Lebanon’s Russian doll

If Prime Minister Saad Hariri is someone who often seems to be enclosed in a political box – between his allegiance to Saudi Arabia, his newfound closeness to Syria, and the hostility of Hezbollah – Walid Jumblatt is the Russian doll of Lebanese politics, a captive of myriad concentric layers of alliances, dalliances, duties and threats.

The Druze leader provokes much scorn these days from those appalled with the vigor of his about-faces. The man who heaped reptilian metaphors on Bashar al-Assad only a few years ago has become the Syrian president’s most stalwart champion in Beirut. The leader who took charge of the revolt against Syria has been abased to socializing with Syria’s most ignoble order-takers. Like the student in class caught cheating, and who informs on his comrades in order to make things good with the teacher, Jumblatt seems most acerbic, most destructive, when referring to his previous political partners.

This is what you hear, and some of the accusations are difficult to refute. Jumblatt’s twin preoccupations, the defense of his Druze community and the perpetuation of Jumblatt authority over the community, require a considerable amount of humility, and humiliation. But in a system where the rule is every man for himself, or every man for himself and his regional patron, it’s difficult to demand of Jumblatt that he sacrifice all for the greater good of Lebanon, when almost no one else is willing to do so.

And yet the anger with Jumblatt persists, and it persists largely because of his style. Hariri has visited Damascus on several occasions, making his peace with those whom he and his entourage had once accused of being behind the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri. But the prime minister somehow escapes opprobrium, largely because he never went too far, never overstated his case, as did Jumblatt – indeed as Jumblatt needed to do, since the only way the Druze leader could remain relevant was to remain in the political vanguard and drag the system in the directions he chose.

Jumblatt’s latest priority is to push for the scuttling of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. That is no easy task. The Druze leader’s testimony is still with the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, and for Jumblatt to take it back (as may very well be the demand from his handlers in Damascus) would involve explaining why he lied in a signed deposition, which may eventually entail legal sanction.

Politically, the tribunal places Jumblatt in a tight spot. The Syrians want the institution to go away no less than Hezbollah does, but the two appear to differ over timing. To resurrect Syrian hegemony over Lebanon, Damascus needs to impose its will on Hezbollah and take for itself the leading administrative and security posts controlled by the party. Syria’s main tool is an indictment or a lesser tribunal decision that points the finger at Hezbollah. Such an accusation would hand Syria considerable leverage to bargain with the party, and once it gets what it wants by way of Hezbollah concessions, to then push Hariri into ending cooperation with the tribunal.

That is why Syria and Hezbollah, and behind the party Iran, are engaged in an increasingly visible struggle for power in Lebanon (witness the Bourj Abi Haidar incident), and it is why Jumblatt is so alarmed. He’s caught in the middle, and though the Druze leader has made clear that he’s on the side of Damascus (and Saudi Arabia, which pays the bills), he also happens to be most vulnerable when facing Hezbollah, which surrounds his mountains and showed in May 2008 that it could penetrate them militarily when necessary.

Recently, Jumblatt propped himself up by organizing a Druze conference in Lebanon, bringing together his Lebanese coreligionists with those from Israel, Syria and Jordan. The delegation from Israel was given permission to travel via Syria, and Assad allowed Syria’s Druze to attend, even though traditionally the Baath regime has hindered Jumblatti flirtations with its Druze community. Yet Jumblatt somehow managed to earn those two favors. It could be that Assad was partly seeking to bolster Jumblatt’s position with respect to Hezbollah, but you really have to wonder what will be, or already has been, demanded of the Druze leader by way of reimbursement.

Not surprisingly, the Druze conference made Hezbollah and its supporters apoplectic. Ibrahim Amin of the pro-Hezbollah daily Al-Akhbar, usually a reliable sounding board for party opinion, was highly critical, particularly of the presence of Israeli Druze. The newspaper has continued to target Jumblatt, and in an article this week it wondered about his true loyalties, asking in a headline: “Is Jumblatt with [the Syria-Saudi axis] or with the Syrian-Iranian alliance?” The article was more an effort to intimidate Jumblatt into selecting the latter, than an attempt to answer the question.

