Saad Hariri looking for Bashar Assad's support

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

The Guardian/ here

"...Today, when Saad Hariri plays host to Assad, he will be looking for Syrian support to prevent another round of crippling violence enveloping Lebanon.

Yet while conflict with Israel and outbreaks of complex sectarian warfare ... the UN finds itself at the frontline of an evolving conflict. Tensions between the UN peacekeepers and the residents of southern Lebanon are a reminder of the continued danger of unresolved conflicts.

Over the past couple of months, several Unifil patrols, tasked with improving security in the south and facilitating the deployment of the Lebanese army, have been attacked by angry locals amid reports of soldiers being disarmed and stoned in their vehicles. Such was the concern over the disintegration of relations that France brought the issue up at the UN security council.

The inadequate nature of the "no war, no peace" that characterises the situation in Lebanon may drag the UN into a more violent confrontation in the near future. Indeed, while the UN has been able to plaster over the cracks in Lebanon in the past, their role as mediator may soon become untenable. Instead, as Washington gave Syria the green light to extend its hegemony over Lebanon in 1991, the Riyadh-Damascus axis has emerged from the hubris of collapsed expectations in Iraq to become the real mediator of Lebanese politics."

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