Middle East

There is some good news out of Lebanon, as the legitimate government has managed to regain control of the streets.  But this editorial from The Daily Star seems to be asking too much.

How the Arab League might at least put Lebanon on the right track

I’m somewhat sceptical. 

Lebanon’s stagnant and maddening political quagmire is quickly becoming a hot war that threatens to send this beautiful and violence-racked country reeling back into the dark days of the civil war.

Days of Hezbollah protests and roadblocks are leading to increased confrontation.  Here is the New York Times’ lead.

The decision by the Lebanese government to shut down a private telephone network operated by the Iranian-backed group Hezbollahwas an act of war and Hezbollah would defend itself, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, said on Thursday.

When this becomes a casus belli, one has the impression that war was already in the sheik’s mind.    Michael Young, writing in the Daily Star, backs up this assumption with some analysis. 

Once we accept that this week’s alleged labor unrest was only the latest phase in Hizbullah’s war against the Lebanese state, will we understand what actually took place yesterday. And once we realize that cutting the airport road was a calculated effort by Hizbullah to reverse the Siniora government’s transfer of the airport security chief, Wafiq Shouqair, will we understand what may take place in the coming days.

Since last January, when Hizbullah and Amal used the pretense of social dissatisfaction to obstruct roads in and around Beirut, the opposition has, quite openly, shown itself to be limited to Hizbullah. Michel Aoun, once a useful fig leaf to lend cross-communal diversity to the opposition, has since become an afterthought with hardly any pull in Christian streets.

Long ago we learned that Hizbullah could not, in any real sense, allow the emergence of a Lebanese state free from Syrian control. Soon after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the party tried to suffocate the 2005 “independence intifada” in the egg, realizing that Hizbullah had no future as an autonomous armed group in a state that would seek to reimpose its writ after decades of subservience to Damascus. That effort failed on March 14, 2005 - mostly useful as an event in showing that a majority of people would not be intimidated by Hizbullah’s rally of March 8.

What I think these actions suggest is that, while Syria and especially Iran are deeply involved with the Party of God, Nasrallah is far from a puppet.  Instability and influence in Lebanon are good for these larger countries, but an all-out civil war is bad.  An easy lesson is that, as much as transnational politics matter, local concerns will generally trump them.   Download this CTC report (which also has Greg’s brilliant Yemen article) and read about Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb’s trouble balancing an international movement with more prosaic local concerns.

 These abstract lessons are scant comfort when looking at the stomach-punching horror toward which Lebanon seems to be sliding. 

*edit*

Abu Muqawama (whose blog is a must-read) has looked over Nasrallah’s statement and came up with this analysis.

Update: Abu Muqawama has just skimmed the text, and a few things jumped out. One, Nasrallah called Hizbollah’s secure command and control system its greatest weapon during the 2006 war, which Abu Muqawama found interesting. Second, he qualified the whole “declaration of war” bit by calling the government’s decision a “declaration of war” by “the government of (Druze leader) Walid Jumblatt.” Smart, picking on the leader of Lebanon’s tiny Druze community, but it doesn’t appear as if the Sunni have considered themselves exempted from the declaration. Although if Abu Muqawama is correct, (Jumblatt’s Druze ally) Marwan Hamadi remains the minister for telecommunications, true?

*edit 2*

Tony Bey at Beirut2Bayside has a cursory post comparing the tactics and methods used today in Lebanon to those used at the beginning of, and throughout, the 1975-1990 war.  It is interesting, and he promises more later, so I would keep going back there.

I suppose there could be a first time for anything.   The European Union is joining the US in calling for pressure on Syria to be constructive in helping Lebanon get past its current, dangerous political crisis.    Hezbollah does not agree.

What Solana said is far from being objective. It is an echo of the United States‘ position,” Hizbullah said in a statement.

“An independent European policy on Lebanon is more beneficial to Europe than simply repeating the US position,” the statement added.

Now, I am sure there is more to both Hezbollah’s statement and to the EU position.  But it is perhaps telling that it reads as if Hezbollah objects to Syria being asked to play a positive role.   To this author, that doesn’t seem too much to ask. 

Meanwhile, a top Shi’ite cleric protests that Hezbollah only has arms for self-defense, and, if Israel would stop attacking, there would be no need for weapons.

