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Hassan Nasrallah is trapping himself
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Listening to the speeches of President Michel Suleiman and Hizbullah's Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah earlier this week, it is becoming apparent that there are really only two projects in Lebanon today: There is the project of the state, which Suleiman and the parliamentary majority embody, assuming the president abides by his public statements; and there is the project of a non-state, supported by Hizbullah and its allies.
If that wasn't plain enough, then consider what happened on Monday night, after Suleiman had spent his first day at the Baabda Palace. Hizbullah and Amal partisans, as has become their habit lately, fired in the air to celebrate Nasrallah's speech, then took to the streets and began firing at their political adversaries. In the Bekaa Valley much the same thing happened. There was a message there, perhaps more a Syrian than an Iranian one this time around, and it was that the new president should not imagine he will be able to build up a state against Hizbullah.
Thanks to the Israelis, who may soon hand a grand prisoner exchange to Hizbullah, Nasrallah may earn a brief reprieve for his "resistance." It's funny how Hizbullah and Syria, always the loudest in accusing others of being Israeli agents, are the ones who, when under pressure, look toward negotiations with Israel for an exit. Hizbullah has again done so to show that its "defense strategy" works and to deflect growing domestic insistence that the party place its weapons at the disposal of the state.
Nasrallah has started peddling what he thinks Lebanon's defense strategy should be. Hizbullah's model is the summer 2006 war, he explained this week. But if the defense strategy Hizbullah wants us to adopt is one that hands Israel an excuse to kill over 1,200 people, turn almost 1 million civilians out into the streets for weeks on end while their villages are bombed and their fields are saturated with fragmentation bomblets; if Nasrallah's strategy is one that will lead to the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure, the ruin of its economy, the emigration of its youths, the isolation of the Shiites in a society infuriated with Hizbullah's pursuit of lasting conflict; if that's his defense strategy, then Nasrallah needs to get out of his bunker more and see what is really going on in Lebanon.
The only good thing that came out of the 2006 war, the only thing that both a majority of Lebanese and the Shiite community together approved of, was the deployment of the Lebanese Army to the South, the strengthening of UNIFIL, and the pacification of the border area. The Lebanese approved of this because it made less likely a return to Nasrallah's inane defense strategy. Unless of course the Hizbullah leader is now telling us that the neutralization of Hizbullah's military activities along the frontier with Israel was also a part of that strategy, because in practical terms it too was a result of the 2006 war.
Nasrallah's speech only reaffirmed that Hizbullah cannot find an exit to its existential dilemma, other than to coerce its hostile countrymen into accepting its armed mini-state. Very simply, the days of the national resistance are over. The liberation of the Shebaa Farms does not justify Hizbullah's existence as a parallel force to the army, and it does not justify initiating a new war with Israel. After all, the Syrians have a much larger territory under occupation and have preferred negotiations to conflict in order to win it back. As Suleiman implied, the best thing that can happen now is for Hizbullah to share with the state its resistance expertise, which was a gentle way of saying that the party must integrate into the state.
Nasrallah's defensiveness also revealed something else, almost as worrying as his untenable position on Hizbullah's defense strategy. It revealed that the party views Doha as a setback. Nasrallah is right in that respect. The agreement negotiated by the Qataris was several things. It was, above all, a line drawn in the sand by the Sunni Arab world against Iran and Syria, telling them that Lebanon would not fall into their lap. In this the Qataris were part of an Arab consensus, and the Iranians, always pragmatic, backtracked when seeing how resolute the Arabs were.
But the Doha agreement was mainly a failure for Syria. Damascus had planned to use the open-ended political vacuum in Beirut as leverage to bring in a new president and government on its conditions, to negotiate Syria's return to the Arab fold from a position of strength, to torpedo the Hariri tribunal, and to prepare an eventual Syrian military return to Lebanon. The Qataris thwarted this, and in a conversation between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Assad was pushed into approving Suleiman's election. As a last measure he tried to prevent the granting of 16 ministerial portfolios to the March 14 coalition - a simple majority in the 30-minister government allowing the coalition to have a quorum for regular Cabinet sessions. Sheikh Hamad rejected this and Assad had no choice but to relent, before instructing Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to accept the Qatari plan.
Hizbullah's plan was little different than that of the Syrians, so the Qataris substantially complicated Nasrallah's calculations as well. Suleiman is still an unknown quantity, but if he sticks to the principles highlighted in his inauguration speech, Hizbullah will be squeezed. Unlike the time when Emile Lahoud was still around and formed, with Berri, an alliance against Siniora, if the next prime minister and Suleiman can craft a joint strategy to strengthen the authority of the state, it is Berri, as the senior opposition figure and Shiite in office, who may find himself out on a limb.
Speaking of Berri, Hizbullah's bloc may have made a grave mistake in choosing yesterday to name no favorite as prime minister. That means that the bloc is ignoring the wishes of the Sunni community to bring back Siniora. Recall that when Berri was elected as Parliament speaker in 2005, those parliamentarians voting for him defended the choice on the grounds that "the Shiites want him." By inference, in not naming Siniora yesterday, mainly because the Syrians oppose him, the opposition has given the future majority in Parliament, if it happens to be a majority opposed to Hizbullah and Amal, an opening to reject Berri's re-election as speaker in 2009, regardless of whether the Shiites want him.
The ink on the Doha agreement is barely dry, but already Hizbullah and Syria are trying to water down its terms. Nasrallah's speech showed that he has no intention of entering into a substantive discussion on his party's weaponry. His promise not to use his guns in the pursuit of domestic political goals was meaningless, as he has already done so. In fact, his reading of what he can do with his weapons is much more advantageous to Hizbullah than what the Doha agreement stipulates. But Nasrallah has a problem. Most Lebanese want a real state and most Shiites don't want another war with Israel. Hizbullah, in contrast, doesn't want a real state but needs permanent war to remain relevant. That's Nasrallah's trap.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Something radically new after Doha
Something radically new after Doha
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Whatever else is said about the agreement between Lebanon's leaders reached in Qatar on Wednesday, it will likely transform the country's political landscape. With the election of a president, alliances will change and with that we may see growing intricacy and reversals in the relationships between March 14 groups and opposition groups.
One thing that will not change, however, is the attitude of a majority of Lebanese when it comes to Hizbullah's behavior. Party officials have recklessly downplayed their armed occupation of Beirut two weeks ago, but no one, least of all the Sunnis, will soon forget what happened. So even if genuine politics return, those of compromise and shifting calculations, the structural inability of Hizbullah to coexist with a sovereign Lebanese state will not disappear. This may push domestic parties to acquire weapons for when Hizbullah again uses bullets to overcome its political shortcomings.
Like most compromises, the Doha agreement has created winners and losers on all sides - but remains nebulous enough so that the losers still feel they might gain from it. But it's difficult not to interpret what happened in Qatar as a definitive sign that Syria's return to Lebanon is no longer possible. No doubt the Syrians were in on the arrangement, and the suspicious delay in establishing the Hariri tribunal until early 2009 makes one wonder whether a quid pro quo is taking shape behind the scenes. Reports of a breakthrough on the Syrian-Israeli track, the Iraqi Army's entry into Sadr City, certainly with an Iranian green light, and signs that a truce may soon be agreed in Gaza, suggest a regional package deal may have oiled the Lebanese deal.
