Posts
The death of the Independence Intifada of 2005 has been prematurely announced many times. However, today we have in front of us a genuine corpse, the end of the fleeting aspiration four years ago, at least in its more restricted form, of establishing a system emancipated from Syria. The Syrians, who left Lebanon through the window after Rafik Hariri’s assassination only to re-enter by the front door in recent months, have done so thanks to an understanding with Saudi Arabia. There are differences between what we have today and the Syrian-Saudi condominium after Taif, above all that the Syrian Army is no longer deployed in Lebanon. The latest contract is more equitable and is complicated by the fact that Iran has a powerful stake in the system through Hizbullah. However, it is familiar in leaving Lebanon with little discernible sovereignty, in large part courtesy of Lebanese divisions.
It’s no secret that the Saudis put considerable pressure on the prime minister-elect, Saad Hariri, to come to an arrangement over the new government with the opposition, one reason why he was forced to spend much time negotiating with Michel Aoun, to the irritation of his Christian partners. The Syrians, too, kept their end of the bargain, apparently with Turkish prodding, by bringing Aoun into line. After five months, the Hariri government was made in Lebanon only in the narrowest of ways.
This represents a fundamental shift from what Lebanon had between 2005 and 2009. From 2004 on, the country was placed under an effective, if highly imperfect, form of international trusteeship, thanks to a series of Security Council resolutions governing Lebanese affairs. This began with Resolution 1559, calling for a Syrian withdrawal, an end to foreign interference in Lebanon’s presidential election that year (and presumably all years), and the disarmament of armed groups. The UN decisions also included Resolution 1595, which set up an international commission to investigate Hariri’s murder, and it was followed by Resolution 1701, establishing a reinforced mechanism for the stabilization of southern Lebanon after the summer war of 2006.
That international scaffolding has been substantially eroded in recent years, by action or omission. Resolution 1559 has been implemented only in the sense that Syrian soldiers have left Lebanon. However, Syrian meddling in Lebanese affairs has been unrelenting, and in late 2007 France significantly undermined the letter of the resolution, which it had co-sponsored, by actively bringing Damascus into the Lebanese presidential election. As for the disarmament of Hizbullah or pro-Syrian Palestinian groups, nothing has happened, and the Cabinet is preparing to find a consensual rhetorical formula in its statement to evade the question.
The initial optimism surrounding the Hariri investigation has, similarly, worn off. Although the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Daniel Bellemare, remains confident that he will bring indictments, there continues to be serious question whether the guilty will ever be identified. There was a perceptible slowdown during the two years of Serge Brammertz, so that today no suspects are in custody. The regional and international political climate does not favor raising the heat on Syria – realistically the principal culprit in the crime. While it is too early to be definite, we should begin considering the possibility that no indictments will be brought, despite Bellemare’s assertions.
As for Resolution 1701, it has been a mixed bag. The reinforced UN force in the south has doubtless limited Hizbullah’s margin of maneuver in the border area, forcing the party to rebuild its main line of defense north of the Litani River. However, the resolution has failed utterly in preventing Israeli overflights but also Hizbullah’s massive rearmament, because the Security Council has been unwilling to punish Syria or Iran for violating its conditions. That the Lebanese government will soon put together a policy statement endorsing this situation helps little.
We should heed what the US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, told Al-Nahar last week. He warned that arms exports from Iran put Lebanon at great risk, then added, pointedly, that he hoped the Lebanese government realized this. Lest we forget, the scope of Israeli destruction in 2006, though enormous, was contained by the Americans, mainly to avoid discrediting the Siniora government. Feltman’s remarks indicated that Washington would be less inclined next time around to do the same thing. In other words, the Lebanese must accept that their best protection against Israel is Resolution 1701.
So the Syrians are back. They don’t rule Lebanon from Anjar, but they are likely to retain a final say on most decisions of importance in the country. If one wants to see the glass as half full, Syria must now accept as a reality that many of its political foes are represented in the government and Parliament. Syria’s ability to tap into corruption and patronage networks has been blunted. But if the glass is half empty, Assad has significantly negated the emancipatory impulses of 2005, allowing him to once again use Lebanon to advance Syrian interests, to the Lebanese detriment.
On April 24, 2007, Assad told the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at a meeting held in Damascus that “[Lebanon’s] most peaceful years were when Syrian forces were present. From 1976 to 2005 Lebanon was stable, whereas now there is great instability.” Will his forces return to Beirut? Does he want them to? If he could he would. However, Syria has done well enough by chipping away at the order put in place after its withdrawal, and now has allies even within the majority camp.
As a Syrian academic close to the regime once stated privately at an academic conference: Lebanon had a choice between being with Syria or with Iran. The Saudis, otherwise absent from that menu, have apparently chosen for the Lebanese. This opens the door to many possibilities, even if Syria will not soon break with Iran over Lebanon. But what it really does is remind us that what happened four years ago was neither an intifada nor, ultimately, a moment of true independence.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Kabul, Baghdad, Beirut: one headache
Relatively few Lebanese have paid much attention to the debate taking place in Washington over whether the American president, Barack Obama, should agree to a counter-insurgency plan for Afghanistan proposed by his commander there, General Stanley McChrystal. The plan calls for a broad effort to make the country safer for its citizens, and involves increasing the number of American troops by 40,000 or so.
Relatively few Lebanese, albeit perhaps more than those following the events in Afghanistan, have paid much attention either to what is taking place in Iraq. Senior Iraqi leaders, including the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, have accused Syria of continuing to facilitate the passage of Al-Qaeda militants across its border as a means of pressure to ensure that Damascus will have more of a say in post-America Iraq. At the same time, the United States, while conscious of this, has sought to avoid a Syrian-Iraqi clash, because it believes this might complicate its overriding priority, namely withdrawing American forces by the end of 2011.
And yet both in Afghanistan and Iraq, what the US decides will have definite repercussions for Lebanon and our little neck of the woods. If Washington’s focus is on a military drawdown and political extraction, this could carry the Levant back to a period of American benign neglect. That would leave Lebanon ever more exposed to the whims of its neighbors and the dynamics of the Middle East. The prospects are not reassuring, particularly if they pit the mostly Sunni Arab world against Iran and its allies, with Syria in the middle leveraging its support for one side or the other in exchange for renewed hegemony over Lebanon.
The latest news is that Obama is trying to have it both ways. The president told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially cut back American forces in Afghanistan and reduce their mission to targeting Al-Qaeda (as Vice President Joe Biden had urged); but he also indicated that he remained undecided about whether to dispatch the additional troops that McChrystal had requested. This could lead to the worst of possible outcomes: a US force that remains undermanned and continues to take casualties, and a president increasingly boxed in when it comes to changing that strategy toward a greater or lesser commitment.
