Talk of an imminent war between Israel and Hizbullah, or a wider regional escalation, subsided in Lebanon slightly this week, allowing a brief respite from the constant fear of escalation. Progress on bridging the gaping political divide remained elusive, however, with the presidential election postponed for the 16th time to 25 March, four days before the Arab Summit convenes in Damascus. Lebanon has been without a president since November, when Emile Lahoud stepped down with no nominated successor, due to the rift between the Western- supported anti-Syrian government and Hizbullah and its allies in the opposition, who demand a greater share in power. The White House condemned the decision to postpone the election as "unacceptable" and blamed Syrian meddling. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have threatened not to attend unless a Lebanese president is elected in time, raising fears that the regional battle lines are growing clearer, but also hopes that this threat might result in a last- ditch solution in Lebanon. It remains unclear whether pro- Western Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora would attend instead, a step that would likely be unacceptable to the opposition led by Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbullah. "The situation is escalating and there seems to be a covert confrontation going on from the assassination of Imad Mughniyah all the way up to today," said Osama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, referring to the killing of a Hizbullah military commander three weeks ago. "I really don't see any signs of a rapprochement or a thaw in the region, which I think is unfortunate for this country. I think it probably will prolong the crisis." Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said after the killing of Mughniyah that Israel was welcome to an "open war" if that was what it wanted, making clear retaliation was a certainty. But talk of an all-out conflict subsided this week, with many predicting that Israel had no taste yet for renewed conflict. That impression was bolstered by an annual Israeli intelligence report, which warned that escalating its attack on Gaza could expose Israel to renewed conflict with Hizbullah. According to a report on Israel's Ynet news service, Hizbullah has fully prepared for a new conflict, as the group itself has said. Safa said the "war" had in fact started, with Mughniyah's assassination and an attack at a Jewish Talmudic school in Jerusalem, where a Palestinian gunman shot eight students dead. "I think this is the new face of that war, it's not going to be confrontation, it's not going to be air strikes. It'll be covert operations back and forth," Safa said. With the three-year anniversary of the mass anti-Syrian protest of 14 March 2005 this week, the eponymous 14 March movement said it would announce a new "political platform" at a conference on Friday. Analysts expect little new from the 14 March communiqué, and most expect an uneasy status quo until after the Arab summit. "It's going to be calmer, with this eerie stability, until after the summit," said Safa. "I think Gaza is being used to convey messages at the moment." Parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri expressed hope the Islamic Summit underway in Dakar, Senegal, would yield a path to a solution before the Damascus meeting. Berri accused the United States of foiling an Arab League initiative to end the crisis, which has so far made no progress. "Those who don't support the Arab initiative and who have blocked more than one plan to solve the Lebanese crisis, cannot make us believe that they want the election of a president more than us," Berri, an opposition leader, said in a statement. Neither of the two sides appear prepared to give an inch on the central issue of power sharing in the next government. The opposition wants a guaranteed third of the seats to ensure a say in major decisions against a backdrop of growing domestic and international pressure on Hizbullah. The government refuses and argues that it has a parliamentary majority. More crucially, neither do their backers, with the battle- lines drawn between the pro-US, so-called "moderate", Arab states and Iran, Syria and Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements, sharpened by the dispute over the Arab summit and reactions to Israel's bloody campaign in Gaza. At the forefront is the Syrian-Saudi dispute that flared up after the July 2006 war, when Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad accused Arab leaders who failed to support Hizbullah's resistance to Israel of being "half-men". Many analysts say the dispute reflects US pressure to isolate Damascus and Hizbullah. But supporters of 14 March say the international tribunal to try the suspects in former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri's 2005 killing is at the heart of the tussle. A Daily Star editorial last week tied the Saudi-Syrian dispute to Lebanon and the Hariri killing. "Damascus has pleaded innocence in that crime -- and all the political killings that have followed -- but it remains the prime suspect in most quarters," the paper said. "Riyadh has tried mightily to position itself as a neutral observer in the Lebanese political context, but Hariri was a favoured son with close ties to the royal family. As though Lebanon were not already hosting a sufficient number of regional tugs-of- war, yet another has been going on in which the contestants show no sign of giving up."
