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Exploiting Ali Larijani's notable idea
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 31, 2007
In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published on Saturday, the head of Iran's national security council, Ali Larijani, had some interesting things to say about Lebanon. After calling for Franco-Iranian cooperation to help resolve the Lebanese crisis, he proposed a four-point plan. In many respects the plan was a trap, an opening hardly worth considering in most of its details, but for one thing: For the first time, an Iranian official mentioned a mechanism for Hizbullah's disarmament.
Larijani's plan is not so very different, in most of its aspects, than what Hizbullah is demanding today. In a first phase, Larijani proposed forming a national unity government in which all sides would be represented; in a second phase, holding the trial inside Lebanon, not before an international court, of those suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; in a third phase, in three months, election of new president who is a consensus figure "not emotionally implicated with one side of Lebanon's political class"; and in a fourth phase, initiating an effort to "convince" Hizbullah to transform itself into a political party and integrate its militants into the Lebanese Army.
The sequencing of Larijani's phases made his plan unworkable, as did the fact that Iran would like to see the Hariri tribunal effectively neutralized. However, two things were significant in the initiative, beyond what it meant for Hizbullah. First, Larijani confirmed that Iran had a crucial role to play in Lebanon's future, especially when it came to the future of Hizbullah, and that it was willing to engage the international community on that front. Lebanon is under de facto international trusteeship today, thanks to the web of United Nations resolutions affecting the country; Larijani implicitly admitted that Iran accepted this situation and was willing to deal with it, but also that it had the means and wherewithal to shape outcomes in Lebanon, negatively or positively.
The second message was that it was Iran, not Syria, that would "deliver" Hizbullah. By suggesting undermining the Hariri tribunal, Larijani didn't stray off the reservation of Syrian-Iranian relations, though he knew the condition was an empty one given the vote this week on the tribunal at the Security Council. However, he did pull the rug out from under a major Syrian justification for returning to Lebanon. This might, of course, have been a maneuver, and if the Syrians were ever to return, it is not Larijani who would stop them. Moreover, the Iranian ambassador in Beirut would only describe Larijani's scheme as "ideas." However, the plan may also represent a qualitatively new moment for Iranian involvement in Lebanese affairs, and the Syrians could not have been enthusiastic. Here's why.
It would be foolish to believe that Syria and Iran are at this time divided over Lebanon. Their interests run in parallel, and there is much mileage in continued cooperation. However, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's speech last Friday may have indicated there are stress marks worth highlighting. Many interpreted his statements on the deadlock in Nahr al-Bared, particularly his insistence that both the army and its entry into the camp were "red lines," as a defense of Syrian interests. Partly, they were. Syria doesn't want the army to go into Nahr al-Bared, as this would represent a major setback for its strategy in North Lebanon. It might also lead to the legitimization of military force when addressing Palestinian groups outside the camps, particularly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which is under Syria's thumb.
Nasrallah has similar calculations. The disarmament and elimination of the PFLP-GC is a red line for Hizbullah too, and the secretary general all but made that clear in the national dialogue sessions last year. Similarly, Nasrallah knows that a Lebanese Army considered credible by a majority of Lebanese is one that makes Hizbullah's weapons look superfluous. That is why March 14 rushed up to the Defense Ministry last week to show support for the armed forces and their commander, General Michel Suleiman.
However, there also appeared to be sincerity in Nasrallah's warning to the army. If the army enters Nahr al-Bared, the Syrians will almost certainly respond by encouraging Salafists in the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon to rise up against the army. The mainstream Palestinian groups, particularly Fatah and Hamas, while they outnumber the small Islamist groups concentrated around the camp's Al-Nour Mosque, are not united enough to decisively prevent this from happening. Hamas in particular is in no position to challenge Syrian interests, while Fatah has no desire, or perhaps even the means, to fight the Salafists on its own. What would this mean for Nasrallah? He could find himself, much to his alarm, with a Salafist insurrection at the South's doorstep, which could prove disastrous for Sunni-Shiite relations, and for Hizbullah in particular. This could be the first stage in an effort to make of Lebanon a new Iraq.
Would Syria do that to Nasrallah? After all isn't he a redoubtable ally of the Assad regime? The secretary general knows that Syria, in an effort to ward off the threat of the international tribunal, may be willing to go all the way in Lebanon, even if it means provoking Sunni-Shiite hostilities. After all, that was the message in the recent kidnapping and murder of the two Ziads, which was made to look like it was an operation organized by Shiites affiliated to Hizbullah. It is doubtful that Hizbullah sanctioned such an irresponsible crime. Both Walid Jumblatt and Nasrallah diligently avoided any escalation because they could see the motive behind it. Afterward Nasrallah must have reflected on the fact that even Hizbullah was not safe when it came to Syrian actions.
In the coming months there will continue to be efforts to play Lebanese communities against each other. For the moment we must presume that Hizbullah, while it will spare no effort to advance its own agenda, will not readily allow itself to be pushed toward civil war either. Iran probably agrees. The Larijani plan is a ruse, but it contains a notable idea. The majority in Lebanon, as it watches the United States and Iran begin their dialogue over Iraq, might investigate if there are ways to exploit that notable idea. And it must ask Nasrallah what he thinks about it.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Liberal Lebanon Worth saving, or the hell with it?
Last week, while being driven through Chicago, I heard one Flynt Leverett speaking in a news report aired on National Public Radio. Leverett, a former National Security Council official who now plies his trade at the New America Foundation, has long been an advocate of U.S. collaboration with Syria—and it’s probably fair to add he would like to be a middleman in that collaboration. That’s perhaps why he was quoted in his interview as saying that the Bush administration had "romanticized" the 2005 "Cedar Revolution", in which hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets demanding an end to 29 years of Syrian hegemony.
Rare are those today in the United States who look at Lebanon and remember that bracing year. That’s not surprising given the heavy fighting this week in the north of the country between the Lebanese army and a group calling itself Fatah al-Islam, the detonation of bombs in Beirut on Sunday and Monday and in a mountain resort on Wednesday, and a persistent domestic political crisis as the pro-Syrian opposition continues to demand the resignation of the Lebanese government, which is backed by the parliamentary majority hostile to Syria. Lebanon’s reputation is again that of a place cursed by chronic instability.
The interpretation is tendentious. Instability does not just materialize from the ether. It’s always a mistake to oversimplify Lebanese politics, but it would be fair to say that what is under threat today is Lebanon’s liberal future. And that future is threatened mainly by Syria, which never accepted its forced withdrawal from Lebanon in 2003, after the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. The fighting in the north, the bomb blasts, and the political crisis are almost certainly the direct results of Syrian policy, despite what Damascus and its proliferating promoters are saying in Washington, as they try to peddle the idea that Syria holds a key to stability in Iraq. The explicit or implicit message of many of those worthies is that the U.S. is better off dealing with Syria over Iraq, even if it means surrendering to the Syrian regime "influence" in Lebanon.
However, the Syrians don’t "do" influence. What they understand is unquestioned domination. On top of that, today they see an existential threat to their regime from the creation by the United Nations of a tribunal to try suspects in the Hariri killing. Syria is the only serious suspect in the crime, something that has been indirectly affirmed by U.N. investigators. The regime of President Bashar Assad fears that any accusation directed against it could be a fatal blow. The mixed Lebanese-international tribunal was to have been set up through constitutional Lebanese channels, but Syria’s allies in Beirut blocked the process. In the coming weeks, unless developments in Lebanon encourage Russia and China to undermine the effort, the Security Council will establish the tribunal under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter.
