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Nada
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Posted:07/06/2007 4:45 PM |
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Lemons from Lemonade
Washington and Lebanon after
the Syrian Withdrawal
Gary C. Gambill
Mideast Monitor
June/July 2007
All the parties have started again to be armed, as if we had
gone back more than 20 years and learned nothing.[1]
Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir,
Patriarch of Lebanon's Maronite Christian community
_____________________________________________________________________
The withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon in 2005 marked one of the
most significant American diplomatic achievements in the Middle East
in years. Washington played a decisive role in mobilizing international
pressure on Damascus, encouraging defections among Lebanon's governing
elite, and inspiring mass demonstrations in Beirut, leaving Syrian President
Bashar Assad little choice but to abandon the world's only remaining satellite
state. Much like the Bush administration's spectacular liberation of Iraq,
however, the emancipation of Lebanon has been overshadowed by chronic
instability, sectarian polarization, and the looming threat of civil war.
While American officials have put a brave face on Lebanon's unfortunate
trajectory, it has been a strategic disaster for Washington, catalyzing the
collapse of Syrian diplomatic isolation, renewed Arab engagement with Iran,
and the proliferation of Al-Qaeda affiliates in the heart of the Arab
Levant. That other regional and international governments (both friendly and
unfriendly) have played starring roles in this tragic saga hardly diminishes
the administration's resounding failure to project American influence in
Lebanon.
The central dynamic underlying this failure is the administration's steadily
multiplying investment of "symbolic capital" in an uphill drive for
political hegemony by incumbent elite factions that has been losing steam
since the day Syrian troops departed. While Lebanon's intricately
gerrymandered electoral system and skewed sectarian distribution of
parliamentary seats enabled the March 14 coalition to win a slim
parliamentary majority (with a fraction of the popular vote), its lack of a
strong democratic mandate, failure to redress lingering socio-economic and
political distortions of the occupation (e.g. rampant institutional
corruption, Shiite economic deprivation, Christian political marginalization),
and internal fragility have proven to be debilitating political weaknesses.
American efforts to strengthen the coalition have been plagued by
jaw-dropping miscalculations, chronic "Chalabi syndrome" (taking
information provided by local supplicants at face value) and path dependent
public diplomacy.
While acknowledging unpleasant realities is problematic in a country where
politicians shift foreign allegiances at the drop of a hat, the Bush
administration's public statements on Lebanon are eerily out of step with
developments on the ground even by the standards set by its predecessors.
The resignations of all Shiite cabinet ministers last November elicited
effusive American praise of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's rump government
for embodying "the diversity of Lebanon itself,"[2] while the peaceful
convergence of a fourth of its population into the streets of Beirut twice
last December[3] to demand a national unity government was dismissed as a
"coup d'etat" instigated by Iran and Syria.[4]
Few US officials really imagine that two of the least popular regimes on the
planet are capable of conjuring two of the largest per capita anti-government
demonstrations in world history (or that Lebanon's largest sectarian
community has "lost all free will," as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt frequently
intones),[5] but these assumptions have become staples in the outgoing
conventional wisdom of American think tanks, enormously constraining the
administration's freedom of action. While encouraging Lebanon's ruling
coalition to form a more representative government and carry out sweeping
reforms could stabilize the country and erode Syrian and Iranian influence
in the long run, two years of hyperbolic American rhetoric in support
of the status quo have ensured that any political compromise in Lebanon will
be seen as a symbolic defeat for the administration in the short run, both
at home and abroad - a tradeoff that the White House is unwilling to make.
Background
Until recently, Lebanon's proclivity to disintegrate under duress, whether
congenital or exogenous (i.e. the surrounding sea of tyrannical predators),
was considered too injurious to American interests to be left unattended.
After green-lighting a failed Israeli bid to pacify the country and leading an
ill-fated multinational peacekeeping mission in the early 1980s,
Washington gave the nod to Syria. Every stage of Syria's expansion was
tacitly sanctioned by the United States, from the initial entry of its
military in 1976[6] to the capture of West Beirut in 1987[7] and the final
offensive in 1990 that drove Gen. Michel Aoun into exile and shattered the
last fragments of Lebanon's First Republic.[8] De facto American sanction
for the occupation[9] critically weakened internal and external resistance
to Syrian domination of Lebanon, as the Lebanese people and foreign
governments alike came to recognize the futility of offending Damascus so
long as it had the sanction of the world's lone superpower.[10]
While the Bush I administration saw the occupation as a temporary necessity
to be gradually rolled back,[11] the incoming Clinton administration saw it
as a longer term palliative to draw Syria into peace with Israel and a means
of preventing Lebanon's 350,000+ Palestinian refugees from obstructing a
comprehensive peace settlement that failed to recognize their "right of
return." Although US policymakers publicly hinted that the United States
would help bring about a "Lebanon free of foreign forces" once a peace treaty
was concluded,[12] they sent Damascus unmistakable signals to the
contrary (e.g. periodic Israeli public statements pledging to recognize Syrian
interests in Lebanon as part of a peace settlement)[13] and rigorously
adhered to the polite fiction that Lebanon already had a fully sovereign,
democratically elected government.
Few in Washington were consciously amenable to Lebanon's satellitization
over the long term. Appeasement was less a willful decision to abandon
Lebanon than an article of faith in the "new Middle East." Once a
comprehensive peace settlement is reached, the thinking went, economic
prosperity will be the name of the game in the region and Syria will have far
less leverage over its smaller neighbor (some Western observers talked
half-seriously of Lebanon dominating Syria in the long run). While there was
some validity to this assumption, American officials failed to recognize its
logical corollary - that Assad would be prepared to sign a peace treaty only
if the expected intrinsic benefits outweighed the guaranteed political,
strategic, and economic returns of the occupation (the latter ranging from
Syrian worker remittances to artificially imbalanced trade relations), a
condition that simply never obtained.[14] Far from moderating Assad's
stance toward Israel, uncontested control of Lebanon reduced his need for
the economic "dividends" of peace.
In a similar vein, Western and Arab Gulf states subsidized the occupation by
pumping billions of dollars in aid and soft loans into the Lebanese economy.
Rather than encouraging the rise of an autonomous private sector, however,
external aid facilitated the rise of a parasitic economic order dependent
on the looming shadow of Syria. The elite nirvana of flat taxes, cheap foreign
labor, and chronic rural underdevelopment[15] built by the late Prime
Minister Rafiq Hariri in the 1990s produced only meager economic growth,
widening income inequalities, and crushing foreign debt, while "leaking" an
estimated $1.5 billion annually in graft (nearly 10% of the country's
GDP).[16] In return for helping high-ranking Syrian officials in charge of
Lebanon grow fabulously rich (most notably Maj. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, the
commander of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon; Vice-president Abdul
Halim Khaddam; and Army Chief of Staff Hikmat Shihabi), Hariri gained
enormous influence within the Syrian regime itself (which is largely why
Assad found it necessary to remove him from office for two years while
paving the way for his son's ascension). However, he never aspired to lead
Lebanon out of Syria's orbit so much as to gain influence within it, even
after being forced to share power with his archrival, President Emile Lahoud.
Moreover, Lebanon's postwar economic and political order depended on the
radical Islamist Hezbollah movement to restrain the Shiite underclass from
challenging the state and provide Iranian-funded social welfare services to
compensate for the government's neglect of the poor. The only thing that
dissuaded Hezbollah from mobilizing the Shiite street against economic and
political injustices (Lebanon's power-sharing formula allots Shiites only
21% of parliamentary seats and bars them from the presidency and
premiership, respectively reserved for Christians and Sunnis) was Damascus.
