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U.S. Won't Send
Marines to Prevent Lahoud's Reelection
by:
Bush administration
officials say the United States hopes the constitution would be respected
in Lebanon's next presidential election but it would not send the Marines
to Beirut to prevent Gen. Lahoud from getting a new term in office, An
Nahar reported Thursday.
This stance was attributed to a Lebanese political figure who recently
returned from a visit to the United States. His report was submitted to a
senior Lebanese official a few hours before President Bush clamped
economic sanctions against Syria on Tuesday, An Nahar said.
The report quoted U.S. officials as saying the Bush administration's main
concern is to minimize Syria's influence in Lebanon's presidential
election next autumn, An Nahar's editorialist Nicholas Nassif wrote.
"Hardliners in the Bush administration view the sanctions against
Syria as a reckoning opportunity over its role in Lebanon. Consequently,
they contend that the Lebanese authority should abide by the constitution
and ask President Lahoud not to stand for a new term," Nassif quoted
the report of the returning politician as saying.
The American officials were also quoted as saying "the Bush
administration classifies the frontrunner for Lahoud's replacement,
Foreign Minister Jean Obeid, as much pro-Syrian as Lahoud, if not more.
Both are in one Syrian basket."
The American officials also conceded that if the people of Lebanon do
freely amend the constitution through parliament in order to renew Lahoud's
term "this will be viewed as a domestic affair," Nassif's
article notes.
"We do hope as a superpower that Lebanon's constitution would be
respected and would not be amended for personal considerations. But if it
is amended to renew the tenure of the reigning Lebanese president, we
certainly are not going to send Marines to ascertain that our hopes are
heeded," one U.S. official was quoted in the report as saying.
He also reportedly warned that any Syrian interference in Lebanon's
upcoming presidential election would prompt Bush to redouble the sanctions
against Syria. The currently applied sanctions are seen as toothless and
won't really bite the Assad regime.
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