If there was one message emerging from the recent fighting, it was that Syria could not conceivably return its army to Lebanon without reconquering the country. Hizbullah committed several mistakes, of which two were especially egregious for Syria: The Sunni community, like the Druze and many Christians, are mobilized and will fight any Syrian comeback; and the Lebanese file is more than ever an Iranian one, because Hizbullah's destiny is at stake. Syria's allies, other than Hizbullah, were ineffective in Beirut and the mountains, in some cases even siding with the majority. This confirmed that Damascus has less leverage than ever when it comes to employing those smaller armed groups it completely controls.
The election of a president, even if he is the troubling Michel Suleiman, opens a new phase in Lebanon, one in which it is possible to imagine consolidating a state gradually breaking free from Syria's grip. That's the priority today, and has been the priority since April 2005 when the Syrian Army withdrew from the country. Whether Suleiman likes it or not, from now on he is a president, not a candidate maneuvering to become a president, which will require him to take a strong position on defending the sovereignty of the state both vis-ˆ-vis Syria and Hizbullah. That could either push him closer to the position favored by March 14 and most Lebanese, or it could damage him if he proves to be indecisive.
Will March 14 survive after this? It probably will in the face of an armed Hizbullah and Syria's foreseeable efforts to regain a foothold in Beirut. But the parliamentary majority may transform itself into a looser alignment, united on the large issues but with its leaders behaving parochially when it comes to elections and patronage. Once Suleiman is elected, he becomes an arbiter, an axial figure, in the political game. Politicians will have to position themselves either for or against him, as the president strives to build up a power base for himself in the state, particularly in Parliament. Expect Suleiman to use the army as his bludgeon, which would be regrettable, and expect tension between the officers and traditional politicians.
One unanswered question is who will be prime minister. If it is Saad Hariri, and it is difficult to imagine it won't be, the relationship between him and Suleiman will determine the face of Lebanon in the coming year before parliamentary elections. Neither of the two would relish a return to the discord between Emile Lahoud and Rafik Hariri. On top of that, if Saad becomes head of the government, he would benefit from using that position as a foundation to create networks of alliances transcending those of March 14. An electoral compact with the Armenians, particularly the Tashnag Party, would be a smart move, and could shift the balance in Beirut decisively away from Hizbullah, Amal and Syrian peons.
Another question is what happens to Walid Jumblatt? The Druze leader has placed himself at the center of March 14 - a key mediator and usually prime initiator of the coalition's policies. With a new president in place, Jumblatt's role will be largely determined by the relationship between Suleiman and his prime minister. If the prime minister is Hariri and Hariri and Suleiman work well together, Jumblatt could find himself isolated. In that case, and if history provides any lessons, he will soon be contesting Suleiman and the officers the president relies upon. Jumblatt also will have to keep Suleiman away from his Christian electorate in Aley and the Chouf. Expect him, in that case, to move closer to Christians as unenthusiastic about Suleiman: Samir Geagea and Michel Aoun.
Aoun is the great loser from a presidential election. It's not like the old general wasn't warned. He could have used his parliamentary bloc to be presidential kingmaker; instead he decided to obstruct everything in order to be elected himself. Now he has only dust to feed on, and in his final years he may find himself trying to protect his shriveling flock from the overtures of Suleiman, who, if he is clever, will pick up a large share of the disoriented Christians. One can already imagine most of Aoun's parliamentarians in the Metn gravitating toward Suleiman, knowing that their re-election depends on the goodwill of Michel Murr, who will be instrumental in moving the district the president's way.
Samir Geagea is in a better position than Aoun, both because of his close ties to Hariri and the Christian community's propensity to create counterweights to its presidents. However, his power in the Cabinet is uncertain and he too will have to fight off Suleiman's poaching among his voters. That's why his rapport with Aoun is bound to improve.
The matter of Hizbullah's weapons will be the first test for Suleiman once he is elected. The president risks losing the Sunnis if he comes out with a limp formula that sidelines any serious discussion of the topic. Now is the time to put the question of weapons on the table seriously, and Suleiman, as a former commander of the army, is in an ideal position to propose a sensible compromise. A second test for the president will be the choice of a new army commander. The head of military intelligence, George Khoury, is pining for the post, but given the army's indolence during the fighting in Beirut and Hariri's deep doubts about what happened, Suleiman may need all his dexterity to propose a successor who satisfies all sides.
Can Hizbullah be pleased with the result? It will now be able to say that it received veto power in the government and that the matter of its weapons was not discussed in Doha. It will also be able to convince its supporters that this was its latest victory after the government's decision to withdraw the two decisions last week that Hizbullah found offensive. But that may be only half the story. By so foolishly taking over Beirut militarily, the party only scared the other communities into sustained hostility. The two decisions the government went back on were decisions it could never have implemented anyway, so Hizbullah effectively revealed its coup plan at an inopportune time and for little gain. The party also has lost two cards: It has dismantled its downtown protest camp and won't be able to close the airport road for some time. Its weapons have become a subject of legitimate national discussion. And what kind of war can Hizbullah hope to wage against Israel in South Lebanon when most Lebanese, and quite a few Shiites, have no desire for war? Most importantly, Hizbullah has been about the negation of the state. If the post-Doha process is about the building of a state, then the party and that state will eventually clash.
Much will depend on Michel Suleiman. That the president will get only three ministers in a new Cabinet affirms he has serious credibility problems on all sides. Suleiman is an unknown quantity. Will he be a faithful partner of Syria, as when he was army commander? Or will he realize that he can be more than that? In many ways Suleiman is a peculiar creation as president, someone never destined to inherit the office. Now he has a chance to become the long-awaited patron of a new and consensual Lebanese political order. Let's hope he's up to it.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Whatever else is said about the agreement between Lebanon's leaders reached in Qatar on Wednesday, it will likely transform the country's political landscape. With the election of a president, alliances will change and with that we may see growing intricacy and reversals in the relationships between March 14 groups and opposition groups.
One thing that will not change, however, is the attitude of a majority of Lebanese when it comes to Hizbullah's behavior. Party officials have recklessly downplayed their armed occupation of Beirut two weeks ago, but no one, least of all the Sunnis, will soon forget what happened. So even if genuine politics return, those of compromise and shifting calculations, the structural inability of Hizbullah to coexist with a sovereign Lebanese state will not disappear. This may push domestic parties to acquire weapons for when Hizbullah again uses bullets to overcome its political shortcomings.
Like most compromises, the Doha agreement has created winners and losers on all sides - but remains nebulous enough so that the losers still feel they might gain from it. But it's difficult not to interpret what happened in Qatar as a definitive sign that Syria's return to Lebanon is no longer possible. No doubt the Syrians were in on the arrangement, and the suspicious delay in establishing the Hariri tribunal until early 2009 makes one wonder whether a quid pro quo is taking shape behind the scenes. Reports of a breakthrough on the Syrian-Israeli track, the Iraqi Army's entry into Sadr City, certainly with an Iranian green light, and signs that a truce may soon be agreed in Gaza, suggest a regional package deal may have oiled the Lebanese deal.
If there was one message emerging from the recent fighting, it was that Syria could not conceivably return its army to Lebanon without reconquering the country. Hizbullah committed several mistakes, of which two were especially egregious for Syria: The Sunni community, like the Druze and many Christians, are mobilized and will fight any Syrian comeback; and the Lebanese file is more than ever an Iranian one, because Hizbullah's destiny is at stake. Syria's allies, other than Hizbullah, were ineffective in Beirut and the mountains, in some cases even siding with the majority. This confirmed that Damascus has less leverage than ever when it comes to employing those smaller armed groups it completely controls.
