8 February 2007
The opposition's new plan: stalemate
Syria's
and Iran's strategy in Lebanon is changing.
So too, by extension, is that of their
local allies. Having realized
that the government of Prime Minister
Fouad Siniora will not be brought down through street protests, the opposition and its regional
backers are now implementing a policy of putrefaction: Impede everything and drive Lebanon into grinding
disintegration, so the government will scream first.
There are several reasons
for the new approach. Michel
Aoun is no longer capable of playing
boulevard politics, after his followers' appalling performance just over two weeks
ago, when the only thing
allowing them to obstruct traffic for a
respectable amount of time was
the army's protection. The general can
dispatch his hardcore supporters to the tent city in the Downtown; he can
assemble them on a football field;
but he's no longer in a position (if he ever was) to do much in the streets.
Hizbullah has carefully used non-Shiite front men against the
government - Aoun, Suleiman
Franjieh, Talal Arslan, Fathi Yakan,
Omar Karami - to avoid any impression that it's about
Shiites versus Sunnis. Aoun was
the best of the lot, so his vulnerabilities
mean that Hizbullah now has much less of a margin to block roads and surround public facilities.
Hizbullah must also factor in
what happened on January 25, when Sunnis and Shiites clashed near the
Arab University. If Aoun's
humiliation damaged the party's ability to sustain the illusion of a broad cross-sectarian opposition,
the Tariq al-Jdideh rioting exposed the obvious
- that the main fault line dividing the opposition and the government is a Sunni-Shiite fault line. The message that day was
plain, if alarming: The Sunnis had reached
the end of their tether, and
if the game ever became one of cutting off roads, then Hizbullah and the Shiite community in and around Beirut were
at a decided disadvantage compared to their adversaries.
A
third reason, and the main one, why Lebanon is
in for more weeks of stalemate,
is that Syria
continues to refuse any and
all compromise proposals that
might give life to the Hariri tribunal. Through its talks with
the Saudis, Iran has supplanted Syria in negotiating Lebanon's fate, at
least for now. But Syria remains an essential partner in
Iran's regional confrontation against
the United States. From Damascus, President Bashar Assad has bolstered himself by sowing instability in Lebanon, in the Palestinian territories, and in Iraq, while handing Iran important
intelligence concessions in Syria. Nothing will induce
Iran to cut Syria loose, or vice versa, which is why the
Iranians recently adopted the Assad
regime's conditions for a settlement
in Lebanon. These aim to torpedo the tribunal and earn the opposition veto power over the majority's
decisions, chiefly so Hizbullah and
its comrades can bring the
government down through new
resignations. The Iranians may be
wary of Syrian moves that might
push Hizbullah into a conflict against the Sunnis,
but the practical result of this is that Syria
and Iran have reached a mutually convenient arrangement: There is no hurry
to resolve Lebanon's mess.
More
worrisome is what the status
quo in Beirut might mean for Hizbullah's future behavior.
After the summer war, the
party had to accept an international solution that
reduced its ability to maneuver militarily in the border area. To
compensate, Hizbullah shifted its attentions to Beirut. The point was to turn Shiite anger against the
government and away from Hizbullah's errors in initiating a debilitating and unnecessary conflict. Hizbullah was also
responding to the mood in Damascus, from where Assad
advised that the party use its
"divine victory" against
Israel to gain power in the
government. The opposition's latest conditions
for resolving the deadlock are precisely those of Syria, showing the extent
to which Hizbullah is in sync with
Assad's priorities.
Given the blockage in Beirut, we might
soon have to prepare for
Hizbullah's revival in the South.
The party's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, recently, and pointedly,
mentioned the need to liberate the Shebaa Farms.
While it may be true
that the bombs found earlier
this week along the border were planted before
the summer war (and were
actually found inside Lebanese territory, in a minefield, according to sources on the ground), this provides
little reassurance when it comes
to Hizbullah's intentions. Nasrallah cannot long tolerate being stifled both
in Beirut and the South. And
if the strategy in Beirut is to let the situation fester, then it seems
probable that Hizbullah will intensify its activities below the Litani, the aim being
to destabilize UNIFIL. One incentive
is that some
UN peacekeepers are interpreting
their mandate to find weapons more aggressively than Hizbullah and its friends
would like.
A
third trope in Syrian and Iranian efforts to degrade Lebanon's political environment is the neutralization of Arab diplomacy. Earlier this week,
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa sent
an aide, Hisham Youssef, to investigate
whether renewed diplomatic efforts might lead anywhere. Youssef saw that the
doors remained closed. Damascus has not forgotten how last summer it was the
Arab states, and an Arab League foreign
ministers' meeting in Beirut
in particular, that prevented Syria from positioning itself as indispensable midwife
to a cease-fire between Hizbullah and Israel.
Now Damascus is turning the
tables. Through Hizbullah,
but primarily through Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, it seeks to ensure
that Moussa will leave Beirut empty-handed
if he ever decides to return. This isn't surprising: Siniora and Saudi Arabia
still consider the secretary general's
plan as the basis for any
acceptable agreement.
So, the Lebanese should be patient. Independence 2005 was always going to be a protracted slog, particularly against adversaries willing to break Lebanon into a thousand pieces before they
would allow the consolidation of a post-Syrian
order. How long such a
destructive policy can last
before much worse happens is
anybody's guess.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY
STAR
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=79345#