Before discussing the Lebanese details… Is Qatar behind Geagea!!

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The American approval,  facilitation, suggest, or the American demand from the President of the Lebanese Forces Party Samir Geagea to adopt the nomination of Michael Aoun was asserted by information as it was certain that Washington has approved, suggested, facilitated or demanded from the Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri to adopt the nomination of the Deputy Suleiman Franjieh. But what was not clear in the two cases is what exactly Washington wants, the two elections are trapped-bombed with the elements of disruption, there are many obstacles in the path of success of presidency in each one of them, their overcoming does not seem easily, thus the Lebanese result maybe a presidential alternation and it may turned into a presidential competition, but in less possibility it may produce a dynamism of comprehensive consensuses that neither lead to a winner nor to a defeated, among the possibilities it may lead to a third candidate, after saying that each candidate has been given the highest available opportunity to enhance his presidential opportunity.

What is new in the election is what the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs has said about the act of Samir Geagea, he has described it with the Lebanese national interest in a statement through which he talked about the support of the Russian role in Syria describing it of the last hope for a political settlement, hoping to resolve the Russian Turkish dispute soon, he talked positively about Iran. This Qatari speech comes in conjunction with the positive relationships of Qatar with Iran and the lines which revealed that the exchange process of the kidnapped soldiers with Al-Nusra Front is open between the Prince of Qatar and Hezbollah.

This Qatari speech comes after a silence that lasted for more than a year of any similar speech by Saudi Arabia, and the acceptance of being under its mantle to avoid the anger of its rulers, and within the absence of the American coverage which Qatar wants for the game of differentiation and which was available at the beginning of what is called the Arab Spring and the project of the new Ottoman which its title represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, but it disappeared after the failure which affected that project and ended with the humiliated departure of the Prince the father and his Prime Minister and his Minister of Foreign Affairs. Today Qatar seems in its first emergence from the gate of the American response on the Saudi stubbornness toward the settlements industry.

The speech of the Qatari Minister indicates to the return of the role which is based on the mediations which Qatar is aspiring to, moreover this speech meets Geagea’s need for a alternative financial bond of Saudi Arabia, and for conducting the choice that puts him within the heart of the settlement, paving the way for a long path of negotiation that Doha is looking forward to be its capital, where the nomination of Aoun by Geagea is an entry to book  an advanced seat in it, without being the last presidential choices of Geagea. Therefore the project of Doha concerning Lebanon requires rounds of conflict, vacancy, and the political harassment not a smooth going toward the solutions, it is a project that is awaited by the young Prince of Qatar who started his first steps with outstretching bridges toward Tehran, Haret Hreik, Ain Al Tineh, and Al Mokhtara, where there is no problem with Saad Al-Hariri as it was not a few years ago in the first Doha of Lebanon.

This is in conjunction with the path of solutions in Syria that starts with the Turkish Russian settlement that is blessed by Washington, and through which Qatar is preparing Lebanon for a long negotiation before producing the forth-coming presidency, and in preparation under the pretext of the Yemeni occupation in the Saudi exit out of the Lebanese and the Syrian equations, that is felt by Al-Hariri even before his nomination of Franjieh.

Washington wanted to recall Qatar before recalling Geagea and recalling the nomination of Aoun, it seems that we have to wait and to accept the fact that we are a laboratory of settlements and negotiation paths; our issue is not prepared yet on the table of solutions so there is a need for a long time before we have a president.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,