The election of a president, even if he is the troubling Michel Suleiman, opens a new phase in Lebanon, one in which it is possible to imagine consolidating a state gradually breaking free from Syria's grip. That's the priority today, and has been the priority since April 2005 when the Syrian Army withdrew from the country. Whether Suleiman likes it or not, from now on he is a president, not a candidate maneuvering to become a president, which will require him to take a strong position on defending the sovereignty of the state both vis-ˆ-vis Syria and Hizbullah. That could either push him closer to the position favored by March 14 and most Lebanese, or it could damage him if he proves to be indecisive.
Will March 14 survive after this? It probably will in the face of an armed Hizbullah and Syria's foreseeable efforts to regain a foothold in Beirut. But the parliamentary majority may transform itself into a looser alignment, united on the large issues but with its leaders behaving parochially when it comes to elections and patronage. Once Suleiman is elected, he becomes an arbiter, an axial figure, in the political game. Politicians will have to position themselves either for or against him, as the president strives to build up a power base for himself in the state, particularly in Parliament. Expect Suleiman to use the army as his bludgeon, which would be regrettable, and expect tension between the officers and traditional politicians.
One unanswered question is who will be prime minister. If it is Saad Hariri, and it is difficult to imagine it won't be, the relationship between him and Suleiman will determine the face of Lebanon in the coming year before parliamentary elections. Neither of the two would relish a return to the discord between Emile Lahoud and Rafik Hariri. On top of that, if Saad becomes head of the government, he would benefit from using that position as a foundation to create networks of alliances transcending those of March 14. An electoral compact with the Armenians, particularly the Tashnag Party, would be a smart move, and could shift the balance in Beirut decisively away from Hizbullah, Amal and Syrian peons.
Another question is what happens to Walid Jumblatt? The Druze leader has placed himself at the center of March 14 - a key mediator and usually prime initiator of the coalition's policies. With a new president in place, Jumblatt's role will be largely determined by the relationship between Suleiman and his prime minister. If the prime minister is Hariri and Hariri and Suleiman work well together, Jumblatt could find himself isolated. In that case, and if history provides any lessons, he will soon be contesting Suleiman and the officers the president relies upon. Jumblatt also will have to keep Suleiman away from his Christian electorate in Aley and the Chouf. Expect him, in that case, to move closer to Christians as unenthusiastic about Suleiman: Samir Geagea and Michel Aoun.
Aoun is the great loser from a presidential election. It's not like the old general wasn't warned. He could have used his parliamentary bloc to be presidential kingmaker; instead he decided to obstruct everything in order to be elected himself. Now he has only dust to feed on, and in his final years he may find himself trying to protect his shriveling flock from the overtures of Suleiman, who, if he is clever, will pick up a large share of the disoriented Christians. One can already imagine most of Aoun's parliamentarians in the Metn gravitating toward Suleiman, knowing that their re-election depends on the goodwill of Michel Murr, who will be instrumental in moving the district the president's way.
Samir Geagea is in a better position than Aoun, both because of his close ties to Hariri and the Christian community's propensity to create counterweights to its presidents. However, his power in the Cabinet is uncertain and he too will have to fight off Suleiman's poaching among his voters. That's why his rapport with Aoun is bound to improve.
The matter of Hizbullah's weapons will be the first test for Suleiman once he is elected. The president risks losing the Sunnis if he comes out with a limp formula that sidelines any serious discussion of the topic. Now is the time to put the question of weapons on the table seriously, and Suleiman, as a former commander of the army, is in an ideal position to propose a sensible compromise. A second test for the president will be the choice of a new army commander. The head of military intelligence, George Khoury, is pining for the post, but given the army's indolence during the fighting in Beirut and Hariri's deep doubts about what happened, Suleiman may need all his dexterity to propose a successor who satisfies all sides.
Can Hizbullah be pleased with the result? It will now be able to say that it received veto power in the government and that the matter of its weapons was not discussed in Doha. It will also be able to convince its supporters that this was its latest victory after the government's decision to withdraw the two decisions last week that Hizbullah found offensive. But that may be only half the story. By so foolishly taking over Beirut militarily, the party only scared the other communities into sustained hostility. The two decisions the government went back on were decisions it could never have implemented anyway, so Hizbullah effectively revealed its coup plan at an inopportune time and for little gain. The party also has lost two cards: It has dismantled its downtown protest camp and won't be able to close the airport road for some time. Its weapons have become a subject of legitimate national discussion. And what kind of war can Hizbullah hope to wage against Israel in South Lebanon when most Lebanese, and quite a few Shiites, have no desire for war? Most importantly, Hizbullah has been about the negation of the state. If the post-Doha process is about the building of a state, then the party and that state will eventually clash.
Much will depend on Michel Suleiman. That the president will get only three ministers in a new Cabinet affirms he has serious credibility problems on all sides. Suleiman is an unknown quantity. Will he be a faithful partner of Syria, as when he was army commander? Or will he realize that he can be more than that? In many ways Suleiman is a peculiar creation as president, someone never destined to inherit the office. Now he has a chance to become the long-awaited patron of a new and consensual Lebanese political order. Let's hope he's up to it.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Pity Lebanon’s Shia community
The failure of Hezbollah’s latest effort to tilt the political and military balance in its favor was visible in the eyes of the mild inhabitants of the Shia village of Qomatiyeh on Tuesday, as they buried a young Hezbollah man killed by Druze fighters. According to the villagers, the young man, Suleiman Jaafar, was first wounded then executed by members of the Progressive Socialist Party. Such frightful ferocity will greet Hezbollah in every hostile location it would ever wish to control.
There is great poignancy in the fate of the people of Qomatiyeh. With Kayfoun, the village is one of two Shia enclaves in the predominantly Druze and Christian Aley district. The inhabitants, far more than their brethren in the southern suburbs or the South, must on a daily basis juggle between a past in which they coexisted with their non-Shia neighbors and a present and future in which the neighbors view them as an existential threat. That story written large may soon be the story of Lebanon’s Shia community after the mad coup attempt organized by Hezbollah last week. In the past decade and a half, Hezbollah has injected regional animosities and an antagonistic and totalistic ideology of confrontation into tens of thousands of Shia homes, quarters, towns and villages where such attitudes have no place. Whatever brings the Iranian concept of wilayat al-faqih – the guardianship of the jurisconsult – to Qomatiyeh? Suleiman Jaafar may have been a Hezbollah member, but he was more than anything else a village boy caught in a fight far bigger than him, than all of us.
A solution appears to have been found for the immediate crisis that began last week. The airport and roads have been opened, but there never was a way for Hezbollah to emerge successfully from the conflict it created. Militarily, the only way the party could have momentarily broken the deadlock in the mountains was to mount a massive invasion of Aley and the Chouf, using thousands of men and its most sophisticated weaponry. The Druze would have remained united – as Talal Arslan’s supporters and other Druze opposition members were united with Walid Jumblatt’s followers at the weekend. There would have been carnage, and had Hezbollah prevailed, it would have had to hold unfriendly territory indefinitely, locking down resources and manpower. Then what? An invasion of Metn? Kesrouan? Jbeil? The North? Not even the most ardent Hezbollah believer would have seriously argued that such a project was feasible. Military stalemate would have prevailed, and even if the stalemate had collapsed in one area, it would have been followed by myriad stalemates elsewhere, denying Hezbollah any real political gain.
But worse, Hezbollah’s actions of last week have brought terrible misfortune upon the Shia community. As the Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 war, fighting the Sunni community in Lebanon is tantamount to fighting the Arab world. The Northern Islamists have been awakened, and with them Sunni Islamists everywhere in the region and beyond who will rally to do battle against the apostate. As Saad Hariri said in his press conference on Wednesday, fitna, or discord between Muslims, already exists; things may still be under a measure of control, but not for long if the situation worsens. As Hariri implied, if Hezbollah chooses to break the Future Movement and the Sunni moderates, it will soon have to face the most extremist Sunnis.
