If there’s a name to be given to Walid Jumblatt, one of Lebanon’s veteran politicians and once a warlord during the 1975-90 civil war, he might be called the survivor. Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, is known in Lebanon for being the joker of politics — unpredictable, yet acceptable to his rivals, at least during the last half-decade.
He sits with both Future Movement leader Saad Hariri and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah; he is against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but a good friend of the Russians; he doesn’t admire former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the US policies in the region, though he is ready to cross the Mediterranean and the English Channel to dine with former US Undersecretary Jeffrey Feltman in one of London’s spicy Indian restaurants.
