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A divorce that Nasrallah cannot afford
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's speech on Sunday formalized Hizbullah's divorce from the rest of Lebanese society, confirming there is a fundamental rift between the party and a majority of Lebanese over a vision for Lebanon. But the rhetoric was also something more prosaic. It echoed a statement last week by former Minister Wiam Wahab, one of Syria's licensed local spokesmen, that negotiations over the distribution of portfolios in the government had become "stupid," and that a more fundamental change in the political system was now needed.
Both points Nasrallah combined in a key passage of his address. Lebanon was passing through a "fateful and important period" of its history, he argued, and "the issue is not one of [an] 11-19 [distribution of ministers in the government] or 17-13; it is much deeper than that." The real issue was one of control, with the parliamentary majority seeking to impose its writ on the whole country with international, particularly American, encouragement. The only way Lebanon could emerge from its crisis was through new elections or a referendum. The Hariri tribunal would only be endorsed once the opposition introduced changes into the text, and would have to be approved by the government in a session presided over by President Emile Lahoud. The tribunal itself might be formed only after the United Nations investigation of Rafik Hariri's assassination was completed (though, Nasrallah insisted, the judgment had already been written). And Nasrallah described the four generals who are suspects in the assassination as "political prisoners" who had to be released.
While the majority and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora are taking the Security Council route to establish the Hariri tribunal under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, Hizbullah's secretary general merely reiterated Syria's line on the Lebanese deadlock. He reaffirmed that the party's conflict with its adversaries is an existential one and, rashly, made Shiites the first line of defense in protecting Hariri's killers.
Nasrallah ruled out a civil war, and his threat that the opposition would be willing to stick to its position for two more years, until Parliament's mandate ended, suggested he is not looking for an imminent escalation. Instead, the opposition's tactic is to wear the system down through inertia, even if economic disaster is the result. Nasrallah's aim is to gain time for his Syrian allies, push the international community and the Arab world to exasperation or hesitation, so they will approve of a revitalized Syrian role in Lebanon, and, by so doing, guarantee that Hizbullah will be able to remain a military organization as well as a political one.
Nasrallah was right. Lebanon's destiny is indeed being determined today. Will the country once again become that freewheeling liberal outpost open to both East and West that it was before 1975, and which Hariri tried to recreate? Or will it become the pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian garrison state of which Nasrallah dreams, one that would allow his party to retain its weapons and secure a future as the militant vanguard of a society whose obsession would be self-defense against proliferating foes?
Nasrallah claims that he has a majority of Lebanese on his side. That's untrue since even Hizbullah's main allies in the Aounist movement don't share the secretary general's austere designs for Lebanon, at least if their political program is to be believed. One has to wonder what Michel Aoun thought of Nasrallah's statements. Does it take much more for him to realize that, in the unlikely event he were ever to become president, the primary obstacle to implementing his own ideal of the Lebanese state would be Hizbullah's ideal of the Lebanese state?
In this context, what about Speaker Nabih Berri? He has tried unsuccessfully to maneuver between Nasrallah's increasingly unyielding conditions, the majority's growing impatience with Berri's refusal to convene Parliament, and Syria's intransigence on the tribunal. Last week Berri proposed a massive airlift of Lebanon's politicians to Saudi Arabia so they could be reconciled under the kingdom's auspices. His rationale seems to have been that because King Abdullah could not abide failure, such a gathering would induce the Saudis to pressure the majority into being more conciliatory toward Berri's plans.
This wasn't the first time that Berri had imagined a Saudi solution. Several weeks ago, the speaker sent a document to the kingdom in which he made suggestions on resolving the current crisis. He reportedly accepted that the tribunal should be approved first, before agreement on a new government. The opposition would make amendments to the tribunal's statutes, but this would be done promptly, without emptying the tribunal of its clout. Then a government would be formed on a 19-11 basis, with a promise that opposition ministers would not resign before the end of Emile Lahoud's term in order to bring the government down and impose an opposition candidate as president. This government would then approve the tribunal, as would Lahoud, resolving the crisis.
The Saudi ambassador to Lebanon, Abdel-Aziz Khoja, liked the idea, which might explain why he was full of praise for Berri recently, after the speaker made a speech harshly criticizing the majority. However, the majority was displeased with the implications of Berri's proposals, particularly its setting precedents that might negate the Siniora government's past actions, and made this known in Riyadh. The Saudis sensed the complications in accepting Berri's scheme, which is perhaps why they showed so little enthusiasm for the speaker's offer last week. Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt shot Berri's idea down by insisting that a Saudi reconciliation should only be icing on a prior inter-Lebanese settlement. Nasrallah's address on Sunday raised the stakes by showing this was not about to happen. It was also his way of warning that a Chapter 7 tribunal might generate sectarian discord inside Lebanon, an argument that raises powerful doubts in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The UN is where all major matters Lebanese are likely to be decided in the coming months. The Chapter 7 tribunal bazaar has been opened. Ultimately, the outcome will in all probability be decided at the level of heads of state, not foreign ministers. Nasrallah has gambled on behalf of his Syrian allies, but if the tribunal is approved, does Hizbullah really want to be out on a limb in confronting the international community and Lebanon's Sunnis, who want justice in the Hariri case? The party seems to have forgotten that it needs to rebuild a Lebanese consensus to protect itself down the road. As things stand, however, Nasrallah is making that impossible.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
When a dilettante takes on Hizbullah
When a dilettante takes on Hizbullah
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 05, 2007
We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.
Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.
Inasmuch as it is possible to evoke sympathy in such cases, one can sympathize with Hizbullah. In 2000, the party lost much of its reason to exist as a military force when the Israelis withdrew from Southern Lebanon. The manufacturing of the Shebaa Farms pretext, thanks to the diligent efforts of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, bought Hizbullah an extension, a handy fig leaf allowing it to keep its weapons. Last summer, however, the party's initiation of a war devastating to Lebanon, followed by its efforts to lead a coup against the majority, demolished any lingering cross-sectarian support that Hizbullah had enjoyed.
Hizbullah's weapons are no longer regarded as weapons of resistance by most Lebanese, but as weapons of sectarian discord. The party's effort to torpedo the Hariri tribunal has created a perception that it is siding with Rafik Hariri's murderers - little helped by Hizbullah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's public statements of solidarity with the Syrian regime. But perhaps most worrying for Hizbullah's leadership is its knowledge that the party cannot return to where it was before July 12, 2006, when the war with Israel began - at least without pushing the Lebanese political system perilously closer to war. For one thing is absolutely clear: Without some sort of Syrian return to Lebanon, and even then, Hizbullah has no future as simultaneously a political and military party.
For years, pundits and analysts have spoken of Hizbullah's "integration into Lebanese society." Their underlying premise was that the party somehow desired this. Optimists pointed to Hizbullah's participation in successive parliamentary elections as an example of its willingness to "assimilate." The naivete deployed was remarkable. It rarely occurred to the experts that Hizbullah did not start as, nor truly is, a social services organization. It is an Iranian-financed military and security enterprise overseeing a vast and competent patronage system designed to win Shiite backing, allowing Hizbullah to retain its weapons. It never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah's objective in participating in the political system was not to jettison its military identity, but rather to safeguard it within the confines of Lebanese institutions it could thereafter influence. And it never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah was not interested in integration at all, at least on terms that would require surrendering its autonomy, even if it readily exploited its stake in the state as an additional means of patronage, much like other Lebanese political actors.
These conditions no longer apply in Lebanon. With the society divided, Hizbullah cannot impose its conditions as it once did. This, Nasrallah knows. At the same time, the party's officials are too astute not to recognize that a return of Syrian domination, while it might buy Hizbullah a new lease on life, is more likely to lead to a Sunni-Shiite war, its end result, in all probability, being the collapse of Assad's regime, which would not be able to resist sectarian discord coming from Lebanon. That leaves a third option: Hizbullah's embrace of the Lebanese system through an agreement to disarm and transform itself from a Leninist political-military party into solely a political one deferring to democratic rules.
None of these choices appeals to Hizbullah. This is why it is trying to avoid a decision by taking over effective control of the government, to better determine who will be elected president once Emile Lahoud's term ends. Hizbullah's demand for 11 ministers out of 30 must be understood in this context, as an instrument to bring the government down, or threaten to, and use this as leverage to choose a friendly president. If the party and Syria can influence the presidency, and given the fact that they already rule over Parliament through Berri, this would allow them to hold Lebanon hostage in the coming years and rebuild the political and military infrastructure that was the basis of their intimidation.
That's why both Syria and Hizbullah were especially alarmed with statements from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's entourage last week, that the UN was working on defining the Shebaa Farms border, whether Syria agreed with this or not. If the international organization sets final boundaries and persuades Israel to withdraw, Hizbullah will have even less of an excuse to hold on to its arms. More worrying for the Syrians, this would sever any remaining linkage between a resolution of Lebanon's territorial dispute with Israel and Syria's. Syria would no longer be able to link the military neutralization of the Lebanese-Syrian border area to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights.
Perhaps Pelosi and other foreign officials will understand this simple equation one day, after again failing to persuade Assad to sell Hizbullah out. Unfortunately, foreign bigwigs come to town, their domestic calculations in hand; then they leave, and we're left picking up the pieces.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, April 05, 2007
We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.
Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.