The Syrians awarded the "privilege" of maintaining a powerful militia to
fight Israeli troops in south Lebanon exclusively to Hezbollah and, by
extension, the Shiite community,[17] which had long been left to fend for
itself against powerful enemies (first the Palestinians, then the Israelis).
Most Shiites came to see the "resistance" as both a necessary instrument of
defense and a form of temporary compensation for decades of state neglect.
By cultivating these interdependencies, Damascus created a system
manifestly unable to function on its own (let alone restrain Hezbollah and
Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Lebanon) in the event of a
precipitous Syrian withdrawal. Even Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM),
which spearheaded mass demonstrations against the occupation, unwittingly
played a role in preserving this delicate ecosystem - governing elites were
kept in check by the knowledge that a Syrian withdrawal would soon be
followed by the return from exile of a towering nationalist figure who
repeatedly vowed that they will be tried on charges of treason. Consequently,
tacit American support for the occupation continued despite the collapse
of the Israeli-Syrian track of the peace process.[18]
Liberating Lebanon
Syria's obstruction of Operation Iraqi Freedom - a far greater and more
immediate threat to American interests than the prospect of Lebanon's
disintegration - changed everything. In March 2003, Secretary of State Colin
Powell's fired a warning shot by reviving the term "occupation" (absent from
American lexicon on Lebanon for nearly two decades) in a congressional
subcommittee hearing,[19] clearly with the intention of exchanging continued
American forbearance in Lebanon for Syrian cooperation in Iraq. However,
while Assad grudgingly retreated from logistical support for Sunni jihadist
infiltration into Iraq to logistical noninterference (essentially the policy of
Saudi Arabia), he refused to offer the kind of robust cooperation Washington
demanded (lest the jihadis turn on him and mobilize Syrian Sunnis against
Alawite "heretics" at home).
After signing largely symbolic sanctions legislation in late 2003, the only
way to further squeeze Syria in Lebanon was by mobilizing broader
international and domestic Lebanese pressure on the Syrians. The French
(and, discretely, the Saudis) were eager to support an American campaign to
subvert Syrian control of Lebanon, but not if the administration intended to
back off in exchange for Syrian cooperation in Iraq (a secondary concern
to both). Both were interested less in a Syrian withdrawal than in bolstering
the political power of Prime Minister Hariri, a close personal friend of
both French President Jacques Chirac and the royal family of Saudi Arabia
(Hariri made his fortune in the kingdom and even assumed Saudi citizenship
before returning to Lebanon as premier in 1992).
Although Bush and Chirac publicly called for Syrian non-interference in the
Lebanese parliament's election of a president, what they wanted was Syrian
interference in support of candidate close to Hariri - non-interference
would have left parliament deadlocked, as Hariri controlled only a third of
the 128-member parliament and none of the other political blocs had the
slightest interest in seeing the presidency fall under his sway (Jumblatt,
who controlled a 14-seat bloc in parliament, had spent much of 2004 publicly
sniping at Hariri and making blood-curdling threats against the United
States in hopes of winning Syrian favor).[20] It was only after Damascus
instructed parliamentarians to extend Lahoud's term (days before the actual
vote) that the Security Council passed Resolution 1559, calling for the
withdrawal of "foreign forces" from Lebanon.
The Security Council's formal commitment to securing a Syrian
withdrawal fundamentally shifted the political playing field in Lebanon
against Damascus - illustrated by defection of Jumblatt, who instructed his
parliamentary bloc to vote against Lahoud's extension, pulled his
representatives out of the cabinet, and cemented an alliance with the
mainstream Christian opposition Qornet Shehwan Gathering. While Hariri
carefully avoided outward signs of opposition to Syria, he quietly planned
to join forces with Jumblatt and Qornet Shehwan in Lebanon's Spring 2005
parliamentary elections.
The assassination of Hariri in February 2005 was presumably intended to halt
this wave of elite defections and might well have succeeded had the Bush
administration not demanded an immediate Syrian withdrawal and - more
importantly - prodded the Saudis to do likewise. After a few weeks of
hesitation, Hariri's political bloc (now led by his son, Saad) began mobilizing
the Sunni masses against the occupation, and for a brief moment
Lebanon's most powerful elite factions stood side by side with the FPM to
demand Lebanon's independence. It was not to last.
A Risky Gambit
Aoun was eager to form a united opposition slate with Saad Hariri and
Jumblatt upon his return from exile days after the Syrian withdrawal, but he
was in for a rude surprise. Jumblatt was adamant that no more than three
seats be reserved for FPM candidates in the opposition's electoral slates.
In effect, the Druze leader was forcing Aoun out of the coalition, as he knew
all too well that the FPM could win far more than three seats running
on its own. Aoun had tested the party's electoral strength in a parliamentary
by-election less than two years earlier (after boycotting all previous
national elections), when a virtually unknown FPM candidate captured 73%
of the Christian vote running against the scion of a prominent Christian
family backed by the entire governing elite (e.g. Hariri, Lahoud, and
Jumblatt) and most of Qornet Shehwan.[21] The reasoning behind Aoun's
expulsion was vintage Jumblatt - he feared (correctly) that he would lose
influence within the American-backed coalition if it included a powerful
Christian leader (all of the other Christians in the coalition were dependent
on the political machines of Jumblatt or the Hariri family to win election).
With Aoun's departure from the coalition, Jumblatt and Hariri could hope to
win a majority only by making two controversial decisions that would have
far-reaching implications. First, they insisted on preserving Lebanon's
occupation-era electoral law, which effectively disenfranchised Christian
voters by embedding most of them in majority Muslim electoral districts.
When this sparked an angry outcry by Christians,[22] the Bush administration
helped put the issue to rest by publicly demanding that there be no
postponement of the elections to allow for redistricting. In so doing, it
blundered by publicly accusing Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir of
"adding fuel" to sectarian tensions (violating a taboo that even the Syrians
respected most of the time) and declining to publicly retract the
statement.[23] Success in ensuring that Christian votes wouldn't decisively
affect the outcome of the election came at the expense of fatally undermining
its perceived integrity.
A second vital component of the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition's strategy was
its acquisition of endorsements from radical Sunni Islamist clerics (critical in
mixed Sunni-Christian districts of north Lebanon)[24] and Hezbollah
(critical in mixed Druze-Christian districts of Mount Lebanon).[25] While the
former were bought with pledges (subsequently honored) to amnesty
suspected Al-Qaeda operatives languishing in Lebanese prisons,[26]
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's price for support was
continued government sanction of the movement's "resistance" to Israel -
formalizing the quid pro quo that evolved under the Syrian occupation.
Having been assured by March 14 leaders that they would easily win a
two-thirds "supermajority" of seats needed to oust Lahoud (and having
approved of the dubious methods largely on this basis), American officials
were stunned when the coalition was trounced by the nationalists in
the Christian heartland and ended up capturing only 56% of the seats overall.
This left it with a stark choice - acquiesce to Aoun's ascension as president
(for it would need the votes of FPM deputies to win an impeachment)
or allow Lahoud to remain in office until the expiration of his extended term
in 2007.
For all of their anti-Syrian rhetoric, Hariri and Jumblatt preferred to
leave Assad's man in the presidency rather than bow to the wishes of nearly
three quarters of the Christian electorate and accept Aoun's ascension.
