Syria’s old habit of dominion over Lebanon dies hard

This past weekend, Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, travelled to Damascus, where Lebanese and Syrian officials signed 17 bilateral agreements. For many observers this was fresh evidence of improved relations between Beirut and Damascus.

Perhaps it was, but little has changed in the way Syria views Lebanon from the days when the Syrian army was in the country. For President Bashar Assad, Lebanon is there primarily to serve Damascus’s regional interests, regardless of whether this undermines its sovereignty.

A key item that remains to be finalised is border demarcation. For decades this has been a problem between Lebanon and Syria. However, it took on additional importance after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, when Lebanon, then still under Syrian control, claimed a sliver of land known as the Shebaa Farms that was still occupied by Israel. This allowed Hizbollah to pursue “resistance” against Israel for occupying Lebanese territory, which served Syria well by keeping alive its military leverage until Syrian-Israeli negotiations on the Golan Heights might resume.

The United Nations, however, declared that its maps showed the Shebaa Farms were Syrian. Therefore, it was up to Lebanon and Syria to demarcate their border so the territory could be officially declared Lebanese. When the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon in 2005 following the assassination of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Beirut’s new government repeated the UN request. Its aim was to establish that the Shebaa Farms was Lebanese, then ask the UN to push for an Israeli pullout from the area. The government would have used that to request that Hizbollah disarm, on the grounds that all occupied Lebanese land had been liberated.

Syria, predictably, demurred. Mr Assad’s regime had no desire to help to solve the Shebaa situation while the Golan remained occupied. Nor did it want to create a pretext for Hizbollah to surrender its weapons.

That’s why Mr Hariri’s recent announcement that Damascus would pursue border demarcation was a red herring. The Syrians will delay all progress in defining the Shebaa boundaries, and have little incentive to clarify borders elsewhere because, as the stronger party, they have imposed a status quo that is generally in their favour.

A defence agreement also has yet to be completed between Lebanon and Syria. That’s not surprising. Mr Assad’s regime continues to send weapons to Hizbollah, defying UN resolutions, and any credible defence agreement would have to address that in a serious way. We shouldn’t hold our breath. Damascus only gains by using Lebanon as an open field for conflict, even as it profitably sells itself regionally and internationally as the only party able to contain Hizbollah and mediate between the divided Lebanese. In other words, Syria is replicating its much-used tactic of setting fires it offers to extinguish.

Syria will also will try to gain politically from possible indictments that may be issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon set up to punish those responsible for Rafiq Hariri’s murder. Syrian mouthpieces in Beirut have urged Saad Hariri to torpedo the tribunal by declaring it politicised. Syria was almost certainly behind the crime, but a botched UN investigation between 2006 and 2008 did not pursue the Syrian angle.

The bulk of evidence appears to point to Hizbollah members as facilitators in the crime. Preparing for the worst, a few days ago the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, denounced the tribunal as an “Israeli project”, an indication that he wants Mr Hariri to end Lebanese collaboration with the institution.

This creates interesting openings for Syria. Mr Assad is not keen to see Hizbollah overly weakened, hence Syria’s efforts to push Mr Hariri to neutralise the tribunal.

However, if the party faces a legal accusation, the Syrian president would pragmatically adapt to this new reality by using any ensuing domestic tension in Lebanon to play the Lebanese off against one another, in that way strengthening Syria’s hold over Lebanon and paradoxically even over its ally Hizbollah, which still remains above all an Iranian venture.

The notion that Syria has reconciled itself with a sovereign Lebanon is an illusion. Mr Assad doesn’t have his army in the country anymore, but a Syrian military return could not be ruled out in the aftermath of a devastating war between Hizbollah and Israel.

Such a war, it if occurs and lasts longer than the 2006 conflict, would have repercussions to Syria’s advantage. The damage wrought would discredit the Lebanese state; a conflict would wreck the UN security architecture in south Lebanon; Hizbollah, if it is not defeated outright, and it cannot be, would fight on and come to be viewed in the Arab world, Israel and the West as a major nuisance needing to be brought to heel. Mr Assad could be tempted to use all of this to engineer a Syrian military comeback, arguing that Syria alone can stabilise Lebanon.

Mr Assad lost Lebanon in 2005, and it never went down well with the Syrian leader that he squandered a valuable inheritance his late father had spent years fighting to earn. The Syrians are systematic. In the past year they have co-opted or isolated their Lebanese foes. They have also tried to regain ground on Iran and Hizbollah, partners to be sure but also obstacles to the total control Syria once enjoyed over Lebanon. Mr Hariri, encouraged by his Saudi Arabian sponsors, has gone along with this, mainly to counterbalance Tehran’s influence.

The Lebanese prime minister knows that this complex game may have dire consequences. He is under no illusion about Mr Assad’s intentions, but has swallowed the bitter pill of reconciliation with Damascus to defend himself against his most immediate worry, Hizbollah.