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Assad speech sparks angry reaction in Lebanon
How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Lebanese newspapers on Friday reacted strongly to Thursday?fs speech by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, which harshly criticised Lebanon?fs government and parliament.

Almost all the Lebanese newspapers reprinted the speech in full and published lengthy commentaries. The liberal anti-Syrian newspaper An-Nahar wrote that Mr Assad?fs address was ?"a declaration of war against Lebanon?" but that the Lebanese people would continue their battle for independence. L?'Orient-Le Jour, the French-language paper, wrote that Mr Assad was seeking to provoke strife.

During the speech at Damascus University on Thursday, Mr Assad claimed that Lebanon had become a ?"passageway, a factory and a financier?" of conspiracies against Syria, in effect accusing Beirut of siding with the west against it. He accused Lebanese politicians of being ?"merchants?" exploiting the blood of the assassinated politicians to make political gains.

He had harsh words for Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, calling him a "slave of slaves?". This was a reference to Mr Siniora?fs ties to Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated politician Rafiq Hariri, and to the Hariri family?'s relations with leaders such as Jacques Chirac, the French president, and the Saudi royal family.

Five pro-Syrian ministers, including a representative of the Hizbollah guerrilla movement, walked out of a cabinet session on Thursday after Lebanon?'s reaction to the speech was added to the agenda.

In spite of the walk-out, Ghazi Aridi, the information minister, said after the weekly cabinet session: ?"The Lebanese cabinet expresses its rejection and astonishment of the Syrian president?fs speech and attack on the Lebanese government and parliament. We renew our confidence in Prime Minister Siniora.?" Trad Hamadeh, one of the five ministers who walked of the session, said they were not leaving the government but needed more time before reacting to the speech.

During a speech on Friday, Naim Qassem, second-in-command of the Hizbollah faction, sought to reassure the Syrian leader that Lebanon would never be a plotting ground against Syria.
And why should they be? We're on the other side of Syria.
United Nations investigators met Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on Friday as part of the inquiry into the ?hideous? Hariri assassination, the presidential palace said, Reuters reports. It had been reported that one of the suspects telephoned Mr Lahoud shortly before the killing.
"My how the worm begins to turn ..."

Posted by: lotp 2005-11-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=134834