Nabih Berri gets the Syria treatment

You have to sympathize with Nabih Berri. His recent proposal to begin a process of political deconfessionalization may have been pure, conniving maneuver, but the parliament speaker is facing genuine difficulty in being unable to find a clear role for himself in the new Lebanese order.

How odd, you might reasonably reply. After all, Berri has always been one of Syria’s more stalwart Lebanese followers, so you would expect him to benefit from the Syrian political return to Beirut. Yet that has not happened. Everyone has been invited to Damascus, from President Michel Sleiman to Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Michel Aoun, who has time and again humiliated Berri. Even Walid Jumblatt holds in his hands a road map of apologies back to Syria’s capital. However, Berri has stayed home. Is this a case of Syrian familiarity breeding contempt?

Things are a bit more complicated than that, but one wonders by how much. The parliament speaker is caught between competing political logics, and his performance in the elections last June was poor enough that he has little leverage to claw back what he then lost. That is one reason why Berri raised the deconfessionalization issue: it is a means of regaining Shia legitimacy, since the perception is that the community, because of its numbers, gains most from abolishing sectarian quotas.

What are the different logics Berri has had to satisfy? For starters, he has adjusted, albeit gingerly, to a new kind of Lebanese state, with a president and prime minister who are no longer moving--at least quite as they once were--to the rhythms of Syrian instructions. Both Sleiman and Hariri in many ways represent an aspiration for, if not quite the reality of, a sovereign state. In that context, and for Berri to retain any authority, particularly after the long stretch during which he closed down parliament, he can no longer afford to be seen as entirely Syria’s man.

But herein lies a paradox. If Berri does not have Syria’s full endorsement, then there seems no overriding reason to defer to Nabih Berri. In fact that is precisely what is happening today. The speaker is trusted neither by his own allies nor by the parliamentary majority. In raising the deconfessionalization issue, Berri allowed himself to become a punching ball for Michel Aoun, while March 14 is not prepared to forgive him for what he did between 2006 and 2008, particularly when his Amal militia brutalized the inhabitants of western Beirut during the May 7 onslaught.

Despite all he did for the opposition, Berri was little rewarded at election time. His Shia partner, Hezbollah, ended up supporting Aoun in Jezzine, while even in places like Baabda and Jbeil, where the speaker had hoped to back candidates independent of Hezbollah and the Aounists, his efforts were negated by a concerted Shia vote in favor of both. Berri, who with Walid Jumblatt perhaps once dreamt of forming the core of a centrist bloc able to play the opposition and March 14 off against each other, saw that scheme dashed. He returned as speaker, as everyone expected he would, but was again beholden to Hezbollah for that appointment.

Berri’s relative weakness has also done him no good in Damascus. The Syrians reportedly don’t much care for his friendly relationship with Sleiman, who will never match Emile Lahoud in submissiveness; they see the speaker’s election performance as a black mark against him; and they know that he has no solid Shia presence separate from Hezbollah. Consequently, it’s simpler to deal with Hassan Nasrallah, who would anyway neutralize a serious Syrian endeavor to inflate Berri politically.

So what is the speaker to do? Unfortunately for him, there are almost no decent options available. He discredited himself so thoroughly during the years of domestic tension after the start of the downtown sit-in in December 2006, that he cannot even buy consideration. Even the conciliatory Jumblatt is too busy repairing his own relationship with Damascus, while simultaneously reassuring his dubious March 14 allies, to help bolster Berri. The speaker is on his own, adrift in a sea of scorn.

There is a lesson here: For all its faults, the Lebanese system can sometimes be unforgiving to those who violate its dictates. When Syria was around, Berri’s legitimacy was a gift from Damascus, with Hezbollah the dominant Shia representative. When the Syrians left, the speaker lost the aura he had enjoyed, even as his subordination to Hezbollah further marginalized him communally. And when Berri closed down parliament, his own institution, he relinquished any remaining esteem, despised by his enemies, owed nothing by his stronger partners.

Certainly, that’s how the Syrians like their Lebanese allies: dependent, isolated, reviled. Which is why they may well continue to give second-class treatment to Berri, someone so debilitated politically that he can but remain loyal to them, but toward which Syria need make no efforts.