Lebanon's National Dialogue resumes

By Malek Mohammed Misbah in Beirut
For Al-Shorfa.com
2010-03-09

[JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images] President Michel Suleiman reconvened the National Dialogue Committee to discuss the fate of Hizbullah's weapons.

Participants in the Lebanese National Dialogue vowed to continue discussing the issue of Lebanon's defence strategy and to activate a committee of experts to find a middle ground between differing views, the Lebanese presidency announced Tuesday (March 9th).

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman reconvened the National Dialogue Committee to discuss a single clause left over from a previous committee launched in 2006. The clause revolves around Lebanon's defence strategy and the fate of Hizbullah's weapons.

The talks, which brought together politicians from across the political spectrum handpicked by the president, came ten days after a controversial meeting on February 27th in Damascus between Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.

Both the majority March 14 and the minority March 8 groups issued statements restating their respective positions on the resumption of the dialogue and the issues on its agenda. Some in the majority expressed their opposition to Hizbullah's weapons, while the minority maintained that the dialogue would discuss a defence strategy and not the disarming of Hizbullah.

Tuesday talks were also ended with no agreement and the next dialogue session was set for April 15.

March 14 Secretariat General Coordinator, former MP Fares Soueid, told Al-Shorfa that "there is no doubt that the objective of the dialogue table is to state that there is a sharp disagreement among the Lebanese regarding the issue of weapons."

Soueid pointed to the meeting in Damascus between Assad, Ahmedinejad and Nasrallah, saying that "a discussion of a defensive and offensive strategy will be centered around what is called a 'Resistance Front', which became obvious in the trilateral meeting in Damascus. The meeting concluded with adopting a strategy of defense and resistance only in order to counterbalance Israel, at a time when Lebanon is considered as inseparable from the Arab nations and their unified strategy towards Israel."

Soueid said that "the image of the trilateral meeting in Damascus confirmed the fact that the politics of March 8 are confined to purely regional dimensions and perspectives, which are not connected to Lebanese interests at all, and it has adopted a strategy of resistance outside the Arab framework. This situation requires that March 14 receive more attention in the Arab world because the Arab foreign ministers allowed the president of the Palestinian Authority to engage in indirect talks with Israel following the declaration of the Resistance Front in Damascus".

Soueid considered that in view of this situation, the search for a defence strategy is now caught in a dilemma: "on the one side there is the resistance front, and on the other, Lebanon's adherence to the position of the Arab League in the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Soueid said that "involving the Arab League in the National Dialogue Table is a necessity both on the Lebanese and Arab fronts at the same time, and this is because of two main reasons: any discussion of a defence strategy to protect Lebanon from any Israeli aggression, despite this being primarily the responsibility of Lebanon, is also an Arab responsibility because it is no less important than the Lebanese one."

"As for the second reason, it is the fact that any discussion of a defense strategy should take into account the resolutions of the Arab Initiative for Peace adopted in the Beirut summit in 2002, which the Riyadh summit in 2007 reaffirmed, since any Lebanese defense strategy cannot ignore the Arab consensus on the said initiative as Lebanon is an integral part of it and is part and parcel of the Arab family. Consequently, it has to abide by the unified Arab political action".

He added that "the desire of the March 14 forces to involve the Arab League in the dialogue is not born out of nothing, but it is based on their national responsibilities of ensuring Lebanon's adherence to the resolutions of the Arab League."

Dr. Ragheb Jaber, a professor at the Lebanese University, told Al-Shorfa that "the dialogue table is similar to a founding organisation, and it is well known that the founding organisation writes the founding documents, i.e. the constitution, and if the issue of defence strategy was not important, it would have been left to the other constitutional institutions, such as Parliament and the cabinet."

Jaber does not believe that the call to expand the issues discussed has anything to do with the meeting in Damascus.

"I don't think so, for two reasons: the official statements about this, and also, the call was to be expected as we are just a few months into the formation of this new government."

Responding to statements that the dialogue was in response to regional and international demands, President Suleiman said that "the National Dialogue Table is determined by national concerns and not by foreign ones, including the stance of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The Dialogue Table is a continuation of what has been achieved in previous dialogue sessions."

Suleiman pointed to the fact that "the issue of defence strategy is connected to many other subjects that strengthen our national defense, among which is the financial issue, and if the participants consider that it is important to discuss this issue or others, there is no problem with that."

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