dangerous. If they were just cynics, there'd be some hope they could buy each other off.

Well, that is indeed rather dangerous. Rather dangerous indeed. Each side (at the leadership level) genuinely believing the other side are traitors is a fine recipe to open up a new civil war.

And of course we have simpletons such as JS supra throwing fuel on the fire with simple-minded binary pseudo-analysis.

"If they were just cynics, there'd be some hope they could buy each other off."

Cynicism as virtue. It must be hard to be cynical in that environment, though, with the security so low and the stakes so high for each respective faction.

One thing I hadn't realized until recently is how much some March 8 supporters (and some people who dislike both them and the March 14 supporters) feel that the Siniora government is a US/Israeli pawn to the same extent people think the same of Hizbollah-Syria/Iran.

The odd point I think is that neither Hizbullah nor Siniora et al are pawns, but rather looking for outside backers as their own domestic sourcing isn't enough. I don't believe for a second Hizbullah takes orders or is a puppet - the leadership has its own agenda and power. However, taking outside help always leads one to be beholden at some level.

Dear L,

Re: "I don't believe for a second Hizbullah takes orders or is a puppet - the leadership has its own agenda and power."

I think that is one of the THE big questions.

HA was founded as a joint-venture of Iran and members of the Leb Shi'ite AMAL who were "dissatisfied" with the (non)reaction of AMAL towards the Israeli invastion of Summer '82. The party's program pretty much states that whoever holds the post of "Supreme Leader" in Iran is also the commander-in-chief of HA. Also, HA seems to be quite DEPENDEND on Iranian funding in order to maintain its military and social services to the extent that it does. Should Iranian money ever cease to flow, then HA will drop down to the current level of AMAL or the other Leb political groups.

The question, now, is on how exactly that relationship works in the reality of 2006. How much autonomy does HA have? How much does Iran even care to micro-manage their Lebanon file? And how much does the Iranian leadership think it needs HA, vs. HA needing them?

If Iranian money makes up for 30% of HA's funding, then you're right. If the number is around, say, 70% ... then HA is closer to being controlled by Iran.

In a way, the current HA actions may - if they work out - just have the effect that HA (once they are in control of the gov't) will depend LESS on Iranian funding, as they will have access to other funds. I wonder if anyone within HA sees it that way, too.

--MSK

I feel like all of this talk about "simple-minded binary either/or whanking" is a insult to my intelligence. As if I didn't know that logic is binary. Every hear of The Law of Contradiction? The Law of the Excluded Middle? One doesn't argue by simply denying the validity of logic. And adding an insult to nonsense doesn't turn it into sense!

Nasrallah is publically using Syrian violence, and destruction of democracy for his own power. And Syria is publically getting its goal of ending the government fulfilled by Hezbollah! At the same time Hebollah is getting weapons from Syria.

One hand is very publically washing the other!

Who needs to prove a connection? If Hezbollah wanted to avoid the appearance of being allied with Syrian violence, then it would have postponed its power play be of less help to Syria's own campaign and needs.

That would be "publicly", I believe. Just for future reference, you understand.

Ok, Pantom (is that really a word?), here's the post, spell checked. Now maybe you can read for content.

I feel like all of this talk about "simple-minded binary either/or whanking" is a insult to my intelligence. As if I didn't know that logic is binary. Every hear of The Law of Contradiction? The Law of the Excluded Middle? One doesn't argue by simply denying the validity of logic. And adding an insult to nonsense doesn't turn it into sense!

Nasrallah is publicly using Syrian violence, and destruction of democracy for his own power. And Syria is publicly getting its goal of ending the government fulfilled by Hezbollah! At the same time Hezbollah is getting weapons from Syria.

One hand is very publicly washing the other!

Who needs to prove a connection? If Hezbollah wanted to avoid the appearance of being allied with Syrian violence, then it would have postponed its power play be of less help to Syria's own campaign and needs.

j scholar - One hand is very publically washing the other!

Huh, anyone else who misread "washing" for "whanking"?

