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The death this week of US diplomat Richard Holbrooke has provided some instructive lessons about the transformation in American foreign policy during the last decade and a half.
I still recall the galvanizing scene in 1994 being broadcast from Dayton, Ohio, where the Clinton administration had just put the finishing touches to a peace deal for Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was more than anything else Holbrooke’s triumph, as he succeeded in bludgeoning hard men like Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman (as well as the leader of the Bosnian Muslims, Alija Izetbegovic) into accepting an American-sponsored accord.
At one point there was a commotion, as Holbrooke stood on the rostrum announcing the results. It was European envoy Carl Bildt, co-chairman of the Dayton conference, walking away from the stage in a huff, clearly fed up with Holbrooke for stealing the show. No one could ever accuse the late American diplomat of missing such an opportunity, but the scene spoke volumes of the Europeans’ failure to bring about peace in their own back yard. The termination of the ruinous war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was very much America’s doing.
Cut to Holbrooke’s final assignment, as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. There, the diplomat seemed mislaid in a policy that remains a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. US President Barack Obama has sought a victory in Afghanistan, but would be satisfied with a draw, which may well lead to a defeat. And to prove his long-term commitment to the Afghans, the US president is dedicated to begin withdrawing troops by as soon as next summer. And though the fight may be in Afghanistan, the victory lies in Pakistan, but success is proving so difficult in Pakistan, that America’s determination to stick it out in Afghanistan is waning rapidly.
You get the point. Or perhaps not.
You could say many things about the former US president, Bill Clinton, but when he finally, and very reluctantly and shamefacedly, sank his teeth into resolving the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He gave Holbrooke and the US military the latitude they needed to bring home a solution. With Obama, however, Holbrooke was one among what usually seemed to be too many cooks – between the US ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry (with whom Holbrooke clashed), General David Petraeus, the military commander in Afghanistan, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose briefs all involve blending politics with military policy.
Holbrooke was too experienced not to know a stumbling thing when he saw it. Obama’s Afghan-Pakistan plan was surely too hazy for a man of sharp angles, and it seems he was less and less convinced by his mission. Near the end, after being rushed to the hospital, a doctor told him to relax. He allegedly joked that it was difficult to relax given his worries about the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan – one of those smart-alecky answers that probably revealed genuine concern.
To get a sense of the foreign policy Holbrooke felt most comfortable with, we should recall that he helped the late Clark Clifford, an advisor to numerous Democratic presidents, write his memoirs during the 1980s. Clifford was among the smoothest mandarins of the postwar American empire – a lawyer who could make the big deals and clean up the small messes. But he was also the personification of American foreign policy pragmatism during the Cold War, of the famed bipartisan consensus, someone who could glide effortlessly between Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, between money and political authority. Inherent in such individuals was a conceit that the United States could place its rationalism and goodwill at the service of power; that while idealism may have been an illusion, there were certain ways of doing things overseas – calm, collected ways – and that they, as individuals, were best equipped to recommend those ways.
There was certainly smugness here, but also considerably less confusion about what the United States represented. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Clinton had wanted to steer away from the conflict, but the brutish siege of Sarajevo and the butchery in Srebrenica had brought him around. He couldn’t resist the public condemnation that his unresponsiveness to human suffering was bringing down on his shoulders. So, politically, he changed tack; but he also did so because he had to satisfy an ambient sense of what the US stood for.
You have to ask whether Barack Obama, in his haste to accelerate the American departure from Iraq, while outlining a similar process in Afghanistan, has such a sense? Holbrooke was no romantic naïf standing against Obama’s heartlessness when it came to foreign matters. The president is facing difficult times. But Obama does frequently look like a vicar counting his alms, when Holbrooke was made of larger, more combustible material. His fire was a sense of what America could get right, not what America has done wrong.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The canard of regime change in Syria
Recently, the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, offered up an interpretation that he has frequently repeated since moving closer to Syria and taking his distance from the United States.
Jumblatt was responding to my column last week on a WikiLeaks cable mentioning that in 2006, Serge Brammertz, the second UN commissioner investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, had basically admitted to the US ambassador in Beirut, Jeffrey Feltman, that he was focusing on Syrian participation in the crime. For the Druze leader, that mention was a return to the “tone of Condoleezza Rice and others and the neoconservatives [favoring] regime change,” by which he meant regime change in Syria. “The Syrian people and Syria decide what they want,” Jumblatt added.
That’s no doubt true, however it is equally true, with the benefit of hindsight, that the Bush administration never sought regime change in Damascus. Some in Beirut did, but Washington never seriously pursued such a foolhardy project, nor did it indicate the contrary.
How would the US have changed the regime of President Bashar Assad anyway? Presumably, it would have had to send into Syria the American armed forces, namely those stationed in neighboring Iraq. But as we now know from countless sources, including Bob Woodward’s 2006 book “State of Denial,” the thinking at the Pentagon went in precisely the opposite direction. From the start, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saw Iraq as a short-term venture for the armed forces – a matter of a few months, no more. That is why the secretary resisted for so long an expansion in the number of troops that might have stabilized the Iraqi situation much sooner.
The military hierarchy knew that President George W. Bush’s declaration of an end to combat operations in Iraq was a farce. Therefore, it also grasped that there was a hard slog ahead. Not only was there no appetite in Washington to expand the war to Syria, there was no intention from the military in Baghdad to permit such a slide. In fact even when it came to controlling the open Iraqi-Syrian border, through which suicide bombers were passing, the Americans were surprisingly unobtrusive. Aside from a few high-profile operations, the military didn’t have the manpower to exert sustained local pressure on Syria, let alone conceive of something more ambitious.
Proponents of the regime-change theory might respond that even if the Bush administration was not plotting to overthrow Assad through force, it was looking to set up the conditions for a domestic upheaval, perhaps a coup. Possibly. The US would not have saved the Assad regime had it fallen from the weight of its own ills. But that doesn’t qualify as regime change. Nor does it take into account the strangely resilient conviction in Washington that, for all its shortcomings, Assad’s rule is better than a Sunni-led Islamist alternative. Assad, quite effectively, has played on this line, and although nothing makes an Islamist regime in Damascus inevitable, American officials have bought into that fear, because it is what they witnessed in Iraq.
According to those who argue that the US supported regime change indirectly, by weakening Syria elsewhere, events in Lebanon between 2004 and 2005 take on central importance. Passage of Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, is Exhibit A in this contention. However, it only tells us half the story. While the US and France did seek to get the ball rolling on a Syrian pullout from Lebanon in 2004, and while Assad read this as a potential threat to his leadership at home, and responded in kind by extending Emile Lahoud’s mandate in Beirut, one key item is missing.
As Feltman once explained in an interview, “[T]hose of us working most closely on the Lebanon file focused on not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.” If the US could not force the Syrians out of Lebanon in one stage, it would not hinder this effort by avoiding doing so in several stages, the primary aim being to allow relatively free and fair elections in 2005 without the Syrians present. “And this desire for better parliamentary elections led to what was the real focus in late 2004 and early 2005: persuading the Syrians to pull back their occupying troops deep into the Bekaa Valley, so that elections in most of Lebanon could have been relatively free and fair.”