Much of what Jumblatt is doing can be explained by family. If the Druze leader is eating dust on a daily basis, that’s because he needs to set up his eldest son to inherit the Druze leadership, and he cannot do so if the Jumblatts are on bad terms with Syria, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia or whoever else calls the shots in Lebanon. It’s reasonable that many Lebanese don’t sympathize with this ambition, but that’s irrelevant; it is at the heart of Jumblatt’s calculations.

So will Walid Jumblatt ever break out of his multiple boxes? It’s unlikely for now. The arch-survivor is still surviving, but the price is getting steeper and the interest on Jumblatt’s debts dearer.

Was Burj Abi Haidar a battle by proxy?

You had to agree with the pro-Hizbullah daily Al-Akhbar when it observed in its Wednesday edition that one could only “naively” assume that the Burj Abi Haidar fighting the previous evening was the result of a personal dispute between supporters of Hizbullah and the Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, known as the Ahbash.

We can only speculate about precisely what did happen. However, most media outlets agreed that tension had been brewing in the neighborhood for some time. The Ahbash are close to Syria, not to say the Syrian intelligence services, which has long employed the group as a counterweight to Sunni militant groups the Syrian regime considers threatening, above all the Muslim Brotherhood. In the postwar period, the Syrians used the Ahbash against the Hariri family – indeed Ahbash members were suspected of involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri – and to undercut the authority of the mufti and the Sunni religious establishment.

To interpret what happened as a Sunni-Shiite clash may be understandable, but there was really much more to it than that. Here was, perhaps, the first armed confrontation between Iran and Syria in Lebanon, through proxies, to determine who will dominate the country in the future. More specifically, the Syrians, in endeavoring to revive their hegemony, have entered into a struggle for power with the only force that can stand up to them locally, Hizbullah, on which Damascus seeks to impose its priorities. Not surprisingly, Hizbullah has refused to surrender the political gains it accumulated during the past five years – gains, above all, in the service of Iran.

The heart of the problem is the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. A decision is expected from the institution in the coming months – whether indictments or the identification of suspects. Hizbullah feels it will be targeted by such a step and has raised the heat on the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri to immediately end Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal. Hariri has refused, and can afford to buy time. That’s because Hariri knows that Syria intends to use any tribunal decision as leverage over Hizbullah, to push the party to surrender to Damascus key posts it controls in the public administration and the security and military apparatus.

In light of this, Syria, like Hariri, is waiting for the tribunal to come out with something first, before opening negotiations with Hizbullah; while Hizbullah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, keen to avoid any such bargaining, is out to create an intolerable situation on the ground so that Hariri is left with no choice but to scuttle the tribunal before its findings push the party into a corner.

Initially, Hizbullah felt that it had a range of options to intimidate Hariri. Party spokesmen ominously mentioned a return to May 2008, when Hizbullah and Amal overran western Beirut militarily and forced the government of Fouad Siniora to annul two decisions that the party regarded as threatening. Hizbullah officials also raised the possibility of bringing down the current government. However, at a summit in Beirut several weeks ago, President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and President Bashar Assad of Syria signed on to a statement that effectively ruled out both measures.

Consequently, it could be that Hizbullah’s fight against the Ahbash, even if the incident that prompted it was not premeditated, was a message to Damascus that Hizbullah would not readily bend. And this on a night when Nasrallah made a speech virtually calling for the “Iranization” of Lebanon. Hizbullah had no interest in assaulting Hariri’s Future Movement, as this would have transgressed all red lines, leading to a major breakout of Sunni-Shiite hostility. But by going after the Ahbash, Hizbullah was able to send a subtle warning to Hariri, but also a more pointed one to Damascus.

Conversely, some observers have suggested that what happened was a Syrian warning to Hizbullah. Yet there are problems with this theory, not least that time is on Syria’s side when it comes to the tribunal, and Damascus gained little by provoking the party. Either way, both Hizbullah and the Ahbash were armed and ready for one another.