Without controlling the presidency, they would be unable to unilaterally
replace Syrian-vetted military officers, judges, and diplomats. Furthermore,
they refused to offer the FPM a major ministry to join the government after
the elections (Aoun would have accepted interior or justice), turning
instead to Hezbollah (which had hitherto declined cabinet representation),
the Amal party of Speaker Nabih Berri (united under a single Shiite banner
with Hezbollah), and pro-Lahoud Christians as coalition partners. The result
was a cabinet composed mostly of former high-ranking officials of Syria's
1990-2003 satellite state or their political subordinates (Prime Minister
Fouad Siniora was the longest-serving finance minister of Syrian-occupied
Lebanon).
None for All
The March 14 coalition began its stewardship of Lebanon with a perilously
weak democratic mandate. Christians and Shiites (roughly two-thirds of
Lebanon's population) had voted overwhelmingly for the FPM and
Hezbollah, respectively, while the coalition could claim majority support only
among Sunnis and Druze (roughly a third of the population). This translated
into a slim parliamentary majority only because of inegalitarian constitutional
and electoral statutes promulgated under Syrian occupation. Unable to
stack the Constitutional Court with loyalist judges, the coalition was forced to
dissolve Lebanon's highest judicial body indefinitely (in violation of
Article 19 of the Lebanese constitution) in order to fend off Aoun's challenge
to the election results (which gained strength after the publication of a critical
report by the European Union's observer mission).[27]
The coalition's tenuous democratic mandate left it little choice but to
honor its campaign pledge to Hezbollah - declining to interfere with its arms
shipments from Iran[28] and refusing to obstruct (or even publicly criticize)
its periodic cross-border raids. Until the coalition acquired a measure
of broad-based appeal among Shiites, no credible Shiite politician would be
willing to serve in the government if Nasrallah called for a boycott.
Moreover, the coalition's weak popular appeal among Shiites and Christians
meant that it could not risk alienating its core Sunni constituency by
cracking down on the proliferation of armed Sunni Islamist groups in the
Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon. In short, the reconstitution of a
sovereign Lebanese state was virtually impossible in the absence of major
economic and political reform.
While the Siniora government promised sweeping change, the coalition's lack
of a unifying political vision, entrenched economic interests, and inability
to withstand defections (owing to its slim legislative majority) produced an
acute collective action dilemma that it has never managed to overcome.
Although reform would hypothetically have served the collective interest of
the coalition by strengthening the state and defusing Shiite and Christian
alienation, in practice individuals and factions were willing to go to virtually
any lengths to defend their own parochial interests. Jumblatt, for example,
conspicuously sent a delegation into talks with the FPM at the first sign of
tensions with Hariri.
Like all classic free rider problems, the solution lies in an outside mechanism
to restrain the predatory impulses of individual actors and guide them
to a course of action that advances their collective interest. Rhetoric aside,
however, the Bush administration has subscribed to the same "Lebanon will
be Lebanon" pessimism about prospects for change as its predecessors,
focusing instead on cultivating an alliance with Jumblatt on par with Saudi
patronage of Hariri's Future Movement. This would prove to be very
useful in obstructing Saudi influence over the coalition as needed, but it only
exacerbated the coalition's inability to make tough choices.
Consequently, there has been little systemic reform of any kind in Lebanon
since the Syrian withdrawal. A glaring illustration is the proliferation of
unregulated rock and sand quarries, a sector that should have generated an
estimated $2.5 billion during the Syrian occupation had the state simply
been willing to collect fees and taxes. Although transparent regulation and
licensing would today draw an estimated $130 million annually into the state
treasury, the right to strip away mountainsides with minimal interference
from the state continues to handed out by politicians in return for kickbacks
(with serious environmental consequences).[29]
Particularly irksome to Christians (alongside the coalition's failure to
promulgate a new electoral law, which Hariri had promised would be the
new government's first order of business) is the lack of reform at the Ministry
of the Displaced. Although the ministry was established to provide for the
return of mostly Christian refugees expelled from their homes in Mount
Lebanon during the 1975-1990 war, it has long been under the control of
Jumblatt and most of its budget has gone to compensate Druze squatters who
moved into cleansed Christian neighborhoods.[30] The IMF recommended
cutting expenditures to the ministry last year,[31] not because it doesn't care
about the 83% of the displaced who have yet to be resettled, but because
it recognizes that the ministry is merely an institutional façade for Jumblatt's
patronage machine.
While the Siniora government's transformation of the internal security
forces (ISF) along sectarian lines (Shiites constitute well under 10% of new
recruits)[32] is often attributed to the desire to create a "Sunni militia" to
counterbalance Hezbollah, a more prosaic impetus is also at work - excluding
Shiites serves the parochial interests of politicians who treat employment
in the ISF as a form of patronage.
Although Western governments have frequently praised Siniora for his
ostensible commitment to economic reform, in reality most of his "reforms"
are designed to consolidate entrenched interests. In the absence of a
transparent regulatory environment, privatization is not a reform. Siniora's
economic plan calls for greater gasoline and value-added taxes that would
disproportionately burden the Shiite underclass, while leaving one of
the world's most regressive income tax scales in place - not so much because
anyone believes it is a workable solution to Lebanon's socio-economic
problems, but because it is the only method of raising taxes that disparate
elements of the coalition will freely commit to.
Ironically, one place that did witness substantial reform after the Syrian
pullout is the Ministry of Energy and Water, under Hezbollah cabinet
minister Muhammad Fneish.[33] Fneish was no more altruistic than other
ministers; he simply had nothing to lose by cracking down on entrenched oil
and gas cartels (he was decidedly less enthusiastic about tackling rampant
theft of electricity in the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut). This is a
critical distinction. FPM control of a major ministry is a red line for the
coalition mainly because Aoun, like Fneish, would have absolutely nothing to
lose by acting on his pledges to clean up government, even if his motives
are completely self-serving. Lebanon's senior Shiite cleric, Sayyed
Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, spoke for many when he lambasted the
"thieves who made a fortune out of running the country" and called for a
government of people "with a clean history."[34]
In February 2006, the FPM and Hezbollah signed a memorandum of
understanding outlining their vision for reform, which was greeted with
virtually unanimous assent in the Shiite community and 77% approval in the
Christian community.[35] The Bush administration was infuriated by the
accord, fearing that it would make the March 14 coalition even more willing
to kowtow to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. That was true, of course,
but only because the coalition was so manifestly unable to win Shiite support
through other means - which is precisely what Aoun claims to be attempting.
The FPM insists that the majority of Shiites (if not Hezbollah itself) will
eventually countenance the disarmament once they feel their future in
Lebanon is secure.
The idea that Shiite alienation is a "fixable" obstacle to Hezbollah's
disarmament seems to have escaped American policymakers. The
administration was convinced by its new Lebanese allies that the solution to
the Siniora government's lack of "backbone" was the removal of Lahoud,
which would enable it to establish firmer control over the Lebanese military.
The only way to achieve this (short of accepting Aoun as president)
was by ratcheting up pressure on Assad to the point that he would be willing
to sacrifice his remaining institutional foothold in Lebanese government.
It was also hoped that isolating Syria might help persuade Parliament
Speaker Nabih Berri, the leader of the pro-Syrian Amal party (which formed
unified Shiite alliance with Hezbollah after the Syrian withdrawal) to break
with Nasrallah and support Lahoud's impeachment. The Bush administration
was already committed to squeezing Syria for broader strategic purposes,
but the erroneous belief that Damascus held the key to solving Lebanon's
domestic problems (as March 14 leaders invariably maintained) validated its
unwillingness to press for political and economic reform.
