BEIRUT: Lebanon’s vote against the Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria’s participation in the League’s meetings seems to have thrown the Cabinet into disarray with some ministers complaining that they were not notified of the controversial Lebanese stance taken by Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

“We want to know who took this decision [voting against the Arab League’s decision to isolate Syria] and on what basis?” Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi told The Daily Star Monday night.

He said that since the government’s well-known position was to dissociate Lebanon from the developments of the seven-month popular uprising in Syria, it was surprising to see Lebanon voting against the Arab League’s decision.

“Regardless of whether the Lebanese stance [at the Arab League] was correct or not, this stance has sparked a heated debate in the country,” Aridi added.

Aridi said he and his two colleagues in MP Walid Jumblatt’s parliamentary National Struggle Front bloc, Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour and Minister for the Displaced Alaaeddine Terro, in addition to other ministers were not informed of Lebanon’s stance.

“Therefore, the Front’s ministers will raise this issue at the Cabinet session tomorrow,” Aridi said.

However, Aridi, who has been boycotting the Cabinet’s meetings in protest at what he contends is the obstruction of his ministry’s allocations, said he will not attend Tuesday’s session. He added that he would continue his boycott of the Cabinet’s meetings until his ministry’s allocations have been released.

“There is a mismanagement in the Cabinet,” Aridi said.

Earlier, Abu Faour criticized the Lebanese position at the Arab League, saying that Lebanon should have instead adopted a neutral stance.

Abu Faour said “a large number of ministers” have learned of Lebanon’s vote against the Arab League’s decision to isolate Syria through the media.

“The Front’s ministers will bring up this subject at the next Cabinet session,” Abu Faour told Future News television, adding that he hopes to get “a convincing response” in the Cabinet.

“Lebanon is split, half of it is with the Syrian regime and the other half is with the Syrian uprising,” he said. “It was in Lebanon’s interest not to involve itself in this matter. It would have been better if it had taken a neutral stance.”

Earlier Monday, Prime Minister Najib Mikati met briefly at the Grand Serail with the Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Mohammad Tewfic, the Jordanian Ambassador Ziyad Majali and the European Union’s Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst to brief them on the Lebanese stance at the Arab League.

Both Mikati and President Michel Sleiman have defended Lebanon’s stance at the Arab League, whose foreign ministers decided Saturday to suspend Syria’s participation and impose political and economic sanctions on Damascus in response to the Syrian government’s failure to implement an Arab plan to end the unrest there.

Sleiman rejected the Arab League’s decision to isolate Syria, warning that it could lead to foreign intervention, but he called on President Bashar Assad to implement the Arab initiative and open a dialogue with the opposition.

Sleiman’s and Mikati’s defense of the Lebanese vote drew fire from former Prime Minister Saad Hariri who lashed out at the two, saying their stance put the country on the side of “murder and dictatorship.”

The Arab League also decided to withdraw Arab ambassadors from Damascus in a move that further isolates the Assad regime which is already facing tough U.S. and European sanctions over Syria’s brutal crackdown. Lebanon, Syria and Yemen voted against the decision, which would take effect Nov. 16, while Iraq abstained.

Mansour has been the target of scathing attacks by March 14 politicians, some of whom have called for his resignation.

Responding to his critics, Mansour said he did not act unilaterally. “The decision taken [at the Arab League] reflected the Lebanese government’s opinion and the supreme Lebanese national interest,” Mansour said in an interview with Al Nour radio station Monday.“We are not in a political bazaar. There are obligations with which we have to comply. We cannot go against the supreme national interests,” he said.

Mansour criticized the League’s decision to isolate Syria. “It is not permissible to isolate Syria, which is a major and founding state of the League’s charter. Therefore, it was not permissible for such decisions to be issued against it [Syria],” Mansour said.

Meanwhile, Hariri said Assad does not want to implement the Arab plan to end the crisis in Syria “because if he does he will be finished. His problem is the regime itself.”

Answering questions from his supporters on the social network site Twitter Monday, Hariri said he hoped the Syrian people never allow Assad to drag the country into a civil war.

Asked to comment on the statement by Jordan’s King Abdullah II in which he said that if he were in Assad’s shoes, he would have stepped down, Hariri said, “Yes I would have a long time ago, with no blood spilled.”

Asked whether he advocates an international military intervention in Syria, Hariri said, “Look if this regime keeps killing people like they are doing, the world will not sit and watch. And this regime must be stopped. I am with everything to protect the people of Syria.”

Asked whether the Assad regime’s collapse would set the Middle East ablaze, he said, “No, I don’t think so at all. I think the whole region will be better off.”

Asked to comment on Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s call on Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz to mediate in the Syrian crisis and bring about a reconciliation between Syria and Arab states, Hariri said, “I think it’s a bit too late. The whole idea of the Arab League … is to protect the people not the regime.”

Hezbollah’s State Minister for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish expressed regret over the Arab League’s decision “to freeze and suspend Syria’s membership, punish it and besiege it politically and economically.”

“The Arab League’s decision is a flagrant proof [of] U.S. involvement in sabotage in Syria,” he said. “Anyone who targets Syria does not harbor good for the Arabs, Arabism or the Palestinian cause.”

Beirut MP Ammar Houri from Hariri’s parliamentary Future bloc denounced the Lebanese position at the Arab League, saying that “Lebanon has sided with the killer of the brotherly Syrian people.”

“What is worse is that the Lebanese decision was not discussed in the Cabinet. It came in breach of Arab unanimity,” Houri told Al Fajr radio station.

“The government has committed a flagrant crime by standing against the Syrian people. This stance is not strange for such a government which is the creation of the Syrian regime,” Houri said.

The Kataeb (Phalange) Party criticized the Lebanese vote at the Arab League, saying Lebanon should have dissociated itself from the issue.

“If it was difficult [for the government] to go ahead with Arab unanimity, it would have been better for it to dissociate itself like it did in its previous attitudes and decisions,” said a statement issued after a meeting of the party’s political bureau chaired by party leader Amin Gemayel.