This was a return to what had been agreed at Taif on the future of the Syrian military presence, though with deeper Syrian redeployments. One of the advocates of a step-by-step Syrian movement away from Lebanon’s populated areas was Jumblatt. The Syrians were well aware of American thinking – of the Bush administration’s willingness to allow a continuation of their presence in Lebanon, albeit on the country’s periphery. That helps explain their calculations when deciding what to do about Hariri. But one thing it also did was reassure Assad that he could maneuver. Rather than assuming that his regime was under threat, he grasped by early 2005 that the US and France were willing to cut him some slack in Beirut.
Which leads us to the investigation of Hariri’s murder and the subsequent establishment of a tribunal to judge the guilty. It is odd that those who believe the US hoped to bring about regime change in Damascus through the investigative process would, for example, point to the Brammertz-Feltman meeting to bolster their argument. The reality is that Brammertz did not substantially move ahead in the Hariri investigation, as numerous sources now confirm. Whether he did this on purpose is an open question, but the US never twisted the commissioner’s arm to speed up his work. If anything, Washington was painfully respectful of Brammertz’s independence, even though there was growing evidence that he was getting nowhere.
Jumblatt has described the diplomatic information released by WikiLeaks as proof of the failed US policies in the Middle East. In retrospect, we now know that the Americans had more pressing goals in the region than replacing Syria’s leadership. Jumblatt, who says he is relieved to be with Syria again, should thank them for their failure.
Jumblatt was responding to my column last week on a WikiLeaks cable mentioning that in 2006, Serge Brammertz, the second UN commissioner investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, had basically admitted to the US ambassador in Beirut, Jeffrey Feltman, that he was focusing on Syrian participation in the crime. For the Druze leader, that mention was a return to the “tone of Condoleezza Rice and others and the neoconservatives [favoring] regime change,” by which he meant regime change in Syria. “The Syrian people and Syria decide what they want,” Jumblatt added.
That’s no doubt true, however it is equally true, with the benefit of hindsight, that the Bush administration never sought regime change in Damascus. Some in Beirut did, but Washington never seriously pursued such a foolhardy project, nor did it indicate the contrary.
How would the US have changed the regime of President Bashar Assad anyway? Presumably, it would have had to send into Syria the American armed forces, namely those stationed in neighboring Iraq. But as we now know from countless sources, including Bob Woodward’s 2006 book “State of Denial,” the thinking at the Pentagon went in precisely the opposite direction. From the start, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saw Iraq as a short-term venture for the armed forces – a matter of a few months, no more. That is why the secretary resisted for so long an expansion in the number of troops that might have stabilized the Iraqi situation much sooner.
The military hierarchy knew that President George W. Bush’s declaration of an end to combat operations in Iraq was a farce. Therefore, it also grasped that there was a hard slog ahead. Not only was there no appetite in Washington to expand the war to Syria, there was no intention from the military in Baghdad to permit such a slide. In fact even when it came to controlling the open Iraqi-Syrian border, through which suicide bombers were passing, the Americans were surprisingly unobtrusive. Aside from a few high-profile operations, the military didn’t have the manpower to exert sustained local pressure on Syria, let alone conceive of something more ambitious.
Proponents of the regime-change theory might respond that even if the Bush administration was not plotting to overthrow Assad through force, it was looking to set up the conditions for a domestic upheaval, perhaps a coup. Possibly. The US would not have saved the Assad regime had it fallen from the weight of its own ills. But that doesn’t qualify as regime change. Nor does it take into account the strangely resilient conviction in Washington that, for all its shortcomings, Assad’s rule is better than a Sunni-led Islamist alternative. Assad, quite effectively, has played on this line, and although nothing makes an Islamist regime in Damascus inevitable, American officials have bought into that fear, because it is what they witnessed in Iraq.
According to those who argue that the US supported regime change indirectly, by weakening Syria elsewhere, events in Lebanon between 2004 and 2005 take on central importance. Passage of Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, is Exhibit A in this contention. However, it only tells us half the story. While the US and France did seek to get the ball rolling on a Syrian pullout from Lebanon in 2004, and while Assad read this as a potential threat to his leadership at home, and responded in kind by extending Emile Lahoud’s mandate in Beirut, one key item is missing.
As Feltman once explained in an interview, “[T]hose of us working most closely on the Lebanon file focused on not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.” If the US could not force the Syrians out of Lebanon in one stage, it would not hinder this effort by avoiding doing so in several stages, the primary aim being to allow relatively free and fair elections in 2005 without the Syrians present. “And this desire for better parliamentary elections led to what was the real focus in late 2004 and early 2005: persuading the Syrians to pull back their occupying troops deep into the Bekaa Valley, so that elections in most of Lebanon could have been relatively free and fair.”
This was a return to what had been agreed at Taif on the future of the Syrian military presence, though with deeper Syrian redeployments. One of the advocates of a step-by-step Syrian movement away from Lebanon’s populated areas was Jumblatt. The Syrians were well aware of American thinking – of the Bush administration’s willingness to allow a continuation of their presence in Lebanon, albeit on the country’s periphery. That helps explain their calculations when deciding what to do about Hariri. But one thing it also did was reassure Assad that he could maneuver. Rather than assuming that his regime was under threat, he grasped by early 2005 that the US and France were willing to cut him some slack in Beirut.
Which leads us to the investigation of Hariri’s murder and the subsequent establishment of a tribunal to judge the guilty. It is odd that those who believe the US hoped to bring about regime change in Damascus through the investigative process would, for example, point to the Brammertz-Feltman meeting to bolster their argument. The reality is that Brammertz did not substantially move ahead in the Hariri investigation, as numerous sources now confirm. Whether he did this on purpose is an open question, but the US never twisted the commissioner’s arm to speed up his work. If anything, Washington was painfully respectful of Brammertz’s independence, even though there was growing evidence that he was getting nowhere.
Jumblatt has described the diplomatic information released by WikiLeaks as proof of the failed US policies in the Middle East. In retrospect, we now know that the Americans had more pressing goals in the region than replacing Syria’s leadership. Jumblatt, who says he is relieved to be with Syria again, should thank them for their failure.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thanks a lot, Julian Assange
How many people can seriously say that they regret reading through the American diplomatic cables currently being distributed and uploaded by the WikiLeaks website? For journalists, the documents are a fountain that just keeps giving; for historians, a useful corrective to interpretative ambiguities about past events. For everyone, they provide a valuable window into how the US government functions.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has both been hailed as a champion of free speech and condemned as an irresponsible jerk, even a criminal. But how does he view himself, and his endeavors? In The Australian this week, Assange took a broadly libertarian approach in explaining why he has leaked US diplomatic and military documents. “Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media,” he wrote. “The media helps keep government honest.”
Assange explained, “WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?”
Uncovering the truth is an ambition that most honest observers of politics seek to fulfill. However, there are three major problems with Assange’s disclosure of the American diplomatic cables, but also American war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq. The first is fairly straightforward, and has been widely debated. The release of the documents risks the lives of America’s foreign sources or informants if their names are not concealed. Assange has defended himself poorly in this regard. Although he claims that no one has been harmed because of the publication of names, the evidence suggests otherwise.