The Shia community is obeying a leadership that cannot be said, in any way, to have ever understood the essence of the Lebanese system. Hezbollah and its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, will often insist that sectarian compromise requires handing the party, and Shia in general, veto power over political decision-making. But that’s not what the consociational system is about; the point of the sectarian arrangement is not to build a system based on mechanisms of obstruction. It is to force the different communities to reach compromises in order to avert mechanisms of obstruction. Hezbollah has repeatedly tried to ignore this by imposing its will in the street or through its guns. The result has been a gathering, strengthening alignment of adversaries that will fight hard before allowing Hezbollah or the Shia to gain hegemonic power.
But wasn’t this reaction always obvious? Apparently not to Nasrallah and his Iranian sponsors, who never had any liking for the baroque but necessary give and take of the Lebanese order – let alone respect for the retribution that has always crippled those ignoring its fundamental rules. Through its contempt for Lebanon, Hezbollah has left itself with two stark choices: either to integrate fully into the state or to control the state. But since it will or can do neither, we are in for a long and harsh standoff between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanese society.
The clock began counting down in May 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon. This threatened to deny the party its reason to exist, even though it tried to keep “resistance” alive through the Shebaa Farms front. In 2005, once the Syrians departed, everything collapsed. The party found itself having to justify its private army against a majority of Lebanese that opposed Hezbollah’s state within a state and its lasting allegiance to the Syrian regime. In 2006, as the national dialogue prepared to address the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, Nasrallah sought to turn the tables by kidnapping Israeli soldiers and imposing his version of Hezbollah’s defense strategy on March 14. The plan backfired when Israel responded by ravaging Lebanon and the Shia in particular. And now, having fully discredited its “resistance” in the eyes of its countrymen, having ensured that an antagonistic population will be to its rear in the event of a new war with Israel, having weakened its non-Shia allies, Hezbollah, as both an idea and a driving force, is in its death throes. The party may yet endure, but the national resistance is finished.
It is undeniable that Hezbollah has over the years given Shia a heightened sense of self-respect. But regrettably, it has taken the party’s accumulation of arms to do so, even as Hezbollah has utterly failed to clarify the Shia role in any new Lebanon. In fact the party has consciously undercut that debate to retain its grip over its co-religionists and block the emergence of a sovereign country free of Syria. What kind of party places its own community in such dire straits? Certainly not one that can ever hope of finding itself at peace with its fellow Lebanese.
There is great poignancy in the fate of the people of Qomatiyeh. With Kayfoun, the village is one of two Shia enclaves in the predominantly Druze and Christian Aley district. The inhabitants, far more than their brethren in the southern suburbs or the South, must on a daily basis juggle between a past in which they coexisted with their non-Shia neighbors and a present and future in which the neighbors view them as an existential threat. That story written large may soon be the story of Lebanon’s Shia community after the mad coup attempt organized by Hezbollah last week. In the past decade and a half, Hezbollah has injected regional animosities and an antagonistic and totalistic ideology of confrontation into tens of thousands of Shia homes, quarters, towns and villages where such attitudes have no place. Whatever brings the Iranian concept of wilayat al-faqih – the guardianship of the jurisconsult – to Qomatiyeh? Suleiman Jaafar may have been a Hezbollah member, but he was more than anything else a village boy caught in a fight far bigger than him, than all of us.
A solution appears to have been found for the immediate crisis that began last week. The airport and roads have been opened, but there never was a way for Hezbollah to emerge successfully from the conflict it created. Militarily, the only way the party could have momentarily broken the deadlock in the mountains was to mount a massive invasion of Aley and the Chouf, using thousands of men and its most sophisticated weaponry. The Druze would have remained united – as Talal Arslan’s supporters and other Druze opposition members were united with Walid Jumblatt’s followers at the weekend. There would have been carnage, and had Hezbollah prevailed, it would have had to hold unfriendly territory indefinitely, locking down resources and manpower. Then what? An invasion of Metn? Kesrouan? Jbeil? The North? Not even the most ardent Hezbollah believer would have seriously argued that such a project was feasible. Military stalemate would have prevailed, and even if the stalemate had collapsed in one area, it would have been followed by myriad stalemates elsewhere, denying Hezbollah any real political gain.
But worse, Hezbollah’s actions of last week have brought terrible misfortune upon the Shia community. As the Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 war, fighting the Sunni community in Lebanon is tantamount to fighting the Arab world. The Northern Islamists have been awakened, and with them Sunni Islamists everywhere in the region and beyond who will rally to do battle against the apostate. As Saad Hariri said in his press conference on Wednesday, fitna, or discord between Muslims, already exists; things may still be under a measure of control, but not for long if the situation worsens. As Hariri implied, if Hezbollah chooses to break the Future Movement and the Sunni moderates, it will soon have to face the most extremist Sunnis.
The Shia community is obeying a leadership that cannot be said, in any way, to have ever understood the essence of the Lebanese system. Hezbollah and its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, will often insist that sectarian compromise requires handing the party, and Shia in general, veto power over political decision-making. But that’s not what the consociational system is about; the point of the sectarian arrangement is not to build a system based on mechanisms of obstruction. It is to force the different communities to reach compromises in order to avert mechanisms of obstruction. Hezbollah has repeatedly tried to ignore this by imposing its will in the street or through its guns. The result has been a gathering, strengthening alignment of adversaries that will fight hard before allowing Hezbollah or the Shia to gain hegemonic power.
But wasn’t this reaction always obvious? Apparently not to Nasrallah and his Iranian sponsors, who never had any liking for the baroque but necessary give and take of the Lebanese order – let alone respect for the retribution that has always crippled those ignoring its fundamental rules. Through its contempt for Lebanon, Hezbollah has left itself with two stark choices: either to integrate fully into the state or to control the state. But since it will or can do neither, we are in for a long and harsh standoff between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanese society.
The clock began counting down in May 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon. This threatened to deny the party its reason to exist, even though it tried to keep “resistance” alive through the Shebaa Farms front. In 2005, once the Syrians departed, everything collapsed. The party found itself having to justify its private army against a majority of Lebanese that opposed Hezbollah’s state within a state and its lasting allegiance to the Syrian regime. In 2006, as the national dialogue prepared to address the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, Nasrallah sought to turn the tables by kidnapping Israeli soldiers and imposing his version of Hezbollah’s defense strategy on March 14. The plan backfired when Israel responded by ravaging Lebanon and the Shia in particular. And now, having fully discredited its “resistance” in the eyes of its countrymen, having ensured that an antagonistic population will be to its rear in the event of a new war with Israel, having weakened its non-Shia allies, Hezbollah, as both an idea and a driving force, is in its death throes. The party may yet endure, but the national resistance is finished.
It is undeniable that Hezbollah has over the years given Shia a heightened sense of self-respect. But regrettably, it has taken the party’s accumulation of arms to do so, even as Hezbollah has utterly failed to clarify the Shia role in any new Lebanon. In fact the party has consciously undercut that debate to retain its grip over its co-religionists and block the emergence of a sovereign country free of Syria. What kind of party places its own community in such dire straits? Certainly not one that can ever hope of finding itself at peace with its fellow Lebanese.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Pity Lebanon’s Shia community
Hezbollah places the Shia, once again, in dire straits
Michael Young, Special to NOW Lebanon , May 15, 2008
The failure of Hezbollah’s latest effort to tilt the political and military balance in its favor was visible in the eyes of the mild inhabitants of the Shia village of Qomatiyeh on Tuesday, as they buried a young Hezbollah man killed by Druze fighters. According to the villagers, the young man, Suleiman Jaafar, was first wounded then executed by members of the Progressive Socialist Party. Such frightful ferocity will greet Hezbollah in every hostile location it would ever wish to control.