A United States off balance in Afghanistan could lead to bad decisions being taken in Iraq, not least an acceleration of the military withdrawal. That would threaten the country with a dangerous vacuum which the countries of the region might seek to exploit. Iran would fight hard to protect the gains it has made in Iraq. Syria and Saudi Arabia, each for its own reasons, share an interest in preventing the consolidation of a strong central government in Baghdad. The Syrian regime seeks a larger role in Iraq, wants to take advantage of Iraq’s oil, and benefits domestically from being perceived as a defender of Iraq’s Sunni minority. The Saudis worry that a Shiite-dominated Iraqi order, especially one that might further empower Iran, would undermine the kingdom’s stability.
It takes little imagination to realize that all these conflicting interests and calculations can play themselves out in distilled form in Lebanon. However, that doesn’t really tell us what the Lebanese can do to avoid the worst repercussions of regional developments.
There is little the Lebanese can do to limit the damages of a debacle if they remain divided. But that’s stating the obvious, and Lebanese unity is not around the corner. However, even amid their divisions, the political forces can yet implement mechanisms to contain domestically what happens in the broader region, which requires properly reading the tea leaves.
What are some of these mechanisms? Plainly, an intensification of cross-sectarian dialogue at the local level, particularly between the Future Movement and Hezbollah, but also between the Lebanese Forces on the one side and Hezbollah and Amal on the other, whose supporters are cheek to jowl in the Ain al-Remmaneh-Shiyyah-Haret Hreik district. This can be complemented by periodic national exchange sessions hosted by President Michel Sleiman, bringing together major party leaders, and if needed security chiefs, to examine ad hoc measures that can be taken to ensure that the situation on the ground gradually improves.
Of course, all this has to an extent been done, and the span may seem rather far between what Barack Obama decides in Afghanistan and what Lebanon’s political leadership decides in Baabda. However, the reality is that the regional situation is so interconnected today, that what explodes in Kabul and Baghdad may send shrapnel Lebanon’s way. We need to think more about the region, for we are its point of highest contradiction.
Relatively few Lebanese, albeit perhaps more than those following the events in Afghanistan, have paid much attention either to what is taking place in Iraq. Senior Iraqi leaders, including the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, have accused Syria of continuing to facilitate the passage of Al-Qaeda militants across its border as a means of pressure to ensure that Damascus will have more of a say in post-America Iraq. At the same time, the United States, while conscious of this, has sought to avoid a Syrian-Iraqi clash, because it believes this might complicate its overriding priority, namely withdrawing American forces by the end of 2011.
And yet both in Afghanistan and Iraq, what the US decides will have definite repercussions for Lebanon and our little neck of the woods. If Washington’s focus is on a military drawdown and political extraction, this could carry the Levant back to a period of American benign neglect. That would leave Lebanon ever more exposed to the whims of its neighbors and the dynamics of the Middle East. The prospects are not reassuring, particularly if they pit the mostly Sunni Arab world against Iran and its allies, with Syria in the middle leveraging its support for one side or the other in exchange for renewed hegemony over Lebanon.
The latest news is that Obama is trying to have it both ways. The president told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially cut back American forces in Afghanistan and reduce their mission to targeting Al-Qaeda (as Vice President Joe Biden had urged); but he also indicated that he remained undecided about whether to dispatch the additional troops that McChrystal had requested. This could lead to the worst of possible outcomes: a US force that remains undermanned and continues to take casualties, and a president increasingly boxed in when it comes to changing that strategy toward a greater or lesser commitment.
A United States off balance in Afghanistan could lead to bad decisions being taken in Iraq, not least an acceleration of the military withdrawal. That would threaten the country with a dangerous vacuum which the countries of the region might seek to exploit. Iran would fight hard to protect the gains it has made in Iraq. Syria and Saudi Arabia, each for its own reasons, share an interest in preventing the consolidation of a strong central government in Baghdad. The Syrian regime seeks a larger role in Iraq, wants to take advantage of Iraq’s oil, and benefits domestically from being perceived as a defender of Iraq’s Sunni minority. The Saudis worry that a Shiite-dominated Iraqi order, especially one that might further empower Iran, would undermine the kingdom’s stability.
It takes little imagination to realize that all these conflicting interests and calculations can play themselves out in distilled form in Lebanon. However, that doesn’t really tell us what the Lebanese can do to avoid the worst repercussions of regional developments.
There is little the Lebanese can do to limit the damages of a debacle if they remain divided. But that’s stating the obvious, and Lebanese unity is not around the corner. However, even amid their divisions, the political forces can yet implement mechanisms to contain domestically what happens in the broader region, which requires properly reading the tea leaves.
What are some of these mechanisms? Plainly, an intensification of cross-sectarian dialogue at the local level, particularly between the Future Movement and Hezbollah, but also between the Lebanese Forces on the one side and Hezbollah and Amal on the other, whose supporters are cheek to jowl in the Ain al-Remmaneh-Shiyyah-Haret Hreik district. This can be complemented by periodic national exchange sessions hosted by President Michel Sleiman, bringing together major party leaders, and if needed security chiefs, to examine ad hoc measures that can be taken to ensure that the situation on the ground gradually improves.
Of course, all this has to an extent been done, and the span may seem rather far between what Barack Obama decides in Afghanistan and what Lebanon’s political leadership decides in Baabda. However, the reality is that the regional situation is so interconnected today, that what explodes in Kabul and Baghdad may send shrapnel Lebanon’s way. We need to think more about the region, for we are its point of highest contradiction.
The dragons of 'progressive' delusion
By coincidence, I happened to pick up another book while reading Hussein Ibish’s excellent, precise dismantling of the agenda for a single Jewish-Arab state in the area of historical Palestine. The book in question, which provided a handy conceptual context to Ibish’s, was Robert Conquest’s “The Dragons of Expectation,” which discusses how ideological delusion has “seized the mind of many in the West and elsewhere – with misleading thought about what faces us, much of it bred and projected from unreal obsessions about the still-living past.”
The phrase sums up well the failings of those advocating a one-state agenda, particularly Palestinians and Arabs living in the West. For as Ibish writes, such a project is largely a diasporic one, far removed from Palestinian and Israeli realities. Yet its proponents continue to press on with the binational state idea, oblivious to its unpopularity and their own specious assumptions, because they believe in the pure idea, a dragon of expectation that, left unquestioned, can be destructively consuming.
Conquest has fought such dragons for decades, particularly those to which many in the West succumbed at the time of the Soviet Union. His masterpiece on the Stalinist purges, “The Great Terror,” was maligned by so-called “progressives” when it was published in 1968, particularly his estimation of the number of victims, which he placed at some 20 million. The critics pointed out that Conquest later lowered his figure once the Soviet archives were opened. The joke was on them. So appalling did these remain, that they only confirmed how right he was early on in regarding the decades of Stalin as a defining monstrosity of the 20th century.