That’s why the bombs continue to go off, and why there is fighting in north Lebanon. The international media have underlined that Fatah al-Islam is a group with ties to Al-Qaeda. That may be the case when it comes to specific militants, but the top leadership is most likely acting today on behalf of the Syrian security services, which have allowed the group access to Lebanon through Syria’s borders. The group claims to be an Islamist offshoot of a pro-Syrian Palestinian group called Fatah al-Intifada. For many observers, however, that rift was probably contrived by Syria to provide it with deniability as it uses the group to destabilize Lebanon. Fatah al-Islam may indeed include Islamists, its funding may come from sources not necessarily Syrian, it may operate in collaboration with rather than as an extension of the Syrians, and its advanced weaponry may have been bought on the market, but its decision to launch attacks against the Lebanese army on Sunday was also very clearly a Syrian effort to show both Lebanon and the international community that a Chapter VII tribunal would have nefarious consequences.
If there was any doubt, in separate statements both Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and its ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, linked stability in Lebanon to what happened on the tribunal. Assad himself is said to have recently issued a threat (which he did not deny) to U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. Syrian determination seemed plain in that the bomb that exploded on Monday evening was placed near, among other places, the Russian cultural center. It’s unlikely that this was a coincidence. Russia is already hesitant about passing the tribunal under Chapter VII, although it is unlikely to veto the step. One of the objectives of the bombing could have been to make Moscow think again on that front.
Can anyone take Lebanese liberalism seriously, given that the country, at least to outsiders, seems perennially divided? The Lebanese are undeniably divided, but not as much on Syria as you might think. The only powerful ally Syria still has in Lebanon is Hezbollah. Take away Hezbollah, and Syria’s other comrades would shrivel away. Given that a vast majority of Sunnis, Christians, and Druze are opposed to the return of Syrian rule, with many Shiites themselves little enthusiastic about Syria, although they will not or cannot oppose Hezbollah in the polarized sectarian atmosphere today, the constituency for a Syrian restoration is small. However, Syria still has friends in high places. Lebanon’s president and speaker of parliament are on Syria’s side; Syria and its friends still have sway in the Lebanese army’s officer corps; and Hezbollah is the best armed and cohesive military force in the country.
What is being described here may seem more like Lebanese factional politics than a liberal struggle. Perhaps, but Lebanon, precisely because of its factionalism, is a country that has long rested on an imperfectly liberal, sometimes even libertarian, social contract: the state remains fairly weak amid strong religious communities that are allowed to develop as they see fit. Factionalism has meant that no one side, least of all the state, can dominate the country’s disparate groups. That’s why Lebanon, unlike most Arab countries, has been unkind to budding dictators. The fractured political structure has also led to the growth of a fairly free and pluralistic media. The weakness at the center has left much space for a free-market economy—despite the persistence of oligopolies in some sectors—as well as openness to private investment and a carefree embrace of the benefits of globalization.
What lies on the other side? A Syrian state governed by a family propped up by intelligence services that have imprisoned thousands of political prisoners. This has prompted even "friends" of Syria to protest. The country is afflicted by an archaic economy, often a kleptocracy, dominated by those with ties to the regime. All media are controlled by the state or members of the ruling family, and the parliament primarily includes yes-men and -women. So little is expected of them that recently participation in parliamentary elections, though officially set at 56 percent, was estimated to be much lower by independent sources, with Syrian opposition figures saying it could have been in the single digits. There are no presidential elections, but in three days’ time President Bashar al-Assad will hold a referendum to give the Syrian people the opportunity to renew his mandate for another seven years. Syria is not North Korea, but it is the very antithesis of what most countries aspire to becoming.
What Flynt Leverett wouldn’t admit was that while the so-called Cedar Revolution may have been romanticized, there was good reason to see it as something novel in the Middle East. For the first time, for example, several intelligence and security chiefs were forced out of office because of popular discontent. Place that against the grim order the Syrians and their Lebanese allies, notably the theocratic, authoritarian Hezbollah, seek to resurrect. Many in the West want to close the door on an Arab world that seems permanently overcome by its pathologies. Fine, but in abandoning a weak but genuine liberal system they are also abandoning a part of themselves.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Destruction and deceit in North Lebanon
Destruction and deceit in North Lebanon
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 24, 2007
There are few pleasures these days as Lebanon descends into the kind of violence that Syria seems to manufacture so effortlessly. However, one of them is discovering how easy it was for a gaggle of pro-Syrian Lebanese operators to manipulate investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, before he wrote a much-discussed article recently implying that the Lebanese government was financing Islamist groups, including Fatah al-Islam.
In his article for The New Yorker, Hersh faithfully channeled what sources in Lebanon told him, lending legitimacy to statements he otherwise failed to prove. Most prominently, for being so specific, he wrote that "representatives of the Lebanese government" had supplied weapons and money to Fatah al-Islam. But Hersh's only evidence for this claim was a quote attributed to one Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 agent who is co-director of Conflicts Forum, an institution advocating dialogue with Islamist movements. Nor did Crooke have direct knowledge of what he was saying. In fact, he "was told" the weapons were offered to the group, "presumably to take on Hizbullah." The argument is now being picked up by media belonging to senior members of the Syrian regime to affirm that the Lebanese Army is fighting an Islamist group in the Nahr al-Bared camp that is effectively on the payroll of Saad Hariri.
Lately, we've had more ricochets from that story. Writing in The Independent on May 22, journalist Robert Fisk, who we might forget lives in Beirut, picked up on Hersh, citing him uncritically to again make the case that Hariri was financing Islamists. So we have Fisk quoting Hersh quoting Crooke quoting someone nameless in a throwaway comment making a serious charge. Yet not one of these somnolent luminaries has bothered to actually verify if the story is true, even as everything about the fighting in Nahr al-Bared virtually confirms it is not true. The lie about the government financing of Fatah al-Islam has been given legitimacy thanks to a spectacular blunder by the Hariri camp, in particular Bahiyya al-Hariri. A few months ago she helped resolve a crisis that had resulted from the presence of Islamists located in the Taamir district of Sidon, abutting the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, by paying compensation money to Jund al-Sham militants so they would leave the area. From the narrow perspective of Sidon, which Bahiyya al-Hariri represents in Parliament, this made sense. Taamir was a running sore in relations between the state and inhabitants of the area on the one side and the Islamists and camp residents on the other. However, instead of disbanding, a number of the militants went to Nahr al-Bared, according to Palestinian sources. There, they joined Fatah al-Islam. Now the Hariris look like they financed Islamists, when they were really only doing what they usually do when facing a problem: trying to buy it away.
The relationship between Fatah al-Islam and Syria is not absolutely clear. While the movement is undeniably doing Syria's bidding today and has received Syrian logistical assistance (after all, its militants who weren't inside Lebanon had to enter from somewhere), Fatah al-Islam may be operating in collaboration with, rather than as a direct extension of, Syria's security services. This gives Syria deniability. Shaker Absy, who is wanted by the Jordanian authorities for the killing of an American diplomat in Amman in 2003, fought in Iraq and was briefly arrested by the Syrians before being sent to Lebanon, according to two Palestinian officials. Fatah al-Islam's sources of funding are also difficult to establish. The group has been supplied with up-to-date weaponry and the means to distribute patronage. But it might be a mistake to assume the money is Syrian, even though Damascus can turn the tap to the group on and off.
Between the fighting in the North and the bombings in Beirut, Syria is sending a very plain message, one that the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, brazenly echoed on Monday. It is that passage of the Hariri tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter will mean a Lebanon in flames. The threat is clear, and the Verdun bombing on Monday evening seemed partly destined to send a message to the Russians, whose cultural center is located at the blast scene. Both Russia and China are the weak links in any Security Council vote on the tribunal.
However, Syria wants more than merely to undermine the tribunal. It wants to have a decisive say in who becomes president of Lebanon at the end of summer. The bloodshed in the North as well as the bomb attacks have another destination: the United States, which has indicated that Syria would not be consulted on Emile Lahoud's replacement.
