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Heard on the Street

U.S. Needs to Encourage Compromise

posted on 03/12/08

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, special report titled “The New Middle East” by Carnegie scholars Marina Ottaway, Nathan Brown, Amr Hamzawy, Karim Sadjadpour, Paul Salem, February 2008:

“[T]he United States needs to encourage and support compromise and reconciliation within Lebanon. Since the end of 2007, the United States has started recognizing the need for compromise among the political factions on the issue of the choice of a new president. That policy must be continued more explicitly and firmly. … The best that U.S. policy can achieve in Lebanon is a country that is neither completely dominated by Syria nor a battleground for U.S. and Israeli confrontations with their enemies in the region. This can be achieved by supporting the election of a compromise president as part of the formation of an inclusive national unity government, the drafting of a new election law, and the holding of parliamentary elections on schedule in the spring of 2009.”