23 March 2006
From dialogue to epilogue
in Beirut
By
now it must be increasingly apparent what the balance sheet is for Lebanon's national
dialogue. It must also be plain that the
dialogue has only been "national" in the sense that
those sitting around the table are Lebanese. However, Syria has hovered over the gatherings
like a malignant spirit, its actions, more than anybody else's,
determining whether the conclaves can repair ambient political schisms.
According to one participant, a cornerstone of the politicians' efforts, namely compelling Syria to accept delineating the boundary with Lebanon
in the Shebaa Farms area, may already be stillborn.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem reportedly told United Nations envoy Terje Roed-Larsen in Moscow that Syria
would not agree to it. This
pushes the issue mainly into the
lap of Saudi Arabia and Egypt,
who are both said to support redrawing the Shebaa line. However, neither country seems overly eager
to force Syrian President Bashar Assad to play along.
Complicating matters further, President Emile Lahoud's
presence at the upcoming Arab
League summit in Khartoum will only make
it more difficult for Prime
Minister Fouad Siniora to
pave the way for a successful trip to Syria, where he would
ask Assad to delimit the Shebaa
border. Under the circumstances,
and unless the Egyptians and
Saudis show some backbone, Siniora will be spared
the Damascus visit.
And what of Hizbullah and Amal, who
supposedly staked their credibility on having Syria sign
amended Shebaa maps? Hizbullah Secretary General
Hassan
Nasrallah will be delighted to see the issue left
hanging in limbo, since it means
he can fire
away at the
Israelis every few months, and use that manufactured tension to justify retaining his party's weapons.
Still, there is a moderate price
to pay domestically if the Lebanese are rebuffed by Assad. Nasrallah and Parliament
Speaker Nabih Berri will
have to work overtime to convince us they are relevant in Syria, and that
their fidelity to the Baath regime somehow benefits Lebanon.
Where Berri and Nasrallah
can congratulate themselves is in breaking the March 14 coalition's momentum to oust Lahoud. The president
has counterattacked (assuring
us in a television interview, with
straight face, that he "had no personal differences with Hariri"), and he knows
the political class will probably reach
no consensus on a successor. The
Syrians, meanwhile, would allegedly drop Lahoud if he were
replaced by someone of the anemic caliber
of Central Bank governor
Riad Salameh, Robert Ghanem,
or anyone else whom they feel
could be ordered around. Since that's not a viable option
for March 14, Lahoud is likely to stay on for the time being - paradoxically preferable to his foes than
a pro-Syrian cutout, since his mandate ends in a year and a half, not six.
March
14 erred in thinking it could play
Nasrallah. Walid Jumblatt
has taken a tougher line, believing this might make Saad Hariri more tenacious in his unsettling negotiations with Hizbullah. Up to a few days ago, Hariri seemed to be under
the impression that he could finalize
a deal with Nasrallah over the presidency.
Hizbullah shot that idea down on Sunday evening, however, and Hariri is not likely to get satisfaction from the party
elsewhere. Nasrallah never gives much
away. Early on, Jumblatt tried to bring him into
the post-Syrian order and failed;
Michel Aoun thought Hizbullah
could propel him into the
presidency, and became a patsy in the party's effort to break out
of its isolation; expecting
the inexperienced Hariri to
do better than either man is far-fetched.
In
politics, you only set deadlines that can be respected.
The March 14 coalition couldn't
meet its cutoff date for Lahoud's expulsion, and
both Nasrallah and Berri will cash in on this. Hariri
is making a mistake in focusing too much on Lahoud,
however, and not enough on Hizbullah. It took a striking
lack of acumen on his part
to get himself invited to an Oval Office meeting
with George W. Bush, and then use this as a platform to defend Hizbullah. As expected, Hariri received nothing in return from the party,
made the Americans groan, ended up looking weaker than his parliamentary
majority entitles him to, and forgot
another cardinal rule of politics: When you have a good thing going for you, like a White House appointment, raise the stakes, don't
lower them.
Hariri
subsequently thought he could convince
Nasrallah of his goodwill, but this was again na•ve.
The main issue today is Hizbullah's disarmament. Lebanon will not be stabilized for as long as a sectarian militia is more powerful than the national army, and for as long as the leaders of that organization are in league with a vindictive Syrian regime. If Lahoud's disposal means that the parliamentary
majority must abandon Security
Council Resolution 1559 (and the dialogue has created a situation where both goals cannot be readily achieved
together), then it might be
better to stomach a weakened, though not weak, president until 2007, instead of offering Nasrallah open-ended guarantees on his weapons.
But
even that exchange is not on offer anymore. For March 14, there are few
palpable successes in the
dialogue. Among the gains was that, as a participant put it, "we
brought Nasrallah down from heaven." The Hizbullah leader was thrown into
the grimy pit of sectarian bargaining which he so openly
despised. That's good
because it reminds Hizbullah that its guns are useless in the backrooms of Lebanese politics, where communal compromises are crafted.
And much credit must go to Jumblatt, who by raising such a fuss about those weapons polarized
the atmosphere, making it difficult
for Hizbullah to pursue its armed struggle elsewhere in the border region if Israeli troops can be
induced to leave Shebaa.
But
Syria and its allies have on balance gained
far more from the dialogue than its adversaries.
For the foreseeable future,
the deadlock in the Shebaa Farms
will persist; Hizbullah will retain its weapons;
Lahoud will stay in office; the March 14
coalition will be discredited for as long as the president lingers; Aoun will
continue to think he's smarter
than anybody, and, therefore, will remain more na•ve than everybody;
and Assad will continue his game of rejection and elimination, knowing that both Egypt
and Saudi Arabia are keen only to save his
regime, regardless of the stalemate in Beirut.
That's
what passes for dialogue in Damascus'
shadow.
Michael
Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
Copyright (c) 2006 The Daily Star