Inasmuch as it is possible to evoke sympathy in such cases, one can sympathize with Hizbullah. In 2000, the party lost much of its reason to exist as a military force when the Israelis withdrew from Southern Lebanon. The manufacturing of the Shebaa Farms pretext, thanks to the diligent efforts of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, bought Hizbullah an extension, a handy fig leaf allowing it to keep its weapons. Last summer, however, the party's initiation of a war devastating to Lebanon, followed by its efforts to lead a coup against the majority, demolished any lingering cross-sectarian support that Hizbullah had enjoyed.
Hizbullah's weapons are no longer regarded as weapons of resistance by most Lebanese, but as weapons of sectarian discord. The party's effort to torpedo the Hariri tribunal has created a perception that it is siding with Rafik Hariri's murderers - little helped by Hizbullah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's public statements of solidarity with the Syrian regime. But perhaps most worrying for Hizbullah's leadership is its knowledge that the party cannot return to where it was before July 12, 2006, when the war with Israel began - at least without pushing the Lebanese political system perilously closer to war. For one thing is absolutely clear: Without some sort of Syrian return to Lebanon, and even then, Hizbullah has no future as simultaneously a political and military party.
For years, pundits and analysts have spoken of Hizbullah's "integration into Lebanese society." Their underlying premise was that the party somehow desired this. Optimists pointed to Hizbullah's participation in successive parliamentary elections as an example of its willingness to "assimilate." The naivete deployed was remarkable. It rarely occurred to the experts that Hizbullah did not start as, nor truly is, a social services organization. It is an Iranian-financed military and security enterprise overseeing a vast and competent patronage system designed to win Shiite backing, allowing Hizbullah to retain its weapons. It never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah's objective in participating in the political system was not to jettison its military identity, but rather to safeguard it within the confines of Lebanese institutions it could thereafter influence. And it never occurred to the experts that Hizbullah was not interested in integration at all, at least on terms that would require surrendering its autonomy, even if it readily exploited its stake in the state as an additional means of patronage, much like other Lebanese political actors.
These conditions no longer apply in Lebanon. With the society divided, Hizbullah cannot impose its conditions as it once did. This, Nasrallah knows. At the same time, the party's officials are too astute not to recognize that a return of Syrian domination, while it might buy Hizbullah a new lease on life, is more likely to lead to a Sunni-Shiite war, its end result, in all probability, being the collapse of Assad's regime, which would not be able to resist sectarian discord coming from Lebanon. That leaves a third option: Hizbullah's embrace of the Lebanese system through an agreement to disarm and transform itself from a Leninist political-military party into solely a political one deferring to democratic rules.
None of these choices appeals to Hizbullah. This is why it is trying to avoid a decision by taking over effective control of the government, to better determine who will be elected president once Emile Lahoud's term ends. Hizbullah's demand for 11 ministers out of 30 must be understood in this context, as an instrument to bring the government down, or threaten to, and use this as leverage to choose a friendly president. If the party and Syria can influence the presidency, and given the fact that they already rule over Parliament through Berri, this would allow them to hold Lebanon hostage in the coming years and rebuild the political and military infrastructure that was the basis of their intimidation.
That's why both Syria and Hizbullah were especially alarmed with statements from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's entourage last week, that the UN was working on defining the Shebaa Farms border, whether Syria agreed with this or not. If the international organization sets final boundaries and persuades Israel to withdraw, Hizbullah will have even less of an excuse to hold on to its arms. More worrying for the Syrians, this would sever any remaining linkage between a resolution of Lebanon's territorial dispute with Israel and Syria's. Syria would no longer be able to link the military neutralization of the Lebanese-Syrian border area to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights.
Perhaps Pelosi and other foreign officials will understand this simple equation one day, after again failing to persuade Assad to sell Hizbullah out. Unfortunately, foreign bigwigs come to town, their domestic calculations in hand; then they leave, and we're left picking up the pieces.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Khalilzad: Afghan, Levantine, realist and neocon
Khalilzad: Afghan, Levantine, realist and neocon
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Monday, April 02, 2007
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the American University of Beirut was hardly the likeliest of places to find a budding neoconservative - even less so a budding neoconservative and his future wife. Yet that's where Zalmay Khalilzad, the outgoing US ambassador to Iraq who will soon take up as US ambassador to the United Nations, did his undergraduate work, and where he met his wife, Cheryl Benard. In those years AUB was in the throes of Third World fervor and enthusiasm for the Palestinian cause. A university yearbook from the early 1970s had a drawing of a Palestinian militant on its cover, his head covered with a keffiyeh.
Describing Khalilzad as a "neoconservative" may be simplistic. In an interview published on Monday to mark Khalilzad's departure from Iraq, The New York Times used the term unhesitatingly. But then one remembers what Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, had to say about the man with whom he worked closely in supporting the Afghan mujahideen between 1979 and 1980: "He is a broad-minded pragmatist and an insightful strategist."
To be branded "pragmatic" by a hardened political realist such as Brzezinski demonstrates that Khalilzad is difficult to pin down with reductionist labels. If anything, his path in recent years has underlined how well he has grasped the impossibility of being an unyielding neocon amid the complexities of the Middle East. That's why it seems fair to wonder whether Khalilzad, who first studied politics in Beirut, where hard truths and sharp angles dissolve in the warm Levant air, is living proof that, when hit by reality, there is no such thing as an ideologically inflexible neoconservative.
It is not hard to see why the foreign-born allies of American neocons have often been those whose causes benefited from greater American combativeness and interventionism. Their agendas and merits, or demerits, notwithstanding, whether we are talking about the Iraqi Ahmad Chalabi, the Syrian Farid Ghadry, or the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition in Lebanon, all these groups or individuals have sided with the neocons and their more traditional confederates in the Bush administration mainly to take advantage of Washington's willingness after 9/11 to challenge the debilitating status quo in their own countries.
In many ways that's how Khalilzad, too, began his career. While teaching political science at Columbia University in the late 1970s, he worked with Brzezinski on US strategy toward his native Afghanistan, which Soviet forces had just invaded. Though he was not, strictly speaking, a political exile, it seems defensible to assume that Khalilzad's Afghan side is what primarily shaped his political perspective early on, rather than his embrace of an America-centered view of power and international relations. At the same time, it would be a mistake to forget that he had, by then, worked closely with Alfred Wohlstetter, a University of Chicago strategist, who was also a guru to Paul Wolfowitz. Wohlstetter was a skeptic on nuclear arms control, and persuaded many young neocons of the need for the United States to remain militarily superior to the USSR.
Throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s, Khalilzad drifted in and out of government, working mostly on Afghan and Middle Eastern issues, before serving between 1990 and 1992 at the Pentagon as deputy undersecretary for policy planning. It was in that role, as an assistant to Wolfowitz, that Khalilzad played a major part in drafting a document whose ideas would return to shape policy under President George W. Bush. When then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney asked for an overhaul of American defense thinking in light of the deep changes taking place worldwide, Wolfowitz was tasked with preparing a Defense Planning Guidance. The document's most controversial assertion was that the US should strive to be the sole superpower, and fight off all foreign challengers. This was later watered down, though it would reappear in a more muscular formulation in the National Security Strategy of 2002: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States." Wolfowitz was nominally in charge of the document, but he never saw the final draft, according to James Mann, in his book "Rise of the Vulcans." The main author was Khalilzad, who was working under the orders of I. Lewis Libby.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
Khalilzad would remain active in the anterooms of foreign affairs during the 1990s, from his perch at the Rand Corporation and as a signatory of the January 26, 1998, "Project for the New American Century" letter urging President Bill Clinton to remove Saddam Hussein from power. When Bush was elected in 2000, Khalilzad was through with warming the bench. After a short stint at Donald Rumseld's Pentagon, he was appointed senior director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African affairs under Condoleezza Rice at the National Security Council.
Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia with extensive experience in Iraqi Kurdistan, would later tell Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker: "Khalilzad was absolutely part of the neocon cabal that brought the war to Iraq." In June 2005, Khalilzad left Afghanistan, where he had been ambassador since 2003, to take over the embassy in Baghdad. Yet far from bringing ideological severity to his new post, he waded in with the litheness of an Arab merchant. This would allow Galbraith to also observe, echoing Brzezinski: "I credit him with bringing the first dose of realism I've seen in this administration since they came to Iraq."
Throughout his ambassadorship, Khalilzad was an informal, and inveterate, backroom arm bender. His main achievement was persuading the Iraqis to ratify their Constitution. He also sought to enhance Sunni participation in the political process - a decision that angered the Shiite groups that had come to dominate the Iraqi government. This juggling act was skillful, but ultimately Khalilzad has left behind a country even more unstable than when he first moved into the Green Zone. And what will linger in people's minds is that the former ambassador backhandedly confirmed that the US has very few options left in Iraq. Khalilzad did so by admitting to the Times that he had spoken with the enemy: "There were discussions with the representatives of various [Iraqi insurgent] groups in the aftermath of the elections, and during the formation of the government before the Samarra incident, and some discussions afterwards as well."
During that time, Bush administration officials were saying there could be no negotiations with the insurgents, who were killing American soldiers on a daily basis. Yet through his admission, Khalilzad legitimized a more adaptable approach to events in Iraq - ceding his successor, Ryan Crocker, a wider margin of maneuver that he will be happy to have.
