Lots of people have been scrambling to ask what lies behind the decision of Lebanon’s Hizbullah-led opposition bloc to pull their 10-plus-1 ministers out of the Doha-launched unity government… And there are no clear answers from anywhere yet.
My sense from afar is that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his friends and backers in Tehran are sending a fairly blunt message to the west (whose leaders often like to describe themselves as the “international community”) that regime change is indeed a game that more than one side can play.
Let’s look at the position of the pro-U.S. forces in the Middle East today:
- * Tunisia is in the throes of a serious socio-economic upheaval that threatens to spread to many other M.E. countries that, like it, are important to US power projection in the region.
* Think Egypt, in particular.
* The Israeli government continues not only to keep Gaza’s 1.5 million people locked in an impermeable and quite inhumane cage but also to viciously knock the guts out of Palestinian East Jerusalem and thus out of any hope that a viable “two-state” solution can be salvaged from the current mess of repression in Palestine… And Washington is doing nothing– nothing!– about any of that. Even its long-lasting fig-leaf of pretense that there is something called a peace “process” has now been shredded to nothingness. For far too long, there has been no progress towards any form of a just and sustainable peace. Now, there is not even the pretense of any “process.”
* The U.S. has now definitively lost the campaign to have any lasting influence over the government in Baghdad; and it is in serious trouble further east in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
*Egypt is not the only country, central to U.S. interests in the region, where an aged long-time ruler is now well into his 9th decade on earth and starting to falter, physically. Think Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is particularly germane to the situation in Lebanon, since it was the Saudi-Syrian entente of early 2008 that allowed Lebanon to recover from the prolonged political crisis that preceded that date.
Interesting that the resigning opposition MP’s in Lebanon made a point of saying that the pro-Hariri bloc ad foiled the wishes of both the Syrians and the Saudis, and that the Hizbullah media reported it that way too.
Where is Saudi King Abdullah? He has had several serious medical procedures recently. Who has (?former) PM Saad Hariri been listening to as he has made his decisions of recent weeks?
… If Nasrallah and his friends in Tehran (especially Supreme Leader Khamenei) indeed think the time has come to give the western house of cards in the Middle East a little nudge in Beirut to see what happens, the fallout from this could well end up extending far beyond Lebanon’s tiny confines.
Well, I have been planning a short visit to Beirut next month, anyway. It should be an interesting time to be there.
The plot is really intriguing. Hezbollah recently released some videos taken by Israeli reconnaissance, showing that they were monitoring Hariri’s motorcade when he was assassinated. What was that all about?
A Russian expert claims that the wounds caused by the bomb were extremely unusual, as were the wounds in the Gaza operation, Cast Lead. I’m not sure they were the same anomalies, but the Russian study claims that those in Beirut were consistent with what would have been caused by brand new German nuclear-nanotechnology, unavailable to Hezbollah or Syria.
Also there is the issue of the false witnesses, a group of people who gave the Tribunal false testimony resulting in the jailing of several military officials for several years. It seems generally conceded that the false witness story is true, but the Tribunal seems intent on ignoring it, as does Hariri’s cabinet. Most important, the issue begs the question of how much of the evidence comes from such false witnesses.
The combination of these stories is destroying the legitimacy of the tribunal, making it pretty clear that it is simply out to “get” Hezbollah.
I was in Lebanon when that genuine Ugly American, John Kerry, announced that the Tribunal was going to deliver its verdict and there wasn’t a damn thing Lebanon could do about it. Naturally, he was studiously oblivious to any issues involving the credibility of the verdict.
My guess is that March 8 resigned in reaction to whatever Hariri is being forced to agree to during his prolonged stay in the US. The Saudis and Syria seem to have done a deal for a peaceful settlement, but the US could care less. It has its own agenda, and what’s good for Lebanon is irrelevant to them.
JohnH,
And where would Hezbollah get video taken by Israeli reconnaissance? You seem to be skirting the idea that Israel might be responsible for Hariris assassination.
But of course, it would have to be Israel wouldn’t it? Who else would do that?
And where would Hezbollah get video taken by Israeli reconnaissance?, they hacked the reconnaissance image transmission, that’s where! So you think Israel can do no wrong?
david, here’s an article from time magazine from 5/12/09 titled “Hizballah’s Bust of Israeli ‘Spies’ Shows Its Growing Power in Lebanon”just a couple weeks before the der spiegel leak the tribunal was going after hezbollah. since the time mag article lebanon has been busting israeli spies. the article should give you an idea how Hezbollah got video taken by Israeli reconnaissance. israel spy ring got busted up. some of these Israeli reconnaissance videos were released last summer in a much anticipated (for weeks)public press conference. this news was trumpted by israel cutting trees on the border, that resulted in gunfire and people getting killed.
hey, interesting news from yesterday Israeli troops capture Lebanese man: army
“An Israeli patrol crossed into Lebanese territory on Wednesday and captured a Lebanese shepherd near the border, the Lebanese army said in a statement.”
i wonder what that’s about. maybe they want to trade him for on of their spies.
“And Washington is doing nothing– nothing!– about any of that.”
Do you call supplying the tear gas and training the snipers shooting into the protests, nothing? I’m sure that the Tunisian people don’t.
David, it is quite clear that the assassination of Hariri was a very well planned and efficiently carried out matter.
Who benefitted? It certainly was not Hizbollah, or Syria. The immediate beneficiaries were the US and Israel. They have attempted to build on their gains by using the law, in the way that criminals generally do, with complete contempt.
And also, their saving grace, with Keystone Kop like incompetence.
What is certain is that Hariri is getting career endingly bad advice, and that March 8 would seem now to have not only a popular mandate, from the elections in which they got well over 50%, but a Parliamentary majority too.
Nothing is certain in the Lebanon, where such
hans,
No, I don’t think that Israel can do no wrong. I just don’t think everything wrong is Israel’s fault.
If Hezbollah “hacked the reconnaissance image transmission” then I suspect Hezbollah knows a good deal more about the assassination than they have admitted.
Why would it be in their interests not to say or are they Israel’s puppet and are covering up for them?
My understanding is that the authenticity of the video has not been contested by Israeli. Instead, they were surprised that Iran had cracked their video feeds, because it was most likely Iran that gave Hezbollah the video.
If Nasrallah and his friends in Tehran (especially Supreme Leader Khamenei) indeed think the time has come to give the western house of cards in the Middle East a little nudge in Beirut to see what happens,
I don’t see that Helena. Hizbullah seems to me to be acting defensively – attempting to block the accusations at the Hague. So far Hizbullah has not wished to take overt control in Lebanon. You don’t say what makes you think they (and Iran)are now going on the offensive.
Annie, thanks for the links.
Let me just make sure I understand because this is completely new to me. Is it really the considered judgment of the anti-Israel readers of this blog that it is more likely Israel and/or the US were behind the Hariri assassination than some combination of Syria/Hezbollah/Iran?
This all reminds me of a trip I made to London shortly after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Sitting at a restaurant table a friend commented that she had heard on the BBC that Israel may have been behind the assassination. In her defense she did not follow the news very closely, listening to the news on the radio was probably the extent of it but an Israeli who was on the trip with me asked her if she didn’t see that Israel had nothing to gain from the assassination.
Please enlighten me. What was Israel suppose to gain from Hariri’s assassination?
David, you’ve gotta be kidding! What was Israel suppose to gain from Hariri’s assassination? Um, let me count the ways… 1. Turning more Lebanese– esp. Sunni Lebanese– against Syria, leading to the speedy departure of the Syrian troop presence from the country; 2. Sowing serious strife between Lebanon’s Sunnis and Shiites; 3. Aggravating the Shiite-Sunni division at the regional level… Etc etc.
I am not saying that these “cui bono” considerations PROVE that Israel was somehow behind the RH killing. But with your blithely articulated ignorance that they even exist, you betray your own distance from the Lebanese and Middle Eastern political scenes. (Also, you could have been reading JWN throughout 2005, when all these matters were widely discussed.)