What will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks is what happens on the margins of the Syrian-Iranian struggle over Lebanon. The Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, whose allegiances are with Syria, must yet be very careful of how he manages his relationship with Hizbullah. It was indicative of Berri’s dilemma that during the Burj Abi Haidar incident Amal issued a statement saying it was not involved, even as some of its men fought on Hizbullah’s side.

Walid Jumblatt is another politician who must play the Syria-Hizbullah rivalry very carefully. He has been especially vocal recently in calling for the tribunal to be abandoned. That’s because it only exacerbates the tensions between Damascus and Hizbullah, and Jumblatt and his community happen to be caught in the middle. The Druze leader has been the target of repeated condemnation in Al-Akhbar lately, principally because Hizbullah views him as particularly vulnerable (which Jumblatt is), and wants to keep him in line.

Was the Burj Abi Haidar skirmish the first in a series of similar occurrences? It’s difficult to say, but for now nothing indicates that the Syrians and Hizbullah are near to reaching middle ground by tempering their ambitions. What divides Syria and Iran is power, which is something neither is presently inclined to share in Beirut. Even if Hizbullah and Syria avoid episodes like the one on Tuesday, there will be other outbursts of violence or political altercations as the tribunal nears the time when it takes some sort of action.

Particularly revealing is the extent to which Hizbullah feels confident that it can out-maneuver Syria in Lebanon. Damascus was never very good at anchoring itself among the Lebanese without its army and intelligence services around to enforce its dictates. Ironically, Hizbullah has become the principle bulwark resisting a Syrian comeback, because the party wants to preserve Lebanon for Iran. What abysmal choices we Lebanese are left with.

Keeping us quiet, for heaven’s sake

The Maronite Church should have allowed Al-Manar and NBN to continue showing an Iranian television series on the life of Jesus Christ, based on the so-called Gospel of Barnabas. The program was discontinued last week due to Christian discontent.

Bishop Bechara al-Rai of Jbeil described the television series as a “distortion” of Christianity, and he was right with respect to Catholic orthodoxy. The Gospel of Barnabas, which the Church doesn’t recognize, denies the resurrection of Christ and the crucifixion, and has been picked up by Muslims, or some Muslims, to conform with Islamic doctrine. Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, but not divine, and they believe that someone else died on the cross.

However, the details of the Gospel of Barnabas were not the real issue. Something much simpler was: the right to free expression.

Recall that such freedom was curtailed in early summer 2006, when the Bas Mat Watan satire show on LBC show poked fun at Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. Almost immediately, Nasrallah’s supporters took to the streets of the southern suburbs and closed the airport road, while others marched on non-Shia areas, fighting with Christian youths (among them Sami Gemayel) in Achrafieh. The incident was a coordinated effort by Hezbollah to intimidate its political rivals, but was defended by party sympathizers as a spontaneous reaction to a perceived insult against a religious figure.

This episode came only a few months after mainly Sunni protesters set fire to the building housing the Danish Embassy, following the decision of a Danish newspaper to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Then, too, the event almost degenerated into a sectarian confrontation. The embassy was also in Achrafieh, which not a few of the rioters evidently mistook for Copenhagen, as they vandalized shops and buildings, and insulted inhabitants.

The reasoned response to the two incidents among many people was that things had gone a bit far. And of course they had. But there was disagreement over whether the initial anger was justified or not. For some people, the Shia and Sunni protesters were right to be irate, even if they were wrong in resorting to violent action. For others, probably fewer in number, it was the anger itself that was unjustified. They argued that if freedom of speech was reined in every time someone risked becoming annoyed, particularly on religious matters, Lebanon would never truly develop as a place of free expression.

I admit to belonging to the second group. Free speech and expression should mean, at least most of the time, not having to say you’re sorry.

However, even in liberal societies there have always been exceptions to that rule. France, for example, makes Holocaust denial a punishable offense. In many Western countries, free speech stops at the threshold of public disorder. And in a more absurd instance, this time in the United Kingdom, a woman was legally accused of engaging in anti-social behavior months ago because she frequently became vocal when having sex, disturbing the neighbors.