Khalilzad will be replacing a more austere neocon, John Bolton, at the UN. Bolton may have been one tough bastard, but he could be the personification of practicality when haggling over resolutions with the other permanent members of the Security Council, particularly on Middle Eastern matters. Maybe there are no neocons in the slippery trenches of international diplomacy. If so, Khalilzad is our Exhibit One.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Monday, April 02, 2007
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the American University of Beirut was hardly the likeliest of places to find a budding neoconservative - even less so a budding neoconservative and his future wife. Yet that's where Zalmay Khalilzad, the outgoing US ambassador to Iraq who will soon take up as US ambassador to the United Nations, did his undergraduate work, and where he met his wife, Cheryl Benard. In those years AUB was in the throes of Third World fervor and enthusiasm for the Palestinian cause. A university yearbook from the early 1970s had a drawing of a Palestinian militant on its cover, his head covered with a keffiyeh.
Describing Khalilzad as a "neoconservative" may be simplistic. In an interview published on Monday to mark Khalilzad's departure from Iraq, The New York Times used the term unhesitatingly. But then one remembers what Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, had to say about the man with whom he worked closely in supporting the Afghan mujahideen between 1979 and 1980: "He is a broad-minded pragmatist and an insightful strategist."
To be branded "pragmatic" by a hardened political realist such as Brzezinski demonstrates that Khalilzad is difficult to pin down with reductionist labels. If anything, his path in recent years has underlined how well he has grasped the impossibility of being an unyielding neocon amid the complexities of the Middle East. That's why it seems fair to wonder whether Khalilzad, who first studied politics in Beirut, where hard truths and sharp angles dissolve in the warm Levant air, is living proof that, when hit by reality, there is no such thing as an ideologically inflexible neoconservative.
It is not hard to see why the foreign-born allies of American neocons have often been those whose causes benefited from greater American combativeness and interventionism. Their agendas and merits, or demerits, notwithstanding, whether we are talking about the Iraqi Ahmad Chalabi, the Syrian Farid Ghadry, or the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition in Lebanon, all these groups or individuals have sided with the neocons and their more traditional confederates in the Bush administration mainly to take advantage of Washington's willingness after 9/11 to challenge the debilitating status quo in their own countries.
In many ways that's how Khalilzad, too, began his career. While teaching political science at Columbia University in the late 1970s, he worked with Brzezinski on US strategy toward his native Afghanistan, which Soviet forces had just invaded. Though he was not, strictly speaking, a political exile, it seems defensible to assume that Khalilzad's Afghan side is what primarily shaped his political perspective early on, rather than his embrace of an America-centered view of power and international relations. At the same time, it would be a mistake to forget that he had, by then, worked closely with Alfred Wohlstetter, a University of Chicago strategist, who was also a guru to Paul Wolfowitz. Wohlstetter was a skeptic on nuclear arms control, and persuaded many young neocons of the need for the United States to remain militarily superior to the USSR.
Throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s, Khalilzad drifted in and out of government, working mostly on Afghan and Middle Eastern issues, before serving between 1990 and 1992 at the Pentagon as deputy undersecretary for policy planning. It was in that role, as an assistant to Wolfowitz, that Khalilzad played a major part in drafting a document whose ideas would return to shape policy under President George W. Bush. When then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney asked for an overhaul of American defense thinking in light of the deep changes taking place worldwide, Wolfowitz was tasked with preparing a Defense Planning Guidance. The document's most controversial assertion was that the US should strive to be the sole superpower, and fight off all foreign challengers. This was later watered down, though it would reappear in a more muscular formulation in the National Security Strategy of 2002: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States." Wolfowitz was nominally in charge of the document, but he never saw the final draft, according to James Mann, in his book "Rise of the Vulcans." The main author was Khalilzad, who was working under the orders of I. Lewis Libby.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
Khalilzad would remain active in the anterooms of foreign affairs during the 1990s, from his perch at the Rand Corporation and as a signatory of the January 26, 1998, "Project for the New American Century" letter urging President Bill Clinton to remove Saddam Hussein from power. When Bush was elected in 2000, Khalilzad was through with warming the bench. After a short stint at Donald Rumseld's Pentagon, he was appointed senior director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African affairs under Condoleezza Rice at the National Security Council.
Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia with extensive experience in Iraqi Kurdistan, would later tell Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker: "Khalilzad was absolutely part of the neocon cabal that brought the war to Iraq." In June 2005, Khalilzad left Afghanistan, where he had been ambassador since 2003, to take over the embassy in Baghdad. Yet far from bringing ideological severity to his new post, he waded in with the litheness of an Arab merchant. This would allow Galbraith to also observe, echoing Brzezinski: "I credit him with bringing the first dose of realism I've seen in this administration since they came to Iraq."
Throughout his ambassadorship, Khalilzad was an informal, and inveterate, backroom arm bender. His main achievement was persuading the Iraqis to ratify their Constitution. He also sought to enhance Sunni participation in the political process - a decision that angered the Shiite groups that had come to dominate the Iraqi government. This juggling act was skillful, but ultimately Khalilzad has left behind a country even more unstable than when he first moved into the Green Zone. And what will linger in people's minds is that the former ambassador backhandedly confirmed that the US has very few options left in Iraq. Khalilzad did so by admitting to the Times that he had spoken with the enemy: "There were discussions with the representatives of various [Iraqi insurgent] groups in the aftermath of the elections, and during the formation of the government before the Samarra incident, and some discussions afterwards as well."
During that time, Bush administration officials were saying there could be no negotiations with the insurgents, who were killing American soldiers on a daily basis. Yet through his admission, Khalilzad legitimized a more adaptable approach to events in Iraq - ceding his successor, Ryan Crocker, a wider margin of maneuver that he will be happy to have.
Khalilzad will be replacing a more austere neocon, John Bolton, at the UN. Bolton may have been one tough bastard, but he could be the personification of practicality when haggling over resolutions with the other permanent members of the Security Council, particularly on Middle Eastern matters. Maybe there are no neocons in the slippery trenches of international diplomacy. If so, Khalilzad is our Exhibit One.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Michel Aoun can cut the Gordian knot
Michel Aoun can cut the Gordian knot
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Lebanon is locked in stalemate as the majority and opposition remain encamped behind their red lines. But there is a way out, and the solution lies in the hands of that volatile man in Rabieh. Michel Aoun can break Lebanon's debilitating impasse, and would gain because of it. Here's how.
For months, Aoun's strategy has been to impose himself as the Maronite no one can circumvent. Until recently, the general sustained himself thanks to Christian frustration with the 2005 election law and the subsequent quadripartite agreement that left Christian politicians and groups either marginalized or playing a secondary role.
That beef was justifiable, but things began to disintegrate when Aoun found himself in the same camp as Syria's allies, even as the bombings and assassinations continued. The events of last January 23, when Aoun's supporters prevented people from getting to work, was a political disaster, only compounded by the ongoing fiasco of the Downtown sit-in, which has proven to be a trap for everyone - opposition and majority alike.
With this in mind, it is plain that Michel Aoun will not be president. He cannot be elected by Hizbullah alone, though the party will use Aoun until the last minute as a bargaining chip to slip in someone else. The majority has no incentive to vote for Aoun because he has spent the past months alienating its leaders. And there is no prospect that the general - who distils polarization like no other - will be a compromise candidate, as even Aoun's own ally Elie Skaff recognized publicly several weeks ago.
However, if Aoun's ambition to be president has been dashed, his ability to play a leading role in selecting someone else for the job remains stronger than ever, thanks to the general's control over a sizable parliamentary bloc. Aoun holds the balance of power allowing him to effectively be the kingmaker of any new president. Moreover, by distancing himself from the predominantly Shiite opposition, he would force Hizbullah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to overhaul their strategy, as neither man wants the current standoff to appear like it is the Shiites against the rest.
This could even force Berri to open the doors of Parliament. More importantly, if Aoun joins with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, the three could together ensure that Christians have a leading say in who will be elected, and what his or her agenda will be.
Aoun and his followers insist that their main objective is to return the Christian community to its rightful place. If so, the general should bite the bullet and fight the lesser battle he can win in helping select a credible successor to President Emile Lahoud, rather than scrape though a nasty presidential try of his own that Aoun is sure to lose.
Why should this matter? Partly because Aoun's failure to reach Baabda will have a negative impact on the Christian community, whose interests the general claims he wants to advance. If Aoun plays all-or-nothing politics, Christians will react in one of two ways, or a combination thereof: they will abandon Aoun and blame him for his recklessness; or they will embrace his loss as their own, and internalize his lament that Christians no longer have a say in Lebanon. In both cases the result will be that the weight of the largest Christian bloc in Parliament is wasted, and Christians will lose any voice they might have on the presidency.
Many Aounists, when you scratch below the surface, are aware that Hizbullah will never agree to disarm and fully integrate into the political system. By the same token, Hizbullah has no deep sympathy for Aoun or his aims, which fundamentally contradict those of the party. Aoun may argue today that Hizbullah's weapons are defensible, at a time when, as he sees it, there is a power vacuum at the level of government; but it is doubtful that a President Aoun could coexist with a party presiding over a state within a state, defended by an Iranian-funded private army.
There are no legs in that alliance, and for the moment Aoun and Hizbullah are merely using each other. The thing is, Nasrallah intends to sell Aoun out at the appropriate moment to get something in exchange on the presidency; but Aoun will get nothing from Hizbullah. If anything, his partnership with the party has doomed his presidential chances.
So here's a plan Aoun might want to consider. He should start by holding a far-reaching dialogue with Geagea under the auspices of the Maronite patriarch. This would aim to reach a common set or principles that any future president would have to adhere to - at least if he wants the approval of his coreligionists. Aoun would have to sacrifice his ambition to be elected to the highest office himself, but he would also be in the driving seat to impose a preferred alternative.
