For once, Lebanon’s dailies unanimously agreed that the exchange of volleys across the airwaves by opposing members of the roundtable talks have created an atmosphere of pessimism about Lebanon’s national dialogue set to resume tomorrow, with many predicting its failure.

Daily Al-Mustaqbal called Wednesday’s talks “the most difficult and dangerous phase of the dialogue, since consensus on the need to remove President Emile Lahoud and moving to a new period of stability in Lebanon seems beyond reach in light of the statements made by Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement.”

The daily quoted sources close to the March 14th alliance as saying that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech Monday was aimed at shifting the direction of the dialogue.

The daily said Nasrallah in his speech added a socio-economic article describing the Lebanese economy as in dire need of immediate action “however without any mention of who was behind sabotaging Paris I and II, of how the Syrian intelligence interfered in Lebanon’s economic affairs and endorsed the country’s national resources in the service of Syria and the joint Syrian-Lebanese security apparatus.”

The daily said Nasrallah failed to mention the issues of the presidency except when he prioritized the need to resolve the resistance arms issue first. Nasrallah said during his speech that there was no trade off on the issue but the daily said that “his insistence to deal with a sensitive issue like Hezbollah’s arms first, switches priorities and delays the issue of the presidency.”

Nasrallah said that the weapons issue is related with the strategic question of “how to protect Lebanon?”

FPM leader Michel Aoun for his part announced that the crisis of governance includes the presidency “but only because of the unfair structure of the 2000 election law, which brought MPs who did not in reality represent their constituencies.”

“To resolve the crisis, we need to enact a new law and proceed with new parliamentary elections,” Aoun said.

The daily said observers believe that if Nasrallah and Aoun’s speeches “remain identical during the dialogue, then they will be held responsible for keeping Syrian influence and interference in Lebanon’s domestic affairs, because they would be protecting a president that Syria appointed and extended his mandate and would once again pit Hezbollah with an unfavorable public consensus on the futility of the resistance.”

Commenting on the matter, Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hamade said his optimism about the success of the dialogue is “fading” and added “Syria has issued orders to Lahoud and other members of the roundtable talks in an effort to sidetrack the issue of the presidency from the roundtable’s agenda.”

“What we need is for Lahoud to leave, because his staying on the helm for another 18 months will have disastrous results on the country,” Hamade said adding “the presidency will be the main item of discussion and we will re-launch a popular but peaceful campaign to remove Lahoud form office.”

Hamade also said that when Terje-Roed Larsen, UN Special Envoy for the implementation of UN 1559, arrives in Lebanon in the coming few days, “he will meet with the MPs who signed on a petition claiming they had been coerced into extending Lahoud’s mandate and ask them for their testimony and this will ignite Arab and international interest in the presidential crisis.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea for his part said “there is no backing out from our main condition of ousting Lahoud and there is no compromise on the issue with Hezbollah’s arms.”

“We will resume street protests and continue to exert pressure to remove Lahoud if the talks on the issue fail, but we will continue negotiating other issues on the roundtable in parallel,” Geagea said.

Meawhile in Brussels, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told European Union members and Foreign Ministers “Lebanon deserves a visionary president who is able to look into the future of Lebanon and be freely elected according to the constitution.”

When asked about Hezbollah’s arms, Siniora said the issue of the resistance’s arms is tied to the defensive strategy Lebanon plans to adopt to ensure security and stability on all its territories, thus echoing Hezbollah’s approach to the matter.

In response to Lahoud’s accusations of interference in Lebanon’s domestic affairs against President Jacques Chirac, daily Al-Hayat quoted the French leader as telling Siniora “we do not have invisible officers working for us in Lebanon, we merely support the international resolutions and the work of the UN team investigating former premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder.”

The daily is also of the opinion that tomorrow’s talks will most likely be delayed for a few more weeks since no consensus will be reached on either Hezbollah’s arms or the presidency issues.

Al-Balad daily, which described tomorrow’s dialogue as merely “one of protocol” nevertheless reported Speaker Nabih Berri’s optimism about the presidency issue.

“We have more than one formula or recipe to resolve this conflict,” the daily quoted Berri as saying.

Daily Ad-Diyar also joined its voice to other dailies, saying Wednesday’s talks will not amount to any concrete agreement on the presidency issue “which remains in limbo.”

“All indications are that the talks will be delayed for another week or a few more weeks,” Ad-Diyar said.

Copyright © 1999-2006 Lebanonwire^®.com. All rights reserved.