Deconstructing the Wahhab assault

You have to feel sorry for President Michel Sleiman. Here he is doing his very best to satisfy all sides, and what does he get in return? An invitation to resign from Syria through one of its local megaphones, Wiam Wahhab.

Perhaps Sleiman will soon wake up to the fact that he is in a battle for his political survival. He has no choice but to fight back, and there are few ways to do so better than to play confessional politics. He needs to stiffen his back by garnering stronger Christian, particularly Maronite, support; he needs to portray all attacks against him as attacks against the Christians in general; and he really needs to move beyond the quaint notion that he can remain above the fray, and instead tighten his alliances with those having a stake in defending him against his enemies.

Sleiman’s only hope is to bargain with Damascus from a position of relative strength, not to benignly try to dodge Syrian bullets.

It’s remarkable the extent to which some Maronite leaders are willing to be used by Syria and its followers against one another. Wahhab’s broadside against Sleiman came after his meeting with Michel Aoun in Rabieh. Although Aoun’s media outlet, OTV, reported that the assault had taken the general by surprise, he has done everything possible in the past year and a half to undermine the president’s position. Deep down Aoun still harbors the hope that Sleiman might somehow be pushed out of office, and that he, Aoun, will sit in the chair he’s coveted for two decades.

The Syrian-led campaign against Sleiman has been linked to the president’s recent invitation to renew the national dialogue sessions. That’s part of it, but the greater part is that Syria is, simply, pursuing its plan to wreck any semblance of a functioning, cohesive Lebanese state – its ultimate objective being to reassert Syrian political control in Beirut.

Understandably, the Syrians feel confident. This week the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee held hearings to approve the appointment of Robert Ford as the new American ambassador to Syria. The relations between the Syrians and the Saudis are also improving, amid signs that Riyadh is willing to give President Bashar al-Assad a relatively wide berth to maneuver in Lebanon. Damascus has even asked the Saudis to pressure their Lebanese allies into being more compliant with Syrian wishes.

Syria seeks to avert, in particular, the emergence of a political axis between Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Not only would coordination between the president and prime minister make it more difficult for Damascus to shape government decisions; it could also reinforce Sunni-Christian ties, which is what the Syrians spent most of their years in Lebanon trying to avoid. The overriding reason why Wahhab called on the president to resign when he did was probably that Hariri came to the president’s defense while on a visit to Germany.

In parallel, the Syrians have also started turning their guns against the leader of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea. Breaking the Sunni-Christian bond is at the forefront of Syrian thinking, but also preventing the consolidation of a Christian consensus around politicians seeking to decisively move Lebanon away from Syrian hegemony. With Walid Jumblatt set to visit Damascus soon, and politically vulnerable to Syrian injunctions, Bashar al-Assad now has more means at his disposal to break apart the alliances that once held the March 14 coalition together.

Strangely enough, this provides opportunities for Michel Sleiman. His relationship with Geagea is not close; both are competing to an extent over Christian sympathy; but both also have an interest in standing together to avoid falling divided. And in this they will have the approval of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. Outside the Christian community, Saad Hariri, keen to avoid being undercut by Syria and its allies, will welcome such a development. A weak president is an albatross around the prime minister’s neck. But until, and unless, Sleiman anchors himself among his own coreligionists, he will remain an ineffective head of state.

Wahhab’s statement was, effectively, a declaration of war, but also an invitation to Sleiman to side more openly with Syria’s allies. “[A]fter two years of rule we feel like we are in the last days of the presidency,” he said. How right he was, if for all the wrong reasons. Unless the president counterattacks, Wahhab’s cynical description will be borne out.