Geagea's advantage would be that he could buy himself a wider margin of maneuver in his alliance with Saad Hariri and the Future movement. This would not imply breaking that relationship, which remains a foundation for any effort to establish an independent post-Syrian Lebanese state; but it would enhance the Lebanese Forces' credibility as a more autonomous organization.
Once that happens, Aoun would formally ditch the Hizbullah alliance, though he needn't break definitively with the party. On the contrary, he could put himself forward as the prime mediator with Nasrallah. Aoun would then ask for an "acceptable" share of portfolios in the government. This could either reflect his parliamentary weight, or there could be a tradeoff between the number of ministers and the nature of the ministries offered the Aounists.
This would be a tricky stage, and would require agreement with Geagea and Sfeir beforehand on Christian representation. In exchange, Aoun would endorse an early timetable for parliamentary approval of the Hariri tribunal. He would then announce his decision to abandon the Downtown protests and fold his tents.
A vital ingredient would be Aoun's formally giving up his demand for early elections. The general still believes that such elections are his ticket to the presidency. Because the opposition might get a greater number of seats in Parliament, he feels, his presidential chances would improve.
But Aoun's calculation is based on the erroneous assumptions that Lebanon is capable of organizing elections at this divisive time, or even of uniting around an election law; that the opposition is sure to gain under any new law; and that the Aounists still retain the popular support they enjoyed in Mount Lebanon in 2005. Aoun would do better to use his bloc more creatively instead of gambling on an election that nobody wants, and that Hizbullah is only setting as a condition for a settlement in order to keep Aoun on board and obstruct agreement on the tribunal.
With his bloc the swinging vote in Parliament, Aoun would be in a very powerful position as gatekeeper to the president. And with Geagea and Sfeir on his side, he could write a good part of the presidential program. More significantly, Christian unanimity would mean that any new head of state could not easily ignore Aoun once in office (the obsession of all Lebanese kingmakers), since this would only isolate him in the Maronite community. But first, Aoun must take the toughest decision of all: embrace modesty and accept that Baabda is his paradise lost.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
By Michael Young
Daily Star staff
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Lebanon is locked in stalemate as the majority and opposition remain encamped behind their red lines. But there is a way out, and the solution lies in the hands of that volatile man in Rabieh. Michel Aoun can break Lebanon's debilitating impasse, and would gain because of it. Here's how.
For months, Aoun's strategy has been to impose himself as the Maronite no one can circumvent. Until recently, the general sustained himself thanks to Christian frustration with the 2005 election law and the subsequent quadripartite agreement that left Christian politicians and groups either marginalized or playing a secondary role.
That beef was justifiable, but things began to disintegrate when Aoun found himself in the same camp as Syria's allies, even as the bombings and assassinations continued. The events of last January 23, when Aoun's supporters prevented people from getting to work, was a political disaster, only compounded by the ongoing fiasco of the Downtown sit-in, which has proven to be a trap for everyone - opposition and majority alike.
With this in mind, it is plain that Michel Aoun will not be president. He cannot be elected by Hizbullah alone, though the party will use Aoun until the last minute as a bargaining chip to slip in someone else. The majority has no incentive to vote for Aoun because he has spent the past months alienating its leaders. And there is no prospect that the general - who distils polarization like no other - will be a compromise candidate, as even Aoun's own ally Elie Skaff recognized publicly several weeks ago.
However, if Aoun's ambition to be president has been dashed, his ability to play a leading role in selecting someone else for the job remains stronger than ever, thanks to the general's control over a sizable parliamentary bloc. Aoun holds the balance of power allowing him to effectively be the kingmaker of any new president. Moreover, by distancing himself from the predominantly Shiite opposition, he would force Hizbullah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to overhaul their strategy, as neither man wants the current standoff to appear like it is the Shiites against the rest.
This could even force Berri to open the doors of Parliament. More importantly, if Aoun joins with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, the three could together ensure that Christians have a leading say in who will be elected, and what his or her agenda will be.
Aoun and his followers insist that their main objective is to return the Christian community to its rightful place. If so, the general should bite the bullet and fight the lesser battle he can win in helping select a credible successor to President Emile Lahoud, rather than scrape though a nasty presidential try of his own that Aoun is sure to lose.
Why should this matter? Partly because Aoun's failure to reach Baabda will have a negative impact on the Christian community, whose interests the general claims he wants to advance. If Aoun plays all-or-nothing politics, Christians will react in one of two ways, or a combination thereof: they will abandon Aoun and blame him for his recklessness; or they will embrace his loss as their own, and internalize his lament that Christians no longer have a say in Lebanon. In both cases the result will be that the weight of the largest Christian bloc in Parliament is wasted, and Christians will lose any voice they might have on the presidency.
Many Aounists, when you scratch below the surface, are aware that Hizbullah will never agree to disarm and fully integrate into the political system. By the same token, Hizbullah has no deep sympathy for Aoun or his aims, which fundamentally contradict those of the party. Aoun may argue today that Hizbullah's weapons are defensible, at a time when, as he sees it, there is a power vacuum at the level of government; but it is doubtful that a President Aoun could coexist with a party presiding over a state within a state, defended by an Iranian-funded private army.
There are no legs in that alliance, and for the moment Aoun and Hizbullah are merely using each other. The thing is, Nasrallah intends to sell Aoun out at the appropriate moment to get something in exchange on the presidency; but Aoun will get nothing from Hizbullah. If anything, his partnership with the party has doomed his presidential chances.
So here's a plan Aoun might want to consider. He should start by holding a far-reaching dialogue with Geagea under the auspices of the Maronite patriarch. This would aim to reach a common set or principles that any future president would have to adhere to - at least if he wants the approval of his coreligionists. Aoun would have to sacrifice his ambition to be elected to the highest office himself, but he would also be in the driving seat to impose a preferred alternative.
Geagea's advantage would be that he could buy himself a wider margin of maneuver in his alliance with Saad Hariri and the Future movement. This would not imply breaking that relationship, which remains a foundation for any effort to establish an independent post-Syrian Lebanese state; but it would enhance the Lebanese Forces' credibility as a more autonomous organization.
Once that happens, Aoun would formally ditch the Hizbullah alliance, though he needn't break definitively with the party. On the contrary, he could put himself forward as the prime mediator with Nasrallah. Aoun would then ask for an "acceptable" share of portfolios in the government. This could either reflect his parliamentary weight, or there could be a tradeoff between the number of ministers and the nature of the ministries offered the Aounists.
This would be a tricky stage, and would require agreement with Geagea and Sfeir beforehand on Christian representation. In exchange, Aoun would endorse an early timetable for parliamentary approval of the Hariri tribunal. He would then announce his decision to abandon the Downtown protests and fold his tents.
A vital ingredient would be Aoun's formally giving up his demand for early elections. The general still believes that such elections are his ticket to the presidency. Because the opposition might get a greater number of seats in Parliament, he feels, his presidential chances would improve.
But Aoun's calculation is based on the erroneous assumptions that Lebanon is capable of organizing elections at this divisive time, or even of uniting around an election law; that the opposition is sure to gain under any new law; and that the Aounists still retain the popular support they enjoyed in Mount Lebanon in 2005. Aoun would do better to use his bloc more creatively instead of gambling on an election that nobody wants, and that Hizbullah is only setting as a condition for a settlement in order to keep Aoun on board and obstruct agreement on the tribunal.
With his bloc the swinging vote in Parliament, Aoun would be in a very powerful position as gatekeeper to the president. And with Geagea and Sfeir on his side, he could write a good part of the presidential program. More significantly, Christian unanimity would mean that any new head of state could not easily ignore Aoun once in office (the obsession of all Lebanese kingmakers), since this would only isolate him in the Maronite community. But first, Aoun must take the toughest decision of all: embrace modesty and accept that Baabda is his paradise lost.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Michel Aoun can cut the Gordian knot
Lebanon is locked in stalemate as the majority and opposition remain encamped behind their red lines. But there is a way out, and the solution lies in the hands of that volatile man in Rabieh. Michel Aoun can break Lebanon's debilitating impasse, and would gain because of it. Here's how.
For months, Aoun's strategy has been to impose himself as the Maronite no one can circumvent. Until recently, the general sustained himself thanks to Christian frustration with the 2005 election law and the subsequent quadripartite agreement that left Christian politicians and groups either marginalized or playing a secondary role. That beef was justifiable, but things began to disintegrate when Aoun found himself in the same camp as Syria's allies, even as the bombings and assassinations continued. The events of last January 23, when Aoun's supporters prevented people from getting to work, was a political disaster, only compounded by the ongoing fiasco of the Downtown sit-in, which has proven to be a trap for everyone - opposition and majority alike.
With this in mind, it is plain that Michel Aoun will not be president. He cannot be elected by Hizbullah alone, though the party will use Aoun until the last minute as a bargaining chip to slip in someone else. The majority has no incentive to vote for Aoun because he has spent the past months alienating its leaders. And there is no prospect that the general - who distils polarization like no other - will be a compromise candidate, as even Aoun's own ally Elie Skaff recognized publicly several weeks ago.
However, if Aoun's ambition to be president has been dashed, his ability to play a leading role in selecting someone else for the job remains stronger than ever, thanks to the general's control over a sizable parliamentary bloc. Aoun holds the balance of power allowing him to effectively be the kingmaker of any new president. Moreover, by distancing himself from the predominantly Shiite opposition, he would force Hizbullah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to overhaul their strategy, as neither man wants the current standoff to appear like it is the Shiites against the rest. This could even force Berri to open the doors of Parliament. More importantly, if Aoun joins with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, the three could together ensure that Christians have a leading say in who will be elected, and what his or her agenda will be.