The Assad regime never reconciled itself with its forced withdrawal from Lebanon, and is now actively seeking to reimpose its hegemony over its neighbor through a network of allies and agents. A return of tens of thousands of Syrian soldiers may not be achievable in the short term, particularly as the main barrier to such a return would, this time, be an outraged Sunni community. This could have severe implications for President Bashar Assad at home. However, the Syrians often operate according to an obsolete template - that of Hafez al-Assad. While it may be easy for them to provoke conflict in Lebanon, as they did throughout the war years between 1975 and 1990, the Syrian leadership might not be able to resist the blowback this time around if new hostilities break out.
Another Syrian objective, and this one will be far easier to achieve, is to increase Lebanese antipathy for the Hariri tribunal. It won't take many more bombs for people to begin wondering whether passage of the tribunal by the UN is worth Lebanon's destruction. Perhaps the tribunal is not worth it, but the question that both the international community and the Arab states must ask, and convincingly answer, is whether Syria will agree to surrender Lebanon if the tribunal's statutes are watered down. Up to now, Assad has shown no willingness to consider this quid pro quo.
Those who insist that Syria must be "engaged" have thought very little about how to safeguard Lebanese sovereignty. Yet unless the Security Council, the Europeans, and the Arab states show that Syria will pay a heavy price for what it is doing in Lebanon, things will only get worse in the country. Every day, Assad feels more confident that he can prevail. And when prominent Western journalists so gullibly write what the Syrians want them to, there is no reason for him to feel any other way.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 24, 2007
There are few pleasures these days as Lebanon descends into the kind of violence that Syria seems to manufacture so effortlessly. However, one of them is discovering how easy it was for a gaggle of pro-Syrian Lebanese operators to manipulate investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, before he wrote a much-discussed article recently implying that the Lebanese government was financing Islamist groups, including Fatah al-Islam.
In his article for The New Yorker, Hersh faithfully channeled what sources in Lebanon told him, lending legitimacy to statements he otherwise failed to prove. Most prominently, for being so specific, he wrote that "representatives of the Lebanese government" had supplied weapons and money to Fatah al-Islam. But Hersh's only evidence for this claim was a quote attributed to one Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 agent who is co-director of Conflicts Forum, an institution advocating dialogue with Islamist movements. Nor did Crooke have direct knowledge of what he was saying. In fact, he "was told" the weapons were offered to the group, "presumably to take on Hizbullah." The argument is now being picked up by media belonging to senior members of the Syrian regime to affirm that the Lebanese Army is fighting an Islamist group in the Nahr al-Bared camp that is effectively on the payroll of Saad Hariri.
Lately, we've had more ricochets from that story. Writing in The Independent on May 22, journalist Robert Fisk, who we might forget lives in Beirut, picked up on Hersh, citing him uncritically to again make the case that Hariri was financing Islamists. So we have Fisk quoting Hersh quoting Crooke quoting someone nameless in a throwaway comment making a serious charge. Yet not one of these somnolent luminaries has bothered to actually verify if the story is true, even as everything about the fighting in Nahr al-Bared virtually confirms it is not true. The lie about the government financing of Fatah al-Islam has been given legitimacy thanks to a spectacular blunder by the Hariri camp, in particular Bahiyya al-Hariri. A few months ago she helped resolve a crisis that had resulted from the presence of Islamists located in the Taamir district of Sidon, abutting the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, by paying compensation money to Jund al-Sham militants so they would leave the area. From the narrow perspective of Sidon, which Bahiyya al-Hariri represents in Parliament, this made sense. Taamir was a running sore in relations between the state and inhabitants of the area on the one side and the Islamists and camp residents on the other. However, instead of disbanding, a number of the militants went to Nahr al-Bared, according to Palestinian sources. There, they joined Fatah al-Islam. Now the Hariris look like they financed Islamists, when they were really only doing what they usually do when facing a problem: trying to buy it away.
The relationship between Fatah al-Islam and Syria is not absolutely clear. While the movement is undeniably doing Syria's bidding today and has received Syrian logistical assistance (after all, its militants who weren't inside Lebanon had to enter from somewhere), Fatah al-Islam may be operating in collaboration with, rather than as a direct extension of, Syria's security services. This gives Syria deniability. Shaker Absy, who is wanted by the Jordanian authorities for the killing of an American diplomat in Amman in 2003, fought in Iraq and was briefly arrested by the Syrians before being sent to Lebanon, according to two Palestinian officials. Fatah al-Islam's sources of funding are also difficult to establish. The group has been supplied with up-to-date weaponry and the means to distribute patronage. But it might be a mistake to assume the money is Syrian, even though Damascus can turn the tap to the group on and off.
Between the fighting in the North and the bombings in Beirut, Syria is sending a very plain message, one that the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, brazenly echoed on Monday. It is that passage of the Hariri tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter will mean a Lebanon in flames. The threat is clear, and the Verdun bombing on Monday evening seemed partly destined to send a message to the Russians, whose cultural center is located at the blast scene. Both Russia and China are the weak links in any Security Council vote on the tribunal.
However, Syria wants more than merely to undermine the tribunal. It wants to have a decisive say in who becomes president of Lebanon at the end of summer. The bloodshed in the North as well as the bomb attacks have another destination: the United States, which has indicated that Syria would not be consulted on Emile Lahoud's replacement.
The Assad regime never reconciled itself with its forced withdrawal from Lebanon, and is now actively seeking to reimpose its hegemony over its neighbor through a network of allies and agents. A return of tens of thousands of Syrian soldiers may not be achievable in the short term, particularly as the main barrier to such a return would, this time, be an outraged Sunni community. This could have severe implications for President Bashar Assad at home. However, the Syrians often operate according to an obsolete template - that of Hafez al-Assad. While it may be easy for them to provoke conflict in Lebanon, as they did throughout the war years between 1975 and 1990, the Syrian leadership might not be able to resist the blowback this time around if new hostilities break out.
Another Syrian objective, and this one will be far easier to achieve, is to increase Lebanese antipathy for the Hariri tribunal. It won't take many more bombs for people to begin wondering whether passage of the tribunal by the UN is worth Lebanon's destruction. Perhaps the tribunal is not worth it, but the question that both the international community and the Arab states must ask, and convincingly answer, is whether Syria will agree to surrender Lebanon if the tribunal's statutes are watered down. Up to now, Assad has shown no willingness to consider this quid pro quo.
Those who insist that Syria must be "engaged" have thought very little about how to safeguard Lebanese sovereignty. Yet unless the Security Council, the Europeans, and the Arab states show that Syria will pay a heavy price for what it is doing in Lebanon, things will only get worse in the country. Every day, Assad feels more confident that he can prevail. And when prominent Western journalists so gullibly write what the Syrians want them to, there is no reason for him to feel any other way.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
America moves forward to the past
America moves forward to the past
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 10, 2007
No sooner had Condoleezza Rice finished shaking hands with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem last week at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference, than American commentators, former officials, and others were stumbling over themselves to offer congratulations. The secretary of state had displayed "pragmatism" and a "sense of realism" by reaching out to a state that had been isolated. Heaven's gates seemed to open
The United States is fast returning to the old ways in the Middle East, the pre-9/11 ways, where foreign policy skill was defined mainly as cutting baroque deals with despots rather than overly bothering with the promotion of open societies, human rights and the rule of law. That's understandable, since the Bush administration has left itself little room to maneuver because of the fiasco in Iraq.
But democratization was among the first superfluities to be tossed out the window when Rice, that most chameleonic of figures, rediscovered her "realist" pedigree. She now reportedly hopes to leave as her legacy the establishment of relations with Iran. We are close to the point where the US, in trying to extricate itself from the Iraqi trap, may bring the masonry down on all our heads.
The US has emerged as a fairly futile superpower, at least in the Middle East. For those of us who thought that the ousting of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein might usher in an era of pluralist change in the region, the disappointment is doubly felt. Arab liberals, who should have strived to use the radical developments in Iraq as an inspiration for their own domestic renovations, instead pushed aside their leaders (and tormentors) to be the first in slamming "American neocolonialism." Now the dictators, having won their battle against the US, are back to stifling their homegrown liberal critics. Prepare to soon see the liberals revive an old lamentation of theirs: that Washington is as one with the autocrats.