The delusions of Western or Western-educated Arab progressives have also shaped views of other Middle Eastern issues after the 9/11 attacks. Yet why focus on the left when the right, too, is afflicted with myriad faults? Principally because it is the left that has purported to speak in the name of universalist, humanistic values, while those on the right – old-line realists or neoconservatives – have either tended to preoccupy themselves with maintaining stability, regardless of its repercussions for liberal values, or have placed American power at the center of their contemplations.
There is also the reality that the left, more than the right, has allowed its discourse to be overtaken by a utopian urge, by the Ideal. And those like Ibish, or Conquest, each in their very different worlds, are commendable, and set upon, because they cannot stomach the bending of reality to satisfy that Ideal. They know that when ideas take on a greater import than the evidence sustaining them, in other words when they become counterintuitive, those holding onto these ideas will fall in love with their own moral righteousness, denouncing dissenters as immoral.
Let’s take two examples from the contemporary Middle East. In the last decade and more, not a few Western progressives have embraced Hizbullah as a regenerative force among Lebanon’s Shiites and in the midst of the country’s fractured political culture. Because Shiites tend to be poor, this sympathy has been accompanied by a form of ethical sanction, a sense that the party is a dispenser of social justice, a righter of past wrongs. Hizbullah’s hostility toward Israel and the United States, like its successful resistance in the south up to May 2000, have fed into a broader mood that the party, even if it is not what a Westerner, or a Westernized Arab, would naturally gravitate toward, nonetheless has come down on the right side of history, against outside hegemony and a Lebanese system that is corrupt, archaic, and morally indefensible.
These thoughts tell us more about those thinking them, than about Hizbullah and the Shiite reality. It is a mystery how individuals who consider themselves partisans of humanistic principles can identify these in an autocratic religious, militarized party whose ideological mindset and political continuity is reliant on the perpetuation of violence. And this against a Lebanese social and political order that, for all its faults, is organically pluralistic, allowing invigorating variety and dissent.
A second example. For years after the invasion of Iraq, progressives referred to the foes of the “neo-imperialistic” United States and its allies there as a “resistance.” This sloppy, expansive term did not filter out former regime criminals or Al-Qaeda, at a time when it was beheading foreigners and representatives of Iraqi institutions. I vividly recall one left-wing professor with tenure at an American university regretting the capture of Saddam Hussein, because, he said, this would strengthen George W. Bush. There was “the resistance” and there was America. In the odd zero-sum moralism of the time, what one gained the other lost, and no self-respecting humanist was going to side with the US president.
Today, this neat dichotomy is falling apart. Whatever “resistance” there may be is undermining the emergence of a sovereign Iraqi state. Iraq’s leaders openly accuse Syria of continuing to allow Al-Qaeda militants across its border to strengthen the Syrian hand in a post-America Iraq. Regional cynicism has taken over. The US is on its way out. Progressives are lost. Who to blame? Who embodies the total Ideal? There are no clear answers, except perhaps one: The nasty, brutish rule of Saddam Hussein is over, a new Iraq is emerging, and the US, basically responsible for this, is evidently averse to playing the neo-imperialist bogeyman by lingering.
In defense of their virtuous choices – that of endorsing a supposedly just Hizbullah against a Lebanese state riddled with shortcomings or the idealization of a purported Iraqi resistance against Western domination – progressives have sided with the very forces most dedicated to thwarting liberal outcomes. In that way they are defined more by what they oppose than by what they stand for. To paraphrase Robert Conquest, they have failed in their duty to clear the ground of false witness.
The phrase sums up well the failings of those advocating a one-state agenda, particularly Palestinians and Arabs living in the West. For as Ibish writes, such a project is largely a diasporic one, far removed from Palestinian and Israeli realities. Yet its proponents continue to press on with the binational state idea, oblivious to its unpopularity and their own specious assumptions, because they believe in the pure idea, a dragon of expectation that, left unquestioned, can be destructively consuming.
Conquest has fought such dragons for decades, particularly those to which many in the West succumbed at the time of the Soviet Union. His masterpiece on the Stalinist purges, “The Great Terror,” was maligned by so-called “progressives” when it was published in 1968, particularly his estimation of the number of victims, which he placed at some 20 million. The critics pointed out that Conquest later lowered his figure once the Soviet archives were opened. The joke was on them. So appalling did these remain, that they only confirmed how right he was early on in regarding the decades of Stalin as a defining monstrosity of the 20th century.
The delusions of Western or Western-educated Arab progressives have also shaped views of other Middle Eastern issues after the 9/11 attacks. Yet why focus on the left when the right, too, is afflicted with myriad faults? Principally because it is the left that has purported to speak in the name of universalist, humanistic values, while those on the right – old-line realists or neoconservatives – have either tended to preoccupy themselves with maintaining stability, regardless of its repercussions for liberal values, or have placed American power at the center of their contemplations.
There is also the reality that the left, more than the right, has allowed its discourse to be overtaken by a utopian urge, by the Ideal. And those like Ibish, or Conquest, each in their very different worlds, are commendable, and set upon, because they cannot stomach the bending of reality to satisfy that Ideal. They know that when ideas take on a greater import than the evidence sustaining them, in other words when they become counterintuitive, those holding onto these ideas will fall in love with their own moral righteousness, denouncing dissenters as immoral.
Let’s take two examples from the contemporary Middle East. In the last decade and more, not a few Western progressives have embraced Hizbullah as a regenerative force among Lebanon’s Shiites and in the midst of the country’s fractured political culture. Because Shiites tend to be poor, this sympathy has been accompanied by a form of ethical sanction, a sense that the party is a dispenser of social justice, a righter of past wrongs. Hizbullah’s hostility toward Israel and the United States, like its successful resistance in the south up to May 2000, have fed into a broader mood that the party, even if it is not what a Westerner, or a Westernized Arab, would naturally gravitate toward, nonetheless has come down on the right side of history, against outside hegemony and a Lebanese system that is corrupt, archaic, and morally indefensible.
These thoughts tell us more about those thinking them, than about Hizbullah and the Shiite reality. It is a mystery how individuals who consider themselves partisans of humanistic principles can identify these in an autocratic religious, militarized party whose ideological mindset and political continuity is reliant on the perpetuation of violence. And this against a Lebanese social and political order that, for all its faults, is organically pluralistic, allowing invigorating variety and dissent.
A second example. For years after the invasion of Iraq, progressives referred to the foes of the “neo-imperialistic” United States and its allies there as a “resistance.” This sloppy, expansive term did not filter out former regime criminals or Al-Qaeda, at a time when it was beheading foreigners and representatives of Iraqi institutions. I vividly recall one left-wing professor with tenure at an American university regretting the capture of Saddam Hussein, because, he said, this would strengthen George W. Bush. There was “the resistance” and there was America. In the odd zero-sum moralism of the time, what one gained the other lost, and no self-respecting humanist was going to side with the US president.