Aoun and his followers insist that their main objective is to return the Christian community to its rightful place. If so, the general should bite the bullet and fight the lesser battle he can win in helping select a credible successor to President Emile Lahoud, rather than scrape though a nasty presidential try of his own that Aoun is sure to lose.
Why should this matter? Partly because Aoun's failure to reach Baabda will have a negative impact on the Christian community, whose interests the general claims he wants to advance. If Aoun plays all-or-nothing politics, Christians will react in one of two ways, or a combination thereof: they will abandon Aoun and blame him for his recklessness; or they will embrace his loss as their own, and internalize his lament that Christians no longer have a say in Lebanon. In both cases the result will be that the weight of the largest Christian bloc in Parliament is wasted, and Christians will lose any voice they might have on the presidency.
Many Aounists, when you scratch below the surface, are aware that Hizbullah will never agree to disarm and fully integrate into the political system. By the same token, Hizbullah has no deep sympathy for Aoun or his aims, which fundamentally contradict those of the party. Aoun may argue today that Hizbullah's weapons are defensible, at a time when, as he sees it, there is a power vacuum at the level of government; but it is doubtful that a President Aoun could coexist with a party presiding over a state within a state, defended by an Iranian-funded private army. There are no legs in that alliance, and for the moment Aoun and Hizbullah are merely using each other. The thing is, Nasrallah intends to sell Aoun out at the appropriate moment to get something in exchange on the presidency; but Aoun will get nothing from Hizbullah. If anything, his partnership with the party has doomed his presidential chances.
So here's a plan Aoun might want to consider. He should start by holding a far-reaching dialogue with Geagea under the auspices of the Maronite patriarch. This would aim to reach a common set or principles that any future president would have to adhere to - at least if he wants the approval of his coreligionists. Aoun would have to sacrifice his ambition to be elected to the highest office himself, but he would also be in the driving seat to impose a preferred alternative. Geagea's advantage would be that he could buy himself a wider margin of maneuver in his alliance with Saad Hariri and the Future movement. This would not imply breaking that relationship, which remains a foundation for any effort to establish an independent post-Syrian Lebanese state; but it would enhance the Lebanese Forces' credibility as a more autonomous organization.
Once that happens, Aoun would formally ditch the Hizbullah alliance, though he needn't break definitively with the party. On the contrary, he could put himself forward as the prime mediator with Nasrallah. Aoun would then ask for an "acceptable" share of portfolios in the government. This could either reflect his parliamentary weight, or there could be a tradeoff between the number of ministers and the nature of the ministries offered the Aounists. This would be a tricky stage, and would require agreement with Geagea and Sfeir beforehand on Christian representation. In exchange, Aoun would endorse an early timetable for parliamentary approval of the Hariri tribunal. He would then announce his decision to abandon the Downtown protests and fold his tents.
A vital ingredient would be Aoun's formally giving up his demand for early elections. The general still believes that such elections are his ticket to the presidency. Because the opposition might get a greater number of seats in Parliament, he feels, his presidential chances would improve. But Aoun's calculation is based on the erroneous assumptions that Lebanon is capable of organizing elections at this divisive time, or even of uniting around an election law; that the opposition is sure to gain under any new law; and that the Aounists still retain the popular support they enjoyed in Mount Lebanon in 2005. Aoun would do better to use his bloc more creatively instead of gambling on an election that nobody wants, and that Hizbullah is only setting as a condition for a settlement in order to keep Aoun on board and obstruct agreement on the tribunal.
With his bloc the swinging vote in Parliament, Aoun would be in a very powerful position as gatekeeper to the president. And with Geagea and Sfeir on his side, he could write a good part of the presidential program. More significantly, Christian unanimity would mean that any new head of state could not easily ignore Aoun once in office (the obsession of all Lebanese kingmakers), since this would only isolate him in the Maronite community. But first, Aoun must take the toughest decision of all: embrace modesty and accept that Baabda is his paradise lost.
For months, Aoun's strategy has been to impose himself as the Maronite no one can circumvent. Until recently, the general sustained himself thanks to Christian frustration with the 2005 election law and the subsequent quadripartite agreement that left Christian politicians and groups either marginalized or playing a secondary role. That beef was justifiable, but things began to disintegrate when Aoun found himself in the same camp as Syria's allies, even as the bombings and assassinations continued. The events of last January 23, when Aoun's supporters prevented people from getting to work, was a political disaster, only compounded by the ongoing fiasco of the Downtown sit-in, which has proven to be a trap for everyone - opposition and majority alike.
With this in mind, it is plain that Michel Aoun will not be president. He cannot be elected by Hizbullah alone, though the party will use Aoun until the last minute as a bargaining chip to slip in someone else. The majority has no incentive to vote for Aoun because he has spent the past months alienating its leaders. And there is no prospect that the general - who distils polarization like no other - will be a compromise candidate, as even Aoun's own ally Elie Skaff recognized publicly several weeks ago.
However, if Aoun's ambition to be president has been dashed, his ability to play a leading role in selecting someone else for the job remains stronger than ever, thanks to the general's control over a sizable parliamentary bloc. Aoun holds the balance of power allowing him to effectively be the kingmaker of any new president. Moreover, by distancing himself from the predominantly Shiite opposition, he would force Hizbullah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to overhaul their strategy, as neither man wants the current standoff to appear like it is the Shiites against the rest. This could even force Berri to open the doors of Parliament. More importantly, if Aoun joins with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, the three could together ensure that Christians have a leading say in who will be elected, and what his or her agenda will be.
Aoun and his followers insist that their main objective is to return the Christian community to its rightful place. If so, the general should bite the bullet and fight the lesser battle he can win in helping select a credible successor to President Emile Lahoud, rather than scrape though a nasty presidential try of his own that Aoun is sure to lose.
Why should this matter? Partly because Aoun's failure to reach Baabda will have a negative impact on the Christian community, whose interests the general claims he wants to advance. If Aoun plays all-or-nothing politics, Christians will react in one of two ways, or a combination thereof: they will abandon Aoun and blame him for his recklessness; or they will embrace his loss as their own, and internalize his lament that Christians no longer have a say in Lebanon. In both cases the result will be that the weight of the largest Christian bloc in Parliament is wasted, and Christians will lose any voice they might have on the presidency.
Many Aounists, when you scratch below the surface, are aware that Hizbullah will never agree to disarm and fully integrate into the political system. By the same token, Hizbullah has no deep sympathy for Aoun or his aims, which fundamentally contradict those of the party. Aoun may argue today that Hizbullah's weapons are defensible, at a time when, as he sees it, there is a power vacuum at the level of government; but it is doubtful that a President Aoun could coexist with a party presiding over a state within a state, defended by an Iranian-funded private army. There are no legs in that alliance, and for the moment Aoun and Hizbullah are merely using each other. The thing is, Nasrallah intends to sell Aoun out at the appropriate moment to get something in exchange on the presidency; but Aoun will get nothing from Hizbullah. If anything, his partnership with the party has doomed his presidential chances.
So here's a plan Aoun might want to consider. He should start by holding a far-reaching dialogue with Geagea under the auspices of the Maronite patriarch. This would aim to reach a common set or principles that any future president would have to adhere to - at least if he wants the approval of his coreligionists. Aoun would have to sacrifice his ambition to be elected to the highest office himself, but he would also be in the driving seat to impose a preferred alternative. Geagea's advantage would be that he could buy himself a wider margin of maneuver in his alliance with Saad Hariri and the Future movement. This would not imply breaking that relationship, which remains a foundation for any effort to establish an independent post-Syrian Lebanese state; but it would enhance the Lebanese Forces' credibility as a more autonomous organization.
Once that happens, Aoun would formally ditch the Hizbullah alliance, though he needn't break definitively with the party. On the contrary, he could put himself forward as the prime mediator with Nasrallah. Aoun would then ask for an "acceptable" share of portfolios in the government. This could either reflect his parliamentary weight, or there could be a tradeoff between the number of ministers and the nature of the ministries offered the Aounists. This would be a tricky stage, and would require agreement with Geagea and Sfeir beforehand on Christian representation. In exchange, Aoun would endorse an early timetable for parliamentary approval of the Hariri tribunal. He would then announce his decision to abandon the Downtown protests and fold his tents.
A vital ingredient would be Aoun's formally giving up his demand for early elections. The general still believes that such elections are his ticket to the presidency. Because the opposition might get a greater number of seats in Parliament, he feels, his presidential chances would improve. But Aoun's calculation is based on the erroneous assumptions that Lebanon is capable of organizing elections at this divisive time, or even of uniting around an election law; that the opposition is sure to gain under any new law; and that the Aounists still retain the popular support they enjoyed in Mount Lebanon in 2005. Aoun would do better to use his bloc more creatively instead of gambling on an election that nobody wants, and that Hizbullah is only setting as a condition for a settlement in order to keep Aoun on board and obstruct agreement on the tribunal.
With his bloc the swinging vote in Parliament, Aoun would be in a very powerful position as gatekeeper to the president. And with Geagea and Sfeir on his side, he could write a good part of the presidential program. More significantly, Christian unanimity would mean that any new head of state could not easily ignore Aoun once in office (the obsession of all Lebanese kingmakers), since this would only isolate him in the Maronite community. But first, Aoun must take the toughest decision of all: embrace modesty and accept that Baabda is his paradise lost.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Deal with Syria, but first impose Lebanese sovereignty
Add Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht to the list of dignitaries who have left Damascus biting their fists in frustration. After meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moallem, on Tuesday, de Gucht said he was "disappointed" that Syria would not surrender its nationals to a mixed tribunal being set up to try suspects in Rafik Hariri’s assassination. Moallem added: "If the United Nations wants anything of Syria, then it must talk to Syria and base the statutes of the tribunal on Syrian law."