On the other side, the US, which claimed to be building a new Middle East, has yet to build a new Baghdad. The historian Niall Ferguson has described the US as an empire with a short attention span. It is, but it's also an empire with mostly misdirected attention whenever it deals with Arab affairs.
The US seems incapable of grasping how the region works, so concerned is it with the idiotic matter of whether it is loved or hated by the Middle East's inhabitants. The issue isn't love, but competence - the competence to use power intelligently, to know what societies will and will not accept, to stick to a fairly consistent political line, without bouncing back and forth between high rhetoric and low deal-making, usually to salvage something from America's chronic inability to persevere.
Arab regimes, in their sclerotic splendor, have saved the region from any real prospect of innovation. Saddam's removal was a harsh blow to a political confederacy that had bolstered the murderer through good years and bad, but the Americans are on the verge of throwing in the towel, of declaring defeat before anyone else does. In the US, political candor often declines into political stupidity.
As for the Arabs, we will plod on in our most inert of regions, afflicted by violence and oppression. Onetime republics are reversing into discounted monarchies, authoritarianism and underdevelopment are nourishing fanaticism and ignorance, though we will always have Pollyannaish optimists out there chasing the mirage of Arab progress and hawking the merits of "indigenous reform."
Even Lebanon, for a brief moment in 2005 a shining light of ecumenical democratic modernization, is today threatened. Syria is the main suspect in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, and the United Nations has already paid out millions of dollars to investigate the crime. Yet in none of the paeans to "engagement" with the Baath regime has anyone expressed especial interest in that murder, and what its punishment might mean for justice in the Middle East.
Indeed, none of the engagers have shown much interest in what happens to Lebanon itself, as they accept that Syria is entitled to enjoy (never-clarified) "influence" over the country. As if the regime in Damascus could distinguish, or even cared to distinguish, between "influence" and the obdurate vampirism that characterized its 29-year military domination of Lebanon.
What will engagement of Syria bring? The last time the US had an opportunity to check, during the 1990s, what it got was an assurance that in accepting the hardship of regaining its occupied land from Israel, Damascus would also take on the burden of continued rule over Lebanon. President Bashar Assad is no fool; he sees many Americans pleading for dialogue, so he offers the Bush administration dialogue.
He vows that Bush will like what he gets, that all will be fine in Iraq - so fine that the soldiers and marines, once they're home with their families, will not have to worry about the detonations of those human bombs crossing daily through Syria's eastern frontier. The Syrians will not really give anything up to the Americans or anybody else, whether in Lebanon, on the Palestinian front, in eventual talks with Israel, or in their relations with Iran. Why should they? Assad's door is being scratched so frantically that he has little incentive to surrender the leverage that brought this about.
The Syrian president has two priorities: saving his regime by undermining the Hariri tribunal and reimposing Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. The international community has had a momentary case of the nerves on the former, as the Syrians and their allies threaten to provoke a Lebanese civil war if a Chapter 7 tribunal is formed; as for the latter, no one has bothered noticing that Syria is avidly trying to manipulate the upcoming Lebanese presidential election in order to bring another puppet to power in Beirut. Are the Lebanese to blame for their own divisions? Surely, but the international community will only be able to move beyond that once it implements Security Council resolutions with more spirit.
If that's the Middle East's future - where an anemic kleptocracy can blackmail the world community by holding a gun to the head of its smaller neighbor - then there is no hope. Maybe those who argue that the region is better left ignored are right. Maybe the US was too optimistic in expecting more, and too lazy to verify if that optimism was defensible. So let's go back to where we were before in the region, which is basically nowhere. At least we know the pundits and former officials will lustily approve.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 10, 2007
No sooner had Condoleezza Rice finished shaking hands with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem last week at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference, than American commentators, former officials, and others were stumbling over themselves to offer congratulations. The secretary of state had displayed "pragmatism" and a "sense of realism" by reaching out to a state that had been isolated. Heaven's gates seemed to open
The United States is fast returning to the old ways in the Middle East, the pre-9/11 ways, where foreign policy skill was defined mainly as cutting baroque deals with despots rather than overly bothering with the promotion of open societies, human rights and the rule of law. That's understandable, since the Bush administration has left itself little room to maneuver because of the fiasco in Iraq.
But democratization was among the first superfluities to be tossed out the window when Rice, that most chameleonic of figures, rediscovered her "realist" pedigree. She now reportedly hopes to leave as her legacy the establishment of relations with Iran. We are close to the point where the US, in trying to extricate itself from the Iraqi trap, may bring the masonry down on all our heads.
The US has emerged as a fairly futile superpower, at least in the Middle East. For those of us who thought that the ousting of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein might usher in an era of pluralist change in the region, the disappointment is doubly felt. Arab liberals, who should have strived to use the radical developments in Iraq as an inspiration for their own domestic renovations, instead pushed aside their leaders (and tormentors) to be the first in slamming "American neocolonialism." Now the dictators, having won their battle against the US, are back to stifling their homegrown liberal critics. Prepare to soon see the liberals revive an old lamentation of theirs: that Washington is as one with the autocrats.
On the other side, the US, which claimed to be building a new Middle East, has yet to build a new Baghdad. The historian Niall Ferguson has described the US as an empire with a short attention span. It is, but it's also an empire with mostly misdirected attention whenever it deals with Arab affairs.
The US seems incapable of grasping how the region works, so concerned is it with the idiotic matter of whether it is loved or hated by the Middle East's inhabitants. The issue isn't love, but competence - the competence to use power intelligently, to know what societies will and will not accept, to stick to a fairly consistent political line, without bouncing back and forth between high rhetoric and low deal-making, usually to salvage something from America's chronic inability to persevere.
Arab regimes, in their sclerotic splendor, have saved the region from any real prospect of innovation. Saddam's removal was a harsh blow to a political confederacy that had bolstered the murderer through good years and bad, but the Americans are on the verge of throwing in the towel, of declaring defeat before anyone else does. In the US, political candor often declines into political stupidity.
As for the Arabs, we will plod on in our most inert of regions, afflicted by violence and oppression. Onetime republics are reversing into discounted monarchies, authoritarianism and underdevelopment are nourishing fanaticism and ignorance, though we will always have Pollyannaish optimists out there chasing the mirage of Arab progress and hawking the merits of "indigenous reform."
Even Lebanon, for a brief moment in 2005 a shining light of ecumenical democratic modernization, is today threatened. Syria is the main suspect in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, and the United Nations has already paid out millions of dollars to investigate the crime. Yet in none of the paeans to "engagement" with the Baath regime has anyone expressed especial interest in that murder, and what its punishment might mean for justice in the Middle East.
Indeed, none of the engagers have shown much interest in what happens to Lebanon itself, as they accept that Syria is entitled to enjoy (never-clarified) "influence" over the country. As if the regime in Damascus could distinguish, or even cared to distinguish, between "influence" and the obdurate vampirism that characterized its 29-year military domination of Lebanon.
What will engagement of Syria bring? The last time the US had an opportunity to check, during the 1990s, what it got was an assurance that in accepting the hardship of regaining its occupied land from Israel, Damascus would also take on the burden of continued rule over Lebanon. President Bashar Assad is no fool; he sees many Americans pleading for dialogue, so he offers the Bush administration dialogue.
He vows that Bush will like what he gets, that all will be fine in Iraq - so fine that the soldiers and marines, once they're home with their families, will not have to worry about the detonations of those human bombs crossing daily through Syria's eastern frontier. The Syrians will not really give anything up to the Americans or anybody else, whether in Lebanon, on the Palestinian front, in eventual talks with Israel, or in their relations with Iran. Why should they? Assad's door is being scratched so frantically that he has little incentive to surrender the leverage that brought this about.