Rai echoed the public order argument when he observed that the television series “undermines the foundations of every religion and creates strife.” Then he almost immediately tempered this by saying “we don’t burn tires [but] we won’t keep silent.”

That was an interesting way of putting it. In other words, he, or the Christians in whose name he was speaking, would not resort to aggressive behavior, but they would register their displeasure. Isn’t that precisely the essence of civilized protest? But the thing is that Rai, implicitly or explicitly, really just wanted the series to be taken off the air, which is rather different. What he should have done instead is request air time – let’s say after the broadcast – to explain his church’s views of Jesus and the Gospel of Barnabas. That means he should have engaged in an open exchange with the public.

What purpose would this have served? For a start, there is not a very great difference between burning tires and urging television stations to censor a program one doesn’t like. Both aim to silence a specific viewpoint. Somehow societies are much healthier when ideas can be discussed without the sword of restriction hovering overhead.

It makes no sense for Christians to condemn the Bas Mat Watan demonstrations and the burning of the Danish Embassy, then to turn around and claim that a television show, no matter what its content, must be terminated because it has offended their sensibilities. The key point is that public order, as Rai himself admitted, was not under threat. Allowing the show to continue would have led to no serious repercussions. But by the same token, those behind Al-Manar and NBN, like everyone else, should be prepared to suck it up when one of their paragons, religious or secular, is attacked or mocked.

Will this tradeoff occur? Obviously not. Lebanon is still a country where religion retains an archaic, asphyxiating hold on society; where the clergy is a citadel of intellectual and spiritual pettiness, even bone-headedness. However, the clergy also reflects the society it thrives in, and until the Lebanese draw red lines around their men of religion, we will have to prepare for the possibility of violence in the streets and censorship on the air, all in the name of God or his servants.

Resignation is Hariri's strongest card

There is a sense in Beirut that the prime minister, Saad Hariri, is in a bind because of the recent attacks against the Special Tribunal for Lebanon by Hizbullah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. But how true is that? A closer look would show that Hariri has substantially more leeway than people assume.

One reason for this is Syria. While President Bashar Assad would like to see the STL eventually disappear, he sees no reason to push for that right away. That’s because any decision the tribunal might take against Hizbullah – an indictment or merely the naming of suspects – would provide Damascus with valuable leverage over the party, helping to restore Syrian hegemony over Lebanon.

What does this mean in practical terms? It means that Syria must place its people at the head of Lebanon’s main security and intelligence agencies – above all military intelligence and the General Security directorate – but also in senior positions in the army and at key facilities such as the airport. For now, Hizbullah has much sway over these institutions. Damascus has a sympathetic ear in the Information Department of the Internal Security Forces, and it seems that State Security, traditionally viewed as close to the Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, a close Syrian ally, is taking new applications, suggesting it may be revived as a tool in this balancing game.

The Syrians’ problem is that Hizbullah is more effective on the ground in Lebanon than Syria is. Hariri has a similar problem. Which is why both Assad and Hariri may have a shared interest in waiting for the STL to take a decision in order to employ that in their bargaining with Hizbullah, albeit to achieve separate aims. And it is why Nasrallah, like Iran, is so keen for the Lebanese government to cut ties with the tribunal now, to avoid being forced into making concessions.

Hariri’s calculation is different than Syria’s, yet very similar. He, too, likely seeks to use the leverage of a tribunal pronouncement to appoint his followers to essential posts, and in that way reinforce Lebanese state authority against both Hizbullah and Syria. He, too, would regard as a priority the promotion of individuals less beholden to Hizbullah to head the intelligence and security services, airport security and the army. Ideally, he would also look to obtain guarantees from Hizbullah on its weapons in southern Lebanon.

How would the prime minister react to a tribunal decision pointing the finger at Hizbullah? The most logical scenario is that he would immediately announce that the party’s leadership is innocent of having assassinated his father. He might then wait and see what happens, particularly how the army reacts, since presumably the tribunal, whether it issues an indictment or merely identifies suspects, would ask the Lebanese to make arrests. It’s at that stage that Hariri, but also Syria, would want to negotiate with Nasrallah.

