In the last week the UK ambassador to Lebanon as well as an CNN Middle East Editor have been censured for their positive comments in relation to Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah since his death on the 4th July (the latter lost their job altogether).

The first part of this excellent blog by Andrew Exum is well-reasoned and addresses the issue in a manner that somewhat been missing in the last week:

Two Quick Thoughts on Unrelated Topics <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

July 8, 2010 Posted by Abu Muqawama - 11:22am 68 Comments

A CNN editor trying to express her admiration for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah on Twitter is just silly. (The name and title alone are 42 characters!) One should not try and explain what seems to have been a nuanced opinion in a text message. Firing her for it, though, also seems silly. Also silly, though, is continuing to describe Fadlallah as Hizballah's spiritual mentor. That may have been kind of true in the 1980s but has probably not been the case since then. My guess is that the young and relatively undistinguished religious scholars who formed Hizballah's leadership in the early 1980s -- Musawi, Tufaili, Nasrallah, etc. -- needed someone of high religious stature like Fadlallah to beef up their Islamic bona fides.* Fadlallah, in turn, benefited from his relationship with Hizballah within civil war-era Lebanon. By the 1990s, though, both groups more or less outgrew one another. Fadlallah no longer needed Hizballah's support, and Hizballah no longer needed his blessing. Both Fadlallah and Hizballah had enough stature to stand on their own. Even Martin Kramer, who once wrote a long monograph on the man titled "Oracle of Hizballah", is highly sensitive to the way in which Fadlallah's stature and relationship with Hizballah has changed over time. Personally, I think Hizballah and Fadlallah are best understood as separate if overlapping phenomena within Shia Lebanon. Fadlallah's ministry and activities, for example, long precede those of Hizballah.

*I should add here that I am hardly the only person who has come to this conclusion. I do not have any citations handy, but I do not want to be accused of plagiarizing someone else's research either. So let me just say, again, that my take on this is not unique

It can be seen in its original format at:

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/07/two-quick-thoughts-unrelated-topics.html

Following the assasination of Rafik Hariri in February 2005 and the unprecedented mass demonstration in Beirut against Syria's overt influence over Lebanese politics, commentators familiar to the region heralded it as landmark in Lebanon's crisis-ridden history. The withdrawal of Syrian armed units from Lebanon as well as a promise from Bashar Al-Asad that the new political landscape in Lebanon would be respected, in particular, seemed to mark a divergence from the past. Nonetheless, much like the renaissance that Syria and its political elite has enjoyed since the dark days of 2005 (principally, a recognition of the fact that Syria is integral to any future Arab-Israeli Peace), the changes that Lebanon experienced in 2005 have also dramatically altered. There are many indications that seem to show that the crassly named "Cedar Revolution" was far from what its name suggested.
Saad Hariri's external and internal support, manifested in the March 14 coalition, has melted away as regional powerhouses such as Saudi Arabia have willingly prioritized reconciliation with Syria over respecting Lebanese sovereignity. In turn, those humbling treks that Nicholas Blanford impressively documents in Killing Mr. Lebanon have also resumed. Most notably, Walid Jumblatt, who once described Bashar Al-Asad as a butcher has made several trips to Damascus to meet Bashar and discuss the future of Lebanon (similarly, Saad Hariri has taken several members of the Lebanese cabinet in a similar vein to Damascus). Syria's proxy Hezbollah also continues to go from strength to strength in Lebanese politics. And within the March 8 alliance, Hezbollah wields 13 seats out of a total of 57 and there is no doubt that its arms gives Hezbollah additional influence to act on Syria's behalf (although this relationship is far from one of subservience). Even Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died yesterday, and is widely credited with being a spiritual guide for Hezbollah, recognized that Lebanon would be persistantly weak whilst the "state within a state" syndrome was perpetuated by Hezbollah. The simple reality is that many of the gains, such as the removal of the divisive and corrupt Rustem Ghazali (former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon) pale in comparison to the reality that Syria has been allowed to reassert itself in Lebanese politics as a consequence of regional powerplays that do not prioritize Lebanese sovereignity. 
The paradox faced by the Obama administration and regional allies such as Saudi Arabia is thus: by reconciling themselves with the Syrian government in order to advance the Arab-Israeli Peace Process, isolate Iran and encourage Syria to curb its support for groups such as Hezbollah, Bashar Al-Asad and his advisors get more breathing space to act as they please to undermine Lebanon and consequently Israel's unease increases - making it more likely that another war on Lebanese soil will occur (although political commentators now see 2011 as a more likely year for confrontation given that Israel is aware of international opinion in light of the flotilla crisis). Thus, despite Obama's Cario's Speech that marked a new beginning, his administration like countless others before it is now coming to realize the intracacies of Middle Eastern politics.

Interesting to see Ribal al Assad moving out of the shadows and into the limelight of late. The son of Dr Rifat Al Assad who heads the United Nationals Allaince, he is opposition of course. And of late he's been the most active of all the various opposition figures.

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