There is great poignancy in the fate of the people of Qomatiyeh. With Kayfoun, the village is one of two Shia enclaves in the predominantly Druze and Christian Aley district. The inhabitants, far more than their brethren in the southern suburbs or the South, must on a daily basis juggle between a past in which they coexisted with their non-Shia neighbors and a present and future in which the neighbors view them as an existential threat. That story written large may soon be the story of Lebanon’s Shia community after the mad coup attempt organized by Hezbollah last week. In the past decade and a half, Hezbollah has injected regional animosities and an antagonistic and totalistic ideology of confrontation into tens of thousands of Shia homes, quarters, towns and villages where such attitudes have no place. Whatever brings the Iranian concept of wilayat al-faqih – the guardianship of the jurisconsult – to Qomatiyeh? Suleiman Jaafar may have been a Hezbollah member, but he was more than anything else a village boy caught in a fight far bigger than him, than all of us.
A solution appears to have been found for the immediate crisis that began last week. The airport and roads have been opened, but there never was a way for Hezbollah to emerge successfully from the conflict it created. Militarily, the only way the party could have momentarily broken the deadlock in the mountains was to mount a massive invasion of Aley and the Chouf, using thousands of men and its most sophisticated weaponry. The Druze would have remained united – as Talal Arslan’s supporters and other Druze opposition members were united with Walid Jumblatt’s followers at the weekend. There would have been carnage, and had Hezbollah prevailed, it would have had to hold unfriendly territory indefinitely, locking down resources and manpower. Then what? An invasion of Metn? Kesrouan? Jbeil? The North? Not even the most ardent Hezbollah believer would have seriously argued that such a project was feasible. Military stalemate would have prevailed, and even if the stalemate had collapsed in one area, it would have been followed by myriad stalemates elsewhere, denying Hezbollah any real political gain.
But worse, Hezbollah’s actions of last week have brought terrible misfortune upon the Shia community. As the Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 war, fighting the Sunni community in Lebanon is tantamount to fighting the Arab world. The Northern Islamists have been awakened, and with them Sunni Islamists everywhere in the region and beyond who will rally to do battle against the apostate. As Saad Hariri said in his press conference on Wednesday, fitna, or discord between Muslims, already exists; things may still be under a measure of control, but not for long if the situation worsens. As Hariri implied, if Hezbollah chooses to break the Future Movement and the Sunni moderates, it will soon have to face the most extremist Sunnis.
The Shia community is obeying a leadership that cannot be said, in any way, to have ever understood the essence of the Lebanese system. Hezbollah and its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, will often insist that sectarian compromise requires handing the party, and Shia in general, veto power over political decision-making. But that’s not what the consociational system is about; the point of the sectarian arrangement is not to build a system based on mechanisms of obstruction. It is to force the different communities to reach compromises in order to avert mechanisms of obstruction. Hezbollah has repeatedly tried to ignore this by imposing its will in the street or through its guns. The result has been a gathering, strengthening alignment of adversaries that will fight hard before allowing Hezbollah or the Shia to gain hegemonic power.
But wasn’t this reaction always obvious? Apparently not to Nasrallah and his Iranian sponsors, who never had any liking for the baroque but necessary give and take of the Lebanese order – let alone respect for the retribution that has always crippled those ignoring its fundamental rules. Through its contempt for Lebanon, Hezbollah has left itself with two stark choices: either to integrate fully into the state or to control the state. But since it will or can do neither, we are in for a long and harsh standoff between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanese society.
The clock began counting down in May 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon. This threatened to deny the party its reason to exist, even though it tried to keep “resistance” alive through the Shebaa Farms front. In 2005, once the Syrians departed, everything collapsed. The party found itself having to justify its private army against a majority of Lebanese that opposed Hezbollah’s state within a state and its lasting allegiance to the Syrian regime. In 2006, as the national dialogue prepared to address the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, Nasrallah sought to turn the tables by kidnapping Israeli soldiers and imposing his version of Hezbollah’s defense strategy on March 14. The plan backfired when Israel responded by ravaging Lebanon and the Shia in particular. And now, having fully discredited its “resistance” in the eyes of its countrymen, having ensured that an antagonistic population will be to its rear in the event of a new war with Israel, having weakened its non-Shia allies, Hezbollah, as both an idea and a driving force, is in its death throes. The party may yet endure, but the national resistance is finished.
It is undeniable that Hezbollah has over the years given Shia a heightened sense of self-respect. But regrettably, it has taken the party’s accumulation of arms to do so, even as Hezbollah has utterly failed to clarify the Shia role in any new Lebanon. In fact the party has consciously undercut that debate to retain its grip over its co-religionists and block the emergence of a sovereign country free of Syria. What kind of party places its own community in such dire straits? Certainly not one that can ever hope of finding itself at peace with its fellow Lebanese.
Michael Young, Special to NOW Lebanon , May 15, 2008
The failure of Hezbollah’s latest effort to tilt the political and military balance in its favor was visible in the eyes of the mild inhabitants of the Shia village of Qomatiyeh on Tuesday, as they buried a young Hezbollah man killed by Druze fighters. According to the villagers, the young man, Suleiman Jaafar, was first wounded then executed by members of the Progressive Socialist Party. Such frightful ferocity will greet Hezbollah in every hostile location it would ever wish to control.
There is great poignancy in the fate of the people of Qomatiyeh. With Kayfoun, the village is one of two Shia enclaves in the predominantly Druze and Christian Aley district. The inhabitants, far more than their brethren in the southern suburbs or the South, must on a daily basis juggle between a past in which they coexisted with their non-Shia neighbors and a present and future in which the neighbors view them as an existential threat. That story written large may soon be the story of Lebanon’s Shia community after the mad coup attempt organized by Hezbollah last week. In the past decade and a half, Hezbollah has injected regional animosities and an antagonistic and totalistic ideology of confrontation into tens of thousands of Shia homes, quarters, towns and villages where such attitudes have no place. Whatever brings the Iranian concept of wilayat al-faqih – the guardianship of the jurisconsult – to Qomatiyeh? Suleiman Jaafar may have been a Hezbollah member, but he was more than anything else a village boy caught in a fight far bigger than him, than all of us.
A solution appears to have been found for the immediate crisis that began last week. The airport and roads have been opened, but there never was a way for Hezbollah to emerge successfully from the conflict it created. Militarily, the only way the party could have momentarily broken the deadlock in the mountains was to mount a massive invasion of Aley and the Chouf, using thousands of men and its most sophisticated weaponry. The Druze would have remained united – as Talal Arslan’s supporters and other Druze opposition members were united with Walid Jumblatt’s followers at the weekend. There would have been carnage, and had Hezbollah prevailed, it would have had to hold unfriendly territory indefinitely, locking down resources and manpower. Then what? An invasion of Metn? Kesrouan? Jbeil? The North? Not even the most ardent Hezbollah believer would have seriously argued that such a project was feasible. Military stalemate would have prevailed, and even if the stalemate had collapsed in one area, it would have been followed by myriad stalemates elsewhere, denying Hezbollah any real political gain.
