EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
1. The February 14 protests in Beirut in memory of Rafik Hariri and Imad Mughniyeh respectively underscore Lebanon’s fractured polity.
2. The nearly four-month stand-off between the pro-government, parliamentary majority and the Hezbollah-led, pro-Syrian Opposition movement has increased the likelihood of a second civil war - a dangerous prospect for the region.
3. Hezbollah’s subversion of Lebanese democracy is being underwritten by Syria and Iran, each of whom has a vested interest in defeating Lebanon’s pro-democracy movement.
4. Inconsistent and cynical U.S. policies have contributed to fragmentation within the leadership of the reformist ‘March 14’ coalition
5. The international community, led by the United States, United Kingdom and France, should convene an emergency session of the Security Council to push for the implementation of Resolutions 1559 and 1701, and a resolution to Lebanon’s political crisis.
On February 14, tens of thousands of protestors gathered in separate corners of Beirut - some to honour the three-year anniversary of Rafik Hariri’s murder, others in response to last week’s assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus. At the Hariri rally in Martyrs Square, Social Affairs Minister Nayla Mouawad commended the crowd for continuing to reject political domination by Syria, proclaiming: “In this square, you broke rule of tutelage, you reclaimed your independence, and you saved the investigation [of Hariri’s murder] from being buried.”
In Southern Beirut, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah struck a decidedly different tone, as the coffin of Mughniyeh - one of the world’s most wanted terrorists - was carried through a surging crowd. Blaming Mughniyeh’s assassination on the Mossad, Nasrallah declared: "Zionists, if you want this sort of open war, then let the whole world hear, so be it!"
The confluence of these protests is a grim reminder of the stifled promise of the 2005 Cedar Revolution, and of the damage wrought by the international community’s failure to provide uncompromising support for Lebanon’s reform movement. Lebanese reformers hope that the democratic momentum of the Cedar Revolution can be revived to break through the nearly four-month deadlock between the pro-government ‘March 14’ coalition and the Hezbollah-led, pro-Syrian Opposition movement, to elect a president and resume parliamentary business.
Yet the Reform Movement is growing understandably pessimistic in the face of a steady rise in sectarian clashes, politically-motivated assassinations and bellicose rhetoric by Hezbollah. Ever-vulnerable to subversion by external actors, sectarian divisions within Lebanese society are being intentionally exacerbated by Hezbollah, working in the service of Syria and Iran. While the Lebanese army has been deployed in a massive security operation in Beirut for the past week, it is feared that this will not be sufficient to prevent an escalation of sectarian violence into civil war.
This current political crisis, and the prospect of civil war, exposes the folly of the United States’ recent attempts to court Syrian favour at the Annapolis Conference as a means of breaking the Damascus-Tehran Axis. To be sure, the priorities and activities of both regimes suggest that they are united in a strategy unacceptable to the United Statesto obtain regime security and regional hegemony by undermining, and eventually destroying, Israel.
For this reason, both regimes have invested considerable resources in supporting Hezbollah’s activities, as civil war would provide a pretext to incite a second Israeli-Hezbollah war. Anti-Israeli militants have a long history of using Lebanon as a base of operations from which to provoke Israel to war, a clever strategy by which they compel Israel to retaliate against forces acting inside Lebanon, but which also generates inevitable collateral damage in the form of infrastructure and Lebanese civilians. By increasing the scale of deprivation and anti-Israeli sentiment, this strategy has proven to be a very effective recruitment method for Hezbollah and other extremist groups.
This is particularly the case in the Shi’i dominated and poverty-stricken border areas, which tend to bear the brunt of the worst hostilities, and are consequently have become more deprived and amenable to extremism. In this sense, the disastrous 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, in which at least 1,500 Lebanese civilians were killed, gave Hezbollah the opportunity to stoke sectarian resentments and claim to be the only force capable of defending Lebanon from the Zionist menace.
While undermining Israeli statehood appears to be Syria and Iran’s long-term strategy, in the short term Damascus is attempting to once again secure political control of Lebanon through the Opposition movement and intimidation tactics, as indicated by the recent spate of politically targeted assassinations. (One of the most recent assassinations was of police Captain Wissam Eid, charged with investigating a string of bombings tied to the Syrian government). The Iranian regime, for its part, gets to bolster a Khomeinist movement in a geographically crucial country with a rapidly expanding Shi’i population, whilst continuing to humiliate Israel and her allies.
