AnNahar: "...the return of Syria's 'protectorate' in Lebanon is due to the weakness of the Al-Mustaqbal faction..."

'Ali Hamadeh's brother Marwan, aka. the head of the ....newspaper!'

Hamadeh's pearls as seen in the MEMRI 

Al-Nahar columnist Ali Hamada criticized the March 14 Forces for enabling Syria to return to Lebanon. He wrote: "...The situation in Lebanon has deteriorated to what it was before 2005. This will certainly lead to the return of [Syria's] 'protection' [in Lebanon]; this will come about not because of the shrewdness of the Syrian regime or by virtue of Hizbullah's weapons, but because of the weakness of the Al-Mustaqbal faction. [Yes,] there is a need for reconciliation with the Syrian regime, but there is a tremendous gap between reconciliation and relations based on friendship, and relations based on obedience to the logic of patronage..."

Referring to Syria's criticism of President Suleiman and Prime Minister Al-Hariri, and to the demands it made on Walid Jumblatt, he wrote: "...Jumblatt's visit to Damascus is a living example of how one reconciles with the Syrian regime. Every time he meets one condition, another is added. It doesn't end with [Jumblatt's] quitting the March 14 Forces, with the [parliamentary] majority's shift from one side [the March 14 Forces] to the other [the opposition], or with the revival of old slogans and damage to [Lebanon's] independence; the conditions continue to pile up unendingly..."

Hamada concluded by stating: "The inter-Arab reconciliation, which constitutes the general framework for the Al-Mustaqbal faction's reconciliation with the Syrian regime, does not [as far as we know] include a renewal of [Syria's] protection [of Lebanon] – unless it has sections that are being concealed from the Lebanese."