. . . Nasrallah is publically using Syrian violence, and destruction of democracy for his own power. And Syria is publically getting its goal of ending the government fulfilled by Hezbollah! At the same time Hebollah is getting weapons from Syria.

Yes, taking advantage of your enemies enemies (who also conveniently happen to be your present allies) and timing is completely unheard of, isn't it? And Hizbullah of course is the only Lebanese faction that would ever stoop to accepting some muscular assistance from abroad -- I mean, could you even imagine, say, Jumblat or the Phalangists or Lebanese Forces or, gosh diddly, one of the Hariris working with Damascus when it suited their agenda? Perish the thought!

Who needs to prove a connection?

By normal discussion standards, whoever says there is one. You did, above.

If Hezbollah wanted to avoid the appearance of being allied with Syrian violence, then it would have postponed its power play be of less help to Syria's own campaign and needs.

Yes, it would. But apparently they think it's more important to ram this through before whatever window of opportunity they see closes, and perhaps in good time before the presidential elections, than to polish their image to suit people who are aiming to destroy them. Were I Hizbullah, I would probably do the same.

Even if my sympathies happen to be far closer to the foreign-backed crooks of March 14th, than to the foreign-backed crooks of March 8th, that doesn't mean a bit of realism in looking at the Lebanese mess is out of place. This is not about democracy for either side, this is about slicing up the pie. Apart from in the rhetoric of both sides, democracy will at best figure as a non-issue in this, and at worst -- more probably -- as collateral damage.

Alle, do you have trouble understanding context?

The sentence "Who needs to prove a connection?" made sense precisely because it was followed by "If Hezbollah wanted to avoid the appearance of being allied with Syrian violence, then it would have postponed its power play be of less help to Syria's own campaign and needs" which explained why I don't have to prove a connection.

Were I Hizbullah, I would probably do the same.

Ah, you would use political assassinations to pressure the government. But that's ok, because you called March 14th "foreign-backed crooks" (somehow) and claimed "This is not about democracy for either side."

It's so easy to make excuses for being a fascist thug if you just pretend that everyone else in the world is a fascist thug too.

But it's a lie. Your friends really are the only fascists here.

Because democracy does matter, and assassinations aren't just some funny, irrelevant side-show. And a putsch is not acceptable in a democratic state.

Mr Scholar, are you familiar with the Lebanese civil war of the 80s to the 90s, and do you think there were any good guys there? For example, do you know who Aoun is, what his position is and what it used to be? Just probing your mind.

I'm judging people by what they're doing in the present.

Josh Scholar, is Scholar your last name, or are you actually in academia? Just out of curiosity.

A general question for those in the know - has HA's increased popularity following the clash with Israel won them enough new (non-Shia lebanese) allies at this point to make them even more independent from the Iranian/Syrian backers?

I'm judging people by what they're doing in the present.

In short, you're a dangerous dupe, a useful idiot willing to swallow the self-serving spin of the various actors insofar as it meets your ill-informed pre-conceptions and to the extent they package it up right nice into pre-digested binary forms for you.

Brilliant.

Now as I am travelling I shall have to forgo the pleasure of taking apart your inanities, but they remain of the inoccent useful idiot variety.

Hezbullah is indeed "allied" with Syrian violencem, a marriage of convenience as our dear convert to Democracy, Jumblatt was only a few years ago - and as Rafiq Hariri (who before being blown up was well on his way to going down as one of the more spectacularly corrupt -in a self dealing sense with his fine debt game- double dealers in Lebanese politics.)

Judging by what they're doing now, bollocks, judging by the spin you're being fed, naive fool. Fascist thug.... bloody bolshevik empty headed idiocy langauge.

Josh - Oh, so you're judging people by what they're doing in the present, only, and then accuse me of not understanding context?

Right. Would you please name the leaders of the March 14th coalition who you do NOT think qualifies as foreign-backed crooks? And then why don't we discuss the "context" of that particular person's political career and alliances.

