Iran proxy Hizbullah sets up government in Beirut

I have know for a while that Lebanon is now a Iranian puppet but this makes it official.
From Iran proxy Hizbullah sets up government in Beirut

Syria steps in to block Western support for ousted PM Hariri

Move meant to derail UN findings in murder of Rafik Hariri, the current PM’s father

DEBKAfile

In his first speech on the Lebanese crisis, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday night, Jan. 16: “The opposition will exercise its own national convictions and will not be intimidated by the world’s reaction.” He added: “The opposition” had decided unanimously not to name Saad Hariri, the pro-Western prime minister they toppled last week, as next head of government, meaning that the Hizballah-led camp will build its own regime shunning Hariri.

Nasrallah and Hariri will certainly go head to head to decide which rules the country. DEBKAfile’s sources note that Hizballah has the advantage of being the most powerful armed force in Lebanon. Added to Hariri’s disadvantages is the refusal of his potential outside supporters, whether the U.S., France, Israel or Saudi Arabia, to intervene on his behalf.

The Hizballah-led government’s first step

will be to declare illegal

the Special Lebanese Tribunal

The Hizballah-led government’s first step will be to declare illegal the Special Lebanese Tribunal whose prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is due to submit his report to pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen within 48 hours. Nasrallah’s pretext will be that his findings and the indictments of his henchmen were composed in Tel Aviv – not at the STL’s seat in The Hague.

Ironically, on Sunday, Jan 16, the very day that Robert Ford took up his post as the first US ambassador to Damascus in six years, Syrian President Bashar Assad threw all his weight behind Hizballah’s drive to rid Lebanese politics of the Saad Hariri and so derail the Obama administrations policy objectives in Lebanon.

DEBKAfile reports: Assad has now dropped the pose of aloofness from the Lebanese crisis which he has struck since after Hizballah toppled the Hariri government last week. The Syrian ruler has now stepped in with both feet to block any western moves to save the ousted prime minister turned caretaker – as attested to by a clip broadcast Saturday, Jan. 15, by Al-Jadeed TV, a station sponsored by Hizballah and Syrian intelligence.