Part of the backroom deals to the Annapolis conference now seems to have been about giving Lebanon to Syria.

Let’s recap:

In Lebanon a coalition of the Shia Hizbullah and Christian groups under former General Aoun are supported by Syria and Iran. The March 14 movement, consisting of the Sunni leader and Saudi business mogul Hariri plus various Christian fractions, is supported by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

The official government of Lebanon is somewhat in limbo. Voting for a new president by the split parliament was blocked and the date to vote moved several times. There is still the threat of a new bloody civil war. Another vote on the president is supposed to take place tomorrow but will likely be postponed.

This, in geopolitical terms, small conflict was constapiated in the run up to the recent Annapolis conference.

There was a long discussion if and under what circumstances Syria would be part of that conference. The Syrians taking part was something the Bush administration really desired.

The central issue of Syria’s participation was said to be negotiations between Syria and Israel about the occupied Golan heights – a fruitless endeavor as Israel doesn’t want to give up on those unless really threatened. After some secret negotions with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia the Syrian’s finally sent a deputy foreign minister to Annapolis.

Now, as Annapolis is over and Syria did take part, the various fraction in Lebanon seem to have quite suddenly agreed to a compromise candidate for president.

The chief of the Lebanese army, General Michel Suleiman, is the selected one.

He is not unfriendly to Syria and was originally put forward as a compromise candidate by Aoun.  Now the March 14 group has accepted him and he even has Saudi support. Aoun is now only  ‘somewhat’ in support as he himself is still a possible but unlikely candidate too and he wants to stretch the deal a bit further.

Purely coincidental the international investigation by the UN, in person of chief investigator Serge Brammertz, into the killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in 2005 which was pinned on Syria, today suddenly finds new culprits which are not Syrian and also says that Syria has generally co-operated with the investigation.

So after Syria took part in Annapolis, Lebanon now suddenly finds a somewhat pro-Syrian compromise candidate for president and at the same time the Brammertz investigation suddenly exculpates the Syrian government from the Hariri assassination. 

I was wrong to earlier characterize the Annapolis meeting as a pure photo op. This certainly looks like the price to get Syria to the table was not the Golan heights, but Lebanon.

But what is the deal about Syria’s intimate relations to Iran , the real targed of the Annapolis sham?

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Sidenote 1:
Will the U.S. demand that General Suleiman takes off the Uniform when he gets the new job? If I remember correctly there recently was a bit of hassle about such an issue and various constitutional questions in Pakistan …

Sidenote 2:
Suleiman as chief of the army is responsible for the recent destruction of the Palestinian refugee camp in Nahr al-Barad. His election is their loss …