BKIRKI: Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said on Monday that Hizbullah “gathers its weapons for self-defense.”

“If attacks against us stop, with the presence of firm guarantees, then there will be no need for weapons,” Fadlallah said before a delegation of American businessmen and religious figures. “Why doesn’t Israel drop its weapons which have killed our people?”

“We encourage all people to get rid of weapons and have arms of love instead,” he added. “But when our enemies try to kill us, what will we do?”

And so Israel looks like it is moving closer and closer to a full-scale retaliation in the Gaza Strip, in response to the escalating assault of Katyusha rockets launched by Hamas at souther Israeli towns.   The IDF has already launched deadly raids into the Strip, killing close to twenty Palestinians. 

 The Israeli reaction here is inevitable, and, in the view of this author, justifiable.  No one going through constant rocket attacks should be expected to just sit there and take it.  War is never a decent or good thing, and it should never be rushed into or taken lightly, but eventually Israel has to defend itself.  It moved out of the Gaza Strip, the Gazans had an election, and the rockets still rain.  Regardless of what one thinks about the morality of a response, Israel has the legal right to defend itself (enough of my opinion; dissent is welcomed in the comments). 

(Side note: For a good discussion of this, both rational and inflamed {and thus an accurate picture}, check out the comments on Marty Peretz’ New Republicblog.  Marty himself is a little over-the-top, but some of the comments are excellent). 

Now to the meat of this post: why, knowing exactly how Israel would respond, did Hamas step up their assault?  After all, there is zero way Hamas could defeat a full-scale military invasion.  If Israel dropped all morality, it could roll over Gaza in a matter of hours (that Israel will not do that, of course, plays into Hamas’ considerations). 

It is because of the cruel realities of governance.   Ayatollah Khomeini famously said something along the lines of “the revolution is about Islam, not determining the price of melons!”  (I found several different versions of this quote, but they were all just variations on a theme.)   Meaning, of course, that he wasn’t interested in the nitty-gritty of a functioning society, but on his grand dream.   Luckily for him, Iran had a long history and a free marketplace.

 Not so in Gaza: years of occupation and Arafat’s incompetence left the Strip a miserable place to be, without any of the basics of governance.  Fatah proved that it couldn’t handle it, and the only other group there was Hamas.  Hamas won the elction, focusing much of its campaign rhetoric not on who was going to drive whom into which sea, but on erasing corruption and cleaning up the trash. 

Sounds good, right?  Hezbollah did much the same thing in Lebanon- limiting the militant talk while discussing civil society.   There discussion of how, in the absence of Israeli occupation, Hezbollah could evolve from a revolutionary militia to a normal political party (normal for the region, of course).  

This didn’t happen.  Hezbollah refused to give up its guns, and, when its Syrian backers were forced to scale back following the Hariri murder (for which they still might be held responsible), Hezbollah was losing support as well as its rasion d’etre.  So they launched raids into Israel’s north, and Israel retaliated.  It is worth noting that many Lebanese approved of this, before Israel disastrously went to Beirut.    Hezbollah found its voice again, and regained popularity.

Hamas realizes this.  Like Hezbollah, they were born for one reason only- to fight against Israel.   They can do no other.   So, as the reality of political power sets in, and people want more than rallies and fire, rhetoric and blood, a group can do one of two things: actually try to give people what they want (peace, jobs, stability, food) or, paradoxically, bring more blood and fire in, to rally around a common enemy.

Hamas is constitutionally unable to do the former.  They can only make trouble.  They are making a desperate gamble here- bring the wrath of Israel down upon them to try to rally support (picture of dead children always do this) and reestablish their mojo.  It will probably work; it almost always does.   It is tragic and foolhardy and immoral, but it is their only political knowledge.

It is a myth for fools that Hamas or Hezbollah can moderate themselves.  There might be people in the groups who can, but as soon as they modify themselves they cease to exist.  Power affects everyone the same way. For Hamas,  adaptation means extinction.   Fighting just means more bodies.   That is hardly a choice at all.

Saturated as we are with news, it is easy to forget that Lebanon is still without a President, suffering under internal strife and external meddling over what the makeup of the next government should look like.  When this started in November it was scary.  It became frustrating as time went on, and now just seems absurd.   Unfortunately, however, absurdity is not the opposite of tragedy; more often that not it is merely a mask. 

