Thursday, June 7, 2007

A Fallacy


Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces made a press conference and put forward and argument regarding the validity of putting together a unity government that gives the opposition a 3rd of the seats, which he calls, veto power. His main argument that has been circulating around the Lebanese blog sphere and political forums is this:

The government would have not been able to take decisive action against the terrorists in Naher el Bared, if the opposition had veto power, since Hasan Nasrallah made it clear in his speech that entering the camps is a "Red Line" for anyone.

This seems like a plausible argument except that he has missed one crucial piece of information. In opposition to Hasan Nasrallah's stance, Michel Aoun, the other big player of the opposition took an opposing stance regarding this matter. He backed up the Lebanese Army, and considered that there are no such things as Red Lines when comes to the security of the country.

Thus, Mr. Geagea's argument could be nullified. The government including the opposition would still have been able to take the decisions it did, with the backing of the FPM, even if this decision was not unanimous. In my opinion, this would have put Hizbullah in a very weird position.

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