According to a portrait of Assange in the New York Times, for instance, the Taliban have prepared a wanted list of 1,800 Afghans whom they consider traitors. A Taliban spokesperson told the newspaper that a nine-member commission had been formed to examine the names of “spies” whose identities were divulged in the Afghan war logs released by WikiLeaks, and was checking these against the names on the wanted list. Even people within the WikiLeaks organization have clashed with Assange over his reckless refusal to delete names in many documents.
A second problem is that even though WikiLeaks has put out some documents not related to the United States, by far the most significant material the website has publicized addresses American foreign policy concerns. That is, perhaps, understandable, since Assange was lucky enough to receive a treasure trove of papers and videos downloaded by an American soldier, Bradley Manning. But Assange has also openly expressed his hostility to the US, telling the New York Times that it was increasingly a “militarized society and a threat to democracy”. He also noted, “we have been attacked by the United States, so we are forced into a position where we must defend ourselves.”
That begs the question: Is Assange out to keep government and media honest, or is he out to punish the United States? He might answer that he is pursuing both aims, but today the second is being achieved at the expense of the first, especially in the Middle East. Partisan media outlets here are printing and highlighting only those cables that support their political line, and most of them are doing so by focusing on the links between their political enemies and Washington. In no way have the WikiLeaks leaks improved media behavior. On the contrary.
A third problem is that Assange, in his The Australian article, describes himself as following in the line of his fellow Australian Queenslanders, who “[speak] their minds bluntly” and “[distrust] big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully”.
Sure, big government corrupts, but does Assange really believe that his release of diplomatic documents will do anything but spur Washington to expand its powers? The Obama administration is already throwing its weight around to compel Sweden to extradite Assange; and given American anger over the leaks, we can now expect information to be more tightly controlled by the US government, and officials to be less willing to talk to journalists, than ever before. The leaks won’t help make the US government more open and accountable; they practically ensure that it will be excessively suspicious, imperious and secretive.
So what do we really have with the leak of diplomatic cables? An America that feels, with some justification, that Assange’s prime objective is to humiliate it and impair its information gathering capacities. We have an America more likely to bolster its substantial ability to curb the dissemination of information, while punishing those who dissent. And we have media all over the world behaving like sharks in a feeding frenzy, acting even less responsibly than they normally do.
All we can say to that is thanks a lot Julian Assange.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has both been hailed as a champion of free speech and condemned as an irresponsible jerk, even a criminal. But how does he view himself, and his endeavors? In The Australian this week, Assange took a broadly libertarian approach in explaining why he has leaked US diplomatic and military documents. “Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media,” he wrote. “The media helps keep government honest.”
Assange explained, “WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?”
Uncovering the truth is an ambition that most honest observers of politics seek to fulfill. However, there are three major problems with Assange’s disclosure of the American diplomatic cables, but also American war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq. The first is fairly straightforward, and has been widely debated. The release of the documents risks the lives of America’s foreign sources or informants if their names are not concealed. Assange has defended himself poorly in this regard. Although he claims that no one has been harmed because of the publication of names, the evidence suggests otherwise.
According to a portrait of Assange in the New York Times, for instance, the Taliban have prepared a wanted list of 1,800 Afghans whom they consider traitors. A Taliban spokesperson told the newspaper that a nine-member commission had been formed to examine the names of “spies” whose identities were divulged in the Afghan war logs released by WikiLeaks, and was checking these against the names on the wanted list. Even people within the WikiLeaks organization have clashed with Assange over his reckless refusal to delete names in many documents.
A second problem is that even though WikiLeaks has put out some documents not related to the United States, by far the most significant material the website has publicized addresses American foreign policy concerns. That is, perhaps, understandable, since Assange was lucky enough to receive a treasure trove of papers and videos downloaded by an American soldier, Bradley Manning. But Assange has also openly expressed his hostility to the US, telling the New York Times that it was increasingly a “militarized society and a threat to democracy”. He also noted, “we have been attacked by the United States, so we are forced into a position where we must defend ourselves.”
That begs the question: Is Assange out to keep government and media honest, or is he out to punish the United States? He might answer that he is pursuing both aims, but today the second is being achieved at the expense of the first, especially in the Middle East. Partisan media outlets here are printing and highlighting only those cables that support their political line, and most of them are doing so by focusing on the links between their political enemies and Washington. In no way have the WikiLeaks leaks improved media behavior. On the contrary.
A third problem is that Assange, in his The Australian article, describes himself as following in the line of his fellow Australian Queenslanders, who “[speak] their minds bluntly” and “[distrust] big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully”.
Sure, big government corrupts, but does Assange really believe that his release of diplomatic documents will do anything but spur Washington to expand its powers? The Obama administration is already throwing its weight around to compel Sweden to extradite Assange; and given American anger over the leaks, we can now expect information to be more tightly controlled by the US government, and officials to be less willing to talk to journalists, than ever before. The leaks won’t help make the US government more open and accountable; they practically ensure that it will be excessively suspicious, imperious and secretive.
So what do we really have with the leak of diplomatic cables? An America that feels, with some justification, that Assange’s prime objective is to humiliate it and impair its information gathering capacities. We have an America more likely to bolster its substantial ability to curb the dissemination of information, while punishing those who dissent. And we have media all over the world behaving like sharks in a feeding frenzy, acting even less responsibly than they normally do.
All we can say to that is thanks a lot Julian Assange.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
A WikiLeaks warning to Damascus
A diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Star earlier this week helps illustrate the precariousness of Syria’s position, as it instructs its allies to push the Lebanese government to discuss the matter of “false witnesses.”
In the cable, written in 2006, Jeffrey Feltman, the US ambassador to Lebanon, reported that the head of the United Nations International Independent Investigative Commission (UNIIIC), Serge Brammertz, had told him the following: “Syria has five different security apparatuses. I can’t imagine that an order came down from [President Bashar Assad] and worked its way through all the security services and until they killed Hariri.” Brammertz then clarified that thought: “If anything, you probably had one security service involved, and the order came from on high and, how high, we’ll have to figure out.”
What Brammertz appeared to be saying was fairly straightforward, for those who recall the security hierarchy at the time in Damascus. Aside from admitting that he was focusing on Syrian involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the commissioner was making an operational observation: It was likely one Syrian security service that had taken part in the crime, by which Brammertz probably meant military intelligence, at the time headed by Assad’s brother in law. The commissioner was merely declaring it unlikely that the entire gamut of Syrian intelligence services were in on the killing of the former Lebanese prime minister; and he was uncertain how far up the chain of command the order to eliminate Hariri had come from.
Far from being a declaration of Syrian innocence, the cable confirms that in 2006 UNIIIC was still convinced that Syria had participated in the Hariri assassination. Sources in UNIIIC have since corroborated this, as did, implicitly, Brammertz’s first report issued in March 2006. The commissioner wrote in the document that investigators believed “there is a layer of perpetrators between those who initially commissioned the crime and the actual perpetrators on the day of the crime, namely those who enabled the crime to occur.”
If we assume, as we must, that the perpetrator was a suicide bomber; and if the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Daniel Bellemare, indicts Hizbullah members for having enabled the crime, that still does not answer who commissioned the crime. It was precisely on that question that Brammertz was exchanging views with Feltman, and his remarks, if we are to believe the cable leaked by WikiLeaks, shows in what direction he hoped to point the finger.