That’s revealing coming from a regime that supposedly had nothing to do with Hariri’s murder, and that often affirms its "non-involvement" in the resultant judicial process. Thanks to Syria’s continued refusal to concede anything on the tribunal, the Lebanese crisis continues. This coming weekend the Syrians will get a chance to practice more of their brand of diplomacy when Iraq’s neighbors meet in Baghdad to discuss the country’s future. The United States should not give Syria an opportunity there to break free from the tribunal, which provides the only real leverage over President Bashar Assad to change his regime’s behavior.
It is perhaps understandable that a number of policymakers and analysts in the US feel the Bush administration’s present policy of isolating Syria is going nowhere. Their framework for saying so is Iraq. My friend David Ignatius expressed this view in the commentary published above, pointing out that the "administration should also start a real dialogue with Syria - and in the process shelve any half-baked ideas about regime change that may be lurking in the Old Executive Office Building. The Syrians pose a deadly threat in Lebanon, which is all the more reason to be talking with them." Isolation, the argument goes, also isolates the US. If Washington negotiates, it can use its weight to bring about desirable outcomes.
There are several problems with this assumption when it comes to Syria. The first is that opening a new page with Syria is premature. If the aim of negotiations is to advance one’s aims, then Syria has shown no willingness to consider those of the US and the UN - who told Syria in late 2004 that it was time to end its interference in Lebanon’s affairs and recognize Lebanese sovereignty. To talk now, while the Syrians threaten Lebanon on a daily basis, would validate their claim that threats work, and that Syria can bring envoys to its door by spawning instability in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. That’s precisely the wrong message to send. The right message is that Syria can only put an end to its isolation once it accepts international law - which in Lebanon means accepting the tribunal and giving up on the dream of reimposing its hegemony over the country.
That’s why defending the Hariri tribunal is so essential. The body has international backing, which means that the credibility of the five permanent members of the Security Council is tied into its success. By initiating a dialogue with Syria, by therefore implying that the crime the tribunal is seeking to punish shouldn’t reflect badly on relations with Damascus, the US would empty the tribunal of its meaning. Why give up this weapon when it can make future negotiations more successful?
The quid pro quo demanded of Assad would be a simple one, and the Saudis and the Egyptians have already floated it in one way or another: Any effort to narrow the Hariri tribunal’s statutes, or even to improve relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria, requires that Syria first change its conduct in Lebanon. Nor is isolation of Syria necessarily failing. Even Syrian allies like Iran and Russia can see that Assad’s stance on the tribunal is untenable and might cost them politically. Iran is said to have agreed with Saudi Arabia on the principle of establishing the tribunal, even if it won’t take a position that might alienate Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly told the Saudis that if the tribunal were blocked in Lebanon, Russia might abstain in a Security Council vote to place it under the authority of Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
A second problem with the invitation to dialogue with Assad is that there is no evidence Syria will get the message and alter its behavior. Here is the Catch-22: If you engage Syria, Assad will assume this is due to his intransigence, which will encourage him to remain intransigent in the expectation that this will bring more rewards. The Saudis and Egyptians know the pitfalls of this logic, but also see the Syrians caught in a more sinister vicious circle: Because Assad is weak he must export instability, which is only isolating him further in the region, making him even weaker.
The Europeans, never shy about engaging Syria for the sake of engagement, particularly with so many troops deployed in South Lebanon, are also beginning to see the light. De Gucht’s regrets echoed those of the European Union’s representative in Beirut, Patrick Laurent. He recently admitted that the EU had "tried everything [with Syria], as did many others, employing both gentle means and pressure." To no avail.
A third reason to be wary of engaging Syria is that Assad doesn’t have the confidence to carry through on many of the demands that would be made of him. The Syrian president can intimidate his domestic foes, but his authority rests on a narrower power base than his father’s. He can talk to the Israelis, but it’s doubtful that he can reach a final deal with them, since peace would mean substantially dismantling the security apparatus that keeps him in office. He can pretend to help stabilize Iraq, but knows that actually doing so would mean that Syria becomes less relevant. He can claim to have played a positive role in the Mecca accord between the Palestinian factions, but he knows that this only came after he failed to sponsor such an agreement himself. Today, Assad fears a Hamas exit from the Syrian orbit, which is one reason why he has been trying to place pro-Syrian groups in a Palestinian national unity government.
And, most important, Assad knows that if he were to give up on Lebanon finally and unconditionally, he might face the wrath of those within his own regime who silently blame him for the debacle of 2005. But this all begs the question: Why, therefore, should Syria abandon Lebanon at all, or capitulate in Iraq and in the Palestinian territories, if nothing is to be gained from these concessions?
The reason is that Assad, though weak, would thus be able to win his long-term political survival. Such steps would buy him Arab and international forbearance. A new attitude would mean less resistance to a narrowing of the Hariri tribunal’s statutes, more vital investment in Syria, a beneficial Syrian relationship with the US and the EU; and, once Assad can broaden his power base, peace with Israel. But building up Assad’s confidence and then expecting him to relinquish his cards makes no sense. If a power struggle with Syria is unavoidable, so be it. With major Arab states, the US, the UN and the Europeans on the same wavelength, it will be tough for Assad to impose his will - unless the bell of dialogue saves him first.
That’s why the US should remind Syria at the Baghdad conference that deeper contacts remain undesirable. Dealing with Iran on Iraq may be inevitable; dealing with Syria is not, particularly after Assad burned more bridges to the Sunnis by trying and failing to seize control of the Iraqi Baath Party. The Syrians have to be made to realize that their regime can only last if they make fundamental concessions in the region. Assad is too brittle to demand more than recognition of his survival.
That’s revealing coming from a regime that supposedly had nothing to do with Hariri’s murder, and that often affirms its "non-involvement" in the resultant judicial process. Thanks to Syria’s continued refusal to concede anything on the tribunal, the Lebanese crisis continues. This coming weekend the Syrians will get a chance to practice more of their brand of diplomacy when Iraq’s neighbors meet in Baghdad to discuss the country’s future. The United States should not give Syria an opportunity there to break free from the tribunal, which provides the only real leverage over President Bashar Assad to change his regime’s behavior.
It is perhaps understandable that a number of policymakers and analysts in the US feel the Bush administration’s present policy of isolating Syria is going nowhere. Their framework for saying so is Iraq. My friend David Ignatius expressed this view in the commentary published above, pointing out that the "administration should also start a real dialogue with Syria - and in the process shelve any half-baked ideas about regime change that may be lurking in the Old Executive Office Building. The Syrians pose a deadly threat in Lebanon, which is all the more reason to be talking with them." Isolation, the argument goes, also isolates the US. If Washington negotiates, it can use its weight to bring about desirable outcomes.
There are several problems with this assumption when it comes to Syria. The first is that opening a new page with Syria is premature. If the aim of negotiations is to advance one’s aims, then Syria has shown no willingness to consider those of the US and the UN - who told Syria in late 2004 that it was time to end its interference in Lebanon’s affairs and recognize Lebanese sovereignty. To talk now, while the Syrians threaten Lebanon on a daily basis, would validate their claim that threats work, and that Syria can bring envoys to its door by spawning instability in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. That’s precisely the wrong message to send. The right message is that Syria can only put an end to its isolation once it accepts international law - which in Lebanon means accepting the tribunal and giving up on the dream of reimposing its hegemony over the country.
That’s why defending the Hariri tribunal is so essential. The body has international backing, which means that the credibility of the five permanent members of the Security Council is tied into its success. By initiating a dialogue with Syria, by therefore implying that the crime the tribunal is seeking to punish shouldn’t reflect badly on relations with Damascus, the US would empty the tribunal of its meaning. Why give up this weapon when it can make future negotiations more successful?
The quid pro quo demanded of Assad would be a simple one, and the Saudis and the Egyptians have already floated it in one way or another: Any effort to narrow the Hariri tribunal’s statutes, or even to improve relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria, requires that Syria first change its conduct in Lebanon. Nor is isolation of Syria necessarily failing. Even Syrian allies like Iran and Russia can see that Assad’s stance on the tribunal is untenable and might cost them politically. Iran is said to have agreed with Saudi Arabia on the principle of establishing the tribunal, even if it won’t take a position that might alienate Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly told the Saudis that if the tribunal were blocked in Lebanon, Russia might abstain in a Security Council vote to place it under the authority of Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
A second problem with the invitation to dialogue with Assad is that there is no evidence Syria will get the message and alter its behavior. Here is the Catch-22: If you engage Syria, Assad will assume this is due to his intransigence, which will encourage him to remain intransigent in the expectation that this will bring more rewards. The Saudis and Egyptians know the pitfalls of this logic, but also see the Syrians caught in a more sinister vicious circle: Because Assad is weak he must export instability, which is only isolating him further in the region, making him even weaker.
The Europeans, never shy about engaging Syria for the sake of engagement, particularly with so many troops deployed in South Lebanon, are also beginning to see the light. De Gucht’s regrets echoed those of the European Union’s representative in Beirut, Patrick Laurent. He recently admitted that the EU had "tried everything [with Syria], as did many others, employing both gentle means and pressure." To no avail.