Today, this neat dichotomy is falling apart. Whatever “resistance” there may be is undermining the emergence of a sovereign Iraqi state. Iraq’s leaders openly accuse Syria of continuing to allow Al-Qaeda militants across its border to strengthen the Syrian hand in a post-America Iraq. Regional cynicism has taken over. The US is on its way out. Progressives are lost. Who to blame? Who embodies the total Ideal? There are no clear answers, except perhaps one: The nasty, brutish rule of Saddam Hussein is over, a new Iraq is emerging, and the US, basically responsible for this, is evidently averse to playing the neo-imperialist bogeyman by lingering.
In defense of their virtuous choices – that of endorsing a supposedly just Hizbullah against a Lebanese state riddled with shortcomings or the idealization of a purported Iraqi resistance against Western domination – progressives have sided with the very forces most dedicated to thwarting liberal outcomes. In that way they are defined more by what they oppose than by what they stand for. To paraphrase Robert Conquest, they have failed in their duty to clear the ground of false witness.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Mr. Baroud, please stop the killing
Almost two weeks ago, two young men were driving down from Faraya very early in the morning. For some reason, perhaps speed, perhaps the water on the road after a night of rain, or some combination of both, their vehicle swerved off the road near Feytroun and exploded, killing both.
The incident, one of the countless fatal car accidents that occur in Lebanon on average daily, again brought home the astonishing absence of a national traffic policy. One can of course blame reckless drivers, but a larger share of the blame goes to the state, in particular the police, which has systematically failed to implement its own traffic laws.
When the interior minister, Ziad Baroud, came into office, for a time the police began imposing penalties on drivers not wearing a seat belt or caught speaking on their mobile phones while driving. Like everything else in the land, though, the effort was haphazard, having little impact. More important, little was done to curtail speeding, a greater danger that could easily be brought under control if the police showed some will.
In the past year or more we’ve all noticed the bright new cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles given to the Internal Security Forces. The cars are from the United States, have thick wheels, and are very much designed to appear aggressive and run fast. They have the horsepower to engage in high-speed car chases, to ram other cars if need be, and presumably to make a Lebanese policeman feel as powerful as an American one.
Thank heavens the Lebanese have shown little incentive to go along with that image. But it’s also disconcerting to see the vehicles, otherwise, serving mainly one purpose: to allow policemen to cruise slowly through Lebanese streets, inert with boredom, while doing absolutely nothing to implement traffic laws. In fact, on most days it is the policemen themselves who seem to break those laws in one way or another.
It cannot be difficult to impose speeding regulations. The favorite technique of the police has been to set up speed guns on highways to catch drivers exceeding the speed limit, then to set up a road block further on to hand out fines. But you can only use that method ever so often. Roadblocks only strangulate traffic, increasing the burden on all drivers. That’s why the roadblock system is used sparingly in most countries.
What should be done is to deploy police cars on Lebanon’s main highways and thoroughfares, and demand that they do their job by signaling to speeding drivers that they need to stop. No one asks that the police chase all the crazier drivers, as the results will be cataclysmic; but if enough police cars are present on a highway, one car can signal to another ahead that so-and-so is coming his way. In other words, the effective way to limit speeding is for the police to be present, to coordinate the efforts of its cars on the road, to set up an efficient network of observation, to impose high fines for speeders, and to do so at most hours of the day and night.
Before long, the mere presence of the police will make people slow down. A system of cameras can also be set up to catch speeding cars that the police don’t see. This is all very basic policy, which begs the question: Why, on most days, are Lebanese drivers forced to take their lives into their own hands by driving on major highways? Why is it that, specifically on the matter of imposing speeding regulations, the police has been thoroughly incompetent, in fact dangerously nonexistent?
There is no convincing explanation. And yet Lebanon is well known to be accident prone. An article published on this website last September cited a 2004 study by Sweroad, the consultancy arm of the Swedish Road Administration, to the effect that Lebanon had “more than twice as many deaths per 100,000 vehicles than in Western European countries.”
The author, Matt Nash, also cited Internal Security Forces figures that 2,767 accidents occurred in 2006, killing 378 people; 4,421 in 2007, killing 497; and 2,483 accidents up to August 2008, killing 275 people. However, he found that these figures were substantially lower than those provided by the Lebanese Red Cross, “whose statistics show a total of 8,115 accidents in 2006, 9,546 in 2007 and 4,661 up to June 2008.”
According to a report published seven years ago by the Youth Association for Social Awareness (YASA), which addresses Lebanon’s traffic policies and their shortcomings, “Lebanon [is] almost the unique country in the region, where traffic laws are outdated and not well implemented. Unlike Lebanon, most [Middle East and North Africa] countries have amended and improved their traffic rules and laws during the last decade.”
No one seriously doubts Ziad Baroud’s competence. When several prisoners escaped from Roumieh Prison earlier this summer, he intervened to fire security officials for being asleep on the job. But the traffic situation, which he promised to address when he was appointed, is becoming a blight on his record. The cars are there, the police are there, and the road network in Lebanon is not especially vast to prevent effective policing. There is no reason to allow the barbarity on the roads to continue, nor the daily readiness of some to commit homicide or suicide.
The incident, one of the countless fatal car accidents that occur in Lebanon on average daily, again brought home the astonishing absence of a national traffic policy. One can of course blame reckless drivers, but a larger share of the blame goes to the state, in particular the police, which has systematically failed to implement its own traffic laws.
When the interior minister, Ziad Baroud, came into office, for a time the police began imposing penalties on drivers not wearing a seat belt or caught speaking on their mobile phones while driving. Like everything else in the land, though, the effort was haphazard, having little impact. More important, little was done to curtail speeding, a greater danger that could easily be brought under control if the police showed some will.
In the past year or more we’ve all noticed the bright new cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles given to the Internal Security Forces. The cars are from the United States, have thick wheels, and are very much designed to appear aggressive and run fast. They have the horsepower to engage in high-speed car chases, to ram other cars if need be, and presumably to make a Lebanese policeman feel as powerful as an American one.
Thank heavens the Lebanese have shown little incentive to go along with that image. But it’s also disconcerting to see the vehicles, otherwise, serving mainly one purpose: to allow policemen to cruise slowly through Lebanese streets, inert with boredom, while doing absolutely nothing to implement traffic laws. In fact, on most days it is the policemen themselves who seem to break those laws in one way or another.
It cannot be difficult to impose speeding regulations. The favorite technique of the police has been to set up speed guns on highways to catch drivers exceeding the speed limit, then to set up a road block further on to hand out fines. But you can only use that method ever so often. Roadblocks only strangulate traffic, increasing the burden on all drivers. That’s why the roadblock system is used sparingly in most countries.
What should be done is to deploy police cars on Lebanon’s main highways and thoroughfares, and demand that they do their job by signaling to speeding drivers that they need to stop. No one asks that the police chase all the crazier drivers, as the results will be cataclysmic; but if enough police cars are present on a highway, one car can signal to another ahead that so-and-so is coming his way. In other words, the effective way to limit speeding is for the police to be present, to coordinate the efforts of its cars on the road, to set up an efficient network of observation, to impose high fines for speeders, and to do so at most hours of the day and night.