Targeting Damascus
At the time of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, Assad was struggling with
strong domestic challenges and unprecedented international isolation owing
to widespread suspicions of his regime's involvement in the assassination
of Hariri. In Washington, there was an almost universal consensus that now
was the time to push forcefully for across the board capitulation by Assad in
Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Lebanon, once a carrot in
the toolbox of American diplomacy with Syria, was now a stick.
The most powerful weapon at the administration's disposal was the UN
International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) established to
investigate the killing of Hariri. With little doubt as to the involvement
of some node of Syria's intricate, multipolar web of official and unofficial
operatives in the assassination (all other explanations are wildly implausible)
and a cooperative Lebanese government now in place, American officials
were convinced that the UN investigation would eventually find a
smoking gun.
However, while the commission quickly uncovered significant (if hardly
conclusive) circumstantial evidence of collusion and evidence tampering by
Lebanese security officials close to Lahoud, no direct evidence of Syrian
involvement ever came to light, save for the testimony of secret witnesses
later revealed to be highly questionable[36] and likely planted by the March
14 coalition (or possibly, as Jumblatt has suggested, planted by the Syrians
to taint the investigation).[37] Four senior Lebanese security officials
have been detained at the behest of the IIIC for eighteen months in hopes that
they will implicate Syria, but to no avail. The commission has since backed
away from claims of Syrian involvement.
Unable to produce conclusive evidence of Syrian complicity in the Hariri
killing, the Security Council expanded the mandate of the IIIC to include
subsequent assassinations of (mostly marginal) Christian public figures, but
none of these investigations appears to have borne fruit. Indeed, in an
environment where fear of Syria has been effectively channeled into support
for the ruling coalition, the presumption of Syrian involvement in most of
the killings is rather dubious - particularly in view of past "false flag" killings
by the Lebanese Forces.[38]
More importantly, Washington insisted on bylaws for an international
tribunal that minimize the burden of proof necessary to issue indictments[39]
and maximize American influence over the appointment of judges.[40]
Once indictments are issued, the thinking goes, it won't matter whether there
is enough evidence to convict because no one expects Assad to hand
over Syrian defendants for trial - the plan is to use his refusal as a justification
for UN sanctions. For this reason, the administration has insisted that
the tribunal be established before the IIIC issues its final report on the killing
(which has been repeatedly postponed).
While most Lebanese support the formation of an international tribunal,
these issues have proven to be politically divisive. Above and beyond their
understandable desire to see the Syrians brought to justice for the killing
of Hariri, March 14 leaders know that failing to axiomatically support the
expanded mandate of the IIIC and robust tribunal bylaws would undercut the
basis of unflinching American support that is their political lifeblood
(they have little else to offer Washington in return). For the same reason,
Hezbollah has refused to accept these terms without gaining something in
return. Thus, it consented to the December 2005 expansion of the IIIC
mandate only in exchange for a statement by Siniora implying that Hezbollah
is not a militia subject to disarmament under Resolution 1559 (Hariri
had been willing to a more clear cut statement, but Jumblatt scuttled the deal).
Its refusal to endorse the Security Council's recommended bylaws without
commensurate political concessions contributed to the onset of the current
political crisis (see below).
For all of the political capital the coalition has invested in the tribunal,
it has not yet seen a domestic return. In January 2006, the Bush administration
launched a major diplomatic initiative through Egyptian and Saudi
intermediaries to persuade Syria to secure Lahoud's resignation.[41] Although
its not entirely clear what Syria was offered in return, Hariri and Jumblatt
were so confident Assad would accept that they publicly vowed to
organize mass rallies if Lahoud didn't leave office within a month (so as to
claim credit for his departure). However, Lahoud's expected resignation
never materialized and March 14 leaders quietly dropped their threats to
organize demonstrations.
Assad may well have been willing to sacrifice Lahoud in exchange for a
reprieve from the West, but there is little reason to believe that the Lebanese
president would have resigned at his request (primarily concerned
with rehabilitating his battered public image among Christians, Lahoud had
nothing to gain by handing control of the presidency to the March 14
coalition). Hopes that Berri would defect fizzled for much the same reason -
prevailing public opinion would have made it political suicide.
The Great Israeli Hope
For nearly a year after the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, the
Bush administration discouraged Israel from retaliating forcefully for
Hezbollah's periodic cross-border raids on the grounds that it would disrupt
Lebanon's delicate political transition. However, as the prospects of Syrian
intervention to oust Lahoud receded and the Western confrontation with Iran
intensified, the administration came to see the matter in a very different
light. When Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 raid, the
Jewish state received enthusiastic support for a major war in Lebanon not
only from Washington, but also from France and Saudi Arabia.
The 34-day Israeli military campaign that followed was intended less to
achieve concrete military objectives than to "energize a political outcome" in
Lebanon, as one American official put it, conducive to the dissolution of
Hezbollah's "state within a state."[42] In short, this meant inflicting a level of
punishment on Lebanon sufficient to turn public opinion against Hezbollah.
However, while the Israeli campaign was sufficiently destructive to render
future cross-border raids politically unthinkable for Hezbollah and provide
a pretext for the deployment of 13,000 UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon,
it nevertheless bolstered public support for Hezbollah among Shiites (and,
to some extent, non-Shiites). Moreover, the war undermined public confidence
in the March 14 coalition. For the 48% of the Lebanese public that believes
some or all of its leaders had advance knowledge of the attack,[43] the war
branded the coalition as traitorous; for the other half, it branded the coalition
as an out-of-the-loop, tertiary American ally.[44]
Because of the Bush administration's staunch public support for the Israeli
campaign, the war led to an upsurge in public hostility to the United
States. Although the Saudis and the French secretly encouraged the Israeli
campaign,[45] they made sure to denounce it publicly,[46] leaving
Washington alone to bear the reputational expenses. While 69% of the
Lebanese public viewed the United States as an "enemy" after the war ended,
according to an August 2006 poll, less than 30% felt this way about France
or Saudi Arabia (Syria and Iran scored 22% and 19% respectively).[47] Four
months after the end of the war, a Gallup poll showed 59% of Lebanese
still had a "negative" or "very negative" opinion of the United States (up
from 42% in 2005).[48]
The combined impact of these results was politically devastating for the
March 14 coaltion. By sealing off Hezbollah's access to the battlefield, the war
removed its primary incentive for continued political quietism. At the
height of its regional and domestic popularity, Hezbollah would now have to
fight injustices closer to home.
The Political Fallout
Once the dust settled, Hezbollah wasted little time in declaring a sweeping
reorientation of its focus to the establishment of a "just and strong" state.
In October, Aoun and Nasrallah jointly called for the establishment of
a national unity government in which the Hezbollah-Amal coalition and the
FPM would be granted a "one-third plus one" share, or "blocking third"
of the cabinet, which would enable opposition ministers to collectively veto
major government decisions simply by not showing up to vote (the
constitution requires a cabinet quorum of two-thirds). Although coalition
governments of this kind have usually been the norm in Lebanon and
a blocking third of the cabinet was far less than the opposition's 44% stake in
parliament, the March 14 coalition flatly rejected the demand.
While the coalition justified its refusal to compromise on the grounds that
a national unity government would enable Syria and Iran to veto Lebanese
government decisions, this was largely for Western consumption (only
the FPM would gain cabinet seats under the opposition's proposal and few
Lebanese dispute that Aoun is a safe bet to hold the line against outsiders).
