Photo: Greg Demarque

"I believe that three-quarters of the road to Syria has opened up and what remains is the final gesture which depends on the right moment," said Jumblatt in an interview with AFP at his ancestral home in Lebanon's Shouf mountains, southeast of Beirut. 

The 60-year-old hereditary chieftain of Lebanon's Druze minority has come under fire since defecting in August from the US-backed March 14 ruling coalition he helped create in order to move closer to the Hezbollah-led opposition camp supported by Syria and Iran. The move came as Syria emerges from its international isolation and amid a rapprochement between Damascus and Riyadh, two key regional players. Jumblatt justified his U-turn, saying it was a necessary step to preserve the peace and avoid sectarian bloodshed. "I am willing to sacrifice everything for the civil peace even if my decisions are not popular," he said. "One must at times swim against the current." He said the sectarian unrest that brought Lebanon close to civil war in May 2008, when members of his Druze clan fought bitter battles with the Shiite Hezbollah in the Shouf region, had been a rude awakening. 

"It was a miracle at the time that we avoided war between the Druze and Shiites," he said. "The events of May were like an electroshock. "We were not aware then that the sectarian hatred between the Lebanese had reached that point." Lebanon's Druze community, a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam, makes up about six percent of the country's four million population. Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), has earned both admiration and scorn through the years for his knack at manoeuvring through the topsy-turvy world of Lebanese politics and always emerging on the winning
side. 

By mending fences with Hezbollah as well as Syria, whose relationship with the United States has been improving, observers say Jumblatt is staking out a position in between Lebanon's two main rival camps in order to ensure his own survival and that of his community. "I don't understand why many in the March 14 camp look like they're attending a funeral," he told AFP. "We accomplished a lot and one must not ask for the impossible. "This is what politics is all about. There are phases, cycles." 

He admitted, however, that a major obstacle on his road to reconciliation with Damascus were some harsh words he used against the Syrian regime in 2007. "If I go to Damascus, I need to clarify beforehand some of the things I uttered," he said. At the time, Jumblatt launched a virulent attack on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, branding him "the dictator of Damascus... a savage... an Israeli product, a liar... and a criminal." He also called for the US to meddle in Syrian politics just as it had in Iraq, which was interpreted by Damascus as an invitation for US troops to invade the country. Asked whether he planned to apologise for his comments, Jumblatt remained enigmatic. "Everything in its time," he said. "I will answer this question when the time is right." He said he had asked Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to plead his case before the Syrians and was awaiting the opportune time for the final handshake with Assad. 

Jumblatt also criticised US policy in the Middle East saying it was all about words and no action. "I told (US Senator John) McCain when he visited me last week that we needed weapons for the Lebanese army," he said. "We don't need antiquated tanks that cost a fortune to repair. "We received a Gazelle helicopter from the Emirates but it came without missiles. What do you want us to do with it, go fishing?" 

Jumblatt also confirmed that he was grooming his eldest son, Taymour, to take over the leadership of the PSP saying the 27-year-old had no other choice. "I am not a dictator but it would be difficult for him to refuse," he said. He said once out of politics, he hoped to purchase a home in France's Normandy region or at a fjord in Norway and write his memoirs. "I would also like to see once I am in Normandy that Mukhtara (his ancestral home) is in safe hands with my son," he said.

Read also on iloubnan.info : "Damascus has many reasons to be satisfied of Jumblatt's upheaval”, according to Barah Mikail