Finally neither I nor the vast majority of the JWN readers are “anti-Israel” as such. We do, however, believe that various Israeli governments (like various U.S. governments) have pursued some very immoral and anti-humane policies, and that criticizing these policies is not only (gasp!) permissible but also normal and– in a context in which U.S. financial, military, and political support flows to Israel to support these policies– oftentimes actually incumbent upon U.S. citizens of conscience who want to see our country’s levers of power responsible deployed. Smearing us all as “anti-Israel” is childish name-calling.
Helena,
No I wasn’t kidding. This really is the first time I’ve read the suspicion that Israel was behind the Hariri assassination. If this has been in the New York Times (my main source of news) I either missed it or forgot it (probably the latter). I would certainly buy into the three reasons you give that Israel would gain from the assassination if the target were the head of Hamas or Hezbollah as the disorder created would detract from efforts these organizations could spend planning attacks against Israel. But a chaotic Lebanon is not in Israel’s interest, they had that for a few decades and I don’t think it a situation they would like to return to. I may not read as widely in the news as you (I’m not a journalist) but am I really wrong in thinking that the vast majority of the media, US and European, think it more likely that a Syria/Hezbollah/Iran connection was responsible for the assassination than a US/Israel connection?
Just for the record I started reading JWN only recently, a year or two. Almost as soon as I started reading I also started posting and I immediately learned a new word. Like my “ignorance” of the above I’m sure you will be just shocked that I had not heard the word before. It was probably with my very first post where I most likely ventured the opinion that Israel is not to blame for all the problems of the world when I was labeled a “hasbarist”. Tell me, is that word “childish name-calling” or does it rise to some more sophisticated level? Because when I googled the word, what I found was pretty rank.
Also for the record, unlike many others who would classify their views like mine “staunchly pro-Israel” (actually I also have dual US-Israeli citizenship) I do not label every criticism of Israel “anti-Semitic”. I recognize that Israel is not perfect, as a matter of fact I think they are very, very wrong on many things. So when I use the word “anti-Israel” I don’t use it to mean “Nazi sympathizing anti-Semites” I use it merely to denote those who think the preponderance of fault lies more with Israel than with Arabs. Not quite as disparaging as your readers use the word “hasbarist”.
“a chaotic Lebanon is not in Israel’s interest, they had that for a few decades and I don’t think it a situation they would like to return to.”
Are you sure of that? After all, it is a situation that they largely created, and definitely exacerbated.
And do you really believe Israel wants a united, strong Lebanon? Do you believe that the Israeli government thinks that a united, strong Lebanon would be any kind of friend to Israel, especially after what Israel has put the Lebanese through again and again and again?
I am personally acquainted with a Maronite nun who became a huge fan of Hezballah after Israel’s 2006 rampage there, and she is not the only Maronite who changed her views as a result of 2006. Do you know how difficult it is to turn a Lebanese Maronite pro-Hezballah? Brilliant job Israel did there.
Shirin,
The opposite of a “chaotic” Lebanon isn’t a “united, strong Lebanon”. I don’t think Israel expects or among a large proportion of the government cares to have Lebanon as a friend. I expect the best Israel wants at this point in time is a Lebanon that for whatever reason, fear or moral reasoning, doesn’t fire rockets over the border. Israel would prefer that it be in the interests of the government of Lebanon to enforce this, short of that sufficient order that Israel can assign blame to some group for any rockets that do fly.
I don’t think Israel deliberately “exacerbated” Lebanon’s problems. They did what they thought were in their best interests. That these actions didn’t always work out as planned is part of the problems with war.
As for creating Lebanon’s problems have you forgotten about their civil war? At this point I should probably add some superior sounding comment in line with Helena’s comment to me about my “distance from the Lebanese and Middle Eastern political scene” but I suspect you don’t regard their civil war and subsequent invasion and occupation by Syria as have caused any problems, instead it’s Israel’s fault, start to finish.
Shirin,
Sorry for the last snarky sentence in my last post but I have no doubt that some will lay the blame for Lebanon’s civil war on Israel due to the the displaced Palestinians who went to Jordan then Lebanon. But if we follow logic like that we can pretty much go back all way to Abraham and blame all the problems of the world for the last 3000 years on the Jews.
Lebanon is really interesting in such moments. you are welcome…
we are all excited and expecting the next episode.
good idea for you to come…