But then he never did. However, the Syrians are not reassured. They realize that although Bellemare’s initial indictments might not touch them, there are no guarantees that subsequent indictments will not do so if the trial opens up new investigative avenues. No one in Damascus can be certain of what lies ahead. There is much testimony in Bellemare’s files collected by the first UNIIIC commissioner, Detlev Mehlis, pointing in the direction of Syria, even if the relative lack of progress during Brammertz’s term creates serious doubts about whether Bellemare would have enough to draft solid indictments.
The Syrians appear to be pursuing two simultaneous objectives with the aim of reviving their supremacy in Lebanon: acceptance by the Lebanese government of measures casting doubt on the credibility of the tribunal for the period after indictments are issued; and avoidance of a debilitating Lebanese confrontation over the tribunal before the legal accusations come out, because Damascus grasps that the indictments would allow it to play Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Hizbullah off against each other, to Syria’s own advantage.
That appears to be one reason why the Syrians have instructed the speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, to undermine efforts by President Michel Sleiman to deal with the “false witnesses” file in the national dialogue sessions. The president wants to buy time, but the Syrian gambit doesn’t allow for much time. And the last thing Bashar Assad wants is for his Lebanese counterpart to act as an effective mediator between the Lebanese, because he covets that role for himself.
Syrian intentions continue to be a matter of debate. Recently, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, told a Kuwaiti newspaper that Syria had no intention of returning to Lebanon militarily, “no matter how difficult the situation becomes.” There seemed more than a hint of sour grapes and menace in that phrase, against the backdrop of Walid Jumblatt’s statements that if there is instability in Lebanon, the return of the Syrian army would be desirable. Syria would relish the opportunity to bring its soldiers back. The problem is that virtually everyone opposes this, including in all probability Iran and Hizbullah, who have extensive control over the commanding heights of Lebanon’s major security institutions.
Sleiman’s performance is another Syrian preoccupation. Because of the polarization in Lebanon, room has been created for the president to fill the vacuum. However, his leading ministers have taken hits lately. Interior Minister Ziad Baroud has been criticized by pro-Hariri politicians, while Elias Murr has had to fend off criticism for indirectly offering advice to Israel in the event it attacked Lebanon – information contained in a US cable leaked to the pro-Hizbullah Al-Akhbar. Sleiman is the vulnerable man in the middle, and everyone is trying to shove the president in one direction or the other, reminding him that his share in any new government might be reduced.
It’s an upward climb for Syria in Lebanon. The Feltman cable, though it tells us nothing we didn’t know, will concentrate minds in Damascus, where the urge to both undermine the tribunal and use it as a lever to enhance Syrian influence in Beirut has imposed a subtle balancing act. Mekdad stated that Syria didn’t seek a military return to Lebanon, but he omitted any mention of a political return. Michel Sleiman’s isolation underscores the significance of that exclusion.
In the cable, written in 2006, Jeffrey Feltman, the US ambassador to Lebanon, reported that the head of the United Nations International Independent Investigative Commission (UNIIIC), Serge Brammertz, had told him the following: “Syria has five different security apparatuses. I can’t imagine that an order came down from [President Bashar Assad] and worked its way through all the security services and until they killed Hariri.” Brammertz then clarified that thought: “If anything, you probably had one security service involved, and the order came from on high and, how high, we’ll have to figure out.”
What Brammertz appeared to be saying was fairly straightforward, for those who recall the security hierarchy at the time in Damascus. Aside from admitting that he was focusing on Syrian involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the commissioner was making an operational observation: It was likely one Syrian security service that had taken part in the crime, by which Brammertz probably meant military intelligence, at the time headed by Assad’s brother in law. The commissioner was merely declaring it unlikely that the entire gamut of Syrian intelligence services were in on the killing of the former Lebanese prime minister; and he was uncertain how far up the chain of command the order to eliminate Hariri had come from.
Far from being a declaration of Syrian innocence, the cable confirms that in 2006 UNIIIC was still convinced that Syria had participated in the Hariri assassination. Sources in UNIIIC have since corroborated this, as did, implicitly, Brammertz’s first report issued in March 2006. The commissioner wrote in the document that investigators believed “there is a layer of perpetrators between those who initially commissioned the crime and the actual perpetrators on the day of the crime, namely those who enabled the crime to occur.”
If we assume, as we must, that the perpetrator was a suicide bomber; and if the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Daniel Bellemare, indicts Hizbullah members for having enabled the crime, that still does not answer who commissioned the crime. It was precisely on that question that Brammertz was exchanging views with Feltman, and his remarks, if we are to believe the cable leaked by WikiLeaks, shows in what direction he hoped to point the finger.
But then he never did. However, the Syrians are not reassured. They realize that although Bellemare’s initial indictments might not touch them, there are no guarantees that subsequent indictments will not do so if the trial opens up new investigative avenues. No one in Damascus can be certain of what lies ahead. There is much testimony in Bellemare’s files collected by the first UNIIIC commissioner, Detlev Mehlis, pointing in the direction of Syria, even if the relative lack of progress during Brammertz’s term creates serious doubts about whether Bellemare would have enough to draft solid indictments.
The Syrians appear to be pursuing two simultaneous objectives with the aim of reviving their supremacy in Lebanon: acceptance by the Lebanese government of measures casting doubt on the credibility of the tribunal for the period after indictments are issued; and avoidance of a debilitating Lebanese confrontation over the tribunal before the legal accusations come out, because Damascus grasps that the indictments would allow it to play Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Hizbullah off against each other, to Syria’s own advantage.
That appears to be one reason why the Syrians have instructed the speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, to undermine efforts by President Michel Sleiman to deal with the “false witnesses” file in the national dialogue sessions. The president wants to buy time, but the Syrian gambit doesn’t allow for much time. And the last thing Bashar Assad wants is for his Lebanese counterpart to act as an effective mediator between the Lebanese, because he covets that role for himself.
Syrian intentions continue to be a matter of debate. Recently, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, told a Kuwaiti newspaper that Syria had no intention of returning to Lebanon militarily, “no matter how difficult the situation becomes.” There seemed more than a hint of sour grapes and menace in that phrase, against the backdrop of Walid Jumblatt’s statements that if there is instability in Lebanon, the return of the Syrian army would be desirable. Syria would relish the opportunity to bring its soldiers back. The problem is that virtually everyone opposes this, including in all probability Iran and Hizbullah, who have extensive control over the commanding heights of Lebanon’s major security institutions.
Sleiman’s performance is another Syrian preoccupation. Because of the polarization in Lebanon, room has been created for the president to fill the vacuum. However, his leading ministers have taken hits lately. Interior Minister Ziad Baroud has been criticized by pro-Hariri politicians, while Elias Murr has had to fend off criticism for indirectly offering advice to Israel in the event it attacked Lebanon – information contained in a US cable leaked to the pro-Hizbullah Al-Akhbar. Sleiman is the vulnerable man in the middle, and everyone is trying to shove the president in one direction or the other, reminding him that his share in any new government might be reduced.
