Bou Habib lashes out at Mikati, rules out Israeli ground war

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has lashed out at caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, accusing him of “encroaching” on his role as foreign minister through “his repeated attempts to usurp the ministry’s powers.”

“Mikati does not take into account that we are in a pluralistic country, and as a Christian I do not accept his behavior seeing as he is infringing on the most senior Christian post” in the state, Bou Habib added, in an interview on Tele Liban.

“The premier meets international envoys alone on purpose and even when he travels outside Lebanon he asks the (Lebanese) ambassadors in the visited countries to leave him alone after the memorial pictures,” Bou Habib lamented.

Separately, the minister ruled out “an Israeli ground war on Lebanon.”

Israel “knows that such a war would not be a walk in the park for it,” Bou Habib added, expecting “a long war of attrition through Israel’s drones.”

“I support (ex-)president Michel Aoun’s stance on the unity of arenas, but I’m dealing with the fait accompli,” Bou Habib said.

Aoun had recently said that he does not support Hezbollah’s involvement in the so-called unity of arenas strategy of the Iran-led axis in the region.