Dear SP,

there is no way to answer this question, as it is impossible to get good info/data.

That the Summer War has resulted in a much broader support for HA among non-Shi'a Lebanese (although on the other hand it might've cost HA support among Shi'a in the South) is clear.

But no Lebanese support could ever replace the Iranian one when it comes to money, military hardware and training, and international politics.

A good example would be HAMAS: it gained strong popular support within Palestine and even decisively won the elections, but absent of serious financial support from abroad (that money the Arab states and even Iran send is almost laughable) it cannot maintain the Palestinian gov't institutions and is now facing widespread popular protest.

If HA/FPM/etc will take over power in Lebanon through anything that is not an election ... then their gov't will be internationally boycotted and their only lifeline will be Iran, making them TOTALLY dependent on the guys in Tehran.

Such a scenario is not unlikely and would be sustainable - Iran has enough $$$ to pay for that, and a HA/FPM/etc gov't might actually be able to curb corruption in Lebanon and to make everyone pay taxes etc. ... But - absent a significant shift in HA's politics - it would also result in a mass flight of professionals (Sunni, Christian, Druze, secular), a resumption of violence on the Lebanon/Israel border (resulting in the next war), and quite possibly even a further split of the country into de fact cantons, with large parts of Lebanon (in Druze, Christian, Sunni, and other areas) simply not recognizing the authority of the government and doing their own thing - like during the latter part of the civil war.

--MSK

I think I'm just keeping my eye on the only ball that matters.

Look, it should be obvious what the future of Lebanon looks like if the country is completely controlled by a Hezbollah that is armed by Iran.

Then look at the alternatives. It is really night vs. day isn't it? Freedom vs. almost the classical definition of fascism down the dotted 'i's and crossed 't's of permanent warfare, and enmity toward the entire world.

Ah, the classical definition of fascism. Are we talking about ancient Greek fascism, or fascism as it was practiced in the Rome of the Caesars?

Also, it's utterly ludicrous to claim that even if March 8 brings down the government and so forth, that it will lead to some sort of Hizbullah-led dictatorship.

Dear Tom,

on what do you base your assertion that "it's utterly ludicrous to claim that even if March 8 brings down the government and so forth, that it will lead to some sort of Hizbullah-led dictatorship"?

I'm not saying it WILL happen, but I am not sure if such a scenario is "utterly ludicrous".

What is your take on HA? Do you think they are Islamists a la HAMAS and the Khomeinists ruling Iran? What do you think are the short- and long-term goals of HA? What do you think they are ready to do in order to achieve them? Do you think they are capable and/or willing to participate in a democratic system?

As for the comparison of Islamist parties with fascist ones ... a lot of scholarship has been done on that topic. And yes, there are similarities in terms of organization etc. Just as there are similarities with Communist parties of the Soviet variety.

--MSK

Also, it's utterly ludicrous to claim that even if March 8 brings down the government and so forth, that it will lead to some sort of Hizbullah-led dictatorship.

That's exactly what toppling a government through assassination leads to.

That's exactly what toppling a government through assassination leads to.

Lol, true, just ask CIA. Fighting the good fight.

Anyhoo, mr Scholar. It's downright silly to talk about Lebanon without any knowledge of its prior history. Or present state. For example, are you aware most Christians support Hizbollah through Aoun? I'm sure that may surprise you.

I guess our guest goes to show how lack of cynicism can promote war.

Dear Klaus,

Christopher Albritton is wrong. Aoun's FPM does NOT have the support of 70% of Lebanon's Christians. I don't know where he gets his numbers from. The FPM had never a majority among Christians. It went down after he'd allied himself with HA last year. General Christian support for the March 8 alliance had risen during/after the Summer War, but that's not necessarily in support of Aoun - most of them had been supporting Nasrallah, i.e. the the force who resisted Israel. (The FPM didn't send fighters to the South ...) Current support for Aoun/FPM is hard to gauge, many followers have a hard time reconciling their own anti-Syrian stance with his current (seemingly) pro-Syrian position.