But worse, Hezbollah’s actions of last week have brought terrible misfortune upon the Shia community. As the Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 war, fighting the Sunni community in Lebanon is tantamount to fighting the Arab world. The Northern Islamists have been awakened, and with them Sunni Islamists everywhere in the region and beyond who will rally to do battle against the apostate. As Saad Hariri said in his press conference on Wednesday, fitna, or discord between Muslims, already exists; things may still be under a measure of control, but not for long if the situation worsens. As Hariri implied, if Hezbollah chooses to break the Future Movement and the Sunni moderates, it will soon have to face the most extremist Sunnis.
The Shia community is obeying a leadership that cannot be said, in any way, to have ever understood the essence of the Lebanese system. Hezbollah and its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, will often insist that sectarian compromise requires handing the party, and Shia in general, veto power over political decision-making. But that’s not what the consociational system is about; the point of the sectarian arrangement is not to build a system based on mechanisms of obstruction. It is to force the different communities to reach compromises in order to avert mechanisms of obstruction. Hezbollah has repeatedly tried to ignore this by imposing its will in the street or through its guns. The result has been a gathering, strengthening alignment of adversaries that will fight hard before allowing Hezbollah or the Shia to gain hegemonic power.
But wasn’t this reaction always obvious? Apparently not to Nasrallah and his Iranian sponsors, who never had any liking for the baroque but necessary give and take of the Lebanese order – let alone respect for the retribution that has always crippled those ignoring its fundamental rules. Through its contempt for Lebanon, Hezbollah has left itself with two stark choices: either to integrate fully into the state or to control the state. But since it will or can do neither, we are in for a long and harsh standoff between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanese society.
The clock began counting down in May 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon. This threatened to deny the party its reason to exist, even though it tried to keep “resistance” alive through the Shebaa Farms front. In 2005, once the Syrians departed, everything collapsed. The party found itself having to justify its private army against a majority of Lebanese that opposed Hezbollah’s state within a state and its lasting allegiance to the Syrian regime. In 2006, as the national dialogue prepared to address the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, Nasrallah sought to turn the tables by kidnapping Israeli soldiers and imposing his version of Hezbollah’s defense strategy on March 14. The plan backfired when Israel responded by ravaging Lebanon and the Shia in particular. And now, having fully discredited its “resistance” in the eyes of its countrymen, having ensured that an antagonistic population will be to its rear in the event of a new war with Israel, having weakened its non-Shia allies, Hezbollah, as both an idea and a driving force, is in its death throes. The party may yet endure, but the national resistance is finished.
It is undeniable that Hezbollah has over the years given Shia a heightened sense of self-respect. But regrettably, it has taken the party’s accumulation of arms to do so, even as Hezbollah has utterly failed to clarify the Shia role in any new Lebanon. In fact the party has consciously undercut that debate to retain its grip over its co-religionists and block the emergence of a sovereign country free of Syria. What kind of party places its own community in such dire straits? Certainly not one that can ever hope of finding itself at peace with its fellow Lebanese.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Heading toward a Lebanese divorce
Heading toward a Lebanese divorce
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Once we accept that this week's alleged labor unrest was only the latest phase in Hizbullah's war against the Lebanese state, will we understand what actually took place yesterday. And once we realize that cutting the airport road was a calculated effort by Hizbullah to reverse the Siniora government's transfer of the airport security chief, Wafiq Shouqair, will we understand what may take place in the coming days.
Since last January, when Hizbullah and Amal used the pretense of social dissatisfaction to obstruct roads in and around Beirut, the opposition has, quite openly, shown itself to be limited to Hizbullah. Michel Aoun, once a useful fig leaf to lend cross-communal diversity to the opposition, has since become an afterthought with hardly any pull in Christian streets.
Long ago we learned that Hizbullah could not, in any real sense, allow the emergence of a Lebanese state free from Syrian control. Soon after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the party tried to suffocate the 2005 "independence intifada" in the egg, realizing that Hizbullah had no future as an autonomous armed group in a state that would seek to reimpose its writ after decades of subservience to Damascus. That effort failed on March 14, 2005 - mostly useful as an event in showing that a majority of people would not be intimidated by Hizbullah's rally of March 8.
Hizbullah's anxieties were understandable. As the party saw things, without a Lebanese state embracing the idea of open-ended conflict against Israel, and Hizbullah's sovereign, vanguard role in that conflict (and what state truly independent of Syria would ever want to choose so reckless a path?), Hizbullah would not be able to justify retaining its weapons. But without its weapons, Hizbullah could not exist. Post-Syria Lebanon has posed existential problems for the party, problems that began when Israel withdrew from most of South Lebanon in 2000. The irony of this situation - that Hizbullah was always most comfortable when both Syria and Israel were present in Lebanon - the latter to fight against, the former to safeguard that fight - says a lot about the party's future options.
Aoun will doubtless find an excuse to explain why the calls for a strike were ignored in predominantly Christian areas. But Hizbullah has to be careful. Now the party's every move is one of the Shiites against the rest. The sharp decline in Aoun's popularity, not to mention the pressure being felt by other Hizbullah allies like Elie Skaff in Zahleh, all emanate from a single source: Most Christians, not to mention vast majorities of Sunnis and Druze, see no possible coexistence between the idea of the Lebanese state and a Hizbullah that insists on demanding veto power over any decision that might limit its political and military margin of maneuver.
The ludicrousness of Aoun's latest statements on Monday only underlined this reality. You have to wonder what the general's electorate felt when he defended Hizbullah's activities in Kisirwan and Jbeil, which he represents in Parliament. There will always be those who follow Aoun into a brick wall, who will even follow him to Damascus to bestow his blessings on the Assad regime, a trip he should be encouraged to make if only to be kicked to the outer circles of political insignificance. But most Christians are smarter and can see that the general, after having seriously damaged his own Maronite community by refusing to elect a president, does not even rate much inside the opposition, whose errors Aoun continues to endorse to his detriment.
In picking a fight with Hizbullah over its cameras next to the airport, Walid Jumblatt did something different than what the public imagined. The reality is that Hizbullah doesn't need cameras to know what is going on at the facility. Through its authority over the General Security directorate, the airport's security unit, and sympathetic employees, Hizbullah has all the information it needs on air traffic. Rather, what Jumblatt did was provoke a confrontation and, to dig up the old Soviet jargon, heighten the contradictions between Lebanese society and Hizbullah. Now the party's true intentions are out there for everyone to see. Hizbullah can no longer hide behind its "resistance," a fictitious "national opposition" or imaginary social protests. It is confirming on a daily basis that its minimal goal is to keep alive a Hizbullah state within the state and to force most Lebanese to accept this, even as the party infiltrates the government bureaucracy and has free rein in the airport and ports.
Yet the message on Wednesday was plain. Outside areas under direct Hizbullah control, no one respected the call for a strike. The labor unions were not even able to march through mainly Sunni neighborhoods, for fear of street fights. The only real weapon Hizbullah has is to hold the airport hostage by closing all access roads. But all sides can close roads. How such action can possibly be in the interest of the Shiite community is beyond comprehension. Isolating the airport amounts to thuggery, underlining that Hizbullah now has few means other than to collectively punish all Lebanese to advance its exclusivist agenda. As the commentator Uqab Sakr put it: "Shutting down the airport is what the Israelis did in 2006; it's not what Hizbullah should be doing today."
The Lebanese state cannot live side by side with a Hizbullah state. This theorem is becoming more evident by the day, as the party's actions in the past three years have been, by definition, directed against the state, the government, the army and the security forces, institutions of national representation, the economy, and more fundamentally the rules of the Lebanese communal game. We've reached the point where Hizbullah, and more importantly the Shiite community, must choose. Will it persist in favoring a Hizbullah-led parallel state that will surely continue to clash with the recognized state? Or will Shiites try to find a new arrangement with their countrymen that forces Hizbullah to surrender its weapons?