The primary (though conspicuously unspoken) concern of March 14 leaders
was that a national unity government would effectively end their chances
of winning a majority in the next election cycle (already slim, as they had
been reliant on Hezbollah's support to defeat the FPM in 2005). With a
blocking third of the cabinet, Aoun and Nasrallah could pressure the coalition
to promulgate any number of reforms (a fair electoral law, campaign finance
limits, etc.) that would level the political playing field.
As bleak as the political implications of a national unity government may
have been for the coalition, rejecting this demand (as well as opposition calls
for early elections) was a grim alternative. With public opinion polls
showing over two-thirds of the Lebanese public favoring a national unity
government,[49] the coalition's refusal to share power eroded the Siniora
government's thin veneer of legitimacy in the eyes of most Lebanese, leaving
it precariously dependent on Western backing. Since there was no longer
any point in trying to steer a path between Western demands and lowest
common denominator sectarian consensus, in-mid November Siniora called a
cabinet vote on the proposed tribunal charter, prompting the resignations
of all five Shiite ministers (and the only Lahoudist minister still loyal to
the president).[50] Two weeks later, Hezbollah and the FPM organized the
first of two mass anti-government demonstrations drawing over one million
protestors and began a continuous sit-in by a few thousand protestors that
continues to this day.
Amidst the flurry of Arab mediation efforts that followed, the Bush
administration's overriding imperative was to scuttle any negotiated political
compromise that would restrict the coalition's ability to unilaterally dictate
policy - an outlook that corresponded perfectly with the preferences of
Jumblatt and LF leader Samir Geagea, who would have the most to lose from
the establishment of a broad-cased government. While Saad Hariri was
somewhat more amenable to the establishment of a national unity
government (provided that the opposition accepts a "robust" tribunal statute
and other binding commitments to a third party), he was unwilling to break
with his allies.
While Washington succeeded in blocking the establishment of a national
unity government, it never developed an effective strategy for achieving an
acceptable resolution to the crisis. American officials tried persuading
Aoun to break with Hezbollah and join the government, but these efforts
were ad hoc and fatally compromised by the coalition's collective action curse.
Discussions about which cabinet portfolios to offer the FPM in return for
joining the government invariably became deadlocked (Lebanese politicians
never had to resolve these kinds of issues when the Syrians controlled
Lebanon), so Aoun was offered only symbolic cabinet seats (ministers of
state). In the end, the administration resorted to threatening Aoun,
both privately and publicly, a tactic virtually guaranteed to encourage his
continued defiance.[51]
The administration's efforts to bolster public support for the Siniora
government have been unimaginative. Its exaggerated (but necessarily vague)
praise for the Siniora government's reformist credentials and denunciation
of protestors as lackeys of Syria and Iran have been effective only in signaling
American determination to preserve the status quo, as were its warnings
(however delicately worded) that a change in government would jeopardize
billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.[52] However, with anti-American
sentiment at an all time high and a large majority of the population clamoring
for change, such rhetoric has won over few hearts and minds.
Constructive Instability
Lacking a remotely viable strategy for bringing Lebanon's crisis to a
satisfactory resolution, the Bush administration has largely resigned itself
to Lebanon's political fragmentation. After the December demonstrations, it
authorized covert CIA assistance to pro-government groups[53] and turned a
blind eye to the training of combatants by Jumblatt and Geagea, mostly
under the guise of registered (and perfectly legal) "security companies."
Although March 14 leaders have been careful to speak of taking up arms only
in hypothetical terms to counter an attempt by Hezbollah to overthrow the
government by force, they are well aware that Hezbollah has never attacked
state security forces or engaged in sectarian bloodletting (in sharp
contrast to the wartime militias commanded by Geagea and Jumblatt).[54]
While the overall deterioration in Lebanon's security climate is cause
enough for political leaders to covet paramilitary forces, there is good reason
to believe that they will not be put to solely defensive uses. In November,
the Lebanese army arrested nine members of the LF who were conducting a
live fire exercise (shooting at targets from moving vehicles) that appeared
to indicate training for targeted assassinations (they were released after their
credentials as "bodyguards" for the manager of a Christian television
station checked out). When opposition activists blocked highways with
burning tires during a nationwide strike in January, three protestors were
gunned down and several others wounded by masked snipers.
Adding to the potential for sectarian violence is the proliferation of armed
Sunni Islamist groups (generously funded by private donors in the
Arab Gulf states)[55]), which have been allowed to operate with a surprising
degree of freedom since the Syrian withdrawal. In February 2007, a report by
investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh claimed that the Bush
administration and the Siniora government were directly aiding Sunni
Islamist terrorist groups in Lebanon, including Fatah al-Islam, to create a
sectarian counterweight to Hezbollah [56] Although Hersh's claims, based on
interviews with unnamed American, European, and Arab officials, have not
been independently verified, Siniora's office responded with a classic
"non-denial denial" suggesting that there is some truth to the allegation.[57]
The Bush administration's tolerance of this state of affairs appears to
derive in part from the belief prevailing among pro-March 14 Lebanese and
American analysts that Assad cannot risk the eruption of full-blown
Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict in Lebanon, which could inspire Syria's
majority Sunni population to rise up against his predominantly Alawite-led
regime. From this it follows that Syria (and Iran) will be more inclined
to "rein in" Hezbollah if conditions in Lebanon are conducive to a violent
sectarian backlash against Shiite political empowerment.
Whatever the precise reasons, the sectarian violence that erupted during the
national strike in January clearly dampened the opposition's taste for
demonstrations and strikes. Aoun and Nasrallah are content to wait until the
expiration of President Lahoud's term in September. They have warned that
opposition MPs will not attend a parliamentary session to elect Lahoud's
successor unless a consensus candidate is agreed upon beforehand,
preventing the two-thirds quorum required under the constitution. Although
March 14 leaders have condemned the use of this tactic, their objections are
compromised by the fact that it was previously employed for more pernicious
ends by Rafiq Hariri in 1994 (to prevent parliament from amending his
restrictions on the media)[58] and by Geagea in 1988 (when the LF prevented
Christians deputies from attending a session to elect a successor to President
Amine Gemayel).
Lahoud has warned that if the Lebanese parliament fails to elect a successor,
he will dissolve parliament and appoint an interim cabinet to govern
the country until such time as a legitimate president can be elected. Although
the legality of such a move is dubious, so too is the March 14 coalition's
threat to elect a new president without the necessary quorum. The Bush
administration has tried to persuade Sfeir to take sides in the dispute
by declaring that a quorum of two-thirds is not needed to elect a legitimate
successor to Lahoud, but to no avail - in fact, Sfeir has publicly affirmed that
a two-thirds quorum is needed (while urging the opposition not to boycott).
A Shifting Equilibrium
While the Bush administration's stance on Lebanon has calcified since
the December demonstrations, European and Arab governments have grown
steadily more concerned about the political crisis on their doorstep.
After nearly two years of stifling Syrian diplomatic isolation, in late
2006 senior European officials began paying visits to Damascus in hopes of
winning a reprieve for the March 14 coalition,[59] offering Assad
normalization of relations with the EU in return for his "cooperation" in
ending the Lebanon crisis.[60] When EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana
visited the Syrian leader in March, the subject of internal reforms and
human rights in Syria didn't come up.[61] European overtures to Iran were
more discrete, but it received an even bigger prize with Saudi Prince Bandar
bin Sultan's visit to Tehran in January for the first of three meetings with
Iranian security officials, culminating in a visit by Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Riyadh in March.