It’s an upward climb for Syria in Lebanon. The Feltman cable, though it tells us nothing we didn’t know, will concentrate minds in Damascus, where the urge to both undermine the tribunal and use it as a lever to enhance Syrian influence in Beirut has imposed a subtle balancing act. Mekdad stated that Syria didn’t seek a military return to Lebanon, but he omitted any mention of a political return. Michel Sleiman’s isolation underscores the significance of that exclusion.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Hezbollah looks for an improbable exit
There is a view making the rounds that if Hezbollah members are indicted for their involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, ultimately the party will have no choice but to declare the individuals rogue operators, before distancing itself from them.
Yet how likely is this? The secretary general of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has declared such an outcome an impossibility, in response to an alleged offer from the prime minister, Saad Hariri, that the blame might be placed on the late Imad Mugniyah. However, Hariri’s predecessor, Fouad Siniora, who heads the prime minister’s parliamentary bloc, has hinted that some similar arrangement might be the only way out. Hezbollah need not be responsible for the actions of all of its members, he has repeatedly declared, indicating that the party’s foes would be willing to help it find an outlet to avoid accusations issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
The line of reasoning is this, and Siniora is not the only one pursuing it: Whatever Hezbollah does – bring down or hinder the government, resort to violence or street protests, or even organize a coup against the state – would only push the nail in deeper when it comes to the party’s guilt, without affecting indictments. Implicit in this argument is that Hariri alone has the latitude to grant Hezbollah a certificate of innocence, and that, therefore, some sort of negotiation would need to take place for him to save the party from legal condemnation.
There is something there. Certainly, it would be very difficult for Hezbollah to find a Sunni willing to take over from Hariri and scuttle Lebanese cooperation with the STL. No one doubts that the party can strike hard against the state, but it is equally apparent that this could have grave repercussions on civil peace and draw Hezbollah into a debilitating internal political conflict, maybe even a military one. On top of that, nothing ensures the army will approve. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander, Jean Kahwaji, would not welcome a new slap against his institution, particularly if this creates sectarian tension that pushes Sunni soldiers and officers to say enough is enough.
Assuming Hezbollah could be made to consider working with Hariri on an exit strategy for the party – again, no mean feat – what would negotiations seek to achieve? For an approximate answer, we need to know what each side seeks today. Hezbollah wants Hariri to take tangible steps, before indictments are issued, to dissociate Lebanon from the special tribunal and cast doubt on its legitimacy. The party is not asking Hariri to declare it innocent of Rafik Hariri’s assassination because that is the fundamental premise on which Hezbollah is basing its position, something self-evident, so that if any Hezbollah member is named, we must all assume the accusation is politicized.
Hariri, in turn, may be willing to go part of the way to cast some doubt on the tribunal process, particularly if he sees that the indictments may be problematic to prove in court. That is why he prefers to wait until after indictments are issued to decide. But one thing is almost certain: he will not take measures on the tribunal unless he is compelled to do so by his patrons in Saudi Arabia; and, most important, if the Saudis say nothing, he will refuse to delegitimize the institution unless he first extracts concessions from Hezbollah.
What might these concessions be? Hariri is well aware that any demand for the disarmament of Hezbollah is a non-starter. In fact, those close to the prime minister will often repeat that their objective is not to terminate the Resistance. What he might conceivably ask for, however, is some sort of guarantee that the party will put an end to its campaign of domestic intimidation, and perhaps even something more tangible: assurances that Hezbollah will no longer use its weapons in Beirut, limiting this to areas under its effective control.
The chances that such a quid pro quo might come about would be infinitely complicated by Syria, which has no desire to give Hariri any latitude to bargain with Hezbollah, or Hezbollah with Hariri. The Syrians hope to use the tension between the prime minister and the party over indictments as leverage to enhance their own power in Lebanon; and if there is any bargaining to be carried out over the tribunal, then Damascus wants to be the only broker. Then again, neither Hariri nor Nasrallah wants Syria to gain at his expense.
Therefore, is reaching a middle ground possible between Hariri and Hezbollah? It’s not easy to see how, particularly as the prime minister, even if he is one day willing to surrender something on the tribunal, he will not be able to block the trial process altogether. And yet, short of violence or enforcing a national stalemate, which will only harden the resolve on Hariri’s side, Hezbollah has no alternative to embracing a compromise. It could be that Siniora and Hariri are not that clear about what they hope to achieve from such a process, but are now seeking to push Hezbollah to the realization that negotiations are inevitable, in that way defusing the ambient tension. If the party accepts – a big if – then the exchanges could shape the consequences.
Siniora is right about one thing: all options are bad for Hezbollah when it comes to the Hariri case. The party is learning a hard lesson that the convoluted Lebanese sectarian system can strangle those who refuse to respect its ways. Missiles won’t help Hassan Nasrallah this time around. Few victories in Lebanon are ever divine.
Yet how likely is this? The secretary general of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has declared such an outcome an impossibility, in response to an alleged offer from the prime minister, Saad Hariri, that the blame might be placed on the late Imad Mugniyah. However, Hariri’s predecessor, Fouad Siniora, who heads the prime minister’s parliamentary bloc, has hinted that some similar arrangement might be the only way out. Hezbollah need not be responsible for the actions of all of its members, he has repeatedly declared, indicating that the party’s foes would be willing to help it find an outlet to avoid accusations issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
The line of reasoning is this, and Siniora is not the only one pursuing it: Whatever Hezbollah does – bring down or hinder the government, resort to violence or street protests, or even organize a coup against the state – would only push the nail in deeper when it comes to the party’s guilt, without affecting indictments. Implicit in this argument is that Hariri alone has the latitude to grant Hezbollah a certificate of innocence, and that, therefore, some sort of negotiation would need to take place for him to save the party from legal condemnation.
There is something there. Certainly, it would be very difficult for Hezbollah to find a Sunni willing to take over from Hariri and scuttle Lebanese cooperation with the STL. No one doubts that the party can strike hard against the state, but it is equally apparent that this could have grave repercussions on civil peace and draw Hezbollah into a debilitating internal political conflict, maybe even a military one. On top of that, nothing ensures the army will approve. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander, Jean Kahwaji, would not welcome a new slap against his institution, particularly if this creates sectarian tension that pushes Sunni soldiers and officers to say enough is enough.
Assuming Hezbollah could be made to consider working with Hariri on an exit strategy for the party – again, no mean feat – what would negotiations seek to achieve? For an approximate answer, we need to know what each side seeks today. Hezbollah wants Hariri to take tangible steps, before indictments are issued, to dissociate Lebanon from the special tribunal and cast doubt on its legitimacy. The party is not asking Hariri to declare it innocent of Rafik Hariri’s assassination because that is the fundamental premise on which Hezbollah is basing its position, something self-evident, so that if any Hezbollah member is named, we must all assume the accusation is politicized.
Hariri, in turn, may be willing to go part of the way to cast some doubt on the tribunal process, particularly if he sees that the indictments may be problematic to prove in court. That is why he prefers to wait until after indictments are issued to decide. But one thing is almost certain: he will not take measures on the tribunal unless he is compelled to do so by his patrons in Saudi Arabia; and, most important, if the Saudis say nothing, he will refuse to delegitimize the institution unless he first extracts concessions from Hezbollah.
