No Frills President

Let’s assume we do arrive at a consensus President. What should his bare essentials be?

Fading out soon..

Roula Khalaf argues in a Financial Times piece that the interests of America and Iran are aligned since they both want the election to take place in Lebanon, unlike Syria who prefers chaos. This is why they should cooperate to reach a compromise, which she thinks is desirable and possible.

What I found interesting is the last paragraph where she essentially sketched how a consensus stripped-to-essentials President could look like:

The president would have to sign off on the minimum requirements of each faction. On the government side, this includes a commitment to the UN tribunal to try the killers of Hariri and other anti-Syrian figures; on the opposition side, it would consist of a pledge to maintain discussion over Hizbollah’s future and the fate of its military wing, a matter of domestic debate, rather than foreign dictate. This is far from being an ideal situation and it is certainly not the lasting solution to Lebanon’s woes. But compromise, at least, buys Lebanon time and prevents the crumbling of an exceedingly fragile state.

I detect a little “Sunni bias” in Ms. Khalaf’s requirements for the government, and a lot of naivety in her assessment of the requirements of the opposition. So I decided to conduct a little experiment with you guys. 

Let’s assume that a consensus President is indeed agreed on. What should be the issues that one should never compromise on?