Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt warned that breaking out of a Sunni-Shiite conflict would provide Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime with a "pretext to intervene in Lebanon."Picked right up on that, didn't you, Wally?
Jumblatt, in an interview with the Saudi newspaper Okaz, criticized Damascus for refusing to provide Lebanon with a document recognizing Lebanese sovereignty over the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms region.
Does that raise maybe the tiniest suspicion that they don't?
He also rejected proposals for Lebanese-Israeli peace talks saying the "relations between the state of Lebanon and the state of Israel are governed by the 1949 armistice accord." He said Lebanon should not go into talks with Israel before the creation of a "viable" Palestinian state and "until Israel accepts the right of the Palestinian refugees to return" to their pre-Israel Palestine in line with U.N. General Assembly resolution 194 of 1948.
Jumblatt voiced "concern" because of the delay in launching the international tribunal that would try suspects in the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes. He called for "reconciliation in the north," emphasizing on "importance of assigning the army to crack down on all troublemakers."