There are pretty good discussions in the Leb blogosphere about that.

Strange that Albritton should've made such a mistake - he's usually quite good and perceptive.

--MSK

MSK - I probably should have said "led directly to..." but I was arguing with a moron, and thought I should keep things as simple as possible. It's not completely ludicrous (though not necessarily correct, either) to say that it would be a step on the road, but it's a rather long way from Lebanon-as-she-is-today and Lebanon-the-Islamo-Fascist-dictatorship. There's far too many distributed power centers still for anything like a centralized dictatorship to take hold.

Well. That's a first for Allbritton, he's usually rock solid. Thanks for the correction.

You can't approach the politics of any country on the planet, really, without knowing the context. The political class in most countries is small, everyone knows everyone else, and everyone has a reason both to oppose and to ally with others based on their judgment of their present interests salted with a liberal dose of how the potential ally/adversary acted in the past.
There is just a massive amount of history behind the current situation, and as far as I can tell from way over here, everyone in that little country could probably give you that whole history from their POV down to the minutest details.
In The Bronx, we'd call this a grudge fight. Down South, it'd be a feud. In the Old Country (my paternal Corsican ancestors) it'd be a vendetta. In all such situations, there is no way to understand the present without knowing the past history.
Unfortunately, in the ME, these things, which would normally be of interest only to the participants, tend to take on geopolitical dimensions.

The 70% number, btw, comes from the number of votes Aoun & FPM got during the last election (or maybe exit polling or some such).

true. the 70% (actually around 75%) does come from the elections. just a note however, the FPM (because of Aoun) does still seem to have quite a bit of support. that's just an initial sampling of course.

Dear Klaus & Tom,

Alritton himself actually wrote

And the Free Patriotic Movement is supported by — by some estimates — up to 70 percent of Lebanon’s Christians.

Unfortunately, instead of treating a "by some estimates" number with the care it deserves - particularly in the Lebanese context - he used it as if it was rock-solid.

Elections in Lebanon do not yield good data for such questions like "How many percent of the Christians support Aoun?" It's a sectarian parliamentary system: many candidates are unopposed and the elections are notoriously rigged. The closest one gets to good data are the opinion polls, and the numbers that a party (in this case Aoun) can muster for a demonstration.

--MSK

About the Aoun figures, I think FPM:s election results must've been boosted by the electoral alliance with HA. Remember some of the Kataeb/LF-kind Christians actually urged a boycott of the '05 elections, to protest the electoral laws and district borders redrawn under Syrian pressure, that they think (as far as I know rightly so) minimizes their voting impact. So for those two reasons, the electoral results for Aoun may well be unfairly high. On the other hand, he was at the time the by far biggest Christian personality, and still riding high on his anti-Syrianism, with Geagea in jail and the LF in disarray, the Kataeb split, etc, so then again, maybe not.

As for Christians supporting HA during the war, well, their logical choice then would be to support the Christian ally of HA, no? Because they're not going to start loving Hizbullah no matter how much they hate Israel. But Aoun may well have gained some important points by taking the "national" position there. (And remember he held the same stance during his "liberation war", being surprisingly principled in his Lebanese nationalism, and rejection of BOTH Syrian and Israeli/US interference/occupation -- which of course also left him vulnerable and alone when the US-Syrian alliance snapped together over Iraq. But few other Lebanese zuama has dared to venture into that kind of, at least on the surface, principled nationalism.)

Anyway, the question one must ask oneself is, if Aoun doesn't have at least 50% of active/militant Christian support, then who does? It seems pretty binary to me: its either him or the LF/Kataeb camp,* and I don't see why those guys would have very much more credibility than he does. I have a hard time thinking anyone would honestly believe he has turned pro-Syrian, even if they dislike his obviously tactical alliance with Hizbullah.

So. My working assumption is simply going to be that the Christians are split roughly 50-50 until I find a good recent opinon poll that says otherwise (and there should be one somewhere, I'm just to lazy to look for it).