 That seems to be the case in Lebanon.   The head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, has left Beirut empty-handed, failing to bring a deal to the table.   All sides agree that Michel Suleiman should be the next President, but all are getting hung up on the make-up of the next cabinet.   The Party of God wants enough cabinet members to maintain veto power over major decisions, a decision that is supported by its main patron, Syria (and a decision undoubtedly supported by the patron of both Syria andHezbollah: Iran).   The other parties don’t want the Shi’ite group to have that kind of power, seeing it as little but a recidivist and violent proxy for Syrian domination and Iranian influence. 

This, of course, is Lebanon’s main problem: it is the constant testing ground for regional rivalries.   The next stop for this is the upcoming Arab Summit in Damascus, which has received boycott threats from the Saudis.  Sana Abdallah discusses this in a sharp Middle East Times article. 

 If there is a boycott, it will both cause and be caused by tension.  It is worth noting that serious boycotts have taken place during major events, such as the Egyptian peace treaty with Israel or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.  The threat of this shows how seriously Saudi Arabia is concerned with Iran, NIE notwithstanding.

(Of course, the seriousness of a boycott is somewhat leavened by the cold hard fact that nothing ever happens at Arab Summits.   It isn’t as if the Sauds will miss anything important or their absence will change anything, practically.  But that isn’t the point. Again: farce)

It is difficult to see a way out of this labyrinth.  To me, this is largely due to the intransigence of Hezbollah.  There has been talk for years about Hezbollah modifying themselves when they achieve political power, but that hasn’t been the case.  The problem with them is what they do without power- fall back into their old ways, threatening the Lebanese society (actually, this should be its own post, and hopefully will be tomorrow).  

But it isn’t just Hezbollah being difficult.   Read this Marc Sioris article from the Daily Star which quickly and insightfully demonstrates the political system’s internal rot.

In Lebanon, the only check on such families is the presence of other families competing for the same privileges. Take away that internal balance of power, and one of their scions might dominate the whole scene faster than one can say Bob Mugabe. Even those parties not built on inherited authority have adopted the same reverence for cults of personality and other tribal rituals, simultaneously making them greater threats to dilute the power of existing cliques but also diminishing the likelihood that they would bring substantive change.

Interested in knowing why Lebanon frequently has the difficulties it does?  Pay attention to the last sentence excerpted here.

From The Daily Star

Iranian official to meet Assad to discuss Lebanon


Saturday, January 05, 2008

ROME: Ali Larijani, member of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council and adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will visit Damascus on Saturday to discuss with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the situation in Lebanon, according to a report published by the Italian news Agency AKI on Friday. “The visit also aims to formulate coordinating stances between Syria and Teheran in this regard,” AKI said. Larijani is also set to meet with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and some Palestinian officials. “He may also meet with some Lebanese officials who might travel to Damascus for this purpose,” the agency added. - Agencies

If one is rooting for Lebanon to get past the scars and divisions of its past- a difficult goal under any circumstances- one could note with bitter cynicism the decency, the sheer graciousness that Larijani might meet with some representatives of the country about which he is co-ordinating policy. 

 But Syria isn’t dealing only with Iran.  The Arab League is meeting on Sunday, and Lebanon will be at the top of the agenda, according to the Daily Star.   It will be interesting to see what their statement- which, anyway, carries little wieght- will be.  On the one hand the Arab League is generally reluctant to criticize another Arab state, but despite some thawing the Arab states are still leery of Iran, so might be in a bind on how to treat Syria.  A decent hint though comes from Arab league Secretary Amr Moussa, who “told Al-Arabiyya television Thursday that solving Lebanon’s problem was a Lebanese, an Arab, a regional and an international responsibility. ‘While we acknowledge there are conflicting interests and foreign [involvement], Lebanese politicians bear the responsibility first [for their country] before Arab, regional and international politicians.’”

 This of course is taking a large burden off of Syria and punting the issue down the road, which does nothing to help Lebanon.   The country is basing itself for a large march by the opposition, led by Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah.  Tony Bey at Beirut2Bayside discusses it thusly:

It’s very clear that this is the Syrian order of operations, as it was the Syrian regime’s orphaned pitbulls — Naser Qandil, Wi’am Wahhab, Suleiman Frangieh and the mukhabarat rag al-Diyar — who were enthusiastically announcing the marching orders.