What might these concessions be? Hariri is well aware that any demand for the disarmament of Hezbollah is a non-starter. In fact, those close to the prime minister will often repeat that their objective is not to terminate the Resistance. What he might conceivably ask for, however, is some sort of guarantee that the party will put an end to its campaign of domestic intimidation, and perhaps even something more tangible: assurances that Hezbollah will no longer use its weapons in Beirut, limiting this to areas under its effective control.
The chances that such a quid pro quo might come about would be infinitely complicated by Syria, which has no desire to give Hariri any latitude to bargain with Hezbollah, or Hezbollah with Hariri. The Syrians hope to use the tension between the prime minister and the party over indictments as leverage to enhance their own power in Lebanon; and if there is any bargaining to be carried out over the tribunal, then Damascus wants to be the only broker. Then again, neither Hariri nor Nasrallah wants Syria to gain at his expense.
Therefore, is reaching a middle ground possible between Hariri and Hezbollah? It’s not easy to see how, particularly as the prime minister, even if he is one day willing to surrender something on the tribunal, he will not be able to block the trial process altogether. And yet, short of violence or enforcing a national stalemate, which will only harden the resolve on Hariri’s side, Hezbollah has no alternative to embracing a compromise. It could be that Siniora and Hariri are not that clear about what they hope to achieve from such a process, but are now seeking to push Hezbollah to the realization that negotiations are inevitable, in that way defusing the ambient tension. If the party accepts – a big if – then the exchanges could shape the consequences.
Siniora is right about one thing: all options are bad for Hezbollah when it comes to the Hariri case. The party is learning a hard lesson that the convoluted Lebanese sectarian system can strangle those who refuse to respect its ways. Missiles won’t help Hassan Nasrallah this time around. Few victories in Lebanon are ever divine.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Who is really the big boss in Lebanon?
Little attention was paid last week to an Al-Hayat interview with the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Ghadanfar Roknabadi, particularly what he had to say about Syria’s role in Lebanon.
The interviewer asked the ambassador whether, in the same way that Iran was “familiar” with Iraq, did not Iran consider that Syria was “familiar” with Lebanon “more than others were.” Therefore, just as Syria had accepted an Iranian solution in Iraq, would not Iran accept a Syrian solution in Lebanon? It was a subtle question, which left out the dreaded words “spheres of interest,” but the substance was clear. Would Iran concur that Syria was entitled to lead in Lebanon?
Roknabadi diplomatically, but firmly, brushed that thought away. Yes, neighboring countries were more familiar with Lebanese details, but then the ambassador added: “Don’t forget the deep civilizational and cultural ties between Iran and Lebanon. The matter of Syria as a neighbor is one thing, and the strategic relationship between Iran and Syria [is something else]; no one can deny Syria’s role, but the old civilizational and cultural ties between the Iranian and Lebanese peoples have established common ground between them.”
The response must have made officials in Damascus cringe. Not only did Roknabadi sidestep the question of a pre-eminent Syrian role in Lebanon, he placed it against the backdrop of the Iranian-Syrian relationship, as if to affirm that Tehran was the leading partner in any Lebanese arrangement. While the Iranians, along with Hizbullah, have continued to look toward a Syrian-Saudi solution to the deadlock in Beirut over how to deal with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, one gets the distinct sense lately, particularly after the speech last Sunday of Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, that any such deal is Iran’s and Hizbullah’s to accept or refuse
Iran and Syria are not about to divorce over Lebanon, or over anything else, but Roknabadi put the relationship into perspective. Iran is the dominant actor in Beirut, and can lay claim to that role because ultimately it is Hizbullah that controls the ground and on which Damascus must rely to protect its own interests. It is indeed remarkable that Syria, despite its 29-year military Lebanese presence, was never able to create durable institutions of influence. Syrian-sponsored groups and politicians remain exceptionally feeble politically; Damascus has never had any “soft power” to deploy in Lebanon; and almost anyone who thinks back to the years of Syrian hegemony would mainly remember it as a time of organized pillage. Had Syria not had Hizbullah to bolster its authority, most of its Lebanese partisans would have long been swept away.
Still, Syria does have considerable political resources. Damascus retains a power of veto over most matters, and even if the coordination between Hizbullah and Syria may not be what it once was, it nevertheless remains relatively close, with Hizbullah keen to avoid any major confrontation with the Syrians. The same goes for Iran. At the same time, the Syrians, even though they hope to revive the authority they had in Lebanon before 2005, are very unlikely to risk their relationship with Iran or Hizbullah to achieve that.
In order to compensate for its shortcomings, the Syrian regime has played on Lebanese contradictions. By opening a new page with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, under Saudi auspices, Damascus to an extent managed to win over a majority of Sunnis, or at least lessen Sunni hostility. Hariri has seen advantages in this, mainly curbing Hizbullah’s ability to attack him and his government. What the prime minister realizes is that Syria cannot afford to allow Hizbullah to decisively weaken him, since that would mean weakening a prime Syrian card.
By the same token, however, Syria will not permit Hariri to neutralize Hizbullah, let alone demand its disarmament, through possible indictments issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, since that, too, would dent Syrian power. The ideal situation for the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, is one of confrontation between Hariri and Hizbullah until the tribunal issues indictments. At that stage, Assad could enter the fray as the broker of a domestic political resolution and take from both sides, to Syria’s advantage. That is why Syria has not brought down the government, though it could easily do so; and it is why Hariri, well aware of what Assad has in mind, has stood firm.
The stalemate may last. Even if the tribunal prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, were to send draft indictments today to the pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen, these would probably not be confirmed until early next year. The process calls for Fransen to issue a written legal opinion on the indictments, which could take several weeks to prepare, not taking into consideration the slowdown for the end-of-year holidays. Fransen may also ask Bellemare to revise some counts. The notion that indictments will be finalized before Christmas seems fanciful.
Nasrallah’s latest speech was once again directed in part at the Syrians. The secretary general wants the Lebanese government to begin the process of wrecking the tribunal before indictments come out. That he has been unable to impose this is certainly, to an extent, a consequence of the Syrian refusal to sign off on such a course of action. Hariri’s visit to Iran was, among other things, an effort to earn Iranian goodwill and buy time on that front (as well as a gambit to make him more desirable to Syria), though Nasrallah pointedly mocked the prime minister’s trips. It is conceivable that Hariri’s Iranian sojourn limited his margin of maneuver, with Tehran now having more leverage over him. We will soon see where Nasrallah’s brinkmanship leads, but Syria, displeased with Hariri’s opening to the Islamic Republic, may be in even less of a mood to give Hizbullah a green light.
Meanwhile, the much-awaited Syrian-Saudi “solution” apparently awaits the return home of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who is undergoing medical treatment in the United States. The clock is ticking away toward an indictment. What ultimately happens will be shaped by the complex interplay of the frequently divergent interests of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hizbullah and Saad Hariri.
The interviewer asked the ambassador whether, in the same way that Iran was “familiar” with Iraq, did not Iran consider that Syria was “familiar” with Lebanon “more than others were.” Therefore, just as Syria had accepted an Iranian solution in Iraq, would not Iran accept a Syrian solution in Lebanon? It was a subtle question, which left out the dreaded words “spheres of interest,” but the substance was clear. Would Iran concur that Syria was entitled to lead in Lebanon?