A vital factor here, however, is whether Syria would allow Hizbullah to bring down the government. At the Beirut summit a few weeks ago, the Syrians signed on to a statement that implicitly rejected this alternative. But if they felt that Hariri’s demands on Hizbullah were somehow undermining their own, all options would be open. At that stage the prime minister and Syria would need to consult and determine whether common ground is possible over what each would ask for from Hizbullah. It would become a matter of compromising.

To raise the heat on Hariri, and protect itself, the army would almost certainly respond to any tribunal order by saying that it is unable to arrest Hizbullah members. But that poses certain risks. The army doesn’t want to come across as utterly ineffective, and there continue to be officers dismayed that their institution is becoming an adjunct of Hizbullah. Moreover, a refusal to arrest suspects would not substantially damage Hariri’s political standing, since Hizbullah would still need him to decide on Lebanon’s cooperation with the special tribunal. And here Hariri has a significant card to play.

That card, quite simply, is his resignation. If the army refuses to arrest anyone, Hariri can threaten to resign, to strengthen his hand in his talks with Hizbullah; or if the party manages to bring down his government, he can make his resignation very painful. Either way, the prime minister’s departure could leave behind a mess that both Hizbullah and Syria would not relish having to clean up.

Here’s why. If Hariri were to announce, with his statement declaring Hizbullah’s leadership innocent of Rafik Hariri’s murder, that he also has great faith in the work of the special tribunal, he would poison the waters for any successor prime minister. There has been speculation lately that Hariri might consider stepping down and handing over to someone like Mohammad Safadi, so as to allow him, or someone else, to suspend Lebanon’s collaboration with the tribunal. But the scheme would go nowhere if Hariri praises the work of the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare. In that event, no Sunni prime minister would dare undercut the tribunal, not with Hariri endorsing the institution.

Imagine then what would happen. Hizbullah would be unable to find an effective Sunni partner to scuttle the tribunal; it would remain in the dock before the international community and most Lebanese; and it would have few means to do much about it if Syria and Hariri agree beforehand that the domestic situation needs to remain calm. Indeed, Nasrallah himself would hesitate to destabilize Lebanon, since his unwritten contract with Iran requires him to be prepared to retaliate against Israel in case of an attack against its nuclear facilities. And how could he do that with Lebanon simmering?

Hariri’s strong suit is his resignation. Where he goes, the Sunnis will go too, at least when it comes to Rafik Hariri’s killing. That’s why the prime minister appears to be gambling that no one, not Hizbullah nor the Syrians, really wants him to leave. They don’t want to re-create the situation of 2006-2007, when the opposition was unable to find a Sunni willing to form a parallel government to Fouad Siniora’s. Just as critical, Syria does not want to alienate the Sunnis when it needs them to help bring Hizbullah into line with Syrian priorities.

In the coming months we’ll see what Bellemare has, or doesn’t have. But it is Nasrallah, not Hariri, who is the more worried about the political implications of a tribunal announcement. To assume the contrary is to underestimate the impact if Hariri steps down.

Bravado does not help Beirut explain its subtleties

The House members took the decision following a recent incident in south Lebanon in which Lebanese soldiers fired at Israeli soldiers. Three Lebanese, two of them military personnel, were killed in the ensuing fire-fight, as was an Israeli officer. The United Nations force in southern Lebanon determined that the Lebanese had fired across the international border, which brought US condemnation.

While the Lebanese put up a united front, there was suspicion in Beirut that Hizbollah had provoked the incident through the great influence it wields over the Lebanese army, especially the predominantly Shiite units in the south. However, it was unlikely that what occurred was a premeditated decision by the army command. Indeed, I learned that at the height of the fighting, contact between the defence ministry and the south was temporarily interrupted.

The most significant sceptic in the House is Howard Berman, who chairs the powerful foreign affairs committee. In a statement after having put a hold on $100 million in aid, Mr Berman said: “Until we know more about this incident and the nature of Hizbollah influence on the LAF (Lebanese armed forces) and can assure that the LAF is a responsible actor – I cannot in good conscience allow the United States to continue sending weapons to Lebanon.”