Before long, the mere presence of the police will make people slow down. A system of cameras can also be set up to catch speeding cars that the police don’t see. This is all very basic policy, which begs the question: Why, on most days, are Lebanese drivers forced to take their lives into their own hands by driving on major highways? Why is it that, specifically on the matter of imposing speeding regulations, the police has been thoroughly incompetent, in fact dangerously nonexistent?
There is no convincing explanation. And yet Lebanon is well known to be accident prone. An article published on this website last September cited a 2004 study by Sweroad, the consultancy arm of the Swedish Road Administration, to the effect that Lebanon had “more than twice as many deaths per 100,000 vehicles than in Western European countries.”
The author, Matt Nash, also cited Internal Security Forces figures that 2,767 accidents occurred in 2006, killing 378 people; 4,421 in 2007, killing 497; and 2,483 accidents up to August 2008, killing 275 people. However, he found that these figures were substantially lower than those provided by the Lebanese Red Cross, “whose statistics show a total of 8,115 accidents in 2006, 9,546 in 2007 and 4,661 up to June 2008.”
According to a report published seven years ago by the Youth Association for Social Awareness (YASA), which addresses Lebanon’s traffic policies and their shortcomings, “Lebanon [is] almost the unique country in the region, where traffic laws are outdated and not well implemented. Unlike Lebanon, most [Middle East and North Africa] countries have amended and improved their traffic rules and laws during the last decade.”
No one seriously doubts Ziad Baroud’s competence. When several prisoners escaped from Roumieh Prison earlier this summer, he intervened to fire security officials for being asleep on the job. But the traffic situation, which he promised to address when he was appointed, is becoming a blight on his record. The cars are there, the police are there, and the road network in Lebanon is not especially vast to prevent effective policing. There is no reason to allow the barbarity on the roads to continue, nor the daily readiness of some to commit homicide or suicide.
Ignorance pervades the 'neocon' debate
Recently, an American researcher in Beirut wrote a commentary in which he disapprovingly referred to me as a “neoconservative.” Though the subject struck me as dated, when the author sent me a version for review before publication, I explained that I was no such thing. More maliciously, he accused me, without any evidence, of coordinating a piece I had written on American policy toward Syria with those of three former Bush administration officials. This time my denial was angrier.
Slapdash indictments are common these days in journalism about the Middle East – where the aim of writers is frequently to gain access to one side in an often polarized political situation, or to catch the eye of potential political sponsors. Far from stimulating exchange, such polemics inhibit an understanding of intellectual trends in the region.
A major source of disagreement is the Iraq war. I happened to welcome the war because it overthrew a brutal regime responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of some 1 million people. In 2005 I also approved of American and international efforts to end Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. Among “progressives” who identify with Arab issues, these positions earned me and other Arabs sharing my views a “neocon” label.
I am not a neocon, though I have found myself on their side on occasion. To be viewed as a neocon, even a hawk, is by definition to be categorized as someone having an American perspective on regional affairs. Yet my motives (being half-Lebanese) and those of other Arabs for welcoming Saddam Hussein’s downfall and the end of Syria’s long Lebanese interregnum derived almost entirely from an Arab standpoint. Our approach to the debate in the United States on the Middle East has been that of outsiders; we’re interested in how it affects us, but we cannot, reasonably, be portrayed as representatives of a particular faction.
Let’s define “neocon.” Neoconservative thought has changed greatly in three decades, so it’s best outlined through its main features during the Bush years. The most forceful compendium of neocon thinking was the National Security Strategy of 2002, though the document was a mishmash that included liberal internationalist notions as well. What was new, however, was its focus on US military superiority and its justification of Washington’s right to engage in pre-emptive strikes against emerging threats and to advance its interests unilaterally. Drawing from the heightened imperative of security, neocons, though they were hardly the only ones, were inclined to go along with the tenuous legal system for holding terrorist suspects at Guantanamo prison and other military facilities, extraordinary rendition, even torture.
There is a strong domestic American component to the neocon agenda. The neocons saw 9/11 as allowing for the relative curtailment of civil liberties and freedom of markets through the USA Patriot Act, and they have repeatedly encouraged (without success) the introduction of national identity cards, using intrusive biometric data. Though neocons, sensibly, argued in favor of advancing liberalism abroad, almost none of those present in the Bush administration actively opposed the undermining of liberal values when the White House and the administration’s judiciary bureaucracy tortuously validated the mistreatment of foreign detainees.
If you call someone a neocon, particularly an Arab, you should be pretty sure that he or she meets those criteria. However, it’s likely that almost no Arab who supported the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Baathists in Iraq, or the Syrian army from Lebanon does. Most either opposed abusive American behavior or were indifferent. But all knew that every time the US neglected human rights, liberals who had initially supported the premises of American intervention were discredited.
By transforming the discussion of the desirability of confronting Middle Eastern autocracies into a parochial American bellyache about neocons versus anti-neocons, the polemicists have emptied it of everything interesting, for example disregarding how, during its second term, the Bush administration moved away from neocon tenets of the first term.
Take Lebanon’s emancipation movement against Syria, following the murder of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. The US played a key role in forcing the Syrians out by working multilaterally, through the United Nations. Even administration neocons endorsed this strategy, showing the discrepancy between theory and practice. The reality is that the legalistic, internationalist US response to the Lebanese crisis was a far cry from what neocons had earlier advocated. Nevertheless, those in Lebanon publicly lauding this conduct, by virtue of being with America, were still branded hawks, ideologues, and, yes, neocons.
Credit the neocons with one thing. After 9/11 they filled the gap of comprehension in the US when it came to the attacks. Left-liberals, old-line realists, and libertarians had little credible to say about why the crimes were committed. The neocons alone saw them as the consequence of a systemic problem deriving from a lack of Arab democracy. They were right. But the riposte was haphazard, contradictory, and ultimately counterproductive, so that America soon found itself isolated. That’s why Bush adopted more consensual policies during his second term.
Grasping these subtleties is compulsory to avoid tossing the word neocon around with abandon. As for my American accuser, I found instructive that when a mutual friend criticized his statement that I had coordinated with the former officials, all he could reply in an e-mail was: “You’re right on the coordination – I have no idea.” Fabrication seems to be par for the course whenever the neocon bogeyman is brought up.
Slapdash indictments are common these days in journalism about the Middle East – where the aim of writers is frequently to gain access to one side in an often polarized political situation, or to catch the eye of potential political sponsors. Far from stimulating exchange, such polemics inhibit an understanding of intellectual trends in the region.
A major source of disagreement is the Iraq war. I happened to welcome the war because it overthrew a brutal regime responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of some 1 million people. In 2005 I also approved of American and international efforts to end Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. Among “progressives” who identify with Arab issues, these positions earned me and other Arabs sharing my views a “neocon” label.