The Syrian president has two priorities: saving his regime by undermining the Hariri tribunal and reimposing Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. The international community has had a momentary case of the nerves on the former, as the Syrians and their allies threaten to provoke a Lebanese civil war if a Chapter 7 tribunal is formed; as for the latter, no one has bothered noticing that Syria is avidly trying to manipulate the upcoming Lebanese presidential election in order to bring another puppet to power in Beirut. Are the Lebanese to blame for their own divisions? Surely, but the international community will only be able to move beyond that once it implements Security Council resolutions with more spirit.
If that's the Middle East's future - where an anemic kleptocracy can blackmail the world community by holding a gun to the head of its smaller neighbor - then there is no hope. Maybe those who argue that the region is better left ignored are right. Maybe the US was too optimistic in expecting more, and too lazy to verify if that optimism was defensible. So let's go back to where we were before in the region, which is basically nowhere. At least we know the pundits and former officials will lustily approve.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Syrian Endgame
Syrian Endgame
America should press Damascus to let go of Lebanon.
BY MICHAEL YOUNG
Wednesday, May 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
BEIRUT--This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh with representatives of states having an interest in Iraq. Among the participants will be Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. The gathering comes amid reports that Ms. Rice's State Department wants a breakthrough in relations with Tehran before President Bush's departure from office. Ms. Rice did not rule out meeting with Mr. Mottaki, although Iran's deputy foreign minister subsequently lowered expectations that any negotiations would take place.
Anxiously watching developments is another neighbor of Iraq: Syria. The regime of President Bashar Assad is uncertain as to how an Iranian-American rapprochement might affect its own future. While Syria is a close ally of Iran, the U.S. has been pushing for Damascus' isolation, insisting that Syria must change its behavior in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories, and, most importantly, in Lebanon. But it is in Lebanon that Syria has shown the least inclination to concede anything. That's why the U.S. must use any future conversation with Iran, assuming it goes well, as leverage to consolidate Lebanon's fragile independence.
Syria has two priorities, both of which have contributed to increasing its censure internationally and in the Arab world. The first is regime survival. The Syrians feel threatened by the approaching formation of a tribunal to deal with the February 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Syria is considered the main suspect in the crime, and in their most recent report, United Nations investigators preparing the legal case lent substantial credence to that assertion.
Up to now the Syrians have successfully pushed their allies in Beirut to block creation of the tribunal through a Lebanese constitutional process. U.N. officials and the five permanent members of the Security Council have indicated that if this continues, the tribunal will be set up under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Even Russia has said it would not veto this.
A second Syrian aim is to reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon. After the Lebanon war ended last summer, Syria encouraged its ally Hezbollah to mount an effective coup against the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. This failed after it led to growing Sunni-Shiite hostility, prompting Iranian and Saudi intervention to prevent an escalation that would have harmed their own interests.
Syria also appears to be trying to abort Lebanon's presidential election later this year, setting the stage for the creation of two rival governments in Beirut. Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal warned against this eventuality. Syria is continuing to supply weapons to Hezbollah, in breach of Security Council Resolution 1701, as well as to other groups, and it still refuses to recognize Lebanese sovereignty, establish an embassy in Beirut, or delineate borders with its neighbor.
Mr. Assad understands that if relations between the U.S. and Iran improve in the coming months, Syria might be left dangling. That's one reason why he is so keen to reassert himself in Lebanon, which gives Syria regional relevance.
Similarly, the Lebanese government and parliamentary majority, which oppose a Syrian return, are wary the U.S. might sell them out on Syria's and Iran's behalf. That's a possibility, but a more likely outcome, given the broad Arab and international opposition to Syrian meddling in Lebanese affairs, is that it is Mr. Assad who will have to bend.
The U.S. attitude toward Syria seems to be a bureaucratic compromise within the Bush administration: There are those in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and at the National Security Council who mistrust a dialogue with Iran, but the war in Iraq is now too much of a headache to avoid exploring new policies. So Ms. Rice is moving ahead with Iran, hoping it will have positive repercussions in Iraq, even as she covers herself on her right by refusing to indulge Syria.
This is why Syrian officials have frantically been trying to prove their worth in Washington recently by underlining their distance from Tehran and showing goodwill toward peace negotiations with Israel. Mr. Assad realizes that talks between Israel and Syria would make him a choice American partner, buy him valuable breathing space with respect to the Hariri tribunal (for who would want to upset Syria if its president were chatting about peace?), and widen his margin of maneuver against those opposing him in Lebanon.
The idea of dealing with Syria for the sake of a Syrian-Israeli peace has been making some headway in the U.S. The only problem is that its proponents have systematically failed to define credible safeguards to deny a Syrian comeback in Lebanon. There is nothing wrong in principle with engaging Syria, though Mr. Assad has tended to view offers of engagement as a sign of weakness by his interlocutors, therefore a pretext not to surrender anything. But at this juncture the Syrian regime must be made to understand that Lebanon is off the table, once and for all.
There also happens to be the fact that a political murder was committed, and Syrian behavior has not been reassuring in that regard. That's why three conditions must govern any contact with the Assad regime.
First, Syria must prove it accepts the Hariri tribunal by discontinuing efforts to thwart its endorsement in Lebanon. This also means eventually allowing Syrian officials to stand before the tribunal if they are implicated. Until now, Mr. Assad and his lieutenants have said Syrian suspects would only appear before Syrian courts. Second, Syria must respect U.N. resolutions on Lebanon, including Resolutions 1559 and 1701. This means, among other things, ending Syrian destabilization efforts and the arming of Hezbollah and other groups. And third, Damascus must formally accept Lebanese sovereignty and agree to the opening of embassies and a delineation of the border with Lebanon.
While it is by no means clear that the U.S. and Iran would in the current climate agree to move toward some form of engagement, the consequences if they did could substantially alter what happens in the Middle East. Maybe Mr. Assad is gambling on U.S.-Iranian discord, and maybe that gamble will pay off. However, if Iran decides that now is a good time to begin a normalization process with Washington, the Syrian president would be better off accepting that Lebanon is lost for good, and that he can gain much regionally and internationally from that acknowledgment.
America should press Damascus to let go of Lebanon.
BY MICHAEL YOUNG
Wednesday, May 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
BEIRUT--This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh with representatives of states having an interest in Iraq. Among the participants will be Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. The gathering comes amid reports that Ms. Rice's State Department wants a breakthrough in relations with Tehran before President Bush's departure from office. Ms. Rice did not rule out meeting with Mr. Mottaki, although Iran's deputy foreign minister subsequently lowered expectations that any negotiations would take place.
Anxiously watching developments is another neighbor of Iraq: Syria. The regime of President Bashar Assad is uncertain as to how an Iranian-American rapprochement might affect its own future. While Syria is a close ally of Iran, the U.S. has been pushing for Damascus' isolation, insisting that Syria must change its behavior in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories, and, most importantly, in Lebanon. But it is in Lebanon that Syria has shown the least inclination to concede anything. That's why the U.S. must use any future conversation with Iran, assuming it goes well, as leverage to consolidate Lebanon's fragile independence.
Syria has two priorities, both of which have contributed to increasing its censure internationally and in the Arab world. The first is regime survival. The Syrians feel threatened by the approaching formation of a tribunal to deal with the February 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Syria is considered the main suspect in the crime, and in their most recent report, United Nations investigators preparing the legal case lent substantial credence to that assertion.
Up to now the Syrians have successfully pushed their allies in Beirut to block creation of the tribunal through a Lebanese constitutional process. U.N. officials and the five permanent members of the Security Council have indicated that if this continues, the tribunal will be set up under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Even Russia has said it would not veto this.
A second Syrian aim is to reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon. After the Lebanon war ended last summer, Syria encouraged its ally Hezbollah to mount an effective coup against the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. This failed after it led to growing Sunni-Shiite hostility, prompting Iranian and Saudi intervention to prevent an escalation that would have harmed their own interests.