Finally, Josh Scholar: come on and give me the names, then, so we can get on with this. If you think its wrong to qualify March 14th leaders as foreign-backed crooks, fine, but why?

*) Excluding Frangieh pro-Syrians, Elias Murr, Lahoud and such, but they're hardly going to get upset over anyone's alliance with Hizbullah...

Well, now I gave it a shot anyway. I didn't find what I was looking for, sadly, but this collection of Lebanon polls, taken during and after the war, merits reading anyway. Some clues are found to how Christian sympathies could be distributed among the parties, but they go both ways, nothing conclusive.

And this one (achtung! PDF), also polling Lebanese, is very interesting. I especially suggest that diagram no. 20 be stapled to the forehead of every US congressman, until such a time as it has become irrelevant.

Dear Alle,

yeah, those are the polls I meant. Nothing to indicate percentages of Christians who support Aoun.

Interestingly, in the 3rd poll of the collection, only 45% of all Lebanese considered Aoun to be "the best candidate for president". So he either didn't have strong support among Christians or among Shi'a ...

The Zogby/Telhami poll was the one I was talking about earlier. In the context of the question (Christian support), look at those numbers:

#5 -- After the Lebanon War describe your attitudes toward Hizbullah - 45% more negative, 23% more positive.

As for #20, yeah ... D'UH!!!

--MSK

MSK: Well, you do have a point. But look at the figures again. The rest of the listed presidential candidates scored:

- 11% Boutros Harb.
- 8% Nassib Lahoud.
- 6% Samir Geagea.

(Did they forget anyone important? I don't know, and there may well be a lot of unlisted unknowns that got a couple of percent each. But it seems they're listing every full percent polled, and my guess is most people just shuddered with disgust and checked the "oh dear God, please, none of the above"-box.)

If you add those numbers up, they make 25% of the Lebanese population. Now, the Christian community accounts for ... well, that is the issue, isn't it? But 35% strikes me as reasonable, tell me if you disagree.

That means that even if we maximize the number of Christians that voted for one of these three, they willl all together still just take 25% of the tot pop, leaving nearly a third of the Chr votes for Aoun, and accounting for about 10 of his 45 points. But such a hypothesis would mean that these three are 100% Christian-supported -- blatantly impossible, given the animosity against Aoun among Sunni and Druze.

What I'm trying to say is that you could just as well turn the numbers around: either the non-Aoun candidates are very weak among Christians, or among other March 14th supporters. The truth is probably that all Christian candidates are pretty weak in their own communities, outside of a hard core of supporters, and that Aoun is so far the only one to attract a significant following from other sects (namely, a zillion Shia).

The issue now (before elections) is really whether Aoun or the Kataeb/LF crowd in March 14th is more liked by Christians generally, and especially among the activist-militant types that can put weight on the scales. And looking at it that way, I don't think Aoun's 45% is all that bad, compared to the 6% scored by his most visible political foe.

Anyway, after writing all that, here's at last a good post-war poll (but still PDF). It corresponds closely to the one above, and gives Aoun nearly 40% of Christian votes, putting him in an overhwelming lead before candidate number two, namely "Nobody" at 22.5%...

Dear Alle,

excellent work, except for your assertion that

"But such a hypothesis would mean that these three are 100% Christian-supported -- blatantly impossible, given the animosity against Aoun among Sunni and Druze."

Aoun getting a third of the Christian vote (ca. 12% of the Leb vote) would mean that - to reach 45% - he needs another 33% of the Leb vote, which he'd get from the Shi'a and a few non-March 14 Sunni & Druze.

ANYway - I was only saying that he does NOT have 70% (or even a majority) of the Christians behind him.

Of course Aoun is the strongest of those 4 names you listed (although Geagea was never a candidate). But a possible high of 40% isn't anywhere close to the originally asserted 70% ...

Re: whether Christians are 35% - that's the number bandied about by pretty much everyone and the least disputed (as opposed to the size of the Shi'a, for example).

