Is Lebanon going Iraq’s way?

Aftermath of Beirut clashes earlier this week (Photos from BBC News)

By Ghassan Charbel

The author is editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned pan-Arab

daily al-Hayat. His leader appears today in Arabic

Booby-traps continue to be planted in Lebanon’s fragile frame. The frame’s rattled and exposed contours are exposed to internal and external storms.

What remains of the State is shaking and eroding. The “Lebanese arena” is being invited to commit suicide. And some want this to happen without delay.

I don’t claim the Lebanese to be innocent, or simply victims. Divisions are profound. The number of adventurers is high and relations between the component elements are at their rock bottom.

The beleaguered country’s president received a letter from King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz urging him to act quickly to prevent the fire breaking out and to beware of its likely triggers.

Lebanese leaders need to diligently scrutinize the lines in the letter and read what is between them.

The author of the letter had previously sponsored the sole attempt to prevent Lebanon from falling into the abyss. His efforts at the time were code-named “S-S” (for Saudi-Syrian mediation).

Shooting down that initiative battered Lebanon as well as Syria’s Arab and international relations. Had those efforts succeeded, Beirut would not have been twisting and turning today to the tune of sectarian sensitivities. Perhaps Damascus too would have been less agitated.

It is an open secret that happenings in Syria are beyond Lebanon’s staying power. Damages were expected. But the shock was the speed of Lebanon’s loss of cohesion and its total lack of immunity.

Decadence of the State augurs dire consequences. A serious incident, such as the killing of two Sunnite sheikhs in Akkar, nearly ignited an inferno. A serious incident, such as the abduction of Lebanese Shiite men in Aleppo, all but sparked a fire as well. Luckily, ex-premier Saad Hariri reacted prudently and responsibly to the first incident. And (Hezbollah leader) Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was quick to contain reactions to the latter.

The initiative to prevent the conflagration is not enough. The country is falling apart and so is the region. You only need to look at Iraq. The example there is vivid and blatant. Some people believe Syria’s own components are also sliding into a bloody and long crisis that can only end à la Iraq.

Without necessarily using official parlance about federalism and provinces, this would have a traumatic impact on Lebanon, the quasi-makeup of which translates into civil war each time the balance of power between its provinces swings one way or the other.

After the infamous Akkar incident, and irrespective of its circumstances, the military institution got embroiled in the Lebanese dispersal.

Voices were heard accusing the army of establishing a symbolic presence in one province and of seeking to impose its clout in another. It was accused of coexisting with armed citizens in the first and trying to disarm citizens in another.

That’s a sequel of the Sunnite-Shiite split over the “Resistance’s weapons,” which to most Sunnites are Hezbollah’s weapons. It involved thinning out Lebanese military forces in one province and redeploying them in a weaker province, where power is divided between Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea.

Tragedy does not lie in countries being weak, governments being ineffectual, or parliaments being impotent. Tragedy rather lies in discovering the maps are ailing and the provinces therein are demanding new labels and recognitions. The reasons are the setback to co-existence resulting from tyranny and the lack of a culture of recognizing the other side and its right to disagree.

Experience shows manipulating maps is costly and delineating provinces in them is fraught with funerals, displacements and abuses.

Lebanon’s map is also ailing and the national fabric is worn out. Careful appraisal shows a solemn Lebanese State would spare the Shiites a horrific crash, the Sunnites a costly gamble and the Christians further exodus.

The choice is evident: either a return from the mentality of provinces to the mindset of a State or drowning in sectarian flare-ups and protracted wars.

U.S. and Iran are now sparring over Lebanon

Having prised Iraq away from the United States, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now sparring with Washington over Lebanon.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and Iranian Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi are this week’s shadowboxing stars at the Beirut arena.

“The American-Iranian race for Lebanon caused a backlog of appointments for the two countries’ representatives with senior Lebanese officials,” notes the pan-Arab and Saudi-owned daily al-Hayat today.

It says Feltman and Rahimi’s exclusive meetings on the side with their respective friends and allies are outer upshots of Lebanon’s political divide.

Both men met, or are about to meet, with the Lebanese president, speaker and prime minister. But their side meetings with friends and allies were much more indicative.