A hold cannot block assistance that has already been allocated, and the state department spokesman declared that the US would not re-evaluate plans to supply the Lebanese army. However, an administration must take the views of the House seriously, since not doing so might affect future allocations, which Mr Berman’s committee would have to approve. And for some time now in Washington, assistance to the army has not been an easy sell.

The response from some in Beirut was to hint that if the US did not supply Lebanon with weapons, these might be sought elsewhere, the implication being from Syria and Iran. The defence minister, Elias Murr, even opened an account last week at the Central Bank to take donations for the army. But all these steps were empty. The army is equipped mainly with American hardware and is therefore reliant on American ammunition and spare parts. The notion that it might suddenly switch to new arms suppliers is almost laughable.

The Lebanese debate over the military is being shaped by short-sighted politics. Politicians have been engaging in one-upmanship about Lebanon’s right to protect itself against Israel, but there remains deep unease in Beirut about the implications of the congressional action. For foes of Hizbollah, Lebanon’s growing isolation from the US would only favour the Shiite armed group, which seeks to break the country off from its western connections. That argument is also being used by defenders of aid to Lebanon in Washington, who accept that the army has failed to rein in Hizbollah, but who regard cutting assistance as even worse an option.

The Lebanese government, specifically the prime minister, Saad Hariri, is partly responsible for this state of affairs. Although Mr Hariri is an adversary of Hizbollah, he signed off on a cabinet statement vague enough that it legitimised the party’s resort to arms, while affirming a bond between the Lebanese people, resistance, and army in liberating occupied land. Mr Hariri and his allies approved the statement to be seen as diluting Hizbollah into the legitimate armed forces. Yet this had the contrary effect of making it appear that the army and people were adjuncts of Hizbollah. That is why Israel says that in a future war it will consider all of Lebanon a target.

Among the reasons that Mr Hariri has paid lip service to the resistance are the actions of his patrons in Saudi Arabia and the absence of a clear American policy toward Lebanon. Once the Saudis reconciled with Syria last year, after a long dispute, Mr Hariri was obliged to do the same. Among his priorities as head of government has been the preservation of civil peace, requiring making concessions to Hizbollah, but also to Syria, a loud supporter of the resistance.

At the same time, the prime minister has sought to position himself in the mainstream of Arab support (alongside Turkey) for the Palestinian cause. He has done so both for domestic reasons, to undercut Hizbollah’s claim of being the vanguard of Arab resistance against Israel, and for regional reasons, as part of an effort by Sunni-majority states to seize the “resistance” card from Iran’s hands.

These subtleties have been lost in Washington, at a time when the Obama administration has relegated Lebanon to a low rung in its Middle Eastern priorities. That is one reason why Mr Hariri currently feels so vulnerable. It is also dangerous for Lebanon in light of the omnipresent possibility of war with Israel. That such a war would be destructive is beyond doubt; but for Lebanon to also be portrayed as a failed Hizbollah-dominated state could be catastrophic. Only the US can restrain Israel, and American backing would be vital in any post-war reconstruction effort. Today, Lebanon is assured of neither.

Rep Berman’s position has bipartisan support in the foreign affairs committee. The ranking Republican, Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is, similarly, cool about aid to Lebanon. A noted supporter of Israel, she is known in Washington as someone lukewarm to Mr Hariri. Come next November, she may take over Rep Berman’s seat. Lebanon will need more than bravado to restore its image in Washington.

Downward, Christian soldiers

Go back a couple of weeks to the three-way summit between President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A great deal has been written about that noisy conclave, but almost nothing about one of its subtexts: the marginalization of Maronite representatives, creating a sense that the community was incidental at a vital moment for Lebanon’s future.

What emerged from the summit was a stern, demographically understandable reminder that the country’s destiny is being shaped by the dynamics of Sunni-Shia interaction. Even Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, armed with a talent for barging in on performances to which he was not invited, remained incognito. However, he then sought to compensate by organizing a Druze congress with representatives from Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, to create the impression that he had some 700,000 coreligionists under his wing.

