Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem points out several obvious but oft-overlooked truths in an interview with Foreign Policy. Firstly, he notes that keeping Syria on a state-sponsors of terror list while asking the Assad regime to assist in combating terrorism in Palestine. His point, most likely, was that Syria is too important for the United States to be sanctioned and isolated the way it has been in the recent past. Decontextualized from Syrian interests, it seems clear that the term “terrorist” has been thrown around by the US government enough to make it entirely devoid of meaning. It’s unfortunate, because it obscures our understanding of Middle Eastern politics.

Second, he points out that part of the US strategy in the region in the past, (as outlined in this op-ed by Max Boot, and which may change as more diplomatic channels open up between Washington and Tehran, Washington and Damascus, et cetera) has been to bring Arab nations and Israel together against Iran. If the objective is long term peace, then this is … a weak approach. He’s certainly not the first to point this out. Gulf states, who host many Iranian expatriates and are only a short swim away from Iran, and generally militarily weaker, have been much more pragmatic in their approach to Iranian relations than has the United States. (Hillary Mann Leverett and Stephen Leverett adopted this position in the NYT only a couple of weeks ago).

… in an interview with the Guardian. He will meet with Senator John Kerry next week, and looks forward to the possibility of a future meeting with General Petraeus.

One of the effects of the Gaza incursion of this December/January has certainly been the catapulting of the peace process to the front of everyone’s minds. Asad likely sees this as a moment when the United States needs Syria’s cooperation in order to reach any kind of sustainable agreement with respect to the Israel/Palestine issue, and we can expect that he will attempt to leverage this in order to resume relations with the White House on terms more agreeable to him.

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?”

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.

Imad Mugnieh, mastermind of the 1983 attacks on American soldiers in Beirut, as well as a host of other Hezbollah atrocities, died when his car exploded last week- surely the closest he has ever had the chance to see one of his own hallmarks.    The immediate suspects were, of course, Israel and the US.    I disagreed with this- or at least didn't like the way it was immediately assumed.

 Both countries, of course, had motives to take him out.  Either one would have probably been morally justified.   But the timing seemed wierd.  Why now?  Was it a message to Iran, which supported Hezbollah?  Syria?   There didn't seem to be an immediate answer.  I believed that Syria was involved in the killing, or perhaps some kind of internecine Hezbollah skirmish.

 Oliver Guitta, in the Middle East Times, shares this belief (and backs it up with more than gut feelings).    He backs it up with ideas like this:

First, since Mughnieh, as a top Hezbollah operative working for both Syria and Iran, was suspected of having a hand in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, thus the Syrians might have found it convenient to eliminate him and in the process, sever any link to Damascus. Three years after Hariri's murder, it now seems as though the international tribunal established by the United Nations will finally be hearing the case.

And with rumors like this:

First, according to the well-informed Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah, Mughnieh was reported to have attended a high-level meeting called by the head of Syrian security services and Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, Assef Chawkat. The other participants to that meeting included top Syrian leaders, representatives from Hamas (including its top leader Khaled Meshaal), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. The purpose of that meeting was allegedly to select the potential targets to strike in Arab countries, if the latter refused to participate in the Arab summit set for the end of March in Damascus. It was purportedly during that meeting that Mughnieh's car was booby-trapped.

Now, after reading it, I am not entirely convinced.  I wanted to be, because it would have confirmed what I felt before.  I think there is a case here, but there is a lot of circumstantial “evidence” and just some vague ideas of what conspiracies could be lurking.    But I don't discount it, even if it is wrong.   It reminds us that not everything in the world is a US (or Israeli) plot, and that in the Middle East there are always at least three layers of conspiracy theories.  Even if none of them are true, the suspicion they engender plays at least as important a role in dictating events as does the truth.

Seymour Hersh has an in-depth look at the Israeli attack of Syria last year, which some claim was an attack on some kind of nuclear facility.  Hersh is always worth a read.    Here is a teaser.

Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war. But in the immediate aftermath nothing was heard from the government of Israel. In contrast, in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, the Israeli government was triumphant, releasing reconnaissance photographs of the strike and permitting the pilots to be widely interviewed.

Within hours of the attack, Syria denounced Israel for invading its airspace, but its public statements were incomplete and contradictory‚ thus adding to the mystery.

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.