Arab Politics, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

Lebanon’s Unwelcome Visitors: Ki-Moon, a Phony UN Bureaucrat, a Familiar Messenger of Evil…………..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF   


“The head of Hezbollah’s Shura Council Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek said over the weekend that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon Friday, is not welcome.“The visit of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to Beirut is not welcome, neither is the phony [U.N. Special Envoy Terje Roed] Larsen or the messenger of evil [Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs] Jeffrey Feltman,” Yazbek was quoted by local media as saying. Yazbeck accused Larsen, who is tasked with overseeing the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, of being biased toward Israel. UNSCR 1559 was adopted in 2004 and calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah. The latter has defended its arms as the only means to fend off Israeli aggression…………”

Hezbollah
and Jeffrey Feltman are old pals, they go way back to the good old days when Mr. Feltman was US ambassador to Beirut. The Lebanese opposition at the time claimed he was the true leader of the March 14 right-wing movement. They nearly claim that he led the March 14 and the old Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and the Saudi ambassador in daily prayers for an Israeli victory in the summer war of 2006. They also strongly suspect that many Arab oligarchs joined that prayer, via teleconferencing or Skype. I fully agree with this last assessment: the princes were doing their rain dance, in vain, for a right outcome that war.

Lebanese-American relations have been in a sort of twilight zone for some years. For years U.S. secretary of state Clinton reportedly has not met with her Lebanese counterparts, the successive foreign ministers, even when she visited Lebanon. The foreign minister has been from the Hezbollah bloc. This has led to an interesting diplomatic dance by Hillary Clinton to meet some Lebanese leaders but not their foreign minister, nor their most important leader (you know who that is, don’t you?).

I suppose
 this Lebanese opposition to the visits by these foreign dignitaries and international bureaucrats is somewhat fair. After all Hassan Nasrallah is probably not welcome in Washington (DC), and I don’t just mean at the AIPAC or its offshoot Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I doubt that Mr. Nasrallah is welcome at the UN either. Besides, all these gentlemen no doubt wish that the current Lebanese government would just vanish and be replaced with the pliable Saudi regime of Saad Hariri and his sidekick Fouad Saniora. They no doubt also wish that Hassan Nasrallah would also vanish, but then where would he go? Dearborn?
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]