Syria also appears to be trying to abort Lebanon's presidential election later this year, setting the stage for the creation of two rival governments in Beirut. Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal warned against this eventuality. Syria is continuing to supply weapons to Hezbollah, in breach of Security Council Resolution 1701, as well as to other groups, and it still refuses to recognize Lebanese sovereignty, establish an embassy in Beirut, or delineate borders with its neighbor.
Mr. Assad understands that if relations between the U.S. and Iran improve in the coming months, Syria might be left dangling. That's one reason why he is so keen to reassert himself in Lebanon, which gives Syria regional relevance.
Similarly, the Lebanese government and parliamentary majority, which oppose a Syrian return, are wary the U.S. might sell them out on Syria's and Iran's behalf. That's a possibility, but a more likely outcome, given the broad Arab and international opposition to Syrian meddling in Lebanese affairs, is that it is Mr. Assad who will have to bend.
The U.S. attitude toward Syria seems to be a bureaucratic compromise within the Bush administration: There are those in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and at the National Security Council who mistrust a dialogue with Iran, but the war in Iraq is now too much of a headache to avoid exploring new policies. So Ms. Rice is moving ahead with Iran, hoping it will have positive repercussions in Iraq, even as she covers herself on her right by refusing to indulge Syria.
This is why Syrian officials have frantically been trying to prove their worth in Washington recently by underlining their distance from Tehran and showing goodwill toward peace negotiations with Israel. Mr. Assad realizes that talks between Israel and Syria would make him a choice American partner, buy him valuable breathing space with respect to the Hariri tribunal (for who would want to upset Syria if its president were chatting about peace?), and widen his margin of maneuver against those opposing him in Lebanon.
The idea of dealing with Syria for the sake of a Syrian-Israeli peace has been making some headway in the U.S. The only problem is that its proponents have systematically failed to define credible safeguards to deny a Syrian comeback in Lebanon. There is nothing wrong in principle with engaging Syria, though Mr. Assad has tended to view offers of engagement as a sign of weakness by his interlocutors, therefore a pretext not to surrender anything. But at this juncture the Syrian regime must be made to understand that Lebanon is off the table, once and for all.
There also happens to be the fact that a political murder was committed, and Syrian behavior has not been reassuring in that regard. That's why three conditions must govern any contact with the Assad regime.
First, Syria must prove it accepts the Hariri tribunal by discontinuing efforts to thwart its endorsement in Lebanon. This also means eventually allowing Syrian officials to stand before the tribunal if they are implicated. Until now, Mr. Assad and his lieutenants have said Syrian suspects would only appear before Syrian courts. Second, Syria must respect U.N. resolutions on Lebanon, including Resolutions 1559 and 1701. This means, among other things, ending Syrian destabilization efforts and the arming of Hezbollah and other groups. And third, Damascus must formally accept Lebanese sovereignty and agree to the opening of embassies and a delineation of the border with Lebanon.
While it is by no means clear that the U.S. and Iran would in the current climate agree to move toward some form of engagement, the consequences if they did could substantially alter what happens in the Middle East. Maybe Mr. Assad is gambling on U.S.-Iranian discord, and maybe that gamble will pay off. However, if Iran decides that now is a good time to begin a normalization process with Washington, the Syrian president would be better off accepting that Lebanon is lost for good, and that he can gain much regionally and internationally from that acknowledgment.
Avoiding the chaos of two governments
Avoiding the chaos of two governments
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Is it true that Michel Aoun recently visited Damascus and was told he would be asked by Emile Lahoud to form a government after the president's departure? Though Aoun earlier indicated he would not take such a step unless he were guaranteed the presidency, the version put out by the majority is that the Syrians didn't give him a choice. He could not be president, but he could be prime minister - following a custom of naming Christians to the post during times of crises over the presidency.
Of course Aoun would deny this. That the source of the story is the majority invites caution. However, two developments have set off alarm bells. The first is that the Saudi foreign minister, Saud Al-Faisal, warned last week of the possibility that Lebanon might find itself with two parallel governments once Lahoud's term ended, and his statement was allegedly made in response to information that Aoun had met with the Syrians.
Second, both Aoun and pro-Syrian politicians have set the stage for such an eventuality. In response to a question from Abu Dhabi television as to what would happen if there were no presidential election, Aoun said last week, "A resolution lies in the hands of the president of the republic ... [as] the government is illegal and unable to pursue the work of the presidency." When Aoun was asked whether he thought it possible that there would be two rival governments, he answered: "I don't believe in the possibility of two governments, for what will be the limits of each? There will be a balance of power on the ground that will decide the issue."
Former Prime Minister Omar Karami, one of several weathervanes reflecting Syrian intentions, said last week: "What President Lahoud is saying resembles what President Amine Gemayel did before his departure from the presidential palace, namely that he will name a prime minister and form a new government through constitutional mechanisms." The fact that Karami is a Sunni is important, since this supposedly adds legitimacy to the temporary naming of a Maronite as prime minister.
Both statements are highly dangerous. The implications of Aoun's statement are clear. If a balance of power will decide the issue of two parallel governments, then the only forces capable of affecting that balance "on the ground" are the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah. So, the general is threatening to return Lebanon to 1988, when he headed a military government and tried to solve the country's problems through the use of force. If history repeats itself as farce, then Aoun's acquiescence in such an insane plan, assuming it is his plan, would return us to a very bloody farce indeed, which could destroy the army, lead to civil war, and almost certainly break Lebanon apart - perhaps irredeemably this time with the various communities now thinking in existential terms.
On Tuesday, Aoun went further in underlining that he has no real intention of coming to power as a compromise candidate. He denounced as "conspirators" those who reject parliamentary elections today, meaning the majority, and irresponsibly offered as an alternative the election of a president by popular vote. One has to wonder about the general's supporters, who lustily applauded the idea. Only moments earlier Aoun had put on his miter and talked about the Christian presence in the Middle East. Aoun's lieutenants, lowering their secularist mask, have frequently underlined that they are the best qualified to defend Christian interests. If so, a historic bulwark of that protection has been avoiding a popular election that would allow Lebanon's Muslim majority to choose Christian candidates. One can dispute that rationale, but Aoun's proposal is a scheme to take power, in the knowledge that he can't do so through Parliament, not an effort to recast the system of representativeness.
Much of what Aoun does or says in the months ahead will be prompted by his devouring ambition to become president. The general may be a master blunderer at times, and his egotism may yet destroy the political system he so wants to dominate, but at this juncture it's more useful to employ other means to try bringing Aoun in from the cold. He has no intention of giving up on the presidency, but as his project becomes more difficult to implement, those around the general might become uneasy. Better a deal in which Aoun has a say on Lahoud's successor, they might argue, than to put all his chips on an all-or-nothing bid to reach Baabda.
Take the allegation that Aoun has agreed to form an interim government. Even if it's true that the Syrians imposed this on him, the general would certainly prefer to be president than head of a government that will be opposed by most Lebanese and the international community. He was in that position once before, and while Aoun is not one to learn from his mistakes, he knows well the disadvantages of finding himself isolated.
March 14 should play along with Aoun. Once the Hariri tribunal is endorsed, the pressure will be on the majority to break the deadlock over the government. Indefinitely denying veto power to the opposition will not be easy. At the same time, the opposition will find it difficult to bring down any new government through mass resignations in order to impose its presidential favorite. After months of debilitating stalemate, neither side has much latitude to initiate a new round of political infighting, even if that's the Syrian ambition. Moreover, while Hizbullah has suggested that the real difficulties between them and the majority are clashing visions for Lebanon's future and disagreement over holding early parliamentary elections, by refocusing on the government the majority can place the burden of normalization on the opposition.