Although Bush administration officials opposed the Saudi and European
mediation efforts, they basically agreed with the assumption that Tehran
and/or Damascus have the power to pressure Hezbollah into abandoning its
demand for a national unity government. For all of the criticism meted out
to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during and after her
trip to Damascus in April, the administration shares her belief that "the
road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus"[62] (and, not
surprisingly, followed up by dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice to meet her Syrian counterpart for the first time). There is heated
disagreement only over the question of what tools can best persuade Assad to
play ball (i.e. carrots or sticks) and whether he is "ripe" for such a deal.[63]
In fact, there is little indication that either Iran or Syria can force Hezbollah
to break with the FPM (the holy grail of non-Shiite Lebanese allies).
While Nasrallah has welcomed Arab and European diplomatic engagement
with Tehran and Damascus, he has publicly warned that agreements
negotiated by outside governments are "not binding to the Lebanese."[64]
Corrupt Iranian clerics and Syrian Baathists who are loathed by the majority
of their own constituents simply cannot tell the most adored public figure
in the Muslim world what to do.
Recognizing this, both the Saudis and the French have begun trying to
broker a compromise leading to the formation of a unity government. Saudi
irritation with Geagea's obstructionism was quite evident from the
astonishingly hostile questioning he encountered in a recent interview with
the Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat (e.g. "Why did you not respect the people's
view in the elections, which gave General Aoun the biggest Christian
bloc and a victory based on the votes of 70% of the Christian electorate?"),[66]
a newspaper that closely reflects thinking in official Saudi circles. American
encouragement of Geagea and Jumblatt is one of the factors contributing
to strains in Saudi-American relations, illustrated by King Abdullah's
condemnation of the American occupation of Iraq as "illegitimate" at the
Arab summit in late March and cancellation of a White House dinner in April.
The French have made an even more sweeping policy shift since Chirac's
departure from office in May, as is evident from Aoun's meeting with the
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris and French plans to host
a dialogue conference with representatives of all major political factions.
In view of the evolving Arab and European stance, the United States cannot
indefinitely obstruct a political compromise based on lowest common
denominator sectarian consensus (a principle deeply enshrined in Lebanon's
political tradition). Although Geagea may hold out as long as Washington
wishes, Jumblatt is bound to recalibrate his position (with little warning)
once he feels that the domestic and regional tide has shifted - a trademark of
his politics that many in Washington do not seem to appreciate. Continuing
American obstructionism carries the risk that the main contours of a
negotiated solution to the Lebanese crisis will be decided through back
channels and presented to Washington after the fact.
Notes
[1] L'Orient-Le Jour (Beirut), 26 February 2006. Sfeir's press spokesman
subsequently confirmed the quotation [see Lebanese Catholic patriarch warns
rival factions against arms buildup, Catholic News Service, 27 February
2007.
[2] Interview with R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for
Political Affairs, LBC, 1 December 2006 (transcript released by the State
Department).
[3] The police estimated the size of the December 1 demonstration to be
800,000, while the opposition claimed 1.5 million. ["Hundreds of thousands
of Hezbollah supporters protest in Beirut to bring down government," The
Associated Press, 1 December 2006.] The authorities declined to give an
official estimate of the size of the December 10 demonstration, but most
journalists gave estimates of at least one million. ["Million supporters
come out for Hezbollah," United Press International, 10 December 2006; ABC
World News Sunday transcript, 10 December 2006]
[4] Media Stakeout with Ambassador John Bolton, US Permanent
Representative to the United Nations, Federal News Service, 1 December 2006.
[5] "'Syrian, Iranian threats paralyze Berri' - Jumblatt," The Daily Star
(Beirut), 8 January 2007.
[6] Syrian forces entered in 1976 to shore up Christian militias facing
defeat at the hands of Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim forces, after
negotiating the so-called "red-line agreement" with Washington (barring
Syrian troops from the south and Beirut).
[7] While there is little direct evidence of explicit American approval, a
few weeks before the Syrian entry into West Beirut (ostensibly to put a stop
to militia fighting), US Secretary of State George Shultz called the
Lebanese capital a "plague-infested place from the Middle Ages" that needed
to be "quarantined." [Edward Mortimer, Nora Boustany, "The West Should Look
To Syria, Lebanon," The Financial Times, 7 February 1987.]
[8] An advisor to Elias Hrawi, the president of Syria's rival satellite
regime in West Beirut, later paraphrased the American message as follows:
"If the battle is prolonged, we will have to express our regret over the
continued violence in Lebanon. If you fail, we will not condemn the action
but call on the Lebanese to resort to dialogue to sort out their differences
. . . Israel will not interfere as long as Syria does not approach south
Lebanon or threaten [Israel's] security interests." ["US Agreed Not to Block
Move By Syria on Aoun, Lebanon Says," The Washington Post, 16 October 1990.]
After the fall of east Beirut, the State Department released a statement
saying, "We hope that this ends a sad chapter of Lebanon's history." ["U.S.
Urges Support for Lebanon's President," The Associated Press, 13 October
1990] Washington also signaled its approval by reopening the US embassy in
Lebanon weeks later.
[9] US Assistant Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee at the height of Aoun's 1989 revolt that "things
would be worse rather than better" if Syrian troops left Lebanon. Hearing of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 15 March 1989. For Aoun's reaction,
see Al-Nahar (Beirut), 18 March 1989.
[10] Most governments in Europe and the Arab world expressed some form of
public objection to Syrian domination of Lebanon in the late 1980s. The
European Community (EC) reacted to Aoun's "war of liberation" (and the mass
Lebanese demonstrations in support of it) by calling for the withdrawal of
all foreign forces from Lebanon, while an Arab League tripartite committee
issued a report asking Syria to set a timetable for redeployment of its
forces from Lebanon (a scathing rebuke by the standards of Arab diplomatic
protocol at the time). See William Harris, Faces of Lebanon: Sects, Wars,
and Global Extensions (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997), p. 258.
"Lebanon: Arabs, split over Syria, searching for peace formula," Inter Press
Service, 15 August 1989.
[11] The conventional wisdom in Washington was that Syria would need
American goodwill in order to secure an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan
Heights and cope with the collapse of his Soviet patron. However, when
Secretary of State James Baker flew to Damascus in the summer of 1992 to
persuade the Syrians to undertake a limited redeployment of forces
stipulated by the Taif Accord in advance of Lebanon's parliamentary
elections, Assad flatly refused. For a detailed account of the meeting, see
Carole H. Dagher, Bring Down the Walls: Lebanon's Postwar Challenge (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 180-181.
[12] Typical statements implying this include: "We look forward to the day
this country is free of all foreign forces and from the threat of terror and
violence. To that end I have come to the region to explore the possibilities
for resuming progress toward a comprehensive peace between Israel and its
Arab neighbours, including Lebanon." [Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
live news conference, Radio Lebanon, 5 September 1999, transcript by BBC
Summary of World Broadcasts]; "We think the surest way to accomplish the
withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon is to facilitate a just and
lasting, comprehensive Middle East peace" [State Department Regular
Briefing, Spokesman Philip Reeker, 24 April 2001]; "In the final analysis,
peace will be the best answer to achieve a withdrawal of all Syrian forces
from Lebanon . . . our ultimate aim is to have peace treaties between Syria
and Israel, and Lebanon and Israel, which would solve this problem"
[Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Edward Walker,
Hearing before the Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, House
Committee on International Relations, 29 March 2001]
[13] Most notably at the beginning of the January 1996 Wye Plantation
talks between Israel and Syria. See "Lebanon is trade-off for peace;
Country's freedom becomes non-issue in Israeli-Syrian talks," The Baltimore
Sun, 4 January 1996. Such reliance upon Israeli statements to reassure the
Syrians about American offers that cannot be made public was also evident
when Israeli officials suddenly announced to the world in late 1999 that
they would not object to Syria receiving American military aid after a peace
settlement. See "Israel not opposed to US military aid to Syria," Agence
France Presse, 5 January 2000.
[14] Gary C. Gambill, Syria after Lebanon: Hooked on Lebanon, Middle East
Quarterly, Vol. 12 No. 4, Fall 2005.
[15] See Gary C. Gambill, Lebanese Farmers and the Syrian Occupation,
Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, October 2003.
[16] See "Lebanon loses 1.5 billion dollars annually to corruption: UN,"
Agence France Presse, 23 January 2001; The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 January
2001. The estimate is from a report researched by Information International
and commissioned by the United Nations Center for International Crime
Prevention.
[17] Other Lebanese and Palestinian militants were allowed only marginal
participation under Hezbollah's supervision.
[18] Asked during a March 2001 congressional committee hearing if the US
was taking steps to facilitate a Syrian withdrawal, newly appointed
Secretary of State Colin Powell replied, "We believe that it would be for
the benefit of all parties if eventually at some point - I'd like to see it
tomorrow, but it isn't going to happen tomorrow - for the Syrian army to
leave Lebanon." Hearing before the House Committee on International
Relations, 7 March 2001. Bush and Powell both refused to meet with Maronite
Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir during his visit to the United
States in 2001.
[19] "US pessimistic about full Syrian troop pullback from Lebanon,"
Agence France Presse, 13 March 2003.
[20] In February 2004 he declared that "the killing of US soldiers in Iraq
is legitimate and obligatory" [Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), 12 February
2004]. Two months later, he told Al-Arabiyya TV that he believed the US
government was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks. See Steven
Stalinsky, Viva La Lebanese Hatred, FrontPageMagazine.com, 20 December 2004.
[21] See Gary C. Gambill, FNC Triumphs in Baabda-Aley, Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin, August-September 2003. ["Free National Current" is a
translation of Al-Tayyar Al-Watani Al-Hurr that was once in common use.
"Free Patriotic Movement" is the party's preferred translation of the
Arabic]
[22] Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir declared, "It is
out of the question to hold elections under such conditions." "Lebanon
opposition to set up committee to save polls," Agence France Presse, 12 May
2005.
[23] "Sfeir brushes off U.S. accusations he is stirring sectarian strife,"
The Daily Star (Beirut), 13 May 2005.
[24] Hariri reportedly paid the bail for four Sunni Islamist terrorists
who had been arrested in September 2004 for plotting to bomb the Ukrainian
and Italian embassies in Lebanon and sent Siniora to personally attend a
celebration where they were welcomed after their release. Al-Safir (Beirut),
18 June 2005. The Sunni mufti of Tripoli, Taha Sabonji, and numerous other
Sunni clerics in north Lebanon openly called upon their followers to vote
for Hariri's list (an unprecedented act for clergy of any Lebanese sect).
[25] As The New York Times noted, "the endorsement of the Shiite Hezbollah
party was critical for the opposition (Jumblatt) slate" in Baabda-Aley,
where the number of Shiite voters was substantially larger than the
coalition's margin of victory. [See "Returning Lebanese General Stuns
Anti-Syria Alliance," The New York Times, 14 June 2005]. Moreover,
Hezbollah's endorsement eroded the ability of rival Sunni politicians to
mobilize the Arab nationalist current against the Hariri family - which was
the critical swing vote in several mixed Sunni-Christian districts of north
Lebanon.
[26] One of the first acts of Lebanon's new parliament was the passage of
an amnesty law freeing over two dozen suspected Sunni Islamist terrorists
(seven had been detained for plotting to bomb the Ukrainian and Italian
embassies in September 2004; twenty-six of the detainees were captured in
1999 during a brief, but bloody, Sunni Islamist uprising that left 40 people
dead). For more details, see Lebanon: Managing the Gathering Storm,
International Crisis Group, 5 December 2005.
[27] The report was more critical than most in Washington or Paris
anticipated, concluding flatly that the electoral law "does not respect the
principle of equality of votes" and highlighting a raft of violations,
including a "substantial number of allegations of vote buying." In fact, the
report said that EU observers directly witnessed "some instances of vote
buying" and "was aware of other similar practices," such as payment of
tuition fees for students. European Union Election Observation Mission,
Parliamentary Elections: Lebanon 2005, Final Report
[28] In April 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned in a report to
the Security Council that the Lebanese Army has "not been authorized to
prevent further movement of the ammunitions" from Syria to Hezbollah bases
in Lebanon. See Third semi-annual report of the Secretary-General to the
Security Council on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559,
19 April 2006 , "Hezbollah endures in Lebanon; Islamic guerrillas not easily
disarmed, Western nations find," The Chicago Tribune, 19 April 2006.
[29] Today, according to the Daily Star, the unregulated quarries sector
"continues to be an important financial source for political parties and
groups" in government. "Owners of illegal quarries exploit political crisis
to resume work," The Daily Star (Beirut), 6 January 2007. See also "Lebanon:
Lack of quarry licensing, regulation 'costs Treasury $500,000 a day'," The
Daily Star (Beirut), 19 January 2007.
[30] "Decades later, some Lebanese
can't go home; Shiites' return after '06 war reminds Christians that they're
still waiting," The Los Angeles Times, 2 January 2007.
[31] "IMF warns of 'crisis' if no Lebanon reform," Agence France Presse, 5
June 2006.
[32] The ISF is "seen as a sectarian Sunni force," said former United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesman Timur Goksel (now a
professor of public administration at the American University in Beirut).
"Not just the Shiites say it, but the Christians too: that it's to make up
for the lack of a Sunni militia." "Lebanon builds up security forces; The
move is seen as a bid to counter Iran and Shiite ally Hezbollah," Los
Angeles Times, 1 December 2006. See also "West helps Lebanon build militia
to fight Hezbollah," The Globe and Mail (Canada), 1 December 2006.
[33] "Fneish . . . was in fact doing things about good governance and
corruption," notes Reinould Leenders, a Dutch political scientist who has
closely studied corruption in Lebanon. "He was very practical. He didn't
waste time talking. He just went and started attacking these [oil and gas]
cartels." See "Will Fneish's resignation kill reform at the Energy and Water
Ministry?" The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 November 2006.
[34] "Fadlallah warns against non-Lebanese 'solutions'," The Daily Star
(Beirut), 25 March 2006.
[35] Poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, Al-Diyar
(Beirut), 11 February 2006.
[36] The first two reports drew heavily on the claims of a former Syrian
agent, Zuheir al-Siddiq, whose credibility was undermined by glaring
inconsistencies in his reported testimony before the commission and the
Lebanese government's unwillingness to extradite him from France, which
released him from custody (Technically, Siniora made the request, but
refused to pledge that Siddiq wouldn't face the death penalty, as required
under French extradition laws). The first interim report also drew heavily
on the testimony of Hussam Taher Hussam, another alleged ex-Syrian agent who
told investigators that a meeting to plan the assassination was held in the
home of Assad's brother-in-law and military intelligence chief, Assef
Shawkat, only to reappear later in Damascus and retract everything (claiming
to have been drugged by Lebanese officials). A third witness was found dead
in a ditch after an apparent car accident. See "Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Searching for the Truth In the Middle East," The New York Times, 18 December
2005.
