 Leading circles within the parliamentary majority are questioning the motives behind UN envoy Terje-Roed Larsen's decision to include the delineation of the Lebanese borders and other domestic affairs in his latest report on the status of Resolution 1559. Larsen also suggested that the government would seek the disarmament of Hizbullah and the various Palestinian factions, even inside the country's refugee camps.
| Good idea, since they're inside your country... |
According to these circles, the report reflected the UN's intention to pressure Syria into cooperating with the international investigation into the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri through Resolution 1559. The circles indicated that while the parliamentary majority would prefer to distinguish between Resolutions 1595 and 1559 to avoid any politicization of the investigation, Larsen's report tackled the issues with persistence, while superpowers discussed a draft resolution threatening sanctions against Syrian officials accused in the killing if they did not cooperate fully with the investigation.
| Larsen, quite unusually, cut through the BS in his report, just like Mehlis did... |
 Detlev Mehlis' report was released just as the government was taking cautious steps toward a dialogue with the Palestinians and Hizbullah in the hopes of avoiding any further destabilization of the country, and while keeping the Hariri investigation a top priority.
| "Yup. We were just gettin' around to it, when he popped off..." |
The circles said that the harsh tone in Larsen's report, which could have been influenced by the U.S., provided evidence of the report's politicization to those who doubted Mehlis' findings. Thus, these parties were given further ammunition with which to criticize Mehlis' report, as Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah did on Friday.
| On the other hand, he's been doing that all along. Hezbollah's on Syria's side, not Lebanon's... |
 Though he insisted on wanting to know the truth, maintaining the UN investigation and not exploiting the investigation to punish other parties, Nasrallah said he believed that any sanctions against Syria would only pave the way for future targeting of Hizbullah and Palestinian arms.
| "So it's best to just leave them alone and forget the whole thing. We never liked Hariri, anyway..." |
However, the same circles said they believed that Nasrallah's criticism of both Mehlis' and Larsen's reports did not necessarily mean a division among the Lebanese over the investigation into Hariri's assassination and over how to deal with Resolution 1559.
They explained that Hizbullah's support for Syria is a tentative stand similar to Nasrallah's insistence on preserving national unity to unravel the truth behind Hariri's murder.
| "If it really looks like Assad's gonna go down, we'll drop him like a hot potato. But we think he'll wiggle out of it, and that the Syrians'll come back and things'll be just like they have been..." |
According to the circles, Hizbullah's latest position does not nullify previous stands with the government, such as when it expressed its support for the disarmament of the Palestinian militants outside of the refugee camps and its promises to find a solution with these factions in the Bekaa Valley. |