I am not a neocon, though I have found myself on their side on occasion. To be viewed as a neocon, even a hawk, is by definition to be categorized as someone having an American perspective on regional affairs. Yet my motives (being half-Lebanese) and those of other Arabs for welcoming Saddam Hussein’s downfall and the end of Syria’s long Lebanese interregnum derived almost entirely from an Arab standpoint. Our approach to the debate in the United States on the Middle East has been that of outsiders; we’re interested in how it affects us, but we cannot, reasonably, be portrayed as representatives of a particular faction.
Let’s define “neocon.” Neoconservative thought has changed greatly in three decades, so it’s best outlined through its main features during the Bush years. The most forceful compendium of neocon thinking was the National Security Strategy of 2002, though the document was a mishmash that included liberal internationalist notions as well. What was new, however, was its focus on US military superiority and its justification of Washington’s right to engage in pre-emptive strikes against emerging threats and to advance its interests unilaterally. Drawing from the heightened imperative of security, neocons, though they were hardly the only ones, were inclined to go along with the tenuous legal system for holding terrorist suspects at Guantanamo prison and other military facilities, extraordinary rendition, even torture.
There is a strong domestic American component to the neocon agenda. The neocons saw 9/11 as allowing for the relative curtailment of civil liberties and freedom of markets through the USA Patriot Act, and they have repeatedly encouraged (without success) the introduction of national identity cards, using intrusive biometric data. Though neocons, sensibly, argued in favor of advancing liberalism abroad, almost none of those present in the Bush administration actively opposed the undermining of liberal values when the White House and the administration’s judiciary bureaucracy tortuously validated the mistreatment of foreign detainees.
If you call someone a neocon, particularly an Arab, you should be pretty sure that he or she meets those criteria. However, it’s likely that almost no Arab who supported the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Baathists in Iraq, or the Syrian army from Lebanon does. Most either opposed abusive American behavior or were indifferent. But all knew that every time the US neglected human rights, liberals who had initially supported the premises of American intervention were discredited.
By transforming the discussion of the desirability of confronting Middle Eastern autocracies into a parochial American bellyache about neocons versus anti-neocons, the polemicists have emptied it of everything interesting, for example disregarding how, during its second term, the Bush administration moved away from neocon tenets of the first term.
Take Lebanon’s emancipation movement against Syria, following the murder of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. The US played a key role in forcing the Syrians out by working multilaterally, through the United Nations. Even administration neocons endorsed this strategy, showing the discrepancy between theory and practice. The reality is that the legalistic, internationalist US response to the Lebanese crisis was a far cry from what neocons had earlier advocated. Nevertheless, those in Lebanon publicly lauding this conduct, by virtue of being with America, were still branded hawks, ideologues, and, yes, neocons.
Credit the neocons with one thing. After 9/11 they filled the gap of comprehension in the US when it came to the attacks. Left-liberals, old-line realists, and libertarians had little credible to say about why the crimes were committed. The neocons alone saw them as the consequence of a systemic problem deriving from a lack of Arab democracy. They were right. But the riposte was haphazard, contradictory, and ultimately counterproductive, so that America soon found itself isolated. That’s why Bush adopted more consensual policies during his second term.
Grasping these subtleties is compulsory to avoid tossing the word neocon around with abandon. As for my American accuser, I found instructive that when a mutual friend criticized his statement that I had coordinated with the former officials, all he could reply in an e-mail was: “You’re right on the coordination – I have no idea.” Fabrication seems to be par for the course whenever the neocon bogeyman is brought up.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Will a new cabinet cost Lebanon its sovereignty?
What occurred in Jeddah on Wednesday? Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, traveled to the Saudi city for a university inauguration, also attended by outgoing Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. The prime minister-elect, Saad Hariri, happened to be in the kingdom. Reports suggested that Turkey had played a significant role in the visit. Who met whom? What was discussed? Are we near a breakthrough on the cabinet’s formation?
We shall soon see. It was clear from the outset that the obstacles to the formation of the government had very little to do with the appointment of Gebran Bassil as a minister. The problem was the continuation of Saudi-Syrian divergences over Lebanon. This was the contention of the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, and of Walid Jumblatt, newfound friends. They were right, even if one might disagree with either or both of them on the practical consequences of their conclusion.
The question the Lebanese are asking is what political price the Saudis will pay to purchase Syrian flexibility on the government. When Saad Hariri began putting one together weeks ago, the United States and Egypt blocked a Syrian effort to bring the prime minister-designate to Damascus before a ministerial lineup was finalized. Hariri himself, reluctant to be pushed into the arms of his father’s killers, visited Cairo to gain Egyptian reinforcement. Press reports at the time said that Syria sought to sponsor inter-Lebanese reconciliation, as Qatar did last year. Its failure to achieve this aim led to the cancellation of a visit to Damascus by King Abdullah.
Since then several things have changed in the region. The Saudi priority remains the containment of Iran, one reason why the kingdom hoped that a rapprochement with Syria would help break the Assad regime away from Tehran. But the situation today is even more complicated. In October, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, will begin discussions in Geneva with Iran on its nuclear program. At the same time, the priority of the United States in Iraq is disengagement, leading the Obama administration to advocate an Iraqi-Syrian dialogue, even though US officials admit that Syria continues to allow jihadists through its territory on their way to Iraq.
As Saudi Arabia watches the Americans cutting back their involvement in Iraq while simultaneously striving to reconcile Damascus with Baghdad to facilitate their departure, the kingdom’s leadership may have concluded three things: that once the US is gone from Iraq, Saudi Arabia will be on its own in facing a Shia-dominated, oil-rich state to its north, as well as a resurgent Iran that already holds considerable leverage in the Gulf.
Second, that it makes little sense for the kingdom to allow its dispute with Syria to fester, since the Assad regime can be of use in destabilizing Iraq, thereby preventing the consolidation of a Shia-led order there, particularly one over which Iran has great influence.
And third, that if the Saudis and the Syrians are to improve their relationship, it might be necessary to give Syria much more of what it seeks, namely a decisive political say in Lebanon. Left unsaid in that equation is that Iran may disapprove, since Lebanon is much more an Iranian card today, thanks to Tehran’s control over Hezbollah, than it is a Syrian one. But the flip side of that implicit Iranian rebuff is that Saudi Arabia, in order to contain Iran and Hezbollah, may feel that the best way to do so is through some form of Syrian return to Lebanon.
If that is indeed what the Saudis are thinking, which remains to be proven, we may face difficult times ahead. On the other hand the kingdom is sensitive to the worries in Washington and Cairo. Up to now nothing indicates that the Obama administration has agreed to surrender Lebanon to Syria in order to thwart Iran. Nor that Egypt intends to give Assad a break in Lebanon, when Syria has persistently blocked a breakthrough in Egyptian-sponsored inter-Palestinian talks in Cairo.
