Lebanon: Garbage out has always been the problem

“You stink” really should be refrain of the Lebanese public for the last several decades but all the garbage on the streets has at least prepared wealthy Lebanese to emigrate to the American East coast.  This is country where the son of an assassinated leader works with the organization that killed his father in the same government. How could dysfunction rule! Whether failing to rid themselves of the PLO in the seventies and eighties, failing to fight Hezbollah and more recently the failure to disarm Syria and Iran's proxy or the failure to toss our sectarianism and create a boarder sense of identity in the nineties and into the millennium; the Lebanese have always had trouble ridding themselves of their garbage.

Tammam Salam’s government has been bedridden since the elections, the problems Lebanon faces are daunting.  Former hegemon, Syria has broken down into civil war creating a refugee and demographic crisis for the always teetering on civil war public. Hezbollah has taken on yet another way since joining the government by taking the sides of Lebanon’s oppressor, Assad’s Syria and it is possible this will eventually put Lebanese regular forces in danger.

Hezbollah and Michael Aoun’s Christian “Free Patriotic Movement,”  a capital on Lebanon’s fifth column, have walked out of a cabinet meeting because….they have not said yet but the absolute stink of their choices is unavoidable.  In the meantime, the police are getting heavy handed with protesters.

Hezbollah has now sided with the protesters and are demanding the government resign, at a moment when Hezbollah is over stretched militarily and potentially very unpopular for supporting tyrant-in-chief Bashar Assad, Hezbollah  sees the opportunity to pull the life support on an already weak government to strengthen its own hand. At a time when Iran may become a resurgent power, Lebanon may only be further ensnared by Iran proxy force. Something just doesn’t stink in Lebanon, something is rotten.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post in the Middle East by Midwest blog.