Our Talk with Siniora

It usually takes the bombs to make the headlines, but what is happening in Lebanon right now is big news: Relatively nothing.

For months, everybody was getting worked up about Hizballah's threats to topple the Lebanese government--through a rolling mass street uprising, if necessary. But perhaps we underestimated Fouad Siniora, the mild-mannered technocrat who became prime minister in the Cedar Revolution in 2005. There were no historic speeches, no orange scarves, but Siniora has courageously held his ground against Hizballah, which in turn is backed by Iran and Syria. So far, he is still standing. Check out my magazine profile of Siniora and a Q&A with him. The interview is a fasincating description of the geopolitical warp Lebanon is caught in.

Nick Blanford and I recently spent three hours with Siniora at the prime minister's headquarters in Beirut, known as the Grand Serail. I found it a moving experience. He's no American puppet, like his critics say. His feelings toward Washington were clearly mixed. Along with probably a good majority of Lebanese, he wants the country to get its independence back after some 30 years of Syrian domination.

His seeming lack of bitterness surprised me. He was actually in a fairly chipper mood. One of his oldest and closest friends from their boyhood days in Sidon was Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination triggered the Cedar Revolution. Only a couple months before we met Siniora, one of his cabinet ministers, Pierre Gemayel, was assassinated. I discovered a man who is remarkably cool under pressure. He fits many people's definition of an Arab hero.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo