Lebanon
Catches Its Breath
Nicholas Blanford
March 23,
2005
(Nicholas
Blanford is a Beirut-based correspondent.)
The February
14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri
has precipitated a rapid and dramatic transformation of Lebanon's
political landscape. In the six weeks following the assassination,
the Lebanese government collapsed and Syria began the process
of withdrawing its soldiers and intelligence officers from Lebanon,
almost 30 years after they first arrived during Lebanon‚s 1975-1990
civil war. The government's collapse and the Syrian plans for
departure were each compelled by an unprecedented wave of anti-Syrian
street protests, as well as unrelenting international pressure.
The future
of Lebanon's political transformation remains uncertain, however.
Although the vast majority of Lebanese will not be unhappy to
see the complete evacuation of Syrian troops, and the pervasive
Syrian military intelligence service in particular, there are
no guarantees of a stable transition from Pax Syriana to an independent
political order. Indeed, despite the ongoing withdrawal of Syrian
forces, it is by no means clear that Syria intends to relinquish
its grip on Lebanese politics. Syria's allies remain mostly in
place. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, considered by most Lebanese
to be a puppet of Damascus, shows no sign of voluntarily stepping
down. Syrian intervention to extend Lahoud's tenure, through an
unpopular September 2004 amendment to the Lebanese constitution,
was what pushed Hariri to resign the premiership and commence
serious contacts with the Lebanese opposition.
The euphoria
that attended the telegenic anti-Syrian protests is likewise diminishing,
as the opposition forces reassess their attitude toward Lahoud's
government. Opposition politicians also are watching the maneuvers
of Hizballah, the vocal representative of Lebanon's Shiite community
that has largely stayed out of the rallies to unseat Lahoud and
show Syria the back door out of Lebanon.
INTENSE PRESSURE
Nearly every
day, Damascus hears another call from the international community
to fulfill the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which
calls for a Syrian troop withdrawal and an end to its meddling
in Lebanese affairs. Syria has agreed to a two-stage withdrawal.
The first stage saw the removal of some 6,000 soldiers from the
mountains above Beirut and from the north to east of the Hammana-Mdeirej-Ain
Dara line, which cuts across the top of the mountain chain separating
the coast from the Bekaa Valley close to the Syrian border. The
fate of the remaining 9,000-10,000 soldiers in the Bekaa will
be decided at a meeting of top Syrian and Lebanese army chiefs
on April 7. The UN, the US and France are insisting that a full
withdrawal occur before Lebanese parliamentary elections scheduled
to be held by the end of May. On March 23, a European Union summit
reiterated this demand. Although various Syrian sources have said
that a full withdrawal is in the cards, no time frame has been
specified. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on March 22 that
Syrian President Bashar al-Asad has promised to produce a timetable
by April.
The Lebanese
opposition is calculating that it will triumph in the parliamentary
elections, overturning the pro-Syrian majority in Parliament.
Such an outcome would undermine Syria's ability to dictate events
in Lebanon and would almost certainly end the presidency of Lahoud.
Buoyed by a massive anti-Syrian rally on March 14 which drew as
many as one million flag-waving protesters to central Beirut's
Martyrs' Square, the opposition is pressing ahead with its seven-point
list of demands. The chief demands include an international investigation
into Hariri's murder, which the opposition blames on Syria and
its Lebanese allies, a full withdrawal of all Syrian forces, including
military intelligence personnel, and the resignation of the state
prosecutor and the heads of six Lebanese intelligence and security
services. Until mid-March, the opposition ruled out entering consultations
over the formation of a new government unless the authorities
accept these demands.
On February
28, Omar Karami resigned from the premiership in the face of a
wave of mass street protests, but Lahoud reappointed him a week
later when no other candidate was forthcoming. Karami has made
clear that he will resign again if he is unable to forge a government
of national unity. The new government needs to be in place by
the end of March to allow time for passage of a new electoral
law before the polls are held over several weekends in different
districts of the country. With the impasse threatening to delay
the elections, on March 21 Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon‚s
Druze community and the most outspoken opposition figure, appeared
to relent on the opposition‚s boycott of Karami, saying that a
government must be formed quickly to ensure that elections are
held on time.
If the opposition
succeeds in dominating Parliament after the elections, it will
be a bitter irony that it took Hariri‚s death to help terminate
Lahoud‚s presidency. The mass demonstrations in which tens of
thousands of Lebanese from all backgrounds spontaneously took
to the streets was a measure of the high regard in which Hariri
was held -- as well as anger at the reappearance of the car bombs
that plagued the country during its long years of civil strife.
THREAT TO
SYRIAN HEGEMONY
The White
House was quick to pick up on the significance of the demonstrations,
dubbing the protests the "Cedar Revolution" and tacitly
claiming them as validation of President George W. Bush‚s stated
intention to usher in democracy throughout the Arab world. Indeed,
some administration supporters have suggested a connection between
the January 30 elections in Iraq and the anti-Syrian rallies in
Beirut.
"The
assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, coming so
soon after Arabic satellite television beamed astonishing pictures
of Iraqis risking their lives to vote, ignited long-simmering,
anti-Syrian animosity among the Lebanese Christian and Sunni communities,"
wrote Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute
in the Weekly Standard. Jumblatt, once a fiery critic of Bush
administration policy, appeared to have a change of heart when
he said that the Iraqi elections were the Arab equivalent of the
toppling of the Berlin Wall. He has also opened up a dialogue
with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Just 18 months
ago, the State Department stripped Jumblatt of his diplomatic
visa after he publicly called Wolfowitz a "virus" and
lamented the fact that the US official had escaped injury in a
rocket attack on his hotel during a visit to Baghdad. The Lebanese
opposition has been encouraged by international pressure against
Syria, particularly from the US and France.
But the catalyst
for the demonstrations in Beirut had nothing to do with the elections
in Iraq or the more general goal of imposing democracy in the
Arab world. Rather, it was a direct reaction to the assassination
of Hariri. Although Hariri never formally announced he was siding
with the Lebanese opposition, he was regarded as its most powerful
champion and was expected to lead the campaign to oust the pro-Syrian
majority in the parliamentary elections. Long a useful ally of
Damascus, Hariri split with the Syrians when Lahoud's presidential
mandate was extended for an extra three years. According to sources
close to Hariri, the ex-prime minister had received assurances
in early summer 2004 from France, Egypt and Saudi Arabia that
Lahoud's mandate would not be renewed when it expired in October.
The failed assassination attempt in October against Marwan Hamadeh,
a former minister and close ally of Jumblatt, strengthened Hariri's
resolve to make a behind-the-scenes bid to end Syrian influence
in Lebanon.
From 1990,
the principal opponents of Syrian tutelage in Lebanon were the
Maronite Christians. In 2001, the Maronites held a formal reconciliation
with their traditional Druze foes, heralding a significant anti-Syrian
alliance between the two main sects in Mount Lebanon. Hariri's
tacit association with the opposition promised to bring the previously
quiescent but seething Sunni community on board. The opposition
may not have been able to capture a majority in Parliament, but
it represented the most serious threat to Syrian hegemony in Lebanon
since the end of the civil war.
If Syria
assassinated Hariri in the expectation that his death would decapitate
the opposition, as the Lebanese opposition assumes, it was a serious
miscalculation. Hariri's murder has brought the Christian, Druze
and Sunni communities into the streets in open defiance of Syrian
hegemony. Though various sectarian party banners have appeared
in the crowds, for the most part, the anti-Syrian demonstrations
have emphasized the rhetoric of national unity and waved the Lebanese
flag. Nevertheless, two unclaimed car bomb explosions, on March
19 and March 23, in Christian suburbs of Beirut reinforced concerns
that agents provocateurs could exploit the tense climate to sow
sectarian unrest. Many actors, including anti-Syrian ones, might
think they would gain from such unrest. Whatever the provenance
of the bombs, it is clear which of Lebanon's political players
has the most to lose from the ongoing political transformation
of the country.
ACUTE DILEMMA
The Shiites
are the only community that remains publicly ambiguous in its
stance toward Syria, as reflected in the positions of Hizballah
and the Amal movement, the two main bodies representing the Shiites
in Lebanon. Few Shiites will shed any tears at seeing the Syrians
decamp. The impoverished Shiites regard the estimated one million
Syrian laborers living in Lebanon as direct competition for jobs.
Shiite farmers in the rural south and the Bekaa Valley deeply
resent having been forced to compete with cheaper produce imported
from Syria. Hizballah and Amal are continuing to back Lahoud,
but for how much longer remains a key question. Nabih Berri, the
leader of Amal, is a political survivor and will likely take the
necessary measures to ensure he survives the transition, even
if it means losing his role as parliamentary speaker.
Hizballah,
however, faces an acute dilemma because the withdrawal of Syrian
political cover will mean an end to its autonomy in south Lebanon,
where it has enjoyed wide latitude to pursue its anti-Israel agenda.
Indeed, Hizballah is facing its greatest challenge since the end
of the civil war in 1990.
The 1989
Taif accord which helped end that conflict was initially opposed
by Hizballah because of its stipulation that all militias must
be dismantled. But Iran and Syria reached a deal whereby Hizballah
would be allowed to retain its arms to spearhead the resistance
campaign against Israel‚s occupation of south Lebanon. In return,
the Shiite party was obliged to set aside its misgivings about
Syria and accept the new Damascus-enforced post-war arrangement.
Hizballah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah‚s recent fulsome praise
of Syria notwithstanding, the party‚s relations with Damascus
have not always been cordial. Syria backed Hizballah's Shiite
rival Amal when the two groups fought each other in 1988 and Syrian
troops were ruthless in their suppression of Hizballah‚s influence
in the southern suburbs of Beirut a year earlier.
In 1992,
Hizballah fielded candidates for the parliamentary elections,
reversing its ideological rejection of the Lebanese confessionalist
political system in order to guarantee continued relevance. The
confessionalist system, which dates to the 1943 National Pact
and which was endorsed by the Taif agreement, allocates top government
slots by a sectarian calculus: the president is a Maronite, the
prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of Parliament
is a Shiite. Hizballah believes, as it always has, that Lebanon
is a majority-Muslim state that should be governed by Islamic
law. Since 1992, however, the party leadership has been willing
to pursue that goal within the existing confessional order. That
decision was not taken lightly, and caused a deep and bitter split
within party ranks. Sheikh Subhi Tufayli, Hizballah‚s first secretary-general
and a true ideologue who rejected any compromise, was gradually
marginalized and finally expelled from the party in 1997. Some
critics have dismissed Hizballah's "Lebanonization"
as insincere and a mere cover for its continued Islamist ideological
underpinnings. But such criticism misses the point. It is a fact
that Hizballah has entered mainstream parliamentary politics.
The organization has a transparent structure and is dependent
on the continued good will of its grassroots Shiite constituency.
Hizballah accepted that to achieve its goals it had to replace
revolution with evolution. Although Hizballah's ideology has not
changed, the way it conducts business has -- and that is relevant
to the ongoing speculation over Hizballah‚s moves in the coming
weeks and months.
Hizballah
largely sees the crisis as a struggle for the future of Lebanon,
but one in which it holds few cards. For the Shiite party, adhering
to Resolution 1559 and giving up its weapons means leaving the
anti-Israel axis formed by Lebanon, Syria and Iran and falling
under the political influence of the West. The Taif accord is
the Arab alternative, allowing for close ties with Syria, and
leaving the option open for Hizballah to retain its military wing,
the Islamic Resistance.
"Resolution
1559 contradicts the main principles of the Lebanese," says
Mahmoud
Hajj Ali,
a member of Hizballah's Political Council. "The need now
is to hold
onto Taif
and reject 1559 because 1559 wants Lebanon to move from one bank
of the river [anti-Israel, anti-America] to another bank [pro-America,
pro-Israel]." Hizballah has accepted the inevitability of
the Syrian troop withdrawal, but feels it is imperative to retain
sufficient Syrian influence in Lebanon to safeguard the Islamic
Resistance.
"Hizballah
believes that the whole purpose of 1559 is to impose a US order
in Lebanon, part of which would be the resettlement of the Palestinians
[in Lebanon] and peace with Israel, and I think this is something
the party takes extremely seriously," adds Amal Saad-Ghorayeb,
professor of politics at the Lebanese American University in Beirut
and author of a book on the party.
BARTERING
BY DEMONSTRATION
In the wake
of Hariri's assassination, Hizballah adopted a low profile, calling
for dialogue between the loyalist and opposition camps. On March
5, Hizballah took a stronger stand, holding a rally that drew
as many as 500,000 party supporters as well as followers of other
pro-Syrian groups, bolstered by busloads of Syrians ferried across
the border. Some observers believe that the demonstration proved
that the Shiite party has made a decision to remain within the
loyalist camp, supporting Lahoud and a continued Syrian role in
Lebanon. However, it is too early to state with any conviction
which way Hizballah will turn. The rally, also held under the
fluttering Lebanese flag, was only the group‚s opening bid in
what could be a lengthy process of bartering with the government
and the opposition. It was a means of reminding the ebullient
opposition forces that, if antipathy for Syria cuts across sectarian
boundaries, not all Lebanese communities share the same vision
for the future of their country.
Hizballah
is contemplating a difficult choice. If Hizballah stands rigidly
by Syria, and international pressure on Damascus eases, the party
may be able to resume its on-again, off-again war of attrition
against Israel along Lebanon‚s southern frontier. But that stand
would come at a price. Tolerance of Hizballah by other Lebanese,
and even the party's appeal to Shiites, would begin to fade if
the party sides too clearly with Damascus. On the other hand,
the Islamic Resistance remains the pulse of Hizballah, its core
expression. Many of its Shiite constituents would regard disarmament
as abandonment of a crucial tool for thwarting potential Israeli
aggression and, maybe, for regaining the Shebaa Farms, a narrow
strip of land that Israel and the UN consider part of the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights of Syria, but that Lebanon and Syria consider the
last patch of Lebanese territory still occupied by Israel. The
loss of its military wing would also check Hizballah's broader
ambitions as an organization of regional significance, an active
player in the Arab-Israeli conflict brandishing its "model
of resistance" to other dispossessed and occupied peoples.
Without its
militia, Hizballah risks becoming just another group jostling
for influence in Lebanon's fractious political arena. Such a fate
is anathema to Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, but it is one that he
may have little choice but to accept in the longer term. Hizballah
conducts its business behind closed doors and it is difficult
to assess where matters stand in the vehement debate over strategy
that is proceeding within the party. But some Hizballah officials
have tacitly acknowledged that the Islamic Resistance cannot continue
to exist indefinitely and that there is a future for the party
beyond an active military role. "The Islamic Resistance forms
the most important part of Hizballah's goals in the region --
it extends the culture of resistance," explains Hajj Ali.
"But we should not forget that Hizballah has an Islamic ideology
and Islam has other dimensions -- societal, political and cultural.
You can‚t reduce it to just a military aspect. If the Resistance
is Hizballah's main feature, it doesn‚t mean that it is the only
feature."
FACE-SAVING
COMPROMISE?
On March
15, Bush played to that duality, saying that while Washington
still views Hizballah as a terrorist organization, "I would
hope that Hizballah would prove that they‚re not by laying down
arms and not threatening peace." His comments were remarkably
conciliatory given that, in 2002, former Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage described Hizballah as the "A-team of terrorists,"
relegating al-Qaeda to the B-team. Hizballah's reaction to Bush's
comment was mixed. Nawaf Mussawi, who handles foreign relations
for Hizballah, was measured in his response, saying Bush was "trying
to propose an approach different from the traditional American
approach toward Hizballah." But Nasrallah rejected dismantling
the military wing, saying that it was required to defend Lebanon
from Israeli aggression. "We are ready to remain a terrorist
group in the eyes of George Bush to the end of time but we are
not ready to stop protecting our country, our people, their blood
and their honor," he said.
However,
Nasrallah has shown greater openness to the Lebanese opposition
and indicated that he is amenable to some form of compromise.
In an interview with Hizballah's al-Manar television station on
March 16, Nasrallah said, "Disarming the resistance will
be up for discussion, and we expect our partners [the opposition]
to offer us alternatives to defend the country and people."
The opposition is divided on this key issue. Druze leader Jumblatt
wants Hizballah to keep its weapons for the time being, but Maronite
patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir has joined Bush and Annan in calling
upon the party to lay down its arms in accordance with Resolution
1559, although Sfeir has ruled out the use of force to achieve
that goal.
Although
the Lebanese opposition does not speak with one voice on the status
of
the Islamic
Resistance, most of them are prepared to strike a deal. Among
the options under consideration is turning Hizballah into a border
protection force under Lebanese Army command. Another option suggested
by opposition MP Nassib Lahoud is to deploy Lebanese troops along
Lebanon‚s southern border and retain the Islamic Resistance as
a "strategic reserve" pending the conclusion of peace
with Israel. These scenarios are not particularly palatable to
Hizballah. But the Shiite party may find that such a face-saving
compromise is the only way to continue existing as a viable Lebanese
political party in what increasingly looks like a future with
greatly reduced Syrian patronage.
