Prospects for Lebanon

Rami Khouri, a very astute observer, writes in Monday’s Daily Star

    The consequences of what has happened in the past week may portend an extraordinary but constructive new development: the possible emergence of the first American-Iranian joint political governance system in the Arab world. Maybe.
    If Lebanon shifts from street clashes to the hoped-for political compromise through a renewed national dialogue process, it will have a national unity government whose two factions receive arms, training, funds and political support from both the United States and Iran. Should this happen, an unspoken American-Iranian political condominium in Lebanon could prove to be key to power-sharing and stability in other parts of the region, such as Palestine, Iraq and other hot spots. This would also mark a huge defeat for the United States and its failed diplomatic approach that seeks to confront, battle and crush the Islamist-nationalists throughout the region…

The rest of his piece is worth reading, too.
I’ll only attach the one further small observation: That actually, the government in Iraq is already, effectively a US-Iranian condominium, given the long and still-continuing ties between Iran and the parties that dominate the government in the Baghdad Green Zone.
It is possible, though, that in Lebanon Hizbullah may be aiming for a bit more than a “US-Iranian condominium”?
On Saturday, after the collapse of the anti-Hizbullah militias in West Beirut, the Siniora government backed down from its earlier demands that (1) the pro-Hizbullah security chief at the Beirut airport be removed and (2) Hizbullah dismantle its relatively secure, fiber-optics communications system. Siniora said something like, “Oh gosh, we really didn’t mean to do that– but let the army decide what’s best.”
The army, whose officers have been extensively courted by Hizbullah over the past years, reacted by requesting the government to revoke those two decisions.
The position adopted by the army leadership has considerable importance for the prospects of any kind of stability in the country in the months ahead. Not least because, under UNSC resolution 1701 it’s the army that is responsible for assuring the security of Lebanon’s southern border. And various things like the movements of the UNIFIL forces in the south are subject to the supervision of the army, which represents Lebanon’s sovereignty within the country.
Hizbullah has acted in responsible fashion in most parts of the country where it routed opposing militias: It almost immediately handed over the areas it thereby brought under its control to the army.
Evidently, right now, Hizbullah’s leaders feel they have reason to trust the army.
But what of Lebanon’s civilian “government”? So far, PM Siniora (or as Pres. Bush routinely mis-names him “Sonora”) has kept on hewing to a fairly strongly anti-Hizbullah line — with the exception of the bowing toward realism Saturday, when he said it should be the army that decides on the airport-security and Hizbullah telephony issues.
But in at least one semi-official Hizbullah commentary today, (here in English) a Hizbullah person is “predicting” that Siniora himself won’t last long in office. Mohamad Shmaysani writes there, on the Al-Manar English website that “sources” had told him that close US ally Saudi Arabia

    stopped Saniora from tendering his resignation on Friday… The source told Al-Manar that Riyadh was close to agree[ing] on Saniora’s resignation, but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interfered and stopped the process. She assured Saniora and promised his big Arab support during the ministerial meeting in Cairo Sunday as well as international backing Monday.
    What’s next?
    The fast fall of the ruling bloc is for sure and a new political era will start; an era that will have its repercussions on the regional stage, for sure.

Regarding the Arab League’s sparsely attended ministerial meeting in Cairo today, I see that AP is reporting that about the only thing the meeting could agree on was that:

    The Arab League demanded Shiite gunmen pull out of West Beirut and leave Lebanon’s army in charge of security. The gunmen had mostly left the streets by Sunday, a day after the army called on them to clear out.

Well, there is a “mission” that has already been largely “accomplished.”
But I’m not sure that the Arab League can save Siniora’s government at this point?
Oh, and did I mention that Pres. Bush is going to be making a splashy big appearance in Jerusalem on Wednesday?
In the context of the continuing stasis in the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, I imagine that all the heavily trumpeted instances of Bush’s undying support for Israel that we’ll hear over the days ahead might not be quite what the increasingly embattled pro-US forces in the Arab world need at this point?

11 thoughts on “Prospects for Lebanon”

  2. Helena, a Quaker and a pacifist, writes glowingly in support of the Hezbollah militia and also of the Lebanese military for supporting it, while deriding and scorning the democratically elected civilian government of Lebanon.
    Takes me back to 1973 when the democratically elected civilian government of Chile was overthrown by general Pinochet.
    Helena=Kissinger. Whoever would have thought?

  3. bb – Lebanon is less democratic than Russia – at least in Russia the popular will of the majority supports the government unlike the sectarian shambles that currently passes for government in Lebanon.

  4. Seriously… if Lebanon’s electoral system were anything like the US or Israel’s (well, okay, maybe not the US, which is dubiously democratic in its own way), Hezbollah and its allies would easily control every branch of government. This has been true for quite a long time, and is also probably at the root of the current crisis.
    Ironically the system of sectarian checks and balances was originally supposed to prevent the destabilization of Lebanon… but it failed to account for the major demographic shifts that happened in the course of the 20th century. I believe the Taba accord was supposed to “fix” this problem but now it seems more like the whole system is fundamentally broken.
    I hope that the current experiment in something similar in Northern Ireland, which finally seems to be working, won’t suffer a similar fate in the long run.

  5. bb – it’s called revolution when the majority of the poor does it. It’s called fascism when the minority of the rich do it. I cast my vote for revolution, at home and abroad, when the crimes of the rich and their deformation of democracy become intolerable.

  6. Revolutions of the left or fascism of the right replace elections of constitutional, democratic governments with totalitarianism. Which thankfully started going out of fashion in the late 20th century.
    I was just surprised to see a Quaker and a pacifist enthusiastically supporting a military against a democratically elected civilian government. In the case of Lebanon, in elections supervised by the UN.
    Kissinger lives on in the most unexpected places.