It was interesting to hear that clown Qandil (who will likely end up in jail for his role in the Hariri assassination) try to base this on Nasrallah’s latest imbecilic and pitiful interview. This point was accurately noted in the NOW editorial:

Is it us, or did you also sense that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his interview on Wednesday night, was walking a fine line between Syrian priorities and Iran’s apparent desire to avoid a breakdown in Lebanon? If we are right, Nasrallah’s threat to take to the streets is a sop to Syria…

In other words, the order is Syrian par excellence. But Qandil laying this at Nasrallah’s feet, aside from showing just how much they need his cover to have any weight at all in the country, shows just how much Syria is pressuring Nasrallah to blow up the place. His lame balancing act in his interview was a reflection of this.

Bey, as always, uses delightfully strident language, but the point is there: Syria and Iran most likely want different things with Lebanon, as do the other Arab countries (as does the US and EU).   It seems that Lebanon is no closer to ending its run as political testing ground than the heady days after Hariri was killed. 

For the first time since the revolution of 1979, a sitting Iranian President has been invited to participate in the hajj.  King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia has extended an invitation to the head of his regional rival, a gesture one could think is the triumph of religion over politics, but, in reality, is just the opposite.

Saudi Arabia has long worried about Iran’s Shi’ite revolution,  especially in light of an oil-rich Iran taking advantage of a weakened America to spread its regional influence.   So worried, in fact, that the House of Saud agreed to fund Sunni militants in Lebanon and Palestine to fight against their Iran-backed Shi’ite rivals.   This was chronicled by Seymour Hersh in a March New Yorker article.

But, it seems the National Intelligence Estimate has changed everything, or at least the perception of everything.   The ides that Iran is no longer actively engaged in the pursuit of nuclear weapons has given some breathing room to monarchs worried about regional confrontation.   It is hard to imagine Abdallah extending this invitation without the estimate.   This is not to say that the Gulf Arab states are no longer terrified of Iran.  Max Boot, just returning from a trip to the Gulf Region, reports that “some of those most worried about the mullahs wear flowing headdresses, not yarmulkes, and they have good cause for concern, notwithstanding the sanguine tilt many news accounts put on the NIE.”

So, then: what?  If Saudi Arabia is still scared of Iran, and whose oil dollars are still the biggest obstacle to Iran’s plans for regional dominance, why are they breaking bread together?  Because Middle Eastern politics are not as straightforward as one would like: enemies can work together for another goal.  The Middle Eastern Times reported that “Lebanese analysts expect that Ahmadinejad’s Hajj pilgrimage this month will help the anti- and pro-Western politicians in Lebanon to come closer to electing a president and to formulate an agenda and lineup for a new cabinet”.  This confused me.  Saudi Arabia is still the biggest regional financial backer of  Saad Hariri’s Future Party, and Iran is the sponsor of his two biggest foes, Syria and Hezbollah.   But the wild card is the al-Qaeda aligned militant groups in the Palestinian camps, notably Fatah al-Islam.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have goals in Lebanon (and the region) that oppose each other.   But in the chaotic and dangerous politics of Lebanon, the old cliche of your enemy’s enemy being your friend holds true.  Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia want to see a revival of the Lebanese Civil War with al-Qaeda in the mix, a group over whom neither of them can wield much control.    So it seems they are willing to work together to put Michel Sulieman (or another acceptable candidate) in the President’s office.   It may be true that Syria is still somewhere behind the assassination of Francois al-Hajj, but Iran and Hajji Ahmadinejad seem willing to rein in their weaker, still aggressive client.

This is, of course, speculation.  But when investigating Middle Eastern politics, one has to keep in mind the criss-crossing connections.

A short, brighter note on Iran: when we think of Iran we tend to think of mullahs and maybe some brave student groups.  But it is good to remember that Iran and its expat community are engaged in a vibrant debate.   I came across this site, Gozaar, dedicated to Iranian human rights.  Haven’t gone through it all, but found a fascinating article on “positive nationalism” (like in Robert Reich’s formulation, for example).   The author wants to “preserve positive nationalism as a moderate force and to incorporate democratic and secular values into it.”  It is an interesting look at Iranian identity, and, as in-depth as it is, seems almost relieving to trying to figure out the bizarre political machinations of current politics.