A third reason to be wary of engaging Syria is that Assad doesn’t have the confidence to carry through on many of the demands that would be made of him. The Syrian president can intimidate his domestic foes, but his authority rests on a narrower power base than his father’s. He can talk to the Israelis, but it’s doubtful that he can reach a final deal with them, since peace would mean substantially dismantling the security apparatus that keeps him in office. He can pretend to help stabilize Iraq, but knows that actually doing so would mean that Syria becomes less relevant. He can claim to have played a positive role in the Mecca accord between the Palestinian factions, but he knows that this only came after he failed to sponsor such an agreement himself. Today, Assad fears a Hamas exit from the Syrian orbit, which is one reason why he has been trying to place pro-Syrian groups in a Palestinian national unity government.
And, most important, Assad knows that if he were to give up on Lebanon finally and unconditionally, he might face the wrath of those within his own regime who silently blame him for the debacle of 2005. But this all begs the question: Why, therefore, should Syria abandon Lebanon at all, or capitulate in Iraq and in the Palestinian territories, if nothing is to be gained from these concessions?
The reason is that Assad, though weak, would thus be able to win his long-term political survival. Such steps would buy him Arab and international forbearance. A new attitude would mean less resistance to a narrowing of the Hariri tribunal’s statutes, more vital investment in Syria, a beneficial Syrian relationship with the US and the EU; and, once Assad can broaden his power base, peace with Israel. But building up Assad’s confidence and then expecting him to relinquish his cards makes no sense. If a power struggle with Syria is unavoidable, so be it. With major Arab states, the US, the UN and the Europeans on the same wavelength, it will be tough for Assad to impose his will - unless the bell of dialogue saves him first.
That’s why the US should remind Syria at the Baghdad conference that deeper contacts remain undesirable. Dealing with Iran on Iraq may be inevitable; dealing with Syria is not, particularly after Assad burned more bridges to the Sunnis by trying and failing to seize control of the Iraqi Baath Party. The Syrians have to be made to realize that their regime can only last if they make fundamental concessions in the region. Assad is too brittle to demand more than recognition of his survival.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Sy Hersh: the dark side of spun a lot
It’s become a habit to greet whatever journalist Seymour Hersh writes with reverence. However, after his ludicrous claim last summer that Israel’s war in Lebanon was a trial run for an American bombing of Iran - an accusation undermined by postwar narratives showing the confused way Israel and the United States responded to the conflict - my doubts hardened. In his latest New Yorker piece, Hersh maintains that he has unearthed more dirt on the Bush administration: The US is involved in containing Iran by directly or indirectly "bolstering Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
The broad tropes of Hersh’s arguments are correct. The US has indeed abandoned the neoconservative approach to the Middle East (which Hersh so loathed), to return to political "realism" based on imposing a balance of power. Much like the US did during the 1980s when it supported Iraq in its war against Iran, the Bush administration is today using Sunnis against Shiites (though in Iraq it is mainly using Shiites against Sunnis). The policy is risky - fiddling with sectarianism may ultimately backfire - but the problem with Hersh is that he offers little hard evidence for many of his controversial assertions. In fact his discussion of Lebanon in particular and his broader charge that the administration is engaging in clandestine activities without proper legislative approval are ill-informed or partial. The New Yorker has signed off on a piece shoddily constructed, often tendentious, and driven almost entirely by Hersh’s sources (most of the more significant ones left unnamed), rather than his own independent confirmation of the details.
Let’s start with Lebanon, where the American and Saudi effort to counter Iran and its allies is in full swing. Today, the US and the kingdom, but also much of the international community and the Muslim world, are shoring up the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which has for the past three months been facing a serious challenge to its authority from the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah. We learn from Hersh that, in the context of this struggle against Hizbullah, "representatives of the Lebanese government" have supplied weapons and money to a Palestinian Sunni extremist group called Fatah al-Islam, which allegedly broke off from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, before moving to North Lebanon. Fatah al-Intifada was created by the Syrian regime in the early 1980s to oppose Yasser Arafat. Hersh also points out that "the largest" of the Sunni groups, Esbat al-Ansar, located in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, in South Lebanon, "has received arms and supplies from Lebanese internal-security forces and militias associated with the Siniora government."
What is Hersh’s evidence for these extraordinary statements? Which "militias" is he referring to? In the ongoing Lebanese standoff, Hizbullah has used the term to describe pro-government supporters, without ever substantiating that such militias even exist. The Fatah al-Islam story is based entirely on a quote by one Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 agent, who, we learn, "was told" that weapons were offered to the group, "presumably to take on Hizbullah." The passage on Esbat al-Ansar is not even sourced.
The Fatah al-Islam story is instructive, because it shows a recurring flaw in Hersh’s reporting, namely his investigative paralysis when it comes to Syria. In articles past, Hersh has acted as a conduit for those defending the post-9/11 intelligence collaboration between the US and Syria, and lamenting the Bush administration’s subsequent isolation of Damascus in the run-up to and aftermath of the Iraq invasion. Most Lebanese analysts believe that Fatah al-Islam, far from being aided by the Lebanese government, is in fact a Syrian plant, deployed to Lebanon to be used by the Assad regime to destabilize the country and prevent formal endorsement by the Siniora government of a court to try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syria is the main suspect in the crime.
Nowhere does Hersh mention two items that were all over the Beirut media: that the Lebanese authorities have arrested several of the group’s members, and that the Lebanese and Palestinian security services have collaborated in opposing Fatah al-Islam in the northern Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr al-Bared and Baddawi. The mainstream Palestinian leadership in Lebanon has criticized the entry of such groups into the country, fearing this will provoke tension between Palestinians and the Lebanese state. Fatah al-Islam’s leader, Abu Khaled al-Amleh, is said to be under house arrest in Damascus, but for a number of Lebanese analysts who closely follow Palestinian affairs the story is bogus, designed only to provide Syria with plausible deniability.
As for Hersh’s Esbat al-Ansar allegation, so little is said that it’s difficult to know where to begin a refutation. The history of Esbat al-Ansar is convoluted, but the group was, as French researcher Bernard Rougier notes in a book on the rise of militant Islam in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, "the first armed group to claim a Salafist-Islamist orientation in ... Ain al-Hilweh." Where Hersh stumbles is in his lack of knowledge of Lebanese-Palestinian relations. First of all, it’s not clear to whom he’s comparing Esbat al-Ansar when describing it as "the largest" Sunni Islamist group. According to Palestinian sources, the group includes no more than 70-80 men. If the Lebanese government, and Sunnis in particular, were to collaborate with anyone in the camps, it would be with the main Palestinian organizations, particularly Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, which are more powerful militarily and represent far more people than Esbat al-Ansar.
Second, in its dealings with the Palestinians, the Lebanese government tends to work through the mainstream Palestinian parties, given that the camps are largely autonomous areas. This may vary depending on the region, but the idea that Lebanon’s internal security forces would directly arm Esbat al-Ansar, which is hostile to Fatah, is not credible. The Lebanese would not spoil their relationship with Fatah over Esbat al-Ansar, and it is utterly implausible that Esbat al-Ansar could or would "take on Hizbullah," with which the group was close in the mid-1980s, before it moved away from Iran, toward Salafist-Islamism. Nowhere does Hersh prove his point; worse, nowhere are readers given a larger context that would affirm how weak his contentions are.
Hersh errs in trying too hard to somehow tie the Bush administration in with the most militant groups. In fact, it is true that the Lebanese government is allied with Sunni Islamists - most notably Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya, the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It may indeed have allowed "some aid," as Hersh writes, to end up in the hands of "emerging" Sunni militant groups, though this is very imprecise language. The reality is that amid the sectarian polarization in Lebanon today, most Sunnis have rallied to the government’s side, against the Shiite Hizbullah. Al-Jamaa is close to Saudi Arabia, and in 2005 the Saudis intervened prior to parliamentary elections that followed the Syrian withdrawal to ensure the group would not vote against candidates in North Lebanon backed by Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s most powerful Sunni leader who enjoys American and Saudi backing. However, Al-Jamaa is nothing like Esbat al-Ansar or Fatah al-Islam; it has integrated into the state and has had members in Parliament. Doubtless it holds views of Israel and the West that the Bush administration would find distasteful, but so too do the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian clergy. Is Hersh suggesting that the US end ties with Riyadh, Amman, and Cairo?
What is going on today is power politics at their most essential. While Hersh may consider his disclosures news, he must make a better case that the American shift to a Sunni-centric policy against Iran is strengthening violent Islamists. The evidence he presents is scant.
What about Hersh’s belief that the Bush administration is illegally hiding aspects of its pro-Sunni regional strategy? "The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution of the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process." The administration’s point man in this endeavor is purportedly Vice President Dick Cheney.
This revelation is noteworthy, but when we turn to the final part of Hersh’s text in which he addresses congressional oversight issues, we find little meat. Unexplainably, the piece jumps from Hersh’s interview with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to a flashback on how the Iran-Contra affair undermined the oversight process. That’s because two of those involved in the mid-1980s arms-for-hostages deal, Elliott Abrams, a senior official in the US National Security Council, and Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the US who heads his country’s National Security Council, are key players in the tilt toward the Sunnis.
