Excerpts: Lebanese Forces leader overture to Hizbullah Jordan aids Syrian
rebels. April 11, 2014

+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 11 April ’14:”Lebanese Forces Leader Geagea to
Propose Partnership with Hizbullah if Elected as President”
SUBJECT: Lebanese Forces leader overture to Hizbullah

QUOTE:” he (Geagea) will propose to Hizbullah. . . ‘real partnership’ “

FULL TEXT:Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea revealed on Friday[11 April)
that he will propose to Hizbullah if he was elected as president “real
partnership,” considering that the theory of “vacuum at the presidential
post is better than choosing a weak head of state” has crumbled after he ran
for the presidency.

“I will suggest real partnership with Hizbullah to build a state that is
capable with the army's weapons as the only means to protect all the
citizens,” Geagea said in an interview with As Safir newspaper.

He noted that the “Shiites are the ones mostly harmed by the ongoing
status-quo in the country.”

“The army and with its available capabilities could replace Hizbullah's role
in the conflict with Israel as the elite forces could deploy and engage in
operations according to the necessary needs,” the Christian leader added.

Geagea stressed that his run for presidency is “serious,” admitting that his
“journey to the Baabda Palace would be hard.”“I realize all this... but
there's nothing impossible in politics.”

Concerning consultations with the March 14 allies over his decision, the LF
leader told As Safir that “he is mulling with his allies his chances,”
noting that “al-Mustaqbal movement's decision will be according to its
convictions.”

Geagea denied that his move “was to embarrass (Mustaqbal movement) leader
Saad Hariri and block the way before other March 14 candidates.”“If I didn't
have the minimal level of contacts with my allies and if I wasn't convinced
that I have at least crossed half the road to gain their support, I wouldn't
have run for the presidency.”

He warned the political arch-foes from boycotting a parliamentary session
set to elect a new president, saying: “they will pay a high price.”

“I advise the March 8 alliance not to cause vacuum at the presidential post
as it will be the biggest loser,” Geagea said.

However, he told the daily that the theory of “vacuum is better than a weak
president has crumbled as the March 14 coalition has a strong president
candidate, who is me in principle, and the March 8 camp will have another
strong candidate, who hasn't been revealed yet.”

He predicted that head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun will
run for presidency on behalf of the March 8 alliance.

Geagea considered that “the political power in the country is currently in
favor of the March 14 coalition.”

President Michel Suleiman's six-year term ends in May but the Constitution
states that the parliament should choose a new head of state within a
two-month period, which was on March 25.

Geagea was the first to announce last week that he will run for the
presidency.

Lebanese media have in recent weeks identified other presidential hopefuls
as Kataeb party leader and ex-president Amin Gemayel, MPs Boutros Harb and
Robert Ghanem, who are like Geagea members of the March 14 anti-Syria
movement

Other potential candidates are Hizbullah allies Aoun and Marada Movement
leader MP Suleiman Franjieh.

Lebanese presidents are always chosen from the Christian Maronite community.


+++SOURCE: New York Times 11 April ’14:”Warily,Jordan Assists Rebels in
Syrian war”, by Ben Hubbard
SUBJECT:Jordan aids Syrian rebels
QUOTE:” Jordan publicly denies helping any of Syria’s warring parties”
FULL TEXT: IRBID, Jordan — When rebels want to return to Syria to fight,
Jordan’s intelligence services give them specific times to cross its border.
When the rebels need weapons, they make their request at an “operations
room” in Amman staffed by agents from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United
States.

During more than three years of civil war in Syria, this desert nation has
come to the world’s attention largely because it has struggled to shelter
hundreds of thousands of refugees. But, quietly, Jordan has also provided a
staging ground for rebels and their foreign backers on Syria’s southern
front. In the joint Arab-American operations room in Amman, the capital, for
example, rebels say they have collected salaries as an incentive not to join
better-funded extremist groups.

But this covert aid has been so limited, reflecting the Obama administration’s
reluctance to get drawn into another Middle Eastern conflict, that rebels
say they have come to doubt that the United States still shares their goal
of toppling President Bashar al-Assad.

In fact, many rebels say they believe that the Obama administration is
giving just enough to keep the rebel cause alive, but not enough to actually
help it win, as part of a dark strategy aimed at prolonging the war. They
say that in some cases their backers even push them to avoid attacking
strategic targets, part of what they see as that effort to keep the conflict
burning.

“The aid that comes in now is only enough to keep us alive, and it covers
only the lowest level of needs,” said Brig. Gen. Asaad al-Zoabi, a Syrian
fighter pilot who defected and now works in the operations room.“They call
it aid, but I don’t consider it aid,” he said. “I consider it buying time
and giving people the illusion that there is aid when really there is not.”

While much attention has been focused on Syria’s northern front, where
rebels move in freely from neighboring Turkey, the southern region has been
far more controlled. And despite recent reports of an invigorated “southern
front” of rebel forces, recent interviews with more than two dozen rebel
commanders, fighters and Jordanian and foreign officials painted a picture
of a largely stagnant southern battlefield, one that is heavily influenced
by outside powers whose main goals are to limit the rise of extremists and
preserve stability in Jordan.

Increasing the military threat against Mr. Assad is not part of the plan,
rebels say.

Publicly, the United States is providing more than $260 million in
“nonlethal support” to the Syrian opposition, including rebel groups it does
not consider extremist. But the military aid is covert, and the countries
involved have not disclosed what they provide.

None of this aid has significantly advanced the rebels’ cause or helped
achieve the American goal of a negotiated end to the war. To the contrary,
peace talks have been suspended indefinitely and Mr. Assad is likely to
remain president, perhaps for a long time to come.

But a White House spokeswoman, Caitlin Hayden, said on Thursday[9 April]
that “the notion that the United States wants fighting to be drawn out is
flat wrong. We are committed to building the capacity of the moderate
opposition and seeking a way to end the bloodshed and the needless suffering
of the Syrian people.” She added: “There is no military solution to this
conflict. What is needed is a negotiated political transition.”

The State Department and the C.I.A. declined to comment, and Jordan publicly
denies helping any of Syria’s warring parties.

But in the towns near Jordan’s border with Syria where many rebels keep
their families and take breaks from the war, the operations room, known as
the Military Operations Command, is an open secret.
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Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA