An Obamination on Lebanon

Lebanon is on the edge of civil war, if not already there, compliments of an insurrection by Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah. Obama has issued a statement on the situation, calling for "change" to solve this act of war on a soveriegn country. But what sort of change does Obama propose? This from the statement by Obama:

Hezbollah's power grab in Beirut has once more plunged that city into violence and chaos.

Good, dead on point, Baracky, you tell ‘em.

This effort to undermine Lebanon's elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately.

That’s it. More. . . .more . . .

It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, . . .

Whoa, Baracky. Do you have a clue what you just said or to whom you just threw your support? You've just delegitimized the current democratically elected government as corrupt and unreprsentative. That line could have come from Nasrallah or the Iranian news agency - and in fact it regularly does.
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Without going into the entire history of Lebanon, (Read Tom Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem for an excellent recent history) Wikipedia has a very good description of the political balance as it exists in Lebanon on paper today:

Lebanon is a parliamentary, democratic republic, which implements a special system known as confessionalism. This system, allegedly meant to insure that sectarian conflict is kept at bay, attempts to fairly represent the demographic distribution of religious sects in the governing body. As such, high-ranking offices in are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Catholic Christian, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Deputy Prime Minister an Orthodox Christian.

Read the article. That system, complimented by other agreements, is what the Lebanese worked out as a reasonable power sharing agreement. The one’s who are trying to put a fork in it are Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. They are the ones calling it corrupt and demanding a veto for Hezbollah over all government legislation. They have refused to honor the democratic system for choosing a new President because they want someone in the post who is pro-Hezbollah and pro-Syria. This all funnels into their biggest immediate concern, shutting down investigation into the assassination of Rafik Harari and countless other anti-Syrian politicians. Indeed, that is at the heart of the recent Hezbollah’s erruption. As Righwing Nuthouse put it:

. . . the Hariri Tribunal that may start as early as next month under the auspices of the United Nations. It is a dead certainty that Hezb’allah’s role in some of the political assassinations that have rocked Lebanon over the past 3 years will be revealed. Nasrallah, and his patron in Syria Bashar Assad, will do everything in their power to prevent the tribunal from sitting. If it means taking the country to the brink of a civil war, so be it.

Read the entire post. Prior to today, the only people demanding electoral reform are Iran, Syria and its proxy, Hezbollah. Now we add Obama to that list.

Obama is incredibly dangerous. He is Jimmy Carter pumped to the breaking point with steroids. He makes Neville Chamberlin look like a warmongerer. As Gateway Pundit said:

Well, Barack Obama already has:

** The Hamas vote
** The Iranian regime's vote
** The Gaza vote
** The FARC vote
** Moammar Ghaddafi's vote
** Fidel Castro's vote
** Nicaraguan Marxist leader Daniel Ortega's vote
** Other assorted America-haters' votes, not to mention his pastor's vote
...Now it looks like Obama's shooting for (no pun intended) the Hezbollah vote!

. . . It's not surprising then that the people of Lebanon would be upset with Obama. It's also not surprising that the terror groups are throwing their support behind him.More hope and change-- For Hezbollah.

Read the entire post.