But not the Maronites. Michel Sleiman’s short-sightedness was a disappointment. The president defied protocol by barring two former presidents from the Baabda lunch — allegedly because the Syrians did not want Amin Gemayel there, and King Abdullah was happy to avoid Emile Lahoud. Worse, Sleiman did not invite the Maronite patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, because that, too, would have apparently discomfited Assad. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Saad Hariri ensured that the Sunni mufti would meet King Abdullah at his home, on the sensible grounds that there was no reason to offend his community’s highest religious representative, and a political advocate.

It was lost on Sleiman that he would have only gained in legitimacy through Sfeir’s presence. To have the patriarch in attendance would have been Sleiman’s way of saying that he alone could deliver a Maronite blessing for the summit’s results. The president should have made Sfeir’s presence a condition for hosting his Arab counterparts. Instead, he averted a fight and looked like a guest at his own party — isolated, uncomfortable, largely immaterial to the proceedings.

The decline of Lebanon’s Maronites, and of the Christians in general, is an old story, and a dismal one. It is dismal because the community’s nastiest setbacks have been self-inflicted. It’s not a bad thing to be realistic. For Christians to refuse to surrender any power today on the grounds that, historically, they have been entitled to this post or that, this privilege or that, is utterly foolish. Lebanon is changing, and if the community doesn’t adapt voluntarily, in a way allowing it to negotiate its own fate, it may one day face imposed change.

However, the worst thing is for a realistic perception of Christian decline to transform itself into hopelessness, which can only accelerate the decline. We are very near to that stage. Christians have tended to reduce everything to numbers: Two-thirds of the country is Muslim, therefore all is lost, you will hear many of them say. This is not only a narrow view of reality, it is a recipe for self-immolation.

For starters, the simplistic Christian-Muslim dichotomy is no longer reflected on the ground. For better or worse, and very simplistically and unsatisfactorily, Lebanon is better defined these days by a triangular relationship — between Sunnis, Shia and Christians. There is much that is disheartening in subdividing Lebanese society in that way, but it’s also true that this condition has yielded a much more complex set of political choices, particularly for Christians. Michel Aoun has sided with Hezbollah, Samir Geagea with the Future Movement, and Michel Sleiman has tried to steer in the middle.

There is also the fact that Christians continue to play a significant, sometimes a vanguard, role in Lebanon’s society, culture and economy, with an overwhelming percentage of remittances coming from Christians abroad. And yet there is also, and paradoxically, a disturbing lack of political vigor, economic innovation or intellectual dynamism in the community. The political leadership is mostly corrupt, myopic or unresponsive, satisfied with managing the status quo; the clergy, with its vast networks of influence, including schools and parishes, is awash in greed and tawdriness; Christian intellectuals devote relatively little time to imagining new foundations for their country or community and generally publish little that is stimulating, while those who do find themselves largely unread or unheard.

Christian talent is all around, yet seems invisible. The challenge for the community will be to discover the right mechanisms allowing Christians to reinvent their role in Lebanon. But don’t hold your breath; expect little from the president, the church and the political leadership. As for the society, overall far better than its leaders, it appears locked in a paralysis of despair that can bring no good.

The Baabda summit is the latest reminder of how steep the Christian climb will be. Driven by petty disagreements, open to foreign manipulation, disoriented by the transformations all around them, the Christians can offer better. But needed first is a psychological overhaul of the community, one more elusive than ever.

Hassan Nasrallah’s guide to memory loss

Marvel at the contempt Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, must feel for us all, that he would expect us to believe his presentation last Monday telling us that Israel was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister. But that contempt may also in some ways be justified, because far too many Lebanese actually believed him, even as they observe the rapid erosion of their slender sovereignty with lethargy.

