Siniora Surrenders

Well,that didn't take long.

Walid Jumblatt had it right - Siniora didn't resign, but he and the PM, Saad Hariri might just as well have.

The deal went down as follows - the army,under Hezbollah ally General Michel Suleiman had already refused to obey Siniora's orders,and Suleiman threatened to send the troops back to their barracks if Siniora declared a national state of emergency and tried to order the army against Hezbollah.Once that happened it was only a matter of time.

So Siniora bowed to the inevitable and danced to Hezbollah's tune - he announced that he was turning the problems of Hezbollah's clandestine spy telecom network and the reinstatement of Hezbollah ally General Wafiq Shuqeir as director of the airport over to Suleiman, as head of the army.And he called for the immediate election of General Suleiman by parliament as consensus president.

Suleiman, of course,will leave the Hezbollah telecom network in place and put Shuqeir backinplace,along with any other little favors Hezbollah wants.

Shortly after Siniora's capitulation, Ali Hassan Khalil, a lawmaker from Amal, a Hezbollah ally, said that Hezbollah, Amal and their allies would withdraw its militia from Beirut and turn over responsibility to the army while "maintaining civil disobedience" - which means they'll stay in position to make sure the deal goes down properly, but they won't overtly target the government and its allies in the streets as they have been...provided they get what they want.

And Lebanon thus will become Hezbollastan, a colony of Iran and Syria. And if Suleiman is the president,he will be able to easily block any further embarrassing inquiries or cooperation regarding the Rafik Hariri tribunals.

The video above features Lebanese TV personality Sahar el Khatib talking about the takeover and closure of the Future TV network by Hezbollah.

It's not in English...but you needn't speak Arabic to understand what she's saying.