Hey, here's a question: Does Aqoul have a betting license? If so, then I'd put my $$$ on Aoun not becoming president, but instead March 14 & HA agreeing on a compromise candidate, with my current bet being on Michel Sulaiman, the Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Who's in? We can have one pot on whether Aoun will be Prez & another (among those who think he won't) on who the next Prez will be.

This is gonna be SO MUCH BETTER than those stupid Weblog Awards!!!

--MSK

I'd bet on that 'Nobody' fella, though I don't know a whole lot about his policies. But I think he could be the perfect compromise candidate.

alle, MSK -

both of you make interesting points. however, the polls you are discussing are the polls that are used by people when quoting the 70%. I'm in leb now, and don't have all my files with me, but the 70% (or 75%, according to my memory) comes from statistics taken during / after elections. Not during / after the war. There are no updated statistics since the elections concerning popularity vs. sect. There was a chance to discover how accurate such a number was a while back, but that was bypassed with a political compromise. all else is speculation.

anyways, as to presidents. i bend towards michel sleiman being chosen, although there are issues people might have. another name being whispered is amine gemayel. just fyi.

Alle: Actually, it was Jumblatt & March 14th who (bizarre as it sounds) had the electoral alliance with Hizbullah during the 2005 elections.

MSK:
Elections in Lebanon do not yield good data for such questions like "How many percent of the Christians support Aoun?" It's a sectarian parliamentary system: many candidates are unopposed and the elections are notoriously rigged.

Except in the case of the last Lebanese elections, Aoun and the LF were directly opposed pretty much everywhere, and not to put too fine a point on it, Aoun kicked the shit out of the LF, especially among the Christian vote. (Not least because he was seen as his own man while the LF were seen as subordinate to Hariri & Jumblatt). Whether he holds that same position after his deal with Hizbullah is a matter for debate.

Dear L,

good to see you made it safe & sound all the way across the Big Blue.

Question: whatever happened to that general strike, incl. closing down the airport, announced by Hassuhum last Friday? Wasn't it supposed to be today? And what happened? Was it cancelled?

I feel like I didn't get a memo or something.

As for those polls - the latest one(Zogby/Telhami) was done only a month or so ago.

Amine Gemayel would be the "father-figure/elder-statesman" persona. But could he transcend the family alliance with Israel during the Civil War? After all, it was he who signed the May 17 Agreement ...

--MSK

Dear Tom,

right, right ...

Do you happen to have a link to the numbers?

And, as someone who's "on the ground" - what's your prediction re: next Prez?

--MSK

MSK: Sadly, I'm still going off of half-assed "i kinda remember this" stuff.

At this point, people are saying that maybe the next thing they'll do is to close down the airport road. Nobody's done it yet. The army today let people who work downtown come back to their offices (as I know from personal experience).

I'd also say at this point that Aoun really looks like the only game in town as far as potential future presidents.

Adding to the above: which doesn't mean that someone other than Aoun won't get elected, but whoever that is would end up essentially branded as "not-Aoun".

Dear all,

Speaking of ... polls.

Daily Star (via Naharnet) sample of 800 people in 30/11-5/12 period (The 1st big HA/FPM demonstration was on 1 December):

94% of Shiites and 50% of Christians said the Saniora government had "lost constitutional legitimacy".

83% of Sunnis and 90% of Druze said the opposite.

Nearly 3/4 of Lebanese agree that there should be a new national unity government.

73.1% of Lebanese support the creation of the international court.

52% percent agreed with the way the government was handling the issue, 48% percent disagreed.

On Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel's assassination, more than 48% were undecided about the culprits behind the murder, while 21% said they believed the March 14 forces were responsible.

...

That a vast majority supports a national unity gov't shows, again, how much of a horror the memory of the 75-90 Civil War is.

That a similar number (almost 3/4) support the creation of the Int'l Court (on the Hariri & other assassinations) is, I think, very interesting. Unfortunately we don't know how much the Int'l Court is associated with an anti-Syria attitude.