  8. BB, I guess you really don’t know much about Lebanon’s political system if you think that elections there are “supervised” by the UN?
    The Siniora people keep on trying to describe themselves as “the majority”. But they only have “majority” support from a parliament in which, through various maneuvers and manipulations, they managed to subvert the will of the voters as expressed in the 2005 elections. In those elections, the pro-Hizbullah bloc did a list-sharing deal with the M14 bloc on the basis of shared understandings as to how the government would act. M14 then turned their back on those agreements.
    Yes, I am against use of violence– by all parties. But when a minority (M14) and a distant imperial power (the US) try to impose their will on the country’s true majority, then as Gandhi said, resistance of any sort to those machinations is (1) the right of the oppressed, and (2) better than merely going along. He always refused to criticize Indians who used violence against the British Raj and its local henchmen.
    I have seen numerous occasions over the past two years when Hizbullah and its many allies responded to provocations from M14 groups with calm and de-escalation– and I’ve written about that here and elsewhere. This time it looks like they had had enough.
    The violence that has occurred has, obviously, been searingly tragic for those affected– who include people from ALL sides. But in reality, in and around Beirut, there was remarkably little violence– and most of that, committed by Amal, the SSNP, etc (as well as by Jumblatt’s people.)
    As the Hizbullah-led alliance consolidates it position over the weeks ahead, of course we all need to hold them to the highest standards of fairness to their former opponents. Their record in South Lebanon is pretty good on that.

  9. The Khourian Condominium of Qom and Crawford
    Iran’s hard-line newspapers on Monday called on Iraqis to oppose a strategic framework agreement that is being negotiated between Iraq and the United States (…) the agreement is a “capitulation the U.S. has imposed on the oppressed Iraqi people,” and urged Iraqis to turn to “a popular revolution” that would bring about the “expulsion of the occupiers” from Iraq (…) the agreement would allow the United States to set up 14 military bases across Iraq, authorize a long-term American military deployment in the country, give judicial immunity to U.S. nationals and allow the U.S. to use Iraqi land, sea and airspace to launch military attacks in the region. “The U.S.-cooked agreement turns Iraq into a full-fledged colony, so that Iraqi officials will be totally powerless but American military officials will have full powers to commit any action they want” (…) Iraqis should turn to clerics, academics and political activists and rise up against the pact… “Silence in the face of capitulation … is an unforgivable sin that will spoil the future of this country,” (…) the pact will only bring “captivity” to Iraq. The Americans will allegedly turn Iraq “into their permanent base in the Middle East” and use the country for their own plans, including “containing Iran.” “Signing this agreement will undoubtedly pave the way for captivity of the Iraqi people in the clutches of the American occupiers more than before”… [let] Iraq’s top Shiite clerics to order a public uprising against the agreement and “take up the banner of struggle against colonialism.”

  10. DHD,
    What I found interesting in your post is your perspective on the inter-sectarian power-sharing arrangements which are to be regulated by the Taif Accord (you wrote Taba, I think you mean Taif?)-
    What most leave out of their analysis of the confessional system in Lebanon is external patronage, and the shifting forms of alliance which Lebanon’s political actors pursue-Michael Kerr has writing an excellent book called “Imposing Power Sharing: Conflict and Co-Existence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon” which undertakes these very complex issues. Very well-researched and highly nuanced.
    Toward this end, CBC’s Lebanon Correspondent, Nahla Ayed has an excellent piece which details the divergent path Lebanon has been enduring since the assassination of PM Rafik Hariri-
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/middleeast/2008/05/where_guns_speak_volumes.html
    FYI, and thanks for the space, HC!
    KDJ

  11. Helena …. are you saying the 2005 elections were not monitored by the UN? Are saying the elections were not conducted constitutionally? If so, is there a reason the UN did not say this at the time?
    I understand the unfairness of the confessional system, but why are you, for instance, not calling for all militias to disarm in return for the Taif Agreement being renegotiated on a pure form of district-based (not party list) proportional representation, which would give all the parties the fair representation they are entitled to? Would this not be the “non-violent” way of going about it?
    Instead you say
    “The army, WHOSE OFFICERS HAVE BEEN EXTENSIVELY COURTED BY HIZBULLAH over the past years, reacted by requesting the government to revoke those two decisions.
    “The position adopted by the army leadership has considerable importance for the prospects of any kind of stability in the country in the months ahead. Not least because, under UNSC resolution 1701 it’s the army that is responsible for assuring the security of Lebanon’s southern border. And various things like the MOVEMENTS of the UNIFIL forces in the south are subject to the supervision of the army, WHICH REPRESENTS LEBANON’S SOVEREIGNITY IN THE COUNTRY”
    “Hizbullah has acted in responsible fashion in most parts of the country where it routed opposing militias: It almost immediately handed over the areas it thereby brought under its control to the army.
    “Evidently, right now, Hizbullah’s leaders feel they have reason to trust the army.
    “But what of Lebanon’s civilian “government”? So far, PM Siniora (or as Pres. Bush routinely mis-names him “Sonora”) has kept on hewing to a fairly strongly anti-Hizbullah line — with the exception of the bowing toward realism Saturday, when he said it should be the army that decides on the airport-security and Hizbullah telephony issues.”
    Shouldn’t the army be representing the Lebanese GOVERNMENT’S soveriegnity in the south, not its own?
    If you are “against the use of violence – by all parties” why are you adopting a Thatcherite rejoicing tone in hailing the Hezbollah/army alliance against the elected government?
    I can understand where commenters like super390 are coming from, because he/she doesn’t sound like a Quaker and a pacifist. But not you, in this regard!.
    ps – sorry for the caps but I don’t know how to highlight in bold or italics.

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