However, how long will that last? If Barack Obama moves toward benign neglect in the broader Middle East, because he just cannot get anything done in the region, then Lebanon will fall even lower on the American priorities list. That’s what Syria is banking on. As for Egypt, its ability to derail a Syrian-Saudi rapprochement is limited, while Washington’s abandonment of the peace process if it continues to go nowhere will further undermine Cairo’s importance. Syria is banking on that as well.
Lebanon may have a government sooner rather than later. The real issue, however, is whether the government will be truly Lebanese, or merely a compromise between different regional states now managing their sundry alliances and animosities. The near-certainty is that it will be the second, driving another nail into the coffin of our emancipation.
We shall soon see. It was clear from the outset that the obstacles to the formation of the government had very little to do with the appointment of Gebran Bassil as a minister. The problem was the continuation of Saudi-Syrian divergences over Lebanon. This was the contention of the speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, and of Walid Jumblatt, newfound friends. They were right, even if one might disagree with either or both of them on the practical consequences of their conclusion.
The question the Lebanese are asking is what political price the Saudis will pay to purchase Syrian flexibility on the government. When Saad Hariri began putting one together weeks ago, the United States and Egypt blocked a Syrian effort to bring the prime minister-designate to Damascus before a ministerial lineup was finalized. Hariri himself, reluctant to be pushed into the arms of his father’s killers, visited Cairo to gain Egyptian reinforcement. Press reports at the time said that Syria sought to sponsor inter-Lebanese reconciliation, as Qatar did last year. Its failure to achieve this aim led to the cancellation of a visit to Damascus by King Abdullah.
Since then several things have changed in the region. The Saudi priority remains the containment of Iran, one reason why the kingdom hoped that a rapprochement with Syria would help break the Assad regime away from Tehran. But the situation today is even more complicated. In October, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, will begin discussions in Geneva with Iran on its nuclear program. At the same time, the priority of the United States in Iraq is disengagement, leading the Obama administration to advocate an Iraqi-Syrian dialogue, even though US officials admit that Syria continues to allow jihadists through its territory on their way to Iraq.
As Saudi Arabia watches the Americans cutting back their involvement in Iraq while simultaneously striving to reconcile Damascus with Baghdad to facilitate their departure, the kingdom’s leadership may have concluded three things: that once the US is gone from Iraq, Saudi Arabia will be on its own in facing a Shia-dominated, oil-rich state to its north, as well as a resurgent Iran that already holds considerable leverage in the Gulf.
Second, that it makes little sense for the kingdom to allow its dispute with Syria to fester, since the Assad regime can be of use in destabilizing Iraq, thereby preventing the consolidation of a Shia-led order there, particularly one over which Iran has great influence.
And third, that if the Saudis and the Syrians are to improve their relationship, it might be necessary to give Syria much more of what it seeks, namely a decisive political say in Lebanon. Left unsaid in that equation is that Iran may disapprove, since Lebanon is much more an Iranian card today, thanks to Tehran’s control over Hezbollah, than it is a Syrian one. But the flip side of that implicit Iranian rebuff is that Saudi Arabia, in order to contain Iran and Hezbollah, may feel that the best way to do so is through some form of Syrian return to Lebanon.
If that is indeed what the Saudis are thinking, which remains to be proven, we may face difficult times ahead. On the other hand the kingdom is sensitive to the worries in Washington and Cairo. Up to now nothing indicates that the Obama administration has agreed to surrender Lebanon to Syria in order to thwart Iran. Nor that Egypt intends to give Assad a break in Lebanon, when Syria has persistently blocked a breakthrough in Egyptian-sponsored inter-Palestinian talks in Cairo.
However, how long will that last? If Barack Obama moves toward benign neglect in the broader Middle East, because he just cannot get anything done in the region, then Lebanon will fall even lower on the American priorities list. That’s what Syria is banking on. As for Egypt, its ability to derail a Syrian-Saudi rapprochement is limited, while Washington’s abandonment of the peace process if it continues to go nowhere will further undermine Cairo’s importance. Syria is banking on that as well.
Lebanon may have a government sooner rather than later. The real issue, however, is whether the government will be truly Lebanese, or merely a compromise between different regional states now managing their sundry alliances and animosities. The near-certainty is that it will be the second, driving another nail into the coffin of our emancipation.
Hizbullah: still strong, getting weaker
As the permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, prepare for a dialogue with Iran in October over its nuclear program, Hizbullah is closely watching what happens. The party will almost certainly be at the vanguard of Iranian retaliation for an attack against its nuclear facilities, but it must also be ambivalent, because the political and social environment in Lebanon today does not favor Hizbullah’s entering into a new border conflict.
At three levels – the tactical military level in southern Lebanon, that of the Shiite community at large, and Hizbullah’s relationship with the rest of Lebanese society – genuine difficulties are looming for the party, even if it is stronger than ever militarily and its popularity among Shiites is intact.
One needn’t be a military expert to grasp that the next war against Israel will be very different for Hizbullah than the last one. By most accounts the party’s arsenal has been upgraded. It may well have anti-aircraft missiles today, some are suggesting the SAM-24 (Igla-S), and the secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has warned that if Beirut’s southern suburbs are bombed, Hizbullah will respond by firing missiles at Tel Aviv. Israel, in turn, is training units to enter Lebanon, displaying a greater willingness to engage in a ground war than in 2006. The Israelis are also likely to devastate Lebanese infrastructure, particularly the electricity network, so that what they did three years ago may seem tame in comparison.
What would this mean for Hizbullah’s ability to fire rockets at Israel? The party is setting up its main defensive line north of the Litani, near Jezzine. However, some observers point to the fact that Hizbullah relies considerably on short-range rockets for its deterrence capability, rockets it can fire from primitive launching pads south of the Litani. They argue that the party’s military infrastructure in the area has, of necessity, been thinned out since 2006 after the deployment of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL, so that even once-closed military zones such as Wadi Hujayr are now open to traffic. That’s why, these observers believe, Hizbullah will not have the same capability of firing rockets that it did three years ago, let alone to defend against Israeli incursions to prevent the launches.
As for the longer-range missiles, there remains some question of how extensively Hizbullah can rely on them. Given Nasrallah’s threats, these would effectively become strategic weapons, targeting Israeli cities and infrastructure, so their use would introduce frightening military realities that Hizbullah would have to withstand and defend domestically. For example, we can assume that if Tel Aviv is bombed, so too will be central Beirut, and it’s not at all clear that Hizbullah could sustain such an escalation politically and militarily for very long. On top of that, who would be launching these missiles, Lebanese or Iranians? If it’s the latter, Lebanon would be the front line in a regional battle, which neither the Shiite community nor other Lebanese would welcome.
