Monday, July 21, 2008

"Behind Druze kisses for Quntar"

I hate to say it, but I do slightly agree with Lebanon's uber-neocon, Michael Young, in MESH's, here
"...Jumblatt’s and Arslan’s rally for Quntar was motivated by the need to avoid Druze ill feeling by ignoring their coreligionist; but more importantly by a desire to defend their leadership over the Druze by containing Quntar, which they did by embracing him to better defuse him. Although Quntar presents no threat to their power base, he could emerge as a small headache. For example, he could conceivably be brought into parliament in next year’s elections in the Baabda constituency, where Hezbollah and the Aounists, if they decide to bother Jumblatt, have considerable electoral sway..."

3 comments:

mo said...

I have to disagree. The man has made his political allegiances known loud and clear well before his homecoming.

If anything, Jumblatts embrace of Quntar I think has more to do with his recent bust ups with his own March 14th and his attempts at getting into the good books of the opposition.

Yes its all the same in the end, ie for Jumblatt to avoind being challeneged in his constituency, but Jumblatts message is far more reaching than just to Quntar.

G, M, Z, or B said...

Mo: Where have you been?

mo said...

Business and travel and to be honest some blog fatigue.. I don't know how you keep it up so well