Craig Murray
Consortium News / January 14, 2025
That General Joseph Aoun is the U.S. and Israel’s man is not in doubt. This is no doubt another defeat for Hezbollah following its disastrous ceasefire agreement, which led to the same-day start of the assault on their ally Assad.
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Last week I did two short video reports from outside the Lebanese Parliament — inside a military cordon that totally sealed off downtown Beirut — on the appointment of General Joseph Aoun, head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, as president of Lebanon.
There is no other Western source giving any of this detail — not even that it is directly unconstitutional for a present or former head of the Armed Forces to become president in Lebanon.
This report by William Christou is fascinating because it is a dark image mirror of my report. The facts are the same, but presented in a neoliberal rose-coloured light.
I report that Lebanese politicians were directly threatened by France and Germany that unless General Aoun was appointed, Israeli troops will not leave Southern Lebanon as stipulated in the ceasefire deal.
The Guardian tells this as “Army commander’s election increases confidence that ceasefire deal will hold.”
I retell the massive pressure put on Lebanon by the United States, France and Saudi Arabia to appoint the general in addition to the Israeli military threat.
Special envoys arrived from U.S. President Joe Biden (the U.S. envoy being Tel Aviv-born IDF member Amos Hochstein), President Emmanual Macron and Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman. The French and Saudis were actually in the room at Parliament.
The Guardian sees this as “helpful” international diplomacy.
“The Hezbollah-Israel war, as well as external pressure, had seemingly helped finally overcome that gridlock on Thursday. In the days before the election, a series of diplomats visited Beirut to hold talks with the main political figures.”
For 13 months and 14 failed elections, Hezbollah and their allies had blocked the appointment of General Aoun. That he is the United States and Israel’s man is not in doubt.
Despite Hezbollah attempting to make the most of their having voted for Aoun in the final round — to rescue what credit they could from the inevitable — this is no doubt another defeat for them following the disastrous ceasefire agreement that led to the same-day start of the assault on their ally Assad [the former Syrian president].
There is one stark and undeniable truth. The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have gained massively in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Iran’s position has been very seriously weakened. Panglossian attempts to downplay this by anti-imperialists, with whom I sympathise, are unhelpful.
Both Syria and Lebanon have in the last month gained new leaders whose chief qualification for office is that they both commanded military forces which did not fire a single shot against Israeli invasion and occupation of their countries.
The Greater Israel project is well underway, with Saudi and Turkish agreement in exchange for the suppression of Shia Islam in the remaining Arab territories. Aoun’s appointed role is as a hammer against Hezbollah.
Finally, and just for fun, if you want to know what the new leadership style feels like:
To be blunt, our two months in Lebanon before Christmas made a slight financial loss. I was delighted with the output of four mini-documentaries and numerous short video reports and articles, some of which individually had millions of viewers. But to date the model of reader-sponsored real overseas journalism is not proven or stable.
If you have not yet contributed financially, I should be grateful if you could do so. If you have contributed, perhaps you could help further by encouraging others to do so. I would as always stress I do not want anybody to contribute if it causes them the slightest financial hardship.
Craig Murray (CraigMurray.org.uk) is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist; he was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010