Which takes us to the second obstacle Hizbullah must face: that put up by its own community. The party still dominates the Shiites, but as a visit to southern Lebanon will show, Hizbullah must address a more subtle challenge to its priorities, that provided by normalcy. Nasrallah dodged a bullet in summer 2006 by containing Shiite discontent following a month when hundreds of thousands of his coreligionists were turned into internal refugees. The secretary general showed psychological flair by declaring that shipwreck a “divine victory,” a notion the Shiites embraced because it lent meaning to their suffering. But Nasrallah can only play that game once.
We are almost a decade into the Shiite return to the South after Israel’s military withdrawal, a decade in which its inhabitants have been leading a more or less normal life, or aspiring to do so. Yet the destruction from 2006 is everywhere visible – the market of Bint Jbeil, for example, is still being rebuilt. Hizbullah has placed posters of its martyrs in every village, but even that perennial reminder of the debt owed by the community to the party cannot forever displace a Shiite yearning for a life without fear.
There is an assumption that the way Hizbullah “packages” a war with Israel will determine how Shiites react to it. In other words if Israel is perceived as the clear culprit, the community will remain loyal to Hizbullah, whatever the consequences. Perhaps, but it will not be easy for the party to disguise retaliation in defense of Iran with another pretext. Nor will Hizbullah readily dispel a disquieting feeling among Shiites that the party, for all the advantages it brings to the community, every few years demands a prohibitive blood tax in exchange.
Then there is Hizbullah’s relation with Lebanon in general. The party has perfected a persona of indifference to Lebanese preferences disputing the imperatives of resistance, but it also knows that its countrymen will virulently oppose any new conflict, particularly one on behalf of the regime in Tehran, which could undermine Hizbullah’s status. That was one message from the March 14 victory in the June elections, in many respects a vote against Michel Aoun for his alliance with Hizbullah. But the party is also paying for May 2008, when it overran western Beirut and tried doing so in the mountains. That enterprise may have won Hizbullah a temporary victory against unarmed civilians, but what it really did was sweep away any national consensus in support of its armed struggle.
A postwar Lebanon would be nothing like the one that emerged in August 2006, which nonetheless defied Hizbullah for over 18 months. This new Lebanon, battered, impoverished, bitter, could well demand a final showdown with the project of a party that cannot possibly coexist with the project of a sovereign state. This begs the question: Might Israel precipitate a pre-emptive strike to take advantage of the Lebanese contradictions? It’s possible, and we’re not doing the slightest thing to prevent this.
At three levels – the tactical military level in southern Lebanon, that of the Shiite community at large, and Hizbullah’s relationship with the rest of Lebanese society – genuine difficulties are looming for the party, even if it is stronger than ever militarily and its popularity among Shiites is intact.
One needn’t be a military expert to grasp that the next war against Israel will be very different for Hizbullah than the last one. By most accounts the party’s arsenal has been upgraded. It may well have anti-aircraft missiles today, some are suggesting the SAM-24 (Igla-S), and the secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has warned that if Beirut’s southern suburbs are bombed, Hizbullah will respond by firing missiles at Tel Aviv. Israel, in turn, is training units to enter Lebanon, displaying a greater willingness to engage in a ground war than in 2006. The Israelis are also likely to devastate Lebanese infrastructure, particularly the electricity network, so that what they did three years ago may seem tame in comparison.
What would this mean for Hizbullah’s ability to fire rockets at Israel? The party is setting up its main defensive line north of the Litani, near Jezzine. However, some observers point to the fact that Hizbullah relies considerably on short-range rockets for its deterrence capability, rockets it can fire from primitive launching pads south of the Litani. They argue that the party’s military infrastructure in the area has, of necessity, been thinned out since 2006 after the deployment of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL, so that even once-closed military zones such as Wadi Hujayr are now open to traffic. That’s why, these observers believe, Hizbullah will not have the same capability of firing rockets that it did three years ago, let alone to defend against Israeli incursions to prevent the launches.
As for the longer-range missiles, there remains some question of how extensively Hizbullah can rely on them. Given Nasrallah’s threats, these would effectively become strategic weapons, targeting Israeli cities and infrastructure, so their use would introduce frightening military realities that Hizbullah would have to withstand and defend domestically. For example, we can assume that if Tel Aviv is bombed, so too will be central Beirut, and it’s not at all clear that Hizbullah could sustain such an escalation politically and militarily for very long. On top of that, who would be launching these missiles, Lebanese or Iranians? If it’s the latter, Lebanon would be the front line in a regional battle, which neither the Shiite community nor other Lebanese would welcome.
Which takes us to the second obstacle Hizbullah must face: that put up by its own community. The party still dominates the Shiites, but as a visit to southern Lebanon will show, Hizbullah must address a more subtle challenge to its priorities, that provided by normalcy. Nasrallah dodged a bullet in summer 2006 by containing Shiite discontent following a month when hundreds of thousands of his coreligionists were turned into internal refugees. The secretary general showed psychological flair by declaring that shipwreck a “divine victory,” a notion the Shiites embraced because it lent meaning to their suffering. But Nasrallah can only play that game once.
We are almost a decade into the Shiite return to the South after Israel’s military withdrawal, a decade in which its inhabitants have been leading a more or less normal life, or aspiring to do so. Yet the destruction from 2006 is everywhere visible – the market of Bint Jbeil, for example, is still being rebuilt. Hizbullah has placed posters of its martyrs in every village, but even that perennial reminder of the debt owed by the community to the party cannot forever displace a Shiite yearning for a life without fear.
There is an assumption that the way Hizbullah “packages” a war with Israel will determine how Shiites react to it. In other words if Israel is perceived as the clear culprit, the community will remain loyal to Hizbullah, whatever the consequences. Perhaps, but it will not be easy for the party to disguise retaliation in defense of Iran with another pretext. Nor will Hizbullah readily dispel a disquieting feeling among Shiites that the party, for all the advantages it brings to the community, every few years demands a prohibitive blood tax in exchange.
Then there is Hizbullah’s relation with Lebanon in general. The party has perfected a persona of indifference to Lebanese preferences disputing the imperatives of resistance, but it also knows that its countrymen will virulently oppose any new conflict, particularly one on behalf of the regime in Tehran, which could undermine Hizbullah’s status. That was one message from the March 14 victory in the June elections, in many respects a vote against Michel Aoun for his alliance with Hizbullah. But the party is also paying for May 2008, when it overran western Beirut and tried doing so in the mountains. That enterprise may have won Hizbullah a temporary victory against unarmed civilians, but what it really did was sweep away any national consensus in support of its armed struggle.
A postwar Lebanon would be nothing like the one that emerged in August 2006, which nonetheless defied Hizbullah for over 18 months. This new Lebanon, battered, impoverished, bitter, could well demand a final showdown with the project of a party that cannot possibly coexist with the project of a sovereign state. This begs the question: Might Israel precipitate a pre-emptive strike to take advantage of the Lebanese contradictions? It’s possible, and we’re not doing the slightest thing to prevent this.
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