Feltman conferred separately with Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid Junblatt and his senior aides, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and a number of March 14 opposition parliamentarians led by Boutros Harb. All are strong critics of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

Rahimi -- who is heading a delegation of 15 cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and ministry directors – elected instead to lay wreaths on the graves of one-time Hezbollah spiritual mentor Sayed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah and Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s topmost military commander who was assassinated in Damascus four years ago.

A statement by the U.S. embassy in Beirut said Wednesday Feltman expressed Washington’s “steadfast support for pluralistic and democratic governments in the region that protect the rights of all citizens, including ethnic and religious minorities.”

The embassy said Feltman “met with senior officials to discuss the political, economic, and security situation in Lebanon, developments in Syria, and other regional issues.”

But Beirut’s daily an-Nahar today quotes several politicians as saying Feltman is reminding them of Lebanon’s international obligations to uphold economic sanctions clamped on Syria and Iran and to extend humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees.

Rahimi, on the other hand, is reportedly urging Beirut to implement earlier agreements signed by the countries within three months. Ministerial sources told The Daily Star Lebanon does not feel obligated to adhere to any implementation timeframe for the accords. There are 16 of them covering the health, social affairs, energy, industry, agriculture, justice, and economy sectors.

In his daily column for an-Nahar, Lebanese political analyst Rajeh el-Khoury says, “The hive of political activity in Beirut yesterday took us six years back to 2006, when (former U.S. secretary of state) Condoleezza Rice announced the birth of The New Middle East, triggering a response from Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the U.S. will face defeat in Lebanon.

“Much changed in Lebanon and the region since, but Lebanon remains a boxing ring…”

According to Khoury, three subject matters concern Washington at this stage:

1. To keep Lebanon safe and out of the way of any security breakdown in the South (bordering Israel) or North (bordering Syria). The breakdown could come in the wake of the Syrian regime’s undoing. Or, it could be instigated by Syria’s allies to export the Syrian crisis to neighboring countries.
2. To see Lebanon apply banking sector sanctions against Iran and Syria.
3. To have Lebanon fulfill its legal obligations by consenting and facilitating humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees.

Likewise, says Khoury, three Lebanon subject matters are of interest to Iran:

1.  To ensure its Lebanese allies remain in a position to channel all manner of help to its Syrian partner. That’s because the partner’s exit would dissipate 30 years of Iranian efforts to reach the shores of the Mediterranean and deal a strategic blow to Iran’s regional offshoots and influence.
2. To bolster and expand ties with the Lebanese state, now that Hezbollah is its overseer.
3. To help Lebanese allies win the 2013 general elections so Lebanon remains in Tehran’s camp or become its consolation prize in case it loses Syria.

“The perennial question,” Khoury says, is “how long will Lebanon remain a boxing ring for outsiders?”

Hassan Haidar, writing for al-Hayat, agrees that while Iran is doing everything in its power to help the Syrian regime stay afloat “it is also bracing for the post-Assad stage” and pondering damage-limitations steps in case Assad goes under.

“Rahimi’s visit to Beirut with a sizeable delegation is to try and entrap Lebanon in a web that already includes Nouri el-Malilki’s Iraq.” This probably explains why Tehran “mistakenly” sent to Beirut an accord signed with Iraq last month as a draft to be signed between Iran and Lebanon.

Haidar believes the Islamic Republic is trying to entice Lebanon by undertaking to build water dams, roads, power plants, sewers and slaughterhouses and by promising to boost bilateral trade and set up specialized bilateral education committees that would be tasked to update the two countries geography and history textbooks…

If the Arab countries, especially in the Gulf, are deeply worried about events in Syria, Haidar writes, they are urged to also fret about the situation in Lebanon. “Standing up to Iran’s expansionism in Yemen, the UAE, Bahrain, Syria and Lebanon should be done in unison.”

Why Lebanon’s Samir Geagea is in their gunsight

Samir Geagea

Snipers armed with long-range rifles mounted with optics this week shot at Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea outside his Maarab residence in Lebanon’s Kesrouan district but narrowly missed him.

The French foreign ministry, the U.S. ambassador in Beirut and the UN special coordinator for Lebanon promptly condemned the outrage.

Geagea, who paid high profile visits to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Iraqi Kurdistan during the Arab Spring, and his Lebanese forces are the foremost Christian component of the March 14 Alliance.