But Iran-Contra was then. When it comes to now, all Hersh can tell us is that "the issue of oversight is beginning to get more attention from Congress." Is that it? Other than quoting unnamed skeptical sources, Hersh doesn’t enlighten us on specific instances where the administration broke laws. He does mention, not for the first time, that US military and special operations teams "have escalated their activities in Iran to gather intelligence" and to pursue Iranian operatives from Iraq. This merits more investigation, but it is not directly related to his more disturbing point that the US is somehow bolstering extreme Sunni Islamists.
Hersh goes on to remind us that any administration, in order to engage in clandestine activities, "must issue a written finding and inform Congress." The argument is a fair one, if the Bush administration has failed to do so. But in that case why does Hersh not mention a Daily Telegraph report published in January, which suggested that "senators and congressmen have been briefed on [a] classified ’non-lethal presidential finding’ that allows the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the [Lebanese] prime minister, Fouad Siniora" to oppose Hizbullah? Did The New Yorker’s fact checkers miss that one? If Bush is so keen to hide his hand in Lebanon and elsewhere, then this news item implies that the picture is more complicated. And if Hersh disagrees with the Telegraph, shouldn’t his editors have asked him to place a rebuttal in his article?
But the editors, I suspect, weren’t really looking. Sy Hersh has written some remarkable pieces in the past, but his latest is not one of them. It is badly argued, displays shaky knowledge of the details, and seems mainly propelled by antipathy for the Bush administration. When there are serious political repercussions in the Middle East from Hersh’s much-read pieces, it would help for him to know better what he’s talking about.
The broad tropes of Hersh’s arguments are correct. The US has indeed abandoned the neoconservative approach to the Middle East (which Hersh so loathed), to return to political "realism" based on imposing a balance of power. Much like the US did during the 1980s when it supported Iraq in its war against Iran, the Bush administration is today using Sunnis against Shiites (though in Iraq it is mainly using Shiites against Sunnis). The policy is risky - fiddling with sectarianism may ultimately backfire - but the problem with Hersh is that he offers little hard evidence for many of his controversial assertions. In fact his discussion of Lebanon in particular and his broader charge that the administration is engaging in clandestine activities without proper legislative approval are ill-informed or partial. The New Yorker has signed off on a piece shoddily constructed, often tendentious, and driven almost entirely by Hersh’s sources (most of the more significant ones left unnamed), rather than his own independent confirmation of the details.
Let’s start with Lebanon, where the American and Saudi effort to counter Iran and its allies is in full swing. Today, the US and the kingdom, but also much of the international community and the Muslim world, are shoring up the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which has for the past three months been facing a serious challenge to its authority from the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah. We learn from Hersh that, in the context of this struggle against Hizbullah, "representatives of the Lebanese government" have supplied weapons and money to a Palestinian Sunni extremist group called Fatah al-Islam, which allegedly broke off from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, before moving to North Lebanon. Fatah al-Intifada was created by the Syrian regime in the early 1980s to oppose Yasser Arafat. Hersh also points out that "the largest" of the Sunni groups, Esbat al-Ansar, located in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, in South Lebanon, "has received arms and supplies from Lebanese internal-security forces and militias associated with the Siniora government."
What is Hersh’s evidence for these extraordinary statements? Which "militias" is he referring to? In the ongoing Lebanese standoff, Hizbullah has used the term to describe pro-government supporters, without ever substantiating that such militias even exist. The Fatah al-Islam story is based entirely on a quote by one Alistair Crooke, a former MI6 agent, who, we learn, "was told" that weapons were offered to the group, "presumably to take on Hizbullah." The passage on Esbat al-Ansar is not even sourced.
The Fatah al-Islam story is instructive, because it shows a recurring flaw in Hersh’s reporting, namely his investigative paralysis when it comes to Syria. In articles past, Hersh has acted as a conduit for those defending the post-9/11 intelligence collaboration between the US and Syria, and lamenting the Bush administration’s subsequent isolation of Damascus in the run-up to and aftermath of the Iraq invasion. Most Lebanese analysts believe that Fatah al-Islam, far from being aided by the Lebanese government, is in fact a Syrian plant, deployed to Lebanon to be used by the Assad regime to destabilize the country and prevent formal endorsement by the Siniora government of a court to try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syria is the main suspect in the crime.
Nowhere does Hersh mention two items that were all over the Beirut media: that the Lebanese authorities have arrested several of the group’s members, and that the Lebanese and Palestinian security services have collaborated in opposing Fatah al-Islam in the northern Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr al-Bared and Baddawi. The mainstream Palestinian leadership in Lebanon has criticized the entry of such groups into the country, fearing this will provoke tension between Palestinians and the Lebanese state. Fatah al-Islam’s leader, Abu Khaled al-Amleh, is said to be under house arrest in Damascus, but for a number of Lebanese analysts who closely follow Palestinian affairs the story is bogus, designed only to provide Syria with plausible deniability.
As for Hersh’s Esbat al-Ansar allegation, so little is said that it’s difficult to know where to begin a refutation. The history of Esbat al-Ansar is convoluted, but the group was, as French researcher Bernard Rougier notes in a book on the rise of militant Islam in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, "the first armed group to claim a Salafist-Islamist orientation in ... Ain al-Hilweh." Where Hersh stumbles is in his lack of knowledge of Lebanese-Palestinian relations. First of all, it’s not clear to whom he’s comparing Esbat al-Ansar when describing it as "the largest" Sunni Islamist group. According to Palestinian sources, the group includes no more than 70-80 men. If the Lebanese government, and Sunnis in particular, were to collaborate with anyone in the camps, it would be with the main Palestinian organizations, particularly Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, which are more powerful militarily and represent far more people than Esbat al-Ansar.
Second, in its dealings with the Palestinians, the Lebanese government tends to work through the mainstream Palestinian parties, given that the camps are largely autonomous areas. This may vary depending on the region, but the idea that Lebanon’s internal security forces would directly arm Esbat al-Ansar, which is hostile to Fatah, is not credible. The Lebanese would not spoil their relationship with Fatah over Esbat al-Ansar, and it is utterly implausible that Esbat al-Ansar could or would "take on Hizbullah," with which the group was close in the mid-1980s, before it moved away from Iran, toward Salafist-Islamism. Nowhere does Hersh prove his point; worse, nowhere are readers given a larger context that would affirm how weak his contentions are.
Hersh errs in trying too hard to somehow tie the Bush administration in with the most militant groups. In fact, it is true that the Lebanese government is allied with Sunni Islamists - most notably Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya, the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It may indeed have allowed "some aid," as Hersh writes, to end up in the hands of "emerging" Sunni militant groups, though this is very imprecise language. The reality is that amid the sectarian polarization in Lebanon today, most Sunnis have rallied to the government’s side, against the Shiite Hizbullah. Al-Jamaa is close to Saudi Arabia, and in 2005 the Saudis intervened prior to parliamentary elections that followed the Syrian withdrawal to ensure the group would not vote against candidates in North Lebanon backed by Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s most powerful Sunni leader who enjoys American and Saudi backing. However, Al-Jamaa is nothing like Esbat al-Ansar or Fatah al-Islam; it has integrated into the state and has had members in Parliament. Doubtless it holds views of Israel and the West that the Bush administration would find distasteful, but so too do the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian clergy. Is Hersh suggesting that the US end ties with Riyadh, Amman, and Cairo?
What is going on today is power politics at their most essential. While Hersh may consider his disclosures news, he must make a better case that the American shift to a Sunni-centric policy against Iran is strengthening violent Islamists. The evidence he presents is scant.
What about Hersh’s belief that the Bush administration is illegally hiding aspects of its pro-Sunni regional strategy? "The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution of the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process." The administration’s point man in this endeavor is purportedly Vice President Dick Cheney.
This revelation is noteworthy, but when we turn to the final part of Hersh’s text in which he addresses congressional oversight issues, we find little meat. Unexplainably, the piece jumps from Hersh’s interview with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to a flashback on how the Iran-Contra affair undermined the oversight process. That’s because two of those involved in the mid-1980s arms-for-hostages deal, Elliott Abrams, a senior official in the US National Security Council, and Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the US who heads his country’s National Security Council, are key players in the tilt toward the Sunnis.
But Iran-Contra was then. When it comes to now, all Hersh can tell us is that "the issue of oversight is beginning to get more attention from Congress." Is that it? Other than quoting unnamed skeptical sources, Hersh doesn’t enlighten us on specific instances where the administration broke laws. He does mention, not for the first time, that US military and special operations teams "have escalated their activities in Iran to gather intelligence" and to pursue Iranian operatives from Iraq. This merits more investigation, but it is not directly related to his more disturbing point that the US is somehow bolstering extreme Sunni Islamists.
Hersh goes on to remind us that any administration, in order to engage in clandestine activities, "must issue a written finding and inform Congress." The argument is a fair one, if the Bush administration has failed to do so. But in that case why does Hersh not mention a Daily Telegraph report published in January, which suggested that "senators and congressmen have been briefed on [a] classified ’non-lethal presidential finding’ that allows the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the [Lebanese] prime minister, Fouad Siniora" to oppose Hizbullah? Did The New Yorker’s fact checkers miss that one? If Bush is so keen to hide his hand in Lebanon and elsewhere, then this news item implies that the picture is more complicated. And if Hersh disagrees with the Telegraph, shouldn’t his editors have asked him to place a rebuttal in his article?
But the editors, I suspect, weren’t really looking. Sy Hersh has written some remarkable pieces in the past, but his latest is not one of them. It is badly argued, displays shaky knowledge of the details, and seems mainly propelled by antipathy for the Bush administration. When there are serious political repercussions in the Middle East from Hersh’s much-read pieces, it would help for him to know better what he’s talking about.
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