19 April 2007
Prepare for less attention in Paris
By Michael Young
Jacques Chirac still has some weeks left in office, but as of this
Sunday, when France votes in the first round of its
presidential election, the president will begin emptying the closets at the Elysee Palace. Chirac's final act, however, may
be to see through a major endeavor of his in recent months: ensuring that a
tribunal is formed to sentence those responsible for the assassination of his
late friend, Rafik Hariri.
By next week we should know better whether the tribunal will be created
under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter. Much will depend on the
impressions that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Sultanov and UN
Undersecretary General for Legal Affairs Nicolas Michel take home with them
after their visits to the region this week. Chirac's departure is accelerating
what happens in New York, partly because he has good relations with Russian
President Vladimir Putin and could help reassure the Kremlin; partly because
the transfer of power to a new French president could delay the tribunal
approval process, which senior UN officials, the United States, and France
don't want to see happen.
Whoever replaces Chirac as president, those in Beirut who regard France as a vital ally in frustrating Syria's designs to regain power in Lebanon will have to brace themselves for
less attention in Paris. In a press conference on Monday,
after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the presidential
front-runner, Nicolas Sarkozy, pointedly noted: "Lebanon is very important to me, [but]
there is more than just Lebanon." March 14 has benefited from
the anomaly of Chirac's personalization of his Lebanon policy thanks to his intimacy with
the Hariri family. But the implications for Lebanon's future may be more dangerous than
we realize.
Chirac's support for Hariri was apparently a key factor behind French
efforts in 2004 to be more intrusive in Lebanon. The defining moment came in June
of that year, when the French president met with his American counterpart,
George W. Bush, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Though the Americans and
French had clashed bitterly over the Iraq invasion, Lebanon emerged as an issue over which the
two sides could agree. Bush was keen to put pressure on Syria because of Syrian actions in Iraq. Chirac, who by then had lost all
faith in Syrian President Bashar Assad, appeared to be preparing for the
upcoming presidential election in Lebanon, an essential moment for Hariri to
reassert his influence after years of facing animosity from President Emile
Lahoud, Lebanon's security services, and Syria.
Following his meeting with Bush in Paris, Chirac had declared: "We have
expressed renewed conviction and belief that Lebanon has to be ensured that its
independence and sovereignty are guaranteed." Bush, in turn, affirmed:
"The United States and France ... agree that the people of Lebanon should be free to determine their
own future, without foreign interference or domination." The culmination
of these early rumblings of consensus would come in September, when the
Security Council passed Resolution 1559. Among other things, it demanded a
Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, after Assad had intimidated Hariri
and Lebanon's Parliament into voting in favor of an
extension for Lahoud.
This was a remarkable turnaround when compared to Chirac's position in
1996, when the president addressed the Lebanese Parliament. He told the
assembled parliamentarians that France hoped 1996 could be a year when Syria and Lebanon would each reach a settlement with Israel. Chirac went on to observe that
"it's through a just and lasting peace that your country will regain its
sovereignty over all its territory, according to United Nations
resolutions." At the time, Hariri was a main pillar of the Syrian order in
Lebanon, so the French president basically reminded
the Lebanese that Syria would only withdraw its forces once
peace had been negotiated with Israel - which still occupied much of South Lebanon. Resolution 1559 did away with the
open-endedness of Chirac's earlier message.
It was good to have Chirac in office during 2005 and 2006, when Lebanon needed regional and international
assistance to get rid of the Syrians, put the Hariri investigation on track,
and set up a UN framework to help normalize the country, particularly after the
summer war last year. Unfortunately, too much of a good thing in diplomacy can
often lead to too much of a bad thing. Domestic politics are often conducted in
partisan counterpoint, so that, for example, the Bush administration's
isolation of Syria prompted a foolish Democratic
opening to Assad when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Damascus recently. Similarly, Chirac's
closeness to the Hariri family will almost certainly ensure that a new French
administration swings the pendulum in the opposite direction, to compensate for
the perceived excesses of the current president.
This is worrisome. It may be too late for Chirac, but Bush needs to
better anchor his policy institutionally toward Syria, so it can endure once he leaves
office. Policy abhors a vacuum. That's why Bush must define a more systematic
approach to containing Syria, which he can justify in the
context of a broader Middle East strategy that gains bipartisan support in Washington. Instead, what we now have is a
deep rift between Republicans and Democrats over Iraq, which is threatening to undermine
the administration's line on other important regional issues in which it has
successfully worked within an Arab and international consensus. This includes
ending Syria's efforts to reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon.
As for March 14, it should make a priority of pressing its friends in
the West to develop a Lebanon policy that lasts beyond the
leaders in place. That means talking to those likely to be in power next, and
showing that Lebanon means more than justice for Rafik
Hariri or tranquility along the border with Israel. Both are important objectives,
even critical ones, but the Lebanese have too often suffered from international
indifference not to see the advantages of building sympathy that is more
lasting.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=81551#
Your Comments
GKronfli@aol.com
Date: Sun,
22 Apr 2007 07:41:21 EDT
Wishful thinking. Lebanon is of no
consequence to a new French president who has much greater problems to worry
about at home.