Roknabadi diplomatically, but firmly, brushed that thought away. Yes, neighboring countries were more familiar with Lebanese details, but then the ambassador added: “Don’t forget the deep civilizational and cultural ties between Iran and Lebanon. The matter of Syria as a neighbor is one thing, and the strategic relationship between Iran and Syria [is something else]; no one can deny Syria’s role, but the old civilizational and cultural ties between the Iranian and Lebanese peoples have established common ground between them.”
The response must have made officials in Damascus cringe. Not only did Roknabadi sidestep the question of a pre-eminent Syrian role in Lebanon, he placed it against the backdrop of the Iranian-Syrian relationship, as if to affirm that Tehran was the leading partner in any Lebanese arrangement. While the Iranians, along with Hizbullah, have continued to look toward a Syrian-Saudi solution to the deadlock in Beirut over how to deal with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, one gets the distinct sense lately, particularly after the speech last Sunday of Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, that any such deal is Iran’s and Hizbullah’s to accept or refuse
Iran and Syria are not about to divorce over Lebanon, or over anything else, but Roknabadi put the relationship into perspective. Iran is the dominant actor in Beirut, and can lay claim to that role because ultimately it is Hizbullah that controls the ground and on which Damascus must rely to protect its own interests. It is indeed remarkable that Syria, despite its 29-year military Lebanese presence, was never able to create durable institutions of influence. Syrian-sponsored groups and politicians remain exceptionally feeble politically; Damascus has never had any “soft power” to deploy in Lebanon; and almost anyone who thinks back to the years of Syrian hegemony would mainly remember it as a time of organized pillage. Had Syria not had Hizbullah to bolster its authority, most of its Lebanese partisans would have long been swept away.
Still, Syria does have considerable political resources. Damascus retains a power of veto over most matters, and even if the coordination between Hizbullah and Syria may not be what it once was, it nevertheless remains relatively close, with Hizbullah keen to avoid any major confrontation with the Syrians. The same goes for Iran. At the same time, the Syrians, even though they hope to revive the authority they had in Lebanon before 2005, are very unlikely to risk their relationship with Iran or Hizbullah to achieve that.
In order to compensate for its shortcomings, the Syrian regime has played on Lebanese contradictions. By opening a new page with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, under Saudi auspices, Damascus to an extent managed to win over a majority of Sunnis, or at least lessen Sunni hostility. Hariri has seen advantages in this, mainly curbing Hizbullah’s ability to attack him and his government. What the prime minister realizes is that Syria cannot afford to allow Hizbullah to decisively weaken him, since that would mean weakening a prime Syrian card.
By the same token, however, Syria will not permit Hariri to neutralize Hizbullah, let alone demand its disarmament, through possible indictments issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, since that, too, would dent Syrian power. The ideal situation for the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, is one of confrontation between Hariri and Hizbullah until the tribunal issues indictments. At that stage, Assad could enter the fray as the broker of a domestic political resolution and take from both sides, to Syria’s advantage. That is why Syria has not brought down the government, though it could easily do so; and it is why Hariri, well aware of what Assad has in mind, has stood firm.
The stalemate may last. Even if the tribunal prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, were to send draft indictments today to the pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen, these would probably not be confirmed until early next year. The process calls for Fransen to issue a written legal opinion on the indictments, which could take several weeks to prepare, not taking into consideration the slowdown for the end-of-year holidays. Fransen may also ask Bellemare to revise some counts. The notion that indictments will be finalized before Christmas seems fanciful.
Nasrallah’s latest speech was once again directed in part at the Syrians. The secretary general wants the Lebanese government to begin the process of wrecking the tribunal before indictments come out. That he has been unable to impose this is certainly, to an extent, a consequence of the Syrian refusal to sign off on such a course of action. Hariri’s visit to Iran was, among other things, an effort to earn Iranian goodwill and buy time on that front (as well as a gambit to make him more desirable to Syria), though Nasrallah pointedly mocked the prime minister’s trips. It is conceivable that Hariri’s Iranian sojourn limited his margin of maneuver, with Tehran now having more leverage over him. We will soon see where Nasrallah’s brinkmanship leads, but Syria, displeased with Hariri’s opening to the Islamic Republic, may be in even less of a mood to give Hizbullah a green light.
Meanwhile, the much-awaited Syrian-Saudi “solution” apparently awaits the return home of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who is undergoing medical treatment in the United States. The clock is ticking away toward an indictment. What ultimately happens will be shaped by the complex interplay of the frequently divergent interests of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hizbullah and Saad Hariri.
Who is really the big boss in Lebanon?
Little attention was paid last week to an Al-Hayat interview with the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Ghadanfar Roknabadi, particularly what he had to say about Syria’s role in Lebanon.
The interviewer asked the ambassador whether, in the same way that Iran was “familiar” with Iraq, did not Iran consider that Syria was “familiar” with Lebanon “more than others were.” Therefore, just as Syria had accepted an Iranian solution in Iraq, would not Iran accept a Syrian solution in Lebanon? It was a subtle question, which left out the dreaded words “spheres of interest,” but the substance was clear. Would Iran concur that Syria was entitled to lead in Lebanon?
Roknabadi diplomatically, but firmly, brushed that thought away. Yes, neighboring countries were more familiar with Lebanese details, but then the ambassador added: “Don’t forget the deep civilizational and cultural ties between Iran and Lebanon. The matter of Syria as a neighbor is one thing, and the strategic relationship between Iran and Syria [is something else]; no one can deny Syria’s role, but the old civilizational and cultural ties between the Iranian and Lebanese peoples have established common ground between them.”
The response must have made officials in Damascus cringe. Not only did Roknabadi sidestep the question of a pre-eminent Syrian role in Lebanon, he placed it against the backdrop of the Iranian-Syrian relationship, as if to affirm that Tehran was the leading partner in any Lebanese arrangement. While the Iranians, along with Hizbullah, have continued to look toward a Syrian-Saudi solution to the deadlock in Beirut over how to deal with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, one gets the distinct sense lately, particularly after the speech last Sunday of Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, that any such deal is Iran’s and Hizbullah’s to accept or refuse
Iran and Syria are not about to divorce over Lebanon, or over anything else, but Roknabadi put the relationship into perspective. Iran is the dominant actor in Beirut, and can lay claim to that role because ultimately it is Hizbullah that controls the ground and on which Damascus must rely to protect its own interests. It is indeed remarkable that Syria, despite its 29-year military Lebanese presence, was never able to create durable institutions of influence. Syrian-sponsored groups and politicians remain exceptionally feeble politically; Damascus has never had any “soft power” to deploy in Lebanon; and almost anyone who thinks back to the years of Syrian hegemony would mainly remember it as a time of organized pillage. Had Syria not had Hizbullah to bolster its authority, most of its Lebanese partisans would have long been swept away.
Still, Syria does have considerable political resources. Damascus retains a power of veto over most matters, and even if the coordination between Hizbullah and Syria may not be what it once was, it nevertheless remains relatively close, with Hizbullah keen to avoid any major confrontation with the Syrians. The same goes for Iran. At the same time, the Syrians, even though they hope to revive the authority they had in Lebanon before 2005, are very unlikely to risk their relationship with Iran or Hizbullah to achieve that.
