Elias Murr's farce: "Year of the Air Force"

'Toasting the MIG29s .. not too long ago!'

1. One Senior US official chuckled when asked about Elias Murr's saying about his soon-happening (February 2010') visit to Washington was ‘The Year of the Air Force.’ “It sounds like something Chinese," he said. “Seriously”, he added, “Murr's visit, which is for the second annual Joint Military Commission [February 10-12), is designed to foster long term strategy, not deal with ‘transactional’ activities.” At any rate, the official indicated, “there will be no advanced planes (i.e. jets) on offer.”

2. Saad Hariri Washington visit is hung up at the National Security Council (NSC). There are two reasons for that. (1) Scheduling. The President is fully booked and it is understood that when Hariri's visits, there is a need for a meeting with Obama. (2) the key visit was the one made by President Sleiman. Since he is the Head of State, protocol now allows a variety of visits and work to be done. A prime example is the Murr visit. As one official put it, "Now that we have a government in place and its nominal leader having visited Washington, we can get on with other business."

3. Regarding the rumor of Jumblat's visit to Washington, There is no awareness of a pending visit here. In fact, one official said it was difficult to envisage Junblat coming here (or at least having official meetings) before Hariri's visits Washington. However, he did meet recently and, of course, informally, with Jeff Feltman in London.

4. IRAN. Lebanon is already under strong pressure to support the US goal of gaining another UN Security Council Resolution against Iran.

5. Jake Walles was nominated by Hillary Clinton to be the next US Ambassador to Lebanon. Now the White House has to agree and that is expected. Jake Walles was until 2009 US Consul General in East Jerusalem and previously worked with Dennis Ross on the peace process operation...."