Serene Assir assesses the challenges facing the restart of the Lebanese National Dialogue Following a three-week interlude, the Lebanese National Dialogue was resumed on 28 April with the aim of coming to a consensus on the future of the presidency. This time round, leaders had said early in April, if there was no agreement on the issue, then the talks would move swiftly on to their final phase, in which the armaments of Hizbullah would be discussed. Days on, the presidency controversy continues to be far from solved, but there are strong indications that even if President Emile Lahoud -- who is described by the anti- Syrian bloc as constituting the last vestige of the Syrian occupation, which ended with the withdrawal of 14,000 Syrian troops in spring 2005 -- were to remain at the helm for now, the name-list for new potential presidents is near complete. And there seems to be no shortage of names in the offing. In fact, a total of 12 Christian Maronites, in accordance with an unwritten code established ever since French rule over Lebanon by mandate ended, are now being considered. Considered, that is, following a Christians-only meeting held at the residence of Samir Geagea, who heads the Lebanese Forces Party (LF) and who was released from prison last year, having been absolved of his sentence for war crimes. Geagea was reported as saying that the intentions behind holding such a meeting, from which non-Christian leaders had been excluded, were not indicative of any form of sectarianism, and that he remained above all faithful to the 14 March alliance in the Lebanese political process, which includes prominent leaders from other sects too. However, given that the president will ultimately be a Maronite, Christian leaders thought it would be best to come up with a shortlist internally first, in order to minimise the immediate danger of further disputes. Not present at the meeting was former General Michel Aoun, who returned to Lebanon last year following the Syrian withdrawal, after 15 years of self-imposed exile in France. Commenting on the fact that the prominent Maronite Christian leader, who in a surprise move allied himself with Hizbullah following last year's parliamentary elections and thus broke away from the 14 March coalition, had not been invited to the gathering, participants said that he would not be welcome among them unless he abandoned Hizbullah and returned to the anti-Syrian camp. Nevertheless, Aoun's chances of making it to the top post in Lebanese politics have by no means been dimmed -- or at least, not yet. For his name was included in a list of candidates discussed with influential religious leader Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir and announced at the National Dialogue meeting Friday, alongside 11 others. Geagea was not, however, on that list. It appears that even without Lahoud resigning, the anti- Syrian bloc is fast moving towards achieving some kind of consensus of its own, in a sense to get ahead. Pressure on the president -- whose term was extended under Syrian pressure in 2004, some say unconstitutionally -- has all the while been building up ever since the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri in February 2005. He has so far, however, insisted that he would only resign if new parliamentary elections were called first, adding that if his presidency is to be deemed unconstitutional, then so should parliament. Meanwhile, following what appeared to be an unbreakable deadlock for weeks on end, the pace in Lebanese politics has been significantly sped up over recent days. The key to get things going again, it seems, lay not so much in concentrating on the dialogue process, but in politicians finding alternative, more classical means to settle crises. The National Dialogue has now become little more than a showcase for the media -- while real political decisions are made elsewhere. Among the factors contributing to the build-up has been the imposition of ever-clearer pressure on Damascus by the United Nations, thus leaving the anti-Syrian bloc with the option to discuss and create the future of Lebanese politics at its own pace. Among the factors perceived by some to have added to such pressure was the recent visit by Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora to Washington. While United States officials have openly supported the National Dialogue process, Al-Siniora insisted that he went to Washington only to discuss means to liberate the Shebaa Farms, an area whose identity is still controversial. A peculiar development is that Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader and prominent ally of the Saad Al-Hariri-led movement -- of which Al-Siniora is also a member -- has insisted regularly that the Shebaa Farms are not Lebanese. But then again, Jumblatt has been noticeably quiet over recent days, in comparison to moments when his anti-Syrian statements were so inflamed that some feared he was simply going too far. And in Syria, UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen's call for an immediate final demarcation of Syrian-Lebanese borders was rejected on the grounds of the ongoing Israeli occupation of Shebaa. Still on the cards is perhaps the most controversial subject of all, namely UN Resolution 1559's demand that Hizbullah disarm. The National Dialogue seems to be saving this issue for last, not least because it will no doubt cause major splinters harboured by different groups in Lebanon against each other to resurface. For Hizbullah, the suggestion that it should disarm is tantamount to paving the way for Lebanon to be vulnerable to renewed Israeli aggression. For the anti-Syrian bloc, Hizbullah's military capacity grants the Shia group unnecessary powers. Leaders of the 14 March coalition have instead called for an integration of Hizbullah fighters into the Lebanese army. New violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli jets this week caused uproar among various political groups. Al-Siniora's plea in Washington for assistance in dealing with Israel, where at least 2,000 Lebanese prisoners remain, included a request for the US to put more pressure on its ally. Given that it increasingly appears that the anti-Syrian bloc will be calling most shots in Lebanon, at least for some time to come, one would hope that it recognises that a naïve relationship with Washington is as good as a bad one.