The turmoil will continue, and at this point has already taken on a regional coloring. Hizbullah will not easily swallow Shouqair's transfer, and the closing of the airport road is its leverage to coerce the government into going back on the decision. But all this will only raise the prospect of escalating violence while focusing hostility against Hizbullah, benefiting no one. If the party wants its semi-independent entity, it is now obliged to state this plainly. The masks have fallen. And if Hizbullah does decide to reject Lebanon, then we shouldn't be surprised if some start speaking of an amicable divorce between Shiites and the rest of Lebanon.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Once we accept that this week's alleged labor unrest was only the latest phase in Hizbullah's war against the Lebanese state, will we understand what actually took place yesterday. And once we realize that cutting the airport road was a calculated effort by Hizbullah to reverse the Siniora government's transfer of the airport security chief, Wafiq Shouqair, will we understand what may take place in the coming days.
Since last January, when Hizbullah and Amal used the pretense of social dissatisfaction to obstruct roads in and around Beirut, the opposition has, quite openly, shown itself to be limited to Hizbullah. Michel Aoun, once a useful fig leaf to lend cross-communal diversity to the opposition, has since become an afterthought with hardly any pull in Christian streets.
Long ago we learned that Hizbullah could not, in any real sense, allow the emergence of a Lebanese state free from Syrian control. Soon after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the party tried to suffocate the 2005 "independence intifada" in the egg, realizing that Hizbullah had no future as an autonomous armed group in a state that would seek to reimpose its writ after decades of subservience to Damascus. That effort failed on March 14, 2005 - mostly useful as an event in showing that a majority of people would not be intimidated by Hizbullah's rally of March 8.
Hizbullah's anxieties were understandable. As the party saw things, without a Lebanese state embracing the idea of open-ended conflict against Israel, and Hizbullah's sovereign, vanguard role in that conflict (and what state truly independent of Syria would ever want to choose so reckless a path?), Hizbullah would not be able to justify retaining its weapons. But without its weapons, Hizbullah could not exist. Post-Syria Lebanon has posed existential problems for the party, problems that began when Israel withdrew from most of South Lebanon in 2000. The irony of this situation - that Hizbullah was always most comfortable when both Syria and Israel were present in Lebanon - the latter to fight against, the former to safeguard that fight - says a lot about the party's future options.
Aoun will doubtless find an excuse to explain why the calls for a strike were ignored in predominantly Christian areas. But Hizbullah has to be careful. Now the party's every move is one of the Shiites against the rest. The sharp decline in Aoun's popularity, not to mention the pressure being felt by other Hizbullah allies like Elie Skaff in Zahleh, all emanate from a single source: Most Christians, not to mention vast majorities of Sunnis and Druze, see no possible coexistence between the idea of the Lebanese state and a Hizbullah that insists on demanding veto power over any decision that might limit its political and military margin of maneuver.
The ludicrousness of Aoun's latest statements on Monday only underlined this reality. You have to wonder what the general's electorate felt when he defended Hizbullah's activities in Kisirwan and Jbeil, which he represents in Parliament. There will always be those who follow Aoun into a brick wall, who will even follow him to Damascus to bestow his blessings on the Assad regime, a trip he should be encouraged to make if only to be kicked to the outer circles of political insignificance. But most Christians are smarter and can see that the general, after having seriously damaged his own Maronite community by refusing to elect a president, does not even rate much inside the opposition, whose errors Aoun continues to endorse to his detriment.
In picking a fight with Hizbullah over its cameras next to the airport, Walid Jumblatt did something different than what the public imagined. The reality is that Hizbullah doesn't need cameras to know what is going on at the facility. Through its authority over the General Security directorate, the airport's security unit, and sympathetic employees, Hizbullah has all the information it needs on air traffic. Rather, what Jumblatt did was provoke a confrontation and, to dig up the old Soviet jargon, heighten the contradictions between Lebanese society and Hizbullah. Now the party's true intentions are out there for everyone to see. Hizbullah can no longer hide behind its "resistance," a fictitious "national opposition" or imaginary social protests. It is confirming on a daily basis that its minimal goal is to keep alive a Hizbullah state within the state and to force most Lebanese to accept this, even as the party infiltrates the government bureaucracy and has free rein in the airport and ports.
Yet the message on Wednesday was plain. Outside areas under direct Hizbullah control, no one respected the call for a strike. The labor unions were not even able to march through mainly Sunni neighborhoods, for fear of street fights. The only real weapon Hizbullah has is to hold the airport hostage by closing all access roads. But all sides can close roads. How such action can possibly be in the interest of the Shiite community is beyond comprehension. Isolating the airport amounts to thuggery, underlining that Hizbullah now has few means other than to collectively punish all Lebanese to advance its exclusivist agenda. As the commentator Uqab Sakr put it: "Shutting down the airport is what the Israelis did in 2006; it's not what Hizbullah should be doing today."
The Lebanese state cannot live side by side with a Hizbullah state. This theorem is becoming more evident by the day, as the party's actions in the past three years have been, by definition, directed against the state, the government, the army and the security forces, institutions of national representation, the economy, and more fundamentally the rules of the Lebanese communal game. We've reached the point where Hizbullah, and more importantly the Shiite community, must choose. Will it persist in favoring a Hizbullah-led parallel state that will surely continue to clash with the recognized state? Or will Shiites try to find a new arrangement with their countrymen that forces Hizbullah to surrender its weapons?
The turmoil will continue, and at this point has already taken on a regional coloring. Hizbullah will not easily swallow Shouqair's transfer, and the closing of the airport road is its leverage to coerce the government into going back on the decision. But all this will only raise the prospect of escalating violence while focusing hostility against Hizbullah, benefiting no one. If the party wants its semi-independent entity, it is now obliged to state this plainly. The masks have fallen. And if Hizbullah does decide to reject Lebanon, then we shouldn't be surprised if some start speaking of an amicable divorce between Shiites and the rest of Lebanon.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The pros and cons of a Lebanese dialogue
The pros and cons of a Lebanese dialogue
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 01, 2008
It was a mixed week for the head of the Democratic Gathering, Walid Jumblatt. His call for an all-party dialogue under the auspices of the speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, was gently downgraded by the majority to preliminary contacts between Berri and Saad Hariri, "to guarantee a presidential election on May 13." But the detention in the southern suburbs of a French Socialist representative Jumblatt had invited to Beirut was a useful reminder to the comrades on the left that Hizbullah has brashly created a state within a state.
What was Jumblatt's initial rationale for supporting a return to the kind of national dialogue sessions Berri ran in early 2006, before the summer war between Hizbullah and Israel? Here's a guess. The Druze leader probably calculated that since no presidential election was soon likely, it was best to stabilize the situation on the ground through a soothing conversation mechanism. The advantages would be to restate the gains made in the previous sessions while also moving to a discussion of Hizbullah's weapons. With Berri in charge, the speaker would gain some leverage over Hizbullah while also discrediting Michel Aoun, who supposedly remains the opposition's "official" negotiator.
Jumblatt perhaps also saw his initiative as a way of wriggling out of the bothersome offer floated by some opposition members to exchange a presidential election for agreement over the 1960 election law. The majority could be split by a parliamentary election law that fails to satisfy its diverse leaders and groups, and March 14 still has serious problems with the 1960 law. In the public's eye, however, this quid pro quo may have sounded reasonable. So what better way for March 14 to neutralize it than by showing flexibility on a dialogue where little would be conceded?