Although the alliance won the 2009 parliamentary elections, its leader Saad Hariri formed a national unity government with the pro-Syrian and Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition.

Hariri was toppled and replaced as prime minister by Najib Mikati in a “palace coup” masterminded by Hezbollah and Syria in early 2011. Hariri has been sheltering in Saudi Arabia since.

Today, five Lebanese columnists offer their perspectives on the attempt on Geagea’s life.

Rosanna Boumounsef, in her daily column for Beirut’s an-Nahar, says the attempt “raises many questions associated primarily to the situation in Syria, considering that the Syrian factor remains a determining factor in Lebanese power politics and in the endeavor to exploit an existing balance of power.”

Walid Choucair, in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, expects the search for a political solution in Syria to turn tail and give way to a “crisis management” plan as devised for Lebanon between 1975 and 1989.  The important thing, he writes, is for the attempt on Geagea’s life “not to be the opening shot in a new phase of blood-spattered backup for managing the crisis in Syria.”

Hussam Itani, also writing for al-Hayat, says: “Geagea is the only Christian leader to be fully committed to the 1989 Taef Agreement. That in itself deprives the so-called forces of resistance in Lebanon and Syria from the all-important Christian cover provided them only in part by Michel Aoun.”

Tony Issa, in Beirut’s al-Joumhouria, believes the assassination attempt is “solid proof” the aim of the infamous “Unidentified Gunman” is to “eliminate March 14 altogether by either exiling or killing its key figures.”

Rola Muwaffak, writing for Lebanese al-Liwa’, guards against downplaying the link between the bid on Geagea’s life and the 2013 parliamentary elections. She notes that while Aoun’s popularity is on the wane and Geagea’s is waxing, Hezbollah and company remain bent on winning a legislative majority in next year’s vote at all costs.

Geagea outlined his party’s political agenda last September in a landmark address commemorating martyrs of the Lebanese resistance.

Here are excerpts of his address that help shed light on the state of play in Lebanon all the way through 2013:

• “By God, tell us: Who killed Bashir Gemayel, Kamal Junblatt, René Moawad and Rafik Hariri? Tell us, who left behind illegitimate weapons and out of bounds and terrorist areas, keeping the Lebanese under relentless strain and the Lebanese State hostage?”
• “Whoever kills fellow citizens in our homeland, in the region or in the world without mercy or pity is undeserving of either friendship or partnership. The so-called coalition of minorities proposed by some… belittles the Christians’ historic role. It turns them from defenders of humanity’s noble principles to mere sandbags protecting brutal and backward regimes that embrace no values or beliefs except to cling to power at all costs and regardless of all odds.”
• “I cannot but condemn the current Lebanese government’s stance on happenings in Syria. Such stance does not mirror Lebanon’s liberty, freedom, progress and openness. On the contrary, it sends a black, bleak and ghastly image of Lebanon that is unreal and rebuts most Lebanese’s yearnings and feelings. By taking this position, the current government disowns Lebanon’s identity, cultural heritage and history. It is also putting Lebanon on a direct collision course with the Arab caucus and international community, which is unprecedented for the Lebanese State.”
• “The existence of Hezbollah weapons does not only burden and threaten ordinary citizens. It also impacts senior officials and politicians, some of whom submitted to arms blackmail and coercive intimidation. This led, at least on one occasion, to a government being toppled and replaced by another. This was again done in the name of the Resistance. It’s tragicomic that instead of the State co-opting Hezbollah’s weapons five years after launching a National Dialogue on the issue, it is today looking for ways to avoid being swamped or seized by Hezbollah.”
• “The Taef Agreement was supposed to close the Lebanese War chapter -- i.e. stop destructions, killings and assassinations and usher in reconciliation, security and stability. Assassinations persisted and martyrs continued falling because some people insisted on keeping Lebanon’s wound open.”
• “The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was launched to ostracize serial wanton murders. Except that since day one of the Tribunal being set up, some people started putting spokes in its wheel. They sought to cast doubt, bully, wrangle, dream up quasi-proofs and forage for personal pitfalls or technical loopholes you would find in any institution, administration or court, to pounce on the tribunal and try to blow it away.”