Something Brewing

Compromise is in the air, but who’s going to give?
 
You know a solution to the Lebanese impasse is in the making when American Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman gives an Interview to Al-Akhbar, a notoriously pro-opposition newspaper, when Naim Kassem is not wagging his fingers too much, when Michel Aoun appears receptive and when Hariri’s Al-mustaqbal newspaper features Palestine, Iraq and Turkey as main news items on its main page.
 
The initial spark that set this virtuous circle moving is the combination of Walid jumblat’s reaction to the murders of Ziad and Ziad, where he sent an olive branch to his political opponents, and Mr. Sanioura’s initiative where he hinted that he doesn’t mind giving the opposition a veto-wielding share of the government as long as they agreed to a pre-determined program. 
 
It is unclear how far the PSP leader and his allies are willing to compromise without appearing to be selling out, but what’s clear is that the brutal murder presented March 14 with an opportunity to backtrack without sounding weak.
 
Jumblat, who only recently criticized his own MPs for cheerfully hugging and greeting March 8 MPs whom he described as “peddlers of the culture of death”, might have calculated that the best response to forces who want to destabilize Lebanon is further Lebanese rapprochement.