Apologies for this blog being Lebanon-centric these last couple of days; however, when the testing ground of Arab ideologies teeters on the brink of its most intense political crisis in 17 years, it calls for many words.

And there have been a lot of words regarding the assassination of Francois al-Hajj and its confusing implications. Over at Tony Bey’s Beirut 2Bayside, the fingerprints of Syria are all over this. As he explains, “The bottom line is that Syria’s only conception of its relationship to Lebanon is complete brutal domination, where Syria decides every single minutiae of Lebanese life, including who gets to be president, prime minister, speaker, Army Commander, security officials, election law, cabinet make-up, cabinet portfolios, cabinet policy statement, etc.”

His site tends to see- and not without cause- Syrian involvement in everything that happens in Lebanon. The Daily Star has an interesting piece about how this is the first killing that hasn’t involved someone overtly anti-Syrian, but that doesn’t totally discount Bey’s thesis. Indeed, it could support it, if one thinks that the over-arching Syrian objective is a display of brutal, unhesitant strength.

Though Bey’s blog tends to be a little strident, it is with good cause- there are few things that happen in Lebanon in which Syria doesn’t play a role. However, a fascinating article in MERIP from over the summer suggests that the crisis with Fatah al-Islam came not from too many Syrians, but from the lack of them. It argues that for years all Lebanese politics tended to revolve around the Syrian security apparatus which stifled Lebanon. The Syrian withdrawal changed all the rules, or at least altered them. The article focuses mainly on the Palestinians in refugee camps, and the radical groups inside of the. One of the points it makes is that Fatah al-islam was not a Palestinian group- just one operating in the squalor of the Nahr al-Barid camp. It draws their source of revenue and operational abilities to anyone from the Syrians to their sworn enemy, the Hariri clan (the latter being part of an effort for Sunnis to strike back against a rising Shi’ite tide).

The author admits this may or may not be true. The article is full of speculation and drawing connections, some of which are fascinating simply because they appeal to the conspiracy-loving mind in all of us. It is informed speculation, though, and important for a major reason: even if none of it proves to be true there are many in Lebanon who assuredly already believe similar ideas. And, in life- but especially in the Middle East- perception is reality. The factions, even as they try to hammer out a constitutional solution to the crisis, are staring at each other across a chasm of rumor and barbed wire, of fear and innuendo. In this, the mere thought that your friend may be in bed with your enemy could be enough to send Lebanon spiraling back into its familiar hell.

 Brig. Gen. François al-Hajj, who was on the track to succeed Michel Suleiman as Army chief of staff whenever he becomes president, was killed in a car bomb in Beirut today.   Al-Hajj also led the battle against the Fatah al-Islam militant group in ferocious fighting last summer.   Whether this was a revenge killing or somehow tied to the frustrating and increasingly dangerous political void (or both) is unsure as of now.  Al-Jazeera postulates that this is a “significant unfolding of events because the army was the only military institution that is seen as neutral, and not taking sides in the political crisis in Lebanon.”  Of course, if Suleiman does become President, the line between civilian and military status in Lebanon will become increasingly blurred.

Ad nauseam, ad infinitum.  For the 8th time, the Lebanese parliament has postponed electing a president.   The many factions had agreed on choosing Gen. Michel Suleiman to replace Emil Lahoud, but it has hit many, many snags.  For one, the Lebanese constitution forbids high-ranking state employees from becoming President, so Suleiman will have to resign or the Constitution will have to be amended.  The constitution allows for that, but the opposition parties (notably Hezbollah) are opposed to that.  That link, from the excellent Daily Star, also describes in detail what the postponement is all about- essentially each side trying to get the most out of a comprehensive agreement on the shape of the next government.   For a good look at why things are so chaotic, read the latest entry in Michael Young’s blog.  It is fairly dizzying.  Hassan Naffa has a good article about Lebanon being the testing-ground of the Arab World in last week’s al-Ahram, and how the crisis “is not a constitutional one; it is one of consensus or, more accurately, the lack thereof.”