Tammam Salam and saving Lebanon from Syria

The morning after Tammam Salam was chosen as premier-designate of Lebanon, a newspaper known to sympathize with Bashar al-Assad’s regime welcomed him by asking: “how do you announce you stand by the Syrian uprising whilst you are a premier of a consensual cabinet, and you know that March 8 supports Bashar al-Assad’s regime and March 14 is against it. So why did you say that?!” However, despite this negative stance by the daily, Salam is perhaps the only Sunni man there is a consensus on in Lebanon’s history, as most MPs – despite their affiliations and positions – voted for him. There was semi-consensus over him as he garnered the votes of 124 MPs and only four MPs abstained from voting. How can Salam convince Hezbollah not to send its missiles and men across the borders to Syria, so thousands of Syrian fighters do not end up coming to Lebanon and, thus, transferring the war to the neighboring country? Parliamentary support was accompanied by international support. The Saudi king and Russia’s President Putin sent him letters, while Saad Hariri, a former Lebanese premier, sent him his private jet. Luckily for him, President Bashar al-Assad did not call him, but the Iranian ambassador in Beirut voiced his leadership’s wishes of success. Of course, he did so whilst reminding him of what that leadership called the “resistance,” which is Hezbollah.