The 21% who think Pierre Gemayel was killed by March 14 (to stoke the flames and stir up hatred against March 8?) shows how low Lebanese think of their politicians.

--MSK

msk - I was only saying that [Aoun] does NOT have 70% (or even a majority) of the Christians behind him.

Quite correct, and I'll settle for a very strong plurality, which might turn into a majority at election day depending on what happens now. Sorry for battling strawmen there for a while. (But they too put up a good fight.)

lazarus - The polls we're discussing now were taken both before, during and after the war. The 70% number does seem to stem from the '05 elections though, and I agree that's a poor way to measure the current popularity of Aoun, or anyone else for that matter -- even without the war messing up the figures.

tom scudder - Absolutely true. My embarrassing bad, don't know what I was thinking. However, your correction rather strengthens the point I was trying to make about Aoun's popularity -- that it was not all artificial -- so I'm happy anyway.

- - - -

Btw, one thing which has always fascinated me with the Ta'if agreement is that it reserved a quota for one or two Alawis in the Lebanese parliament, proving that even Hafez al-Assad had a sense of humor. My question is, who holds these seats now, representing what party?

1000 Lebanese lira to whoever finds that out for me.

the two alawites are from north lebanon. (link). no idea which party they are with, although i have some hunches.

Dear Alle,

they are Badr Wannous & Mustafa Ali Hussein. Wannous was elected as "independent" but joined the Future Movement. Hussein was on the "Future Movement" election list.

Sources:

Arab Decision (One of the best websites for that kind of info):

Badr Wannous

Mustafa Ali Hussein

Embassy of Lebanon in the U.S.:

List of Deputies by Voting District

American Lebanese Coordination Council:

Deputies by Electoral Lists (who got Hussein pegged wrong as "Sunni")

You owe me money.

--MSK

New Assignment to the Lebanon Brains Trust:

To my lesser informed sensibility, the one thing emerging as more subtle than the usual oversimplified Christian v. Muslim and now Christian v. Christian fissures, is this Sunni versus Shiite fissure now oozing directly.

Discuss. Give sociological, child-rearing, educational, and economic examples. Employment and daily intercommuncal interaction. Reaction to latest conflict with Israel in the South (which would seem to throw those communities into commom sympathy). And where does the Hariri element fit in all this?

(I might move this to full entry discussion, if has enough room.)

One sheet of paper, don't go outside the bluebook.

Dear Matthew,

that would cost a bit more than 60 cents.

--MSK

PS: There are good discussions on this very topic on both Mustapha's (Beirut Spring) and Doha's (Lebanon Bloggers) blogs. Both are Sunnis from Tripoli and Mustapha is actually in town right now. Just ask them. And then post here.

PPS: Next time, don't forget to specify to use only soft-lead pencils or black colored pens. Hard-lead pencils are impossible to read (especially if you have to grade dozens of bluebooks) and blue ink is the color of the grader.

"PPS: Next time, don't forget to specify to use only soft-lead pencils or black colored pens. Hard-lead pencils are impossible to read (especially if you have to grade dozens of bluebooks) and blue ink is the color of the grader."

Number 2, FABER only.

"Although we’re both from the same country, my friend and I come from completely different historical backgrounds when it comes to our past relationship with Syria."

This sentence on Mustapha's blog jumped out. I noiced that well before all this, a Sunni friend thought the removal of Syria was the coolest thing. Not a view embraced by the Hizbollniks.

Seems it's all a Sham, I tell ya.

msk - Ah, thank you! Future movement, who could've guessed. Now, you can either stop at this level and take your money, or ... be a daredevil and go for the full dollar:

- How many Alawis are there in Lebanon? And what is their relationship to Syrian Alawis, and the Assad system?

(Perhaps Joshua Landis on SyriaComment wrote something on that around election time, but again I'm too lazy to check.)

Dear Alle,

How many Alawis are there in Lebanon? Why, that's simple to calculate.