That's why the majority should offer Aoun the number of portfolios he's long been demanding, even if that creates problems with the Lebanese Forces. However, a requirement would be that Aoun gain mainly from Lahoud's quota, since the president is on his way out. Once he's locked into the system, Aoun might also find himself locked into its logic. That could provide a valuable channel to induce him to participate in selecting a new president, once it becomes clear the majority will not vote for Aoun. That doesn't mean the general won't use his stake in government as leverage to succeed Lahoud, but the price he pays for doing so will be high if he's seen as his putting his interests before those of the country.
The plan is full of holes, but could work as a blueprint to build on. Aoun has become a destructive instrument of Syrian power, directly or indirectly, because he has no incentive to be anything else, and no institutional position to defend. The odds are that the general will view any concession made to him as further affirmation of his right to be president. This is not someone who understands or likes the baroque compromises of the political system. But the way to agree with Aoun, or smother him, is to make him part of that system and see how he reacts.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Is it true that Michel Aoun recently visited Damascus and was told he would be asked by Emile Lahoud to form a government after the president's departure? Though Aoun earlier indicated he would not take such a step unless he were guaranteed the presidency, the version put out by the majority is that the Syrians didn't give him a choice. He could not be president, but he could be prime minister - following a custom of naming Christians to the post during times of crises over the presidency.
Of course Aoun would deny this. That the source of the story is the majority invites caution. However, two developments have set off alarm bells. The first is that the Saudi foreign minister, Saud Al-Faisal, warned last week of the possibility that Lebanon might find itself with two parallel governments once Lahoud's term ended, and his statement was allegedly made in response to information that Aoun had met with the Syrians.
Second, both Aoun and pro-Syrian politicians have set the stage for such an eventuality. In response to a question from Abu Dhabi television as to what would happen if there were no presidential election, Aoun said last week, "A resolution lies in the hands of the president of the republic ... [as] the government is illegal and unable to pursue the work of the presidency." When Aoun was asked whether he thought it possible that there would be two rival governments, he answered: "I don't believe in the possibility of two governments, for what will be the limits of each? There will be a balance of power on the ground that will decide the issue."
Former Prime Minister Omar Karami, one of several weathervanes reflecting Syrian intentions, said last week: "What President Lahoud is saying resembles what President Amine Gemayel did before his departure from the presidential palace, namely that he will name a prime minister and form a new government through constitutional mechanisms." The fact that Karami is a Sunni is important, since this supposedly adds legitimacy to the temporary naming of a Maronite as prime minister.
Both statements are highly dangerous. The implications of Aoun's statement are clear. If a balance of power will decide the issue of two parallel governments, then the only forces capable of affecting that balance "on the ground" are the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah. So, the general is threatening to return Lebanon to 1988, when he headed a military government and tried to solve the country's problems through the use of force. If history repeats itself as farce, then Aoun's acquiescence in such an insane plan, assuming it is his plan, would return us to a very bloody farce indeed, which could destroy the army, lead to civil war, and almost certainly break Lebanon apart - perhaps irredeemably this time with the various communities now thinking in existential terms.
On Tuesday, Aoun went further in underlining that he has no real intention of coming to power as a compromise candidate. He denounced as "conspirators" those who reject parliamentary elections today, meaning the majority, and irresponsibly offered as an alternative the election of a president by popular vote. One has to wonder about the general's supporters, who lustily applauded the idea. Only moments earlier Aoun had put on his miter and talked about the Christian presence in the Middle East. Aoun's lieutenants, lowering their secularist mask, have frequently underlined that they are the best qualified to defend Christian interests. If so, a historic bulwark of that protection has been avoiding a popular election that would allow Lebanon's Muslim majority to choose Christian candidates. One can dispute that rationale, but Aoun's proposal is a scheme to take power, in the knowledge that he can't do so through Parliament, not an effort to recast the system of representativeness.
Much of what Aoun does or says in the months ahead will be prompted by his devouring ambition to become president. The general may be a master blunderer at times, and his egotism may yet destroy the political system he so wants to dominate, but at this juncture it's more useful to employ other means to try bringing Aoun in from the cold. He has no intention of giving up on the presidency, but as his project becomes more difficult to implement, those around the general might become uneasy. Better a deal in which Aoun has a say on Lahoud's successor, they might argue, than to put all his chips on an all-or-nothing bid to reach Baabda.
Take the allegation that Aoun has agreed to form an interim government. Even if it's true that the Syrians imposed this on him, the general would certainly prefer to be president than head of a government that will be opposed by most Lebanese and the international community. He was in that position once before, and while Aoun is not one to learn from his mistakes, he knows well the disadvantages of finding himself isolated.
March 14 should play along with Aoun. Once the Hariri tribunal is endorsed, the pressure will be on the majority to break the deadlock over the government. Indefinitely denying veto power to the opposition will not be easy. At the same time, the opposition will find it difficult to bring down any new government through mass resignations in order to impose its presidential favorite. After months of debilitating stalemate, neither side has much latitude to initiate a new round of political infighting, even if that's the Syrian ambition. Moreover, while Hizbullah has suggested that the real difficulties between them and the majority are clashing visions for Lebanon's future and disagreement over holding early parliamentary elections, by refocusing on the government the majority can place the burden of normalization on the opposition.
That's why the majority should offer Aoun the number of portfolios he's long been demanding, even if that creates problems with the Lebanese Forces. However, a requirement would be that Aoun gain mainly from Lahoud's quota, since the president is on his way out. Once he's locked into the system, Aoun might also find himself locked into its logic. That could provide a valuable channel to induce him to participate in selecting a new president, once it becomes clear the majority will not vote for Aoun. That doesn't mean the general won't use his stake in government as leverage to succeed Lahoud, but the price he pays for doing so will be high if he's seen as his putting his interests before those of the country.
The plan is full of holes, but could work as a blueprint to build on. Aoun has become a destructive instrument of Syrian power, directly or indirectly, because he has no incentive to be anything else, and no institutional position to defend. The odds are that the general will view any concession made to him as further affirmation of his right to be president. This is not someone who understands or likes the baroque compromises of the political system. But the way to agree with Aoun, or smother him, is to make him part of that system and see how he reacts.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Syrian Endgame: America should press Damascus to let go of Lebanon
BEIRUT--This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh with representatives of states having an interest in Iraq. Among the participants will be Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. The gathering comes amid reports that Ms. Rice's State Department wants a breakthrough in relations with Tehran before President Bush's departure from office. Ms. Rice did not rule out meeting with Mr. Mottaki, although Iran's deputy foreign minister subsequently lowered expectations that any negotiations would take place.
Anxiously watching developments is another neighbor of Iraq: Syria. The regime of President Bashar Assad is uncertain as to how an Iranian-American rapprochement might affect its own future. While Syria is a close ally of Iran, the U.S. has been pushing for Damascus' isolation, insisting that Syria must change its behavior in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories, and, most importantly, in Lebanon. But it is in Lebanon that Syria has shown the least inclination to concede anything. That's why the U.S. must use any future conversation with Iran, assuming it goes well, as leverage to consolidate Lebanon's fragile independence.
Syria has two priorities, both of which have contributed to increasing its censure internationally and in the Arab world. The first is regime survival. The Syrians feel threatened by the approaching formation of a tribunal to deal with the February 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Syria is considered the main suspect in the crime, and in their most recent report, United Nations investigators preparing the legal case lent substantial credence to that assertion.
Up to now the Syrians have successfully pushed their allies in Beirut to block creation of the tribunal through a Lebanese constitutional process. U.N. officials and the five permanent members of the Security Council have indicated that if this continues, the tribunal will be set up under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Even Russia has said it would not veto this.
A second Syrian aim is to reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon. After the Lebanon war ended last summer, Syria encouraged its ally Hezbollah to mount an effective coup against the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. This failed after it led to growing Sunni-Shiite hostility, prompting Iranian and Saudi intervention to prevent an escalation that would have harmed their own interests.
