Enough, already, with the Jumblatt obsession

Syria’s ongoing humiliation of Walid Jumblatt continues, even as the Druze leader insists that he has completed three-quarters of his road to Damascus. But as a friend of mine recently remarked, with cheerful derision, it’s the final quarter that is the longest.

Last week, while on a trip to London, Jumblatt told the daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat that he would not apologize publicly if the Syrian regime demanded that of him. He made the statement to the paper’s columnist, and his Druze coreligionist, Walid Abi Mershed, amid signs that the Druze community is deeply uneasy with Jumblatt’s recent political retreats, especially his visit to the home of Wiam Wahhab in Al-Jahiliyeh.

What is it the Syrian regime is asking of Jumblatt? Apparently two things. It wants him to apologize for a comment he made to David Ignatius of the Washington Post, which Ignatius published in a column in January 2006. Replying to a question about what he wanted from the United States, the Druze leader had observed: “You came to Iraq in the name of majority rule. You can do the same thing in Syria.” Bashar al-Assad, ever sensitive to the charge that he sits atop a system of minority rule, has demanded that Jumblatt’s act of contrition be addressed to “the Syrian people”.

Jumblatt is willing to do that. More complicated is another step the Syrians want him to take, namely issuing a personal apology to Assad for a speech Jumblatt made in February 2006, in which he referred to the Syrian president as a “monkey”, a “snake” and a “crocodile”. Jumblatt had hoped that this would be resolved through a visit to Damascus by one of his representatives, and the Syrians initially agreed to such a formula. However, they later changed their mind and are now said to be insisting that the apology precede the arrival of any Jumblatt envoy.

Worse, they apparently want the apology to come out in an interview with an Al-Jazeera television interviewer whose sympathies for Hezbollah and Syria are well-known. Jumblatt is reluctant to go along with this because he may be put on the spot, but mainly because he has no desire to see his apology beamed out to the Arab world as an Al-Jazeera exclusive, on a station belonging to the leading Gulf rivals of Saudi Arabia. Jumblatt cannot afford to alienate the Saudis, which explains why he rejected a public apology to Syria via the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat.

How sincere is his rejection? Jumblatt acknowledges that his recent actions are unpopular among the Druze, but he will forge ahead anyway. His primary aim is to slowly prepare for the leadership accession of his son, and this he cannot do against Assad, who rules over some 100,000 Druze. Jumblatt is not about to step down – his proclamations of retiring to Normandy to write his memoirs notwithstanding – but nor can he miss the train of reconciliations between Lebanese politicians and Syria.

Jumblatt doubtless hopes that by raising the ante with Assad, he might force better terms for an eventual visit to Damascus. The Druze leader’s advisors are suggesting that Hezbollah has been tasked with bridging the gap between him and Syria. That’s doubtless true, but Jumblatt’s case is said to be in the hands of a senior Syrian official who has traditionally dealt with Shia affairs, which means that Damascus is closely monitoring, and manipulating, whatever happens. And at some stage the mortification of Walid Jumblatt may become counterproductive.

Why is that? For three reasons primarily. First, because a Jumblatt discredited among the Druze is ultimately less useful to Syria than a Jumblatt more squarely on Syria’s side. Second, because Jumblatt has the swing votes allowing him to turn March 14 from a majority in parliament and the government into a minority (even if there are those in his parliamentary bloc disinclined to follow him). And third, because every Syrian rebuttal of Jumblatt pushes him a bit closer to his partners in March 14 who insist that his groveling toward Syria has been disastrous.

Jumblatt’s desire to settle with Syria is bad news for Lebanese eroding sovereignty, and we should perhaps welcome Syrian small-mindedness toward the Druze leader. However, we have to be honest: It’s not a Jumblatt visit to Damascus that will break the back of March 14. Among those who had once opposed Syria, Saad al-Hariri remains more powerful than the Druze leader; and Hariri met with Bashar al-Assad in December to far less opprobrium than that being directed against Walid Jumblatt.

Through his visit Hariri sought to reinforce Lebanese independence, but the price we can expect to pay in exchange for his nonetheless major climb-down – particularly when it comes to abandoning the search for the assassins of Rafik al-Hariri, Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni, Pierre Gemayel, Walid Eido, Antoine Ghanem, Wissam Eid, and all the others killed with them or in wayward bomb attacks – is far more onerous than what Jumblatt will ever have the capacity to make Lebanon pay.

Sooner or later the Syrians will reach a modus vivendi with Jumblatt, and he will have to go along. But we would be silly to imagine that this will represent an earth-shattering moment. That moment already happened at the presidential palace in Damascus two months ago when Hariri shook Assad’s hand, and somehow the Lebanese failed to notice, or pretended not to notice. If the Syrians are in no hurry to welcome Jumblatt, that should tell us something about the Druze leader’s true influence.

We should not let the Jumblatt saga detract from the real story in Lebanon today: The Syrians are back, and we seem helpless to stop them.