[37] "Death riddle that haunts Lebanon," Sunday Times (London), 12
February 2006.
[38] Members of the LF were convicted (albeit by a pro-Syrian judiciary)
of carrying out a February 1994 church bombing that left 11 people dead,
apparently with the intention of reviving Christian demands for an armed
militia. Geagea was convicted of ordering the 1987 assassination of Prime
Minister Rashid Karami, in which a bomb was placed on an army helicopter to
deflect suspicion from the LF.
[39] Article 3.2 of the tribunal statute stipulates that suspects can be
held responsible for crimes "committed by subordinates under his or her
effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure to
exercise control properly over such subordinates." The United Nations,
Report of the Secretary-General on the establishment of a special tribunal
for Lebanon, 15 November 2006.
[40] The Bush administration insisted that judges be appointed by the UN
Secretary-General, rather than the Security Council (the former being much
more malleable than the latter).
[41] "Rice's visit confirms U.S. support for Lahoud to go," The Daily Star
(Beirut), 25 February 2006.
[42] David Ignatius, "To Save a Revolution," The Washington Post, 21 July
2006. For a detailed look at official Israeli statements to this effect, see
Efraim Inbar, How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War, Middle East
Quarterly, Summer 2007.
[43] Opinion Poll: Lebanese Divided behind their
Leaders over Critical Matters, Part I, Information International, September
2006.
[44] In addition, the war exposed the rampant corruption and
incompetence of government relief agencies. The coalition suffered a
succession of public relations setbacks, from a widely circulated video
showing an ISF officer serving tea to Israelis in south Lebanon to Siniora's
tearful speech before the Arab League (which played well in the West but
subjected him to ridicule at home). In September, the head of the Council
for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), Fadhl Chalak (a longtime advisor
of Hariri), abruptly resigned and accused the government of stalling the
distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars pledged by Arab states so as
to increase suffering in the south and turn the people against Hezbollah.
See "Ruined Towns Look to Beirut, Mostly in Vain," The New York Times, 1
October 2006.
[45] "Report: France Urged Israel to hit Syria," The
Jerusalem Post, 18 March 2007; Leslie Susser, "What's Behind Riyadh's Peace
Activism?" The Jerusalem Report, 2 April 2007.
[46] "Israel appears to 'wish to destroy' Lebanon: Chirac," Agence France
Presse, 14 July 2006.
[47] Opinion Poll: Lebanese Divided behind their Leaders over Critical
Matters, Part II, Information International, October 2006. According to a
Gallup poll, nearly two-thirds of the Lebanese public had a "worse" opinion
of the United States after the war, and nearly half had a "much worse"
opinion. ["U.S. was big loser in eyes of Lebanese after Israel's 34-day war
with Hezbollah guerrillas," The Associated Press, 14 November 2006]
[48] "Poll: 64% of Lebanese say opinion of U.S. worsened after war," The
Associated Press, 14 November 2006.
[49] "U.S. Reports Plot to Topple Beirut Leaders," The New York Times, 2
November 2006.
[50] The other two Lahoudist ministers, Defense Minister Elias Murr and
Justice Minister Charles Rizk, had by this time defected to the March 14
camp.
[51] In November, US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman met with Aoun in November
and warned him of "grave consequences" for his political future if he does
not drop out of the opposition coalition. [Al-Safir (Beirut), 3 November
2006] Feltman denied saying this when it was first reported, but American
diplomats have since made similar statements publicly. "We don't understand
General Aoun's position," US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs David Welch told LBCI Television on January 12, adding that Aoun
should "very precisely examine the consequences of his partnership with
those people." Cited in Welch Criticizes Aoun for his Alliance with
Hizbullah, Naharnet.com, 12 January 2007.
[52] US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns
had this to say in a December 1 interview with a Lebanese television
station: "I think you will see a tremendously positive response by the
international financial community to help rebuild Lebanon, because that is
based on the credibility that Prime Minister Siniora and his government have
earned in the world . . . [I]f for any reason the government does not
continue, I don't think you have a consensus in the international community
about assistance to Lebanon." Burns quickly added that he didn't "mean to
say that as a threat." [Interview with R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of
State for Political Affairs, LBC Television (Beirut), 1 December 2006,
translated transcript released by the State Department] "That's not the term
I would use," said a French foreign ministry spokesman when asked if the aid
was conditional. "There's support which takes into account of the program of
reforms that has been presented by the Lebanese authorities. That's more the
way we're presenting things. [Remarks by the French Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, 12 January 2007, translation by Federal News Service]
[53] "CIA gets the go-ahead to take on Hizbollah," The Daily Telegraph, 10
January 2007.
[54] During the civil war, Hezbollah focused mainly on fighting the rival
Shiite Amal militia and the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army (a mix of
Shiites, Christians, and Druze).
[55] "Gulf Arabs boost aid to Sunni militants," Reuters, 20 March 2007.
[56] Seymour M. Hersh, "The Redirection: Does the new policy benefit the
real enemy?" The New Yorker, 5 March 2007.
[57] Siniora's office said in a statement that Hersh's allegations were
"totally unfounded," but added obliquely, "Some organizations in the North
and South have received aid from parties which have identified themselves as
representatives of the Lebanese government or the Internal Security Forces."
"Siniora denies arming Sunni extremist groups," The Daily Star (Beirut), 27
February 2007.
[58] "Lifting of the Media Ban: A Blow to Hariri or an Equalizer by
Parliament," Mideast Mirror, 18 July 1994. The tactic only delayed the
inevitable, as Berri simply waited until the next session of parliament to
call a vote.
[59] In August 2006, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos
visited Damascus and declared that "Syria should be put back in the
international game." ["Military force won't stop illegal weapons entering
Lebanon: Assad," Agence France Presse, 1 October 2006.] British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's top foreign policy advisor, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, flew
to Damascus in late October. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
visited Damascus in early December to ask the Syrians "to exercise a
moderating influence" on Hezbollah. ["German FM urges Syria to help
stabilise Lebanon," Agence France Presse, 4 December 2006] In March 2007,
the EU's chief foreign policy coordinator visited Damascus for the first
time in two years.
[60] On December 5, Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a
joint statement calling on Syria to "to stop supporting forces that seek to
destabilise Lebanon and the region" and stating, "If Syria changes its
conduct, it could hope to resume normal relations with the international
community and with the countries of the European Union in particular."
"France and Germany send tough message to Syria," Agence France Presse, 5
December 2006.
[61] Radwan Ziadeh and Nadim Houry, What Solana Forgot to Say in Damascus,
Human Rights Watch commentary, 3 April 2007.
[62] "Pelosi Vows US 'will not bargain over Lebanon," The Daily Star, 4
April 2007.
[63] Former Secretary of State James Baker has delicately skirted the
question by repeatedly stating that an American deal with Assad will "cure
Israel's Hezbollah problem" (i.e. by cutting off its arms supplies), leaving
open the question of whether it will cure Lebanon's Hezbollah problem. David
E. Sanger, "Dueling Worldviews," The New York Times, 8 December 2006.
[64] "Saudis and Iranians working on Lebanon deal," Reuters, 24 January
2007.
[65] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), 6 May 2006.
Gary C. Gambill is the editor of Mideast Monitor and a country analyst for
Freedom House. Formerly editor of Middle East Intelligence Bulletin from
1999 to 2004, Gambill publishes widely on Lebanese and Syrian politics,
terrorism, and democratization in the Middle East. He can be reached by
email at gambill@mideastmonitor.org, or by phone at 646-242-1101.
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