In order to compensate for its shortcomings, the Syrian regime has played on Lebanese contradictions. By opening a new page with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, under Saudi auspices, Damascus to an extent managed to win over a majority of Sunnis, or at least lessen Sunni hostility. Hariri has seen advantages in this, mainly curbing Hizbullah’s ability to attack him and his government. What the prime minister realizes is that Syria cannot afford to allow Hizbullah to decisively weaken him, since that would mean weakening a prime Syrian card.
By the same token, however, Syria will not permit Hariri to neutralize Hizbullah, let alone demand its disarmament, through possible indictments issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, since that, too, would dent Syrian power. The ideal situation for the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, is one of confrontation between Hariri and Hizbullah until the tribunal issues indictments. At that stage, Assad could enter the fray as the broker of a domestic political resolution and take from both sides, to Syria’s advantage. That is why Syria has not brought down the government, though it could easily do so; and it is why Hariri, well aware of what Assad has in mind, has stood firm.
The stalemate may last. Even if the tribunal prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, were to send draft indictments today to the pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen, these would probably not be confirmed until early next year. The process calls for Fransen to issue a written legal opinion on the indictments, which could take several weeks to prepare, not taking into consideration the slowdown for the end-of-year holidays. Fransen may also ask Bellemare to revise some counts. The notion that indictments will be finalized before Christmas seems fanciful.
Nasrallah’s latest speech was once again directed in part at the Syrians. The secretary general wants the Lebanese government to begin the process of wrecking the tribunal before indictments come out. That he has been unable to impose this is certainly, to an extent, a consequence of the Syrian refusal to sign off on such a course of action. Hariri’s visit to Iran was, among other things, an effort to earn Iranian goodwill and buy time on that front (as well as a gambit to make him more desirable to Syria), though Nasrallah pointedly mocked the prime minister’s trips. It is conceivable that Hariri’s Iranian sojourn limited his margin of maneuver, with Tehran now having more leverage over him. We will soon see where Nasrallah’s brinkmanship leads, but Syria, displeased with Hariri’s opening to the Islamic Republic, may be in even less of a mood to give Hizbullah a green light.
Meanwhile, the much-awaited Syrian-Saudi “solution” apparently awaits the return home of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who is undergoing medical treatment in the United States. The clock is ticking away toward an indictment. What ultimately happens will be shaped by the complex interplay of the frequently divergent interests of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hizbullah and Saad Hariri.
The interviewer asked the ambassador whether, in the same way that Iran was “familiar” with Iraq, did not Iran consider that Syria was “familiar” with Lebanon “more than others were.” Therefore, just as Syria had accepted an Iranian solution in Iraq, would not Iran accept a Syrian solution in Lebanon? It was a subtle question, which left out the dreaded words “spheres of interest,” but the substance was clear. Would Iran concur that Syria was entitled to lead in Lebanon?
Roknabadi diplomatically, but firmly, brushed that thought away. Yes, neighboring countries were more familiar with Lebanese details, but then the ambassador added: “Don’t forget the deep civilizational and cultural ties between Iran and Lebanon. The matter of Syria as a neighbor is one thing, and the strategic relationship between Iran and Syria [is something else]; no one can deny Syria’s role, but the old civilizational and cultural ties between the Iranian and Lebanese peoples have established common ground between them.”
The response must have made officials in Damascus cringe. Not only did Roknabadi sidestep the question of a pre-eminent Syrian role in Lebanon, he placed it against the backdrop of the Iranian-Syrian relationship, as if to affirm that Tehran was the leading partner in any Lebanese arrangement. While the Iranians, along with Hizbullah, have continued to look toward a Syrian-Saudi solution to the deadlock in Beirut over how to deal with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, one gets the distinct sense lately, particularly after the speech last Sunday of Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, that any such deal is Iran’s and Hizbullah’s to accept or refuse
Iran and Syria are not about to divorce over Lebanon, or over anything else, but Roknabadi put the relationship into perspective. Iran is the dominant actor in Beirut, and can lay claim to that role because ultimately it is Hizbullah that controls the ground and on which Damascus must rely to protect its own interests. It is indeed remarkable that Syria, despite its 29-year military Lebanese presence, was never able to create durable institutions of influence. Syrian-sponsored groups and politicians remain exceptionally feeble politically; Damascus has never had any “soft power” to deploy in Lebanon; and almost anyone who thinks back to the years of Syrian hegemony would mainly remember it as a time of organized pillage. Had Syria not had Hizbullah to bolster its authority, most of its Lebanese partisans would have long been swept away.
Still, Syria does have considerable political resources. Damascus retains a power of veto over most matters, and even if the coordination between Hizbullah and Syria may not be what it once was, it nevertheless remains relatively close, with Hizbullah keen to avoid any major confrontation with the Syrians. The same goes for Iran. At the same time, the Syrians, even though they hope to revive the authority they had in Lebanon before 2005, are very unlikely to risk their relationship with Iran or Hizbullah to achieve that.
In order to compensate for its shortcomings, the Syrian regime has played on Lebanese contradictions. By opening a new page with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, under Saudi auspices, Damascus to an extent managed to win over a majority of Sunnis, or at least lessen Sunni hostility. Hariri has seen advantages in this, mainly curbing Hizbullah’s ability to attack him and his government. What the prime minister realizes is that Syria cannot afford to allow Hizbullah to decisively weaken him, since that would mean weakening a prime Syrian card.
By the same token, however, Syria will not permit Hariri to neutralize Hizbullah, let alone demand its disarmament, through possible indictments issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, since that, too, would dent Syrian power. The ideal situation for the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, is one of confrontation between Hariri and Hizbullah until the tribunal issues indictments. At that stage, Assad could enter the fray as the broker of a domestic political resolution and take from both sides, to Syria’s advantage. That is why Syria has not brought down the government, though it could easily do so; and it is why Hariri, well aware of what Assad has in mind, has stood firm.
The stalemate may last. Even if the tribunal prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, were to send draft indictments today to the pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen, these would probably not be confirmed until early next year. The process calls for Fransen to issue a written legal opinion on the indictments, which could take several weeks to prepare, not taking into consideration the slowdown for the end-of-year holidays. Fransen may also ask Bellemare to revise some counts. The notion that indictments will be finalized before Christmas seems fanciful.
Nasrallah’s latest speech was once again directed in part at the Syrians. The secretary general wants the Lebanese government to begin the process of wrecking the tribunal before indictments come out. That he has been unable to impose this is certainly, to an extent, a consequence of the Syrian refusal to sign off on such a course of action. Hariri’s visit to Iran was, among other things, an effort to earn Iranian goodwill and buy time on that front (as well as a gambit to make him more desirable to Syria), though Nasrallah pointedly mocked the prime minister’s trips. It is conceivable that Hariri’s Iranian sojourn limited his margin of maneuver, with Tehran now having more leverage over him. We will soon see where Nasrallah’s brinkmanship leads, but Syria, displeased with Hariri’s opening to the Islamic Republic, may be in even less of a mood to give Hizbullah a green light.
Meanwhile, the much-awaited Syrian-Saudi “solution” apparently awaits the return home of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who is undergoing medical treatment in the United States. The clock is ticking away toward an indictment. What ultimately happens will be shaped by the complex interplay of the frequently divergent interests of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hizbullah and Saad Hariri.
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