Do we Lebanese deserve independence? You have to wonder. Israel has killed many people in Lebanon, and will doubtless kill many more, but we would only be abasing ourselves by abruptly reinterpreting the Hariri assassination in the light that Nasrallah chose to shine on the crime. We would have to believe that Syria did not threaten Hariri in 2004, was untroubled by Resolution 1559, for which it held Hariri partly responsible, did not control Lebanese security in 2005, and did not appoint or approve all senior officials in the security and intelligence agencies. We would have to disregard that these agencies tried to cover up the scene of the assassination, that Hizbullah sought to stifle the emancipation movement by organizing an intimidating demonstration on March 8, 2005, to defend Syria’s presence in Lebanon, and that virtually all of those assassinated after Hariri (not to mention Marwan Hamadeh, who barely escaped assassination before) were critical of Syria.

And, of course, we would have to forget that Hizbullah and its Amal allies twice left the government because it was preparing measures to establish the tribunal – the second time kicking off an 18-month Downtown sit-in to bring down Fouad Siniora’s government.

Nasrallah now offers an explanation for this: the tribunal was politicized. Yet that was not the excuse Hizbullah and Amal used in 2006 when they withdrew their ministers. At the time, their beef was that Siniora and March 14 had undermined governmental procedure by not consulting properly with them. But we can conveniently forget that, too, as well as Syrian President Bashar Assad’s warning issued to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at a meeting in Damascus on April 24, 2007. According to a detailed account leaked to the French daily Le Monde, Assad told Ban that approval of the tribunal under Chapter VII authority “might easily cause a conflict that would degenerate into civil war, provoking divisions between Sunnis and Shiites from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.”

Perhaps Nasrallah had not yet shared his information about Israel with the Syrian president, who, with amazing prescience, found himself echoing revelations about a Shiite connection in the Hariri assassination more than two years before Der Spiegel made a similar reference – one that Nasrallah now sees as proof of an Israeli plot.

It would take an awful lot of forgetting to buy into Nasrallah’s theory, but that is precisely what the secretary general is demanding. He wants Lebanon, above all its prime minister, to forget the overwhelming evidence from the past and bury the Hariri tribunal for good. Let’s just blame Israel, Nasrallah is telling us, so that we can all live in amnesic harmony.

The politics of this message are complicated enough. Prime Minister Saad Hariri is not about to surrender so useful a card as a possible accusation against Hizbullah. From the moment he visited Damascus last December and shook Assad’s hand, Hariri confirmed he was willing to negotiate over the tribunal. That is precisely what Nasrallah seeks to avoid, and his Power Point display was designed to push Hariri into a corner, shift the terms of the debate on the tribunal, and force an end to Lebanese cooperation with the institution.

However, beyond the politics, what does the maneuvering over the tribunal tell us about ourselves as Lebanese? In a system and society committed to the rule of law and justice, Nasrallah’s spectacle would have been impossible, as would have been Hariri’s visit to Damascus and the conflicting statements of Walid Jumblatt about the tribunal (which still holds his affidavit). A system and society committed to the rule of law and justice would not have allowed the second UN commissioner, Serge Brammertz, to waste two years doing next to nothing and conceal this in a battery of evasive reports. Such a system would not have allowed his successor, Daniel Bellemare, to inform us even less about his progress, even though we Lebanese pay a substantial share of the prosecutor’s salary.

In other words, we Lebanese never deserved the tribunal, and I suspect even less the sovereignty and rule of law it was supposed to bolster. Lost in our conspiracy theories and factionalism, we are willing to believe everything ridiculous and reject anything backed up by hard facts. There are those, and they are not few nor are they all Hizbullah followers, who honestly believe Nasrallah made a compelling case this week. When gullibility descends into stupidity, it’s time to admit that Lebanon merits no better than to be run by an armed militia or an autocratic foreign power.

Here is Assad again during his encounter with Ban, offering up this assessment of Lebanese society: “In Lebanon, divisions and confessionalism have been deeply anchored for more than 300 years. Lebanese society is very fragile. [The country’s] most peaceful years were when Syrian forces were present. From 1976 to 2005 Lebanon was stable, whereas now there is great instability.”

If the Lebanese can stomach such disparagement – in fact if they can embrace the man who made that statement – then Assad may have been right to hark back approvingly to the years of Syrian military rule. We’re on the eve of a Syrian comeback, and the Lebanese seem blithely unaware of what this means, so busy are they following the pied pipers who have taken the measure of our society’s foolishness.