Syria also appears to be trying to abort Lebanon's presidential election later this year, setting the stage for the creation of two rival governments in Beirut. Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal warned against this eventuality. Syria is continuing to supply weapons to Hezbollah, in breach of Security Council Resolution 1701, as well as to other groups, and it still refuses to recognize Lebanese sovereignty, establish an embassy in Beirut, or delineate borders with its neighbor.
Mr. Assad understands that if relations between the U.S. and Iran improve in the coming months, Syria might be left dangling. That's one reason why he is so keen to reassert himself in Lebanon, which gives Syria regional relevance.
Similarly, the Lebanese government and parliamentary majority, which oppose a Syrian return, are wary the U.S. might sell them out on Syria's and Iran's behalf. That's a possibility, but a more likely outcome, given the broad Arab and international opposition to Syrian meddling in Lebanese affairs, is that it is Mr. Assad who will have to bend.
The U.S. attitude toward Syria seems to be a bureaucratic compromise within the Bush administration: There are those in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and at the National Security Council who mistrust a dialogue with Iran, but the war in Iraq is now too much of a headache to avoid exploring new policies. So Ms. Rice is moving ahead with Iran, hoping it will have positive repercussions in Iraq, even as she covers herself on her right by refusing to indulge Syria.
This is why Syrian officials have frantically been trying to prove their worth in Washington recently by underlining their distance from Tehran and showing goodwill toward peace negotiations with Israel. Mr. Assad realizes that talks between Israel and Syria would make him a choice American partner, buy him valuable breathing space with respect to the Hariri tribunal (for who would want to upset Syria if its president were chatting about peace?), and widen his margin of maneuver against those opposing him in Lebanon.
The idea of dealing with Syria for the sake of a Syrian-Israeli peace has been making some headway in the U.S. The only problem is that its proponents have systematically failed to define credible safeguards to deny a Syrian comeback in Lebanon. There is nothing wrong in principle with engaging Syria, though Mr. Assad has tended to view offers of engagement as a sign of weakness by his interlocutors, therefore a pretext not to surrender anything. But at this juncture the Syrian regime must be made to understand that Lebanon is off the table, once and for all.
There also happens to be the fact that a political murder was committed, and Syrian behavior has not been reassuring in that regard. That's why three conditions must govern any contact with the Assad regime.
First, Syria must prove it accepts the Hariri tribunal by discontinuing efforts to thwart its endorsement in Lebanon. This also means eventually allowing Syrian officials to stand before the tribunal if they are implicated. Until now, Mr. Assad and his lieutenants have said Syrian suspects would only appear before Syrian courts. Second, Syria must respect U.N. resolutions on Lebanon, including Resolutions 1559 and 1701. This means, among other things, ending Syrian destabilization efforts and the arming of Hezbollah and other groups. And third, Damascus must formally accept Lebanese sovereignty and agree to the opening of embassies and a delineation of the border with Lebanon.
While it is by no means clear that the U.S. and Iran would in the current climate agree to move toward some form of engagement, the consequences if they did could substantially alter what happens in the Middle East. Maybe Mr. Assad is gambling on U.S.-Iranian discord, and maybe that gamble will pay off. However, if Iran decides that now is a good time to begin a normalization process with Washington, the Syrian president would be better off accepting that Lebanon is lost for good, and that he can gain much regionally and internationally from that acknowledgment.
Anxiously watching developments is another neighbor of Iraq: Syria. The regime of President Bashar Assad is uncertain as to how an Iranian-American rapprochement might affect its own future. While Syria is a close ally of Iran, the U.S. has been pushing for Damascus' isolation, insisting that Syria must change its behavior in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories, and, most importantly, in Lebanon. But it is in Lebanon that Syria has shown the least inclination to concede anything. That's why the U.S. must use any future conversation with Iran, assuming it goes well, as leverage to consolidate Lebanon's fragile independence.
Syria has two priorities, both of which have contributed to increasing its censure internationally and in the Arab world. The first is regime survival. The Syrians feel threatened by the approaching formation of a tribunal to deal with the February 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Syria is considered the main suspect in the crime, and in their most recent report, United Nations investigators preparing the legal case lent substantial credence to that assertion.
Up to now the Syrians have successfully pushed their allies in Beirut to block creation of the tribunal through a Lebanese constitutional process. U.N. officials and the five permanent members of the Security Council have indicated that if this continues, the tribunal will be set up under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. Even Russia has said it would not veto this.
A second Syrian aim is to reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon. After the Lebanon war ended last summer, Syria encouraged its ally Hezbollah to mount an effective coup against the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. This failed after it led to growing Sunni-Shiite hostility, prompting Iranian and Saudi intervention to prevent an escalation that would have harmed their own interests.
Syria also appears to be trying to abort Lebanon's presidential election later this year, setting the stage for the creation of two rival governments in Beirut. Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal warned against this eventuality. Syria is continuing to supply weapons to Hezbollah, in breach of Security Council Resolution 1701, as well as to other groups, and it still refuses to recognize Lebanese sovereignty, establish an embassy in Beirut, or delineate borders with its neighbor.
Mr. Assad understands that if relations between the U.S. and Iran improve in the coming months, Syria might be left dangling. That's one reason why he is so keen to reassert himself in Lebanon, which gives Syria regional relevance.
Similarly, the Lebanese government and parliamentary majority, which oppose a Syrian return, are wary the U.S. might sell them out on Syria's and Iran's behalf. That's a possibility, but a more likely outcome, given the broad Arab and international opposition to Syrian meddling in Lebanese affairs, is that it is Mr. Assad who will have to bend.
The U.S. attitude toward Syria seems to be a bureaucratic compromise within the Bush administration: There are those in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and at the National Security Council who mistrust a dialogue with Iran, but the war in Iraq is now too much of a headache to avoid exploring new policies. So Ms. Rice is moving ahead with Iran, hoping it will have positive repercussions in Iraq, even as she covers herself on her right by refusing to indulge Syria.
This is why Syrian officials have frantically been trying to prove their worth in Washington recently by underlining their distance from Tehran and showing goodwill toward peace negotiations with Israel. Mr. Assad realizes that talks between Israel and Syria would make him a choice American partner, buy him valuable breathing space with respect to the Hariri tribunal (for who would want to upset Syria if its president were chatting about peace?), and widen his margin of maneuver against those opposing him in Lebanon.
The idea of dealing with Syria for the sake of a Syrian-Israeli peace has been making some headway in the U.S. The only problem is that its proponents have systematically failed to define credible safeguards to deny a Syrian comeback in Lebanon. There is nothing wrong in principle with engaging Syria, though Mr. Assad has tended to view offers of engagement as a sign of weakness by his interlocutors, therefore a pretext not to surrender anything. But at this juncture the Syrian regime must be made to understand that Lebanon is off the table, once and for all.
There also happens to be the fact that a political murder was committed, and Syrian behavior has not been reassuring in that regard. That's why three conditions must govern any contact with the Assad regime.
First, Syria must prove it accepts the Hariri tribunal by discontinuing efforts to thwart its endorsement in Lebanon. This also means eventually allowing Syrian officials to stand before the tribunal if they are implicated. Until now, Mr. Assad and his lieutenants have said Syrian suspects would only appear before Syrian courts. Second, Syria must respect U.N. resolutions on Lebanon, including Resolutions 1559 and 1701. This means, among other things, ending Syrian destabilization efforts and the arming of Hezbollah and other groups. And third, Damascus must formally accept Lebanese sovereignty and agree to the opening of embassies and a delineation of the border with Lebanon.
While it is by no means clear that the U.S. and Iran would in the current climate agree to move toward some form of engagement, the consequences if they did could substantially alter what happens in the Middle East. Maybe Mr. Assad is gambling on U.S.-Iranian discord, and maybe that gamble will pay off. However, if Iran decides that now is a good time to begin a normalization process with Washington, the Syrian president would be better off accepting that Lebanon is lost for good, and that he can gain much regionally and internationally from that acknowledgment.
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