Just take the number of Alawi deputies (2) and divide it by the total number of deputies in the Lebanese parliament (128) and ... you get .015625, i.e. 1.5625% of Lebanon's population. Wiki says that Lebanon has 3,874,050 inhabitants .... so that'll make 60,532 Alawis.

Man, that was easy.

Their relationship to Syrian Alawis is one of blood - they're all related, just like all Maronites are related to each other.

The 2 Lebanese Alawi deputies are part of the Future Movement, so I will just assume that all Lebanese Alawis support the Future Movement as well, and hence hate Syria. All 60,532 of them. As a matter of fact, since Lebanon has only since Ta'if (1989) 2 parliamentary seats set aside for Alawis, I would even go as far as to say that this pretty much proves that before that year there were no Alawis in Lebanon and they are probably migrants from Syria, forced upon the (as everyone knows) hardcore Islamist Sunnis in northern Lebanon to function as spies for the Assad Regime. Of course, upon settling in Lebanon they immediately (again, all 60,532 of them) realized just how much better Lebanon was than Syria, yet were caught in that gotta-work-for-the-Man situation - which resulted in a deep-but-suppressed (remember - Alawis are almost Shi'a & thus masters at taqiyah) hatred towards Syria and its political rulers.

Finally (!) they could release all that pent-up energy after the Syrian Army withdrew in Spring 2005 et voila - 2 Alawi deputies in the Future Movement!

Now gimme my money!

--MSK

good work MSK. we should buy you a drink ;)

matthew - it is a sham. public views sway with the view of their leaders. generalized sunni opinion would not have thought the removal of syria such a cool thing three years ago. all shia, sunni, christians, and druze suffered under the syrians, but communal memory has a way of controlling that.

(btw did the admins ban Josh the Troll Scholar or did he just run away in terror from all the actual information? Or maybe, just maybe, he's figured out that Lurk and Learn is better than Post and Provoke...)

We don't ban as a general rule, excepting trolling, which this was not. So he ran away.

MSK - Impeccable scholarship. $1 coming right up, should I ever bump into you in real life. And then you can invest it in the Lebanon Politics Betting Scheme, getting a thousand times your money when Fairuz is elected president (She is Maronite, isn't she?).

Btw, there must a web betting company out there somewhere who set this up?

I'm mostly surrounded by Lebanese those days and I can sense how they're freaking out because of the demos - it really doesn't matter which side they're supporting. Coming from France, where paralyzing the country and going down the streets for partisan claims is the favorite national sport, I have to acknowledge their worries really escape me. If we feared civil war everytime there were some massive demonstrations in Paris, the mere mental load of the aggregate Gross National Worry would have been enough to transform France into a big parking lot by now...

Then again, José Bové isn't the leader of a 20,000 strong guerrilla army, armed and financed by Germany and Britain ... and Lebanon isn't much like France. Think Bosnia. Only without the federalism, without fair representation in government, and with Serb militias still armed to the teeth.

Alle, I know, the list of differences is long and obvious. Yet, I haven't seen actual signs that those demonstrations are going to be anything else than demonstrations (isolated incidents don't count as they are only anecdotal and haven't degenerated - in fact such things could and did happen in France too). So far, the fears are really rooted in the tribally programmed mindset of the Lebanese only.

Mass demos in France won't lead to civil war. But in Lebanon, they might, eventually, spiral out of control, and summon sectarian demons, with some sides very much prepared for armed conflict (and one that just got out of one). The point is not that the exact same behaviour in France would lead to nothing too excessive, but that in Lebanon it might. I don't believe the fears are rooted in a tribal mindset, but simply from looking back at what happened in the 60's and 70's, and even before then. Not to say that tribal mindsets aren't a factor in Lebanon, but just that you don't need them to fear for civil war.

It's probably a little different this time, though. Although I'm not sure the factions there have learned the real lessons needed to avert even the risk of civil war, I think everyone in the region realizes and remembers how bad it can be, so it's always in the back of their minds. Still, if there's a big enough spark... and thus the worry.