{"id":12599,"date":"2009-05-23T06:27:13","date_gmt":"2009-05-23T04:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=12599"},"modified":"2023-04-05T10:46:36","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T07:46:36","slug":"lebanese-armenian-vote-may-alter-us-policy-in-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/05\/23\/lebanese-armenian-vote-may-alter-us-policy-in-the-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanese-Armenian Vote May Alter U.S. Policy in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parliamentary Elections:<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong> By Appo Jabarian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/strong> Executive Publisher \/ Managing Editor USA Armenian Life Magazine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday,\u00a0 May 22, 2009
\nAlong with Russia, the European Union and China, the United States anxiously follows developments in the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections. The elections will decide who will run the country for the next four years. Will it be the pro-western ruling coalition or the tri-partite opposition alliance formed mainly by Lebanese Shiites, Christian Maronites, and Lebanese Armenians? \u00a0 In a May 11 article in the Lebanese Daily Star, titled “Rival Lebanese Christian factions now hold political cards in Levant,” Anthony Elghossain, a J.D. candidate at The George Washington University Law School, wrote: “Unfolding in a playground open to the ambitions of regional and international powers alike, the Lebanese election is likely to impact American policy with respect to Syria and Iran.” \u00a0 Elghossain added: “On the one hand stands former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel’s Phalange party and former militia leader Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces (LF). Both parties are hostile to Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs, and are currently part of a coalition supported by the United States and the West. On the other hand stands a camp that revolves around former General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). At a crossroads, the FPM advocates for Lebanese sovereignty and a Christian voice in the political system.” \u00a0 He underlined that the election outcome “in the pivotal Metn region,” the district which will produce the Christian leader to be reckoned with, will be decided by “the crucial Armenian swing vote.”
\nIn the evening of June 7, that Christian leader may be Mr. Aoun. And that can happen thanks to his alliance with the most popular Armenian Lebanese political party ARF Tashnagtsutiun. The March 8 opposition leader Michel Aoun, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), and his allies won six of the district’s eight seats in 2005 with the backing of the Armenian Lebanese voters.
\nIn a related May 13 news story, Osama Safa, the director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, said that the Metn district has not only electoral significance and political weight, but also cultural importance.
\nSafa clarified: “With the polls less than a month away the several lingering questions in the Metn district will only be answered on election day. Two of the remaining wild cards are how the inclusion of independents, loyal to President Michel Suleiman, on the March 14 list will affect the contests and how voters in the Armenian community, numbering around 8,000, will swing. … The powerful Armenian Tashnag party has thrown its support behind Aoun and the FPM list. … The influence of the Armenian party is already clear. Tashnag candidate Hagop Pakradounian, on the opposition list, is running uncontested.”
\nSpeaking in Beirut in late April, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her visit to Lebanon aims to send a “strong signal” for “fair and transparent” elections in the country. She added that “Lebanon is facing a new challenge in the upcoming elections,” and the Lebanese should choose their representatives “away from foreign meddling, violence and fear,”
\nwww.chinaview.cn<\/span> reported.
\nOn May 12, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the international community to accept the result, regardless of who wins. He clarified that the mistake that was committed when Hamas won the Palestinian elections a few years ago should not be repeated, a reference to the international isolation of the Hamas government that many saw as prolonging and intensifying the Middle East conflict. In a statement to the Russian Interfax information services, he said “If the international community had acknowledged the victory of Hamas, the actions of Hamas would be different today,” reported The Daily Star.
\nOn May 16 Robert Fisk wrote in London’s The Independent: “I went to take a look at Madeleine Albright [former U.S. Secretary of State- Ed.] the other day. She turned up in Beirut as part leader of the National Democratic Institute, one of those Washington gigs that checks up on the freedom of elections in dodgy countries. …The Americans are hoping that the ‘democrats’ who currently hold a majority – Saad Hariri’s Future movement, jolly old Jumblatt’s Druze and a clutch of Maronites – will win the day.”
\nFisk added: “Most of my Lebanese colleagues, listening to Mrs. Albright, came away with a deep suspicion: that if the Lebanese elections bring the friendly ‘democrats’ back to power, the National Democratic Institute and its other poll-sniffers will announce a fair and free election. But if the Hezbollah and their allies move into power, it will suddenly be discovered that the Lebanese poll was ‘deeply flawed.’ And then, I suppose, we would all be ‘threatened with fresh elections’.”
\nThe Hezbollah-led “opposition will win the elections, all statistics show it,” said the head of Hezbollah parliamentary block MP Mohammad Raad pledging to guard the “position, role and identity of Lebanon,” stressing that the opposition is committed to “preserve Lebanon and its strong position in the region. … [The] Lebanese are facing two choices, either reconciliation with the enemy [Israel], or preserving a strong Lebanon,” referring to the Lebanese pro-western ruling coalition’s rejection of the “armed resistance against Israel,” wrote the Chinese Xinhua news agency.
\nThe anticipated outcome in Metn has already produced a pre-election development that might cause cracks in the Hariri-led Future Movement. On May 15, Lebanon’s Premier Fouad Siniora highlighted the need for strong ties with Syria. During a ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the Medayrej-Taanayel highway, he stated: “We are laying the cornerstone for the Beirut-Damascus road which we always wanted to be free from obstacles.”
\nA win by the tri-partite opposition alliance mainly between the Lebanese Shiites, Christian Maronites, and the Armenian Lebanese could shake Pres. Obama’s Mideast policy, and the deciding votes lay in the pockets of thousands of Lebanese-Armenian citizens.
\nThe overwhelming majority in the Lebanese-Armenian municipality of Bourj Hammoud and the entire Metn region always votes in favor of Tashnagtsutiun. And one can clearly tell how the Lebanese-Armenian vote may ultimately contribute to altering the U.S. Policy in the Middle East.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parliamentary Elections: By Appo Jabarian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Executive Publisher \/ Managing Editor USA Armenian Life Magazine Friday,\u00a0 May 22, 2009 Along with Russia, the European Union and China, the United States anxiously follows developments in the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections. The elections will decide who will run the country for the next four years. Will it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":671544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}