If that was Jumblatt's calculation, it was defensible. But an all-national dialogue also poses serious problems. Many Christians, especially those in the March 14 coalition, will see it as an abandonment of the parliamentary majority's priority to elect a president. Such a dialogue would mainly reward Berri, even though he is the person most responsible for blocking Parliament and has never challenged Syrian dictates. And as the 2006 dialogue sessions showed, shifting attention to a gathering of major political leaders could undermine the authority of the government - unhelpful at a moment when an increasing number of Lebanese realize that an effective state is the only thing preventing a breakdown in the country.
The question of how an expansive dialogue (if it happens) might affect Hizbullah's weapons is more intriguing. The party's decision to abduct Israeli soldiers in July 2006, which triggered the summer war, was in part an effort by Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, to prepare the ground for a discussion in the national dialogue sessions of the party's "defense strategy." Had the operation succeeded, Nasrallah would have been able to turn to the parliamentary majority and argue that Hizbullah's way was the best way, aborting any further talk of disarmament.
Instead, what Lebanon got was a month of carnage. Hizbullah's defense strategy was shown to be a recipe for mass destruction, so that today the Shiite community is, understandably, the most fearful whenever Nasrallah's mentions war. That, along with the fact that Hizbullah's capacity to intimidate its Lebanese opponents has evaporated in the past year, could make it a good time to raise the weapons issue. But would Hizbullah agree to go along with this? Nothing is less certain, which is why Jumblatt's offer of a dialogue may also have been a ploy to push the onus of rejecting compromise onto Nasrallah's shoulders.
That doesn't change the fact that with or without a dialogue, a presidential election remains unlikely, unless Syria has decided to cut Lebanon some slack. Reports in Qatar's daily Al-Watan suggest an imminent regional breakthrough is in the cards, but until now nothing yet proves this. The harsh reality is that Lebanon appears to be doing fine without a Maronite head of state, even if no one cares to admit it. When the followers of Michel Aoun next declare that they are best equipped to defend Christian interests, they might want to answer how hindering the election of a president - a president no one seems particularly to miss - proves this.
Making matters doubly pernicious, undue haste on an election by the majority, while it may bring a Maronite to office, could be disastrous for Lebanon in general. The country is not ready to enter into a period of prolonged vacuum that an election would provoke if Syria opposes it. How so? Let's assume the best-case (and highly unlikely) scenario in which March 14 and Michel Murr elect a president by a vote of a simple majority of parliamentarians, where would that lead? The government would be in a state of resignation, with constitutionally limited powers; the new president would face major impediments in forming a government, and therefore would be a president only in name; and if Suleiman is the anointed one, the army would find itself without its top commander.
Is electing a president now worth all that? Unfortunately not, which is why Aoun's refusal to participate in an election has been so thoroughly destructive. The general thought he could ride a wave of Christian anger at the absence of a president right into the Baabda palace. As usual, his calculations were wrong. Thanks to him, the Christians are silent, their main political post is empty, and any effort to alter the status quo might destabilize Lebanon in a way no one desires. So, unless something is happening behind the scenes that we are not seeing, brace yourselves for more empty promises of an election in the coming months.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 01, 2008
It was a mixed week for the head of the Democratic Gathering, Walid Jumblatt. His call for an all-party dialogue under the auspices of the speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, was gently downgraded by the majority to preliminary contacts between Berri and Saad Hariri, "to guarantee a presidential election on May 13." But the detention in the southern suburbs of a French Socialist representative Jumblatt had invited to Beirut was a useful reminder to the comrades on the left that Hizbullah has brashly created a state within a state.
What was Jumblatt's initial rationale for supporting a return to the kind of national dialogue sessions Berri ran in early 2006, before the summer war between Hizbullah and Israel? Here's a guess. The Druze leader probably calculated that since no presidential election was soon likely, it was best to stabilize the situation on the ground through a soothing conversation mechanism. The advantages would be to restate the gains made in the previous sessions while also moving to a discussion of Hizbullah's weapons. With Berri in charge, the speaker would gain some leverage over Hizbullah while also discrediting Michel Aoun, who supposedly remains the opposition's "official" negotiator.
Jumblatt perhaps also saw his initiative as a way of wriggling out of the bothersome offer floated by some opposition members to exchange a presidential election for agreement over the 1960 election law. The majority could be split by a parliamentary election law that fails to satisfy its diverse leaders and groups, and March 14 still has serious problems with the 1960 law. In the public's eye, however, this quid pro quo may have sounded reasonable. So what better way for March 14 to neutralize it than by showing flexibility on a dialogue where little would be conceded?
If that was Jumblatt's calculation, it was defensible. But an all-national dialogue also poses serious problems. Many Christians, especially those in the March 14 coalition, will see it as an abandonment of the parliamentary majority's priority to elect a president. Such a dialogue would mainly reward Berri, even though he is the person most responsible for blocking Parliament and has never challenged Syrian dictates. And as the 2006 dialogue sessions showed, shifting attention to a gathering of major political leaders could undermine the authority of the government - unhelpful at a moment when an increasing number of Lebanese realize that an effective state is the only thing preventing a breakdown in the country.
The question of how an expansive dialogue (if it happens) might affect Hizbullah's weapons is more intriguing. The party's decision to abduct Israeli soldiers in July 2006, which triggered the summer war, was in part an effort by Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, to prepare the ground for a discussion in the national dialogue sessions of the party's "defense strategy." Had the operation succeeded, Nasrallah would have been able to turn to the parliamentary majority and argue that Hizbullah's way was the best way, aborting any further talk of disarmament.
Instead, what Lebanon got was a month of carnage. Hizbullah's defense strategy was shown to be a recipe for mass destruction, so that today the Shiite community is, understandably, the most fearful whenever Nasrallah's mentions war. That, along with the fact that Hizbullah's capacity to intimidate its Lebanese opponents has evaporated in the past year, could make it a good time to raise the weapons issue. But would Hizbullah agree to go along with this? Nothing is less certain, which is why Jumblatt's offer of a dialogue may also have been a ploy to push the onus of rejecting compromise onto Nasrallah's shoulders.
That doesn't change the fact that with or without a dialogue, a presidential election remains unlikely, unless Syria has decided to cut Lebanon some slack. Reports in Qatar's daily Al-Watan suggest an imminent regional breakthrough is in the cards, but until now nothing yet proves this. The harsh reality is that Lebanon appears to be doing fine without a Maronite head of state, even if no one cares to admit it. When the followers of Michel Aoun next declare that they are best equipped to defend Christian interests, they might want to answer how hindering the election of a president - a president no one seems particularly to miss - proves this.
Making matters doubly pernicious, undue haste on an election by the majority, while it may bring a Maronite to office, could be disastrous for Lebanon in general. The country is not ready to enter into a period of prolonged vacuum that an election would provoke if Syria opposes it. How so? Let's assume the best-case (and highly unlikely) scenario in which March 14 and Michel Murr elect a president by a vote of a simple majority of parliamentarians, where would that lead? The government would be in a state of resignation, with constitutionally limited powers; the new president would face major impediments in forming a government, and therefore would be a president only in name; and if Suleiman is the anointed one, the army would find itself without its top commander.
Is electing a president now worth all that? Unfortunately not, which is why Aoun's refusal to participate in an election has been so thoroughly destructive. The general thought he could ride a wave of Christian anger at the absence of a president right into the Baabda palace. As usual, his calculations were wrong. Thanks to him, the Christians are silent, their main political post is empty, and any effort to alter the status quo might destabilize Lebanon in a way no one desires. So, unless something is happening behind the scenes that we are not seeing, brace yourselves for more empty promises of an election in the coming months.
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