It is unlikely that the Syrian and Iranian regimes desire an apocalyptic conflict with Israel at the moment, as Israel currently retains a clear military superiority in the region. Yet this may not be the case for long - with international scrutiny relaxed against Iran’s nuclear program, and the Institute of Science and International Security’s revelations of a covert North Korean-supplied Syrian weapons program, these regimes may be strengthening Hezbollah’s position for a future Israeli war. By that time - perhaps even within the next ten years - both regimes could have nuclear weapons. To this extent, a victory by Hezbollah in a second Lebanese civil war could be an important step towards significantly undermining Israel’s regional security.
Looking down the barrel of this particularly terrifying gun, some questions come to mind. After passing UN Resolutions 1559 and 1701, which call upon Syria to cease its meddling in Lebanese internal affairs and for Hezbollah’s disarmament, why has the international community stood idly by as one of the world’s most prolific terrorist groups prepares to destabilize both Lebanon and the wider Middle East? And after building their Middle Eastern policy around a strategy of isolating the Syria-Iran axis and promoting democracy movements, why has the United States allowed the situation to deteriorate to this extent?
The shift in American foreign policy away from a muscular defence of democratisation in Lebanon and in favour of ‘tilting’ towards Syria has undoubtedly contributed to the fragmentation of the majority pro-democracy ‘March 14’ coalition. According to the reformist organisation NOW Lebanon, the U.S. inclusion of Syria in the Annapolis Conference has signalled to the Lebanese reform movement that they are effectively on their own. Consequently, some reformists speculate that members of the pro-government coalition are making their own deals with Syria in order to survive. This may account for their choice of General Michel Suleiman as president, who has a history of docility vis a vis Syria.
Yet responsibility for the fragmented reform movement cannot be blamed on the U.S. or the wider international community alone. The ‘March 14’ coalition must make a commitment to redress the destabilizing corruption which has pervaded Lebanon’s politics and economy, and advance their forthright agenda of democratic reform and national sovereignty. They must find a way of communicating to the disaffected and poverty-stricken Shiites of the South that a victory for Hezbollah would not be a victory for the Lebanese Shi’i, but only for the autocrats of Syria and Iran.
In any event, the United States should own up to its error in judgment and reassert Lebanon’s independence and security as crucial to the Middle East Peace Process. Secretary Rice, so disappointing in her conduct this past year, should use her power to praise and encourage Lebanon’s proud traditions of free speech, free assembly and religious pluralism so pivotal to the reform movement.
Principled politicians may seem in short supply on either side of the Atlantic, but there are some British politicians speaking out eloquently and persuasively in support of a free Lebanon. Two weeks ago, Andrew Love, MP and Minister for the Middle East Kim Howells argued in Parliament to revive British efforts to enforce resolutions 1559 and 1701, and to continue to provide peacekeeping assistance to Lebanese forces. Dr. Howells also cited the danger posed by Sunni militias like Fatah Al-Islam, which foments extremism in Palestinian refugee camps and clashed with the Lebanese army at the Nahel Bahred camps last July. And promisingly, Foreign Secretary David Miliband spoke passionately last week of the ‘imperative of democratisation’—a welcome idea at a time when cynical statecraft seems to have overruled both morality and reason.
The United Kingdom, along with France and the United States, has the opportunity to take the lead in the worthy and necessary cause of the Lebanese reformers. Sir John Sawyer, U.K. ambassador to the U.N., should request an emergency session of the Security Council to demand the full implementation of Resolutions 1559 and 1701, and use all available methods of international cooperation to accomplish this endeavour. Ambassador Sawyer should invite other leaders of the international community to join him in offering unequivocal support to the Lebanese reformers, including security guarantees in the event of civil war. Furthermore, Sawyer should put pressure on the UNIFIL commission to forge ahead with its investigation of Rafik Hariri’s assassination, and to raise the possibility of new investigations for recently assassinated anti-Syrian figures such as General Francois al-Hajj.
Evidence of Iran and Syria’s financial and political support should be presented to the Security Council, and must be linked explicitly with Hezbollah’s past and present terrorist activities. The United States should continue to pursue targeted sanctions against Syria and Iran, namely in the form of freezing accounts which have been linked to front groups for corrupt politicians and to Iran’s Revolutionary guards. In making the case for action in Lebanon, the United Nations should relate punitive measures against Iran and Syria to their conduct in the Lebanese crisis.
Vaclav Havel described his outlook as a dissident as one of ‘living in truth’ - of refusing to live in the false reality fostered by an oppressive regime. In reality, rule without popular mandate can only ever stand on feet of clay. Today, the international community should reject the fictions proffered by the illegitimate regimes in Damascus, Tehran and their Hezbollah proxies, and stand with the Lebanese reformers to reclaim their country’s future. The prospect of a failed Lebanese state is dangerously close to realization, and should be unacceptable to Britain and to any of our allies in the cause of liberal democracy.
Julia Pettengill is a human rights and democracy activist.
