An event and a Regional Trend

The Noise of the US Transformations

Attention in the Arab area is focused on Washington and the beginning of the presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain and in the light of the summit between George Bush and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who are ready to leave office for different considerations:
 1. Obama announced his public commitment to Israel’s security and its military domination in the area at AIPAC conference. This was considered as an electoral message that angered Arab and Palestinian sources, which expressed their embarrassment at his indifference to Palestinian rights. Local experts said the lesson would be in Obama’s dealing with the balances and equations that will face any attempt to continue the method of Bush if he is elected as a president.
 2. Bush and Olmert focused on targeting Iran while a delegation of the US intelligence service will visit Israel to hold an evaluation meeting on the Iranian nuclear program and ways of dealing with it in the light of the Israeli intelligence’s assessment, which gives Iran two years to produce a nuclear bomb.
 3. The commissioner of the EU’s foreign policy Javier Solana will visit Tehran to discuss ways of compromising the nuclear file. This coincided with the statement of the director general of the international atomic energy agency, which said he regrets that the agency was unable to find any evidence on the existence of an Iranian nuclear military program.
 4. Syria confirmed its attempt to possess peaceful nuclear energy. This coincided with the visit of the international inspectors and the scandal of the US forged images of the site that the US intelligence said that Israel destroyed in it a nuclear installation.

An event and a Lebanese Trend

The complexes that hinder the formation of the Lebanese government dominated the political scene amid a political and press mixing of cards by the Future trend that suggested suspending the participation of Saad al-Hariri in the formation of the new government.
 1. It turned out that al-Harri’s step was accompanied by activating Arab communications under the title of Beirut’s security after opening fire on one of the Future trend’s elements. This required communications between the house speaker and al-Hariri before knowing that this element is wanted.
 2. President Michel Suleiman stressed that no foreign sides pressurizes the first presidency to appoint anyone, stressing that Baabda only clings to national interest.
 3. The complexes that hinder the formation of the government lie in the two Sunni and Christian shares, due to the contrary’s demands. Sameer Geagea is still determined to be a minister amid a negative stand form al-Siniora, who raised the judicial files of Geagea.
 4. The house speaker’s sources stressed that there is no problem among the opposition’s sides concerning the positions .Some analysts said the labor of al-Siniora government may take two weeks or more.
5- French president Nicolas Sarkozy will visit Lebanon and the loyalists exert condensed efforts to obstruct the French openness on Syria, although president Suleiman will start his Arab tour in response to an invitation from president Bashar al-Assad.

Arab and International Press

The Emirate paper al-Khalij said in its editorial that on 42 anniversary of the June defeat the Arab citizen asks if Arab history stopped.
Al-Bayan said in its editorial that Obama’s winning of the Democratic party’s nomination is a historic event.
The Syrian daily Tichrin said that president Bashar al-Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwiat focused on joint Arab work.
Charlie Rice said in an article that what horrifies him is the existence of a stupid person at the White House.
The Iranian paper the Echo of Justice said disputes between Ali Larijanin and president Ahmadinejad reached their apex on last October.

Satellite Stations’ Interviews

ANB
Lebanese representative Botros Harb said what is important now is securing quiet atmospheres for holding the elections.

Satellite Stations’ News

The Syrian satellite station said president Bashar al-Assad and the prince of Kuwait stressed the depth of relations between the two countries.

Lebanese Press

Ad-Diyar said the crisis of the country is bigger than the crisis of the government.
An-Nahar said for the first time since Doha agreement and electing the president the security of Western Beirut became a hot issue in order to add security complexes to the political complexes that hinder the formation of the new government.
Al-Akhbar wondered if Ahmed Mur’e became another Zuheir as-Siddiq pointing out that this intelligence man who was arrested in Nahr al-Bared events entered the program of protecting witnesses.
Some sources said that Mur’e entered the stage of readiness for playing a central role in the investigations into Rafiq al-Hariri’s assassination.

Source
New Orient News ">New Orient News

Tendencies is a daily political watch newsletter about the Near East, issued by New Orient News agency in Beirut, Lebanon. It is available on Voltairenet.org in Arabic, English, French, German, and Spanish languages. Also worth a read is Indicators, the daily Near East economic watch newsletter, available in Arabic, English and Spanish.