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Aoun warns Lebanon will go ''to hell'' unless government agreed
[THEBAGHDADPOST] President Michel Aoun...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... warned on Monday Leb  ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...was going "to hell" if a new government was not formed, and said agreeing one could need a miracle after positions had hardened between rival factions. His televised address underlined the severe challenges facing French efforts to get Lebanon’s fractious leaders to form a new government and rescue the country from financial meltdown. The crisis, exacerbated by the devastating August explosion at Beirut port, marks the worst threat to Lebanon’s stability since the 1975-90 civil war. A deadline agreed with Gay Paree for forming the government passed last week. The process hit a logjam over the demand of Lebanon’s two dominant Shi’ite parties, Iran-backed Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement, to name Shi’ite ministers including the finance minister. Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, said his proposals for compromise had not been accepted. He depicted the problem as a standoff between the Shi’ite parties on the one hand and Sunni Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib along with former prime ministers who support him on the other. When asked where Lebanon was headed if there was no agreement, Aoun said "of course, to hell". Asked by news hounds if his comments meant there was no hope of a new government, he said: "No, there might be a miracle". "We are today facing a government formation crisis which should not have happened because the events that await Lebanon do not allow a minute to be wasted," said the president, a Maronite Christian under the country’s sectarian power-sharing system. Aoun said the premier did not want to consult parliamentary blocs, which should not be excluded. At the same time, he added, it was not permissible for one party to impose ministers and the constitution did not allocate any ministry to any specific sect. "With the hardening of positions there does not appear to be any solution on the horizon because all the proposed solutions amount to a ’victor and a vanquished’," he said. Adib called earlier for all sides to cooperate to form a government and secure the immediate success of French efforts. Last week, reports suggested Adib may step down. He had proposed switching control of ministries, some of which have been held by the same factions for years. Posted by: Fred 2020-09-23 |
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