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.

“Difficult days ahead for Lebanon”

(Photo from al-Joumhouria)

By George Solage*

The situation in Lebanon becomes all the more dangerous as the Lebanese sides increase their meddling in the Syrian crisis.

Successive security incidents also show the struggle in and over Syria has started creeping into the brittle Lebanese interior, which is prone to blow up instantly at any time.

The controls have all but evaporated as sectarian compulsions get the better of national logic and external agendas take precedence over internal priorities.

The release of Shadi Mawlawi won’t pacify the Tripoli streets. Nor will holding to account the killers of sheikhs Ahmed Abdul-Wahed and Mohammed Hussein Merheb calm the volcanic anger of the people of Akkar, whose social and economic development rights have long been overlooked.

The people of the North feel targeted and hunted. They feel their youths are trailed. They feel accused of being Takfeeris. Weapons are seized from their hands but permitted in the hands of others. They are dubbed terrorist suspects liable to be penalized. They are banned from sympathizing with their Sunnite brethren in Syria. They are threatened with a return of the Syrian army to their region to supposedly prevent Akkar from becoming a sanctuary for the Syrian regime’s opponents and a buffer zone and launching pad for military operations inside Syria.

In light of this perception, which raised tension to unforeseen levels, chances of a political solution sponsored by Lebanese officialdom receded. Some branches of government floated the idea of a security solution on the ground, which effectively translates into pitting the Lebanese army against its own people in Tripoli and Akkar.

The security situation did not work in Syria and can’t succeed in Lebanon because the problem is not a question of security, but of politics. The problem needs to be addressed politically.

Even though some people point the finger at the army, the issue is not between the army and the political forces or the denizens of the region.

Talk about a likely return of the Syrian army to Lebanon is pure scaremongering. The Syrian army now is in no position to undertake such an adventure. Also, there’s no international decision to that effect. On the contrary, such a move would trigger an international outcry of which Syria is aware and can ill afford.

A high-ranking security source confirms this and does not anticipate security turmoil in Beirut at this stage, despite the incidents of the past couple of days. He is surprised by the amplification of reports about al-Qaeda cadres being in Beirut and heading to Syria. He is also confident the Lebanese army and the internal security forces are in control.

But good intentions alone are not enough and warnings are futile so long as “self-distancing” (from Syria) remains a (government) policy slogan, which the political authorities either don’t wish to uphold or don’t dare to respect.

Proof is that the “virtual (parliamentary) majority” still does not see the need to replace the present government with a salvation government in order to safeguard Lebanon from the high-risk challenges threatening its security, unity, sovereignty and future.

What lies in store (for Lebanon) is onerous and extremely intricate.

It will become more menacing if the past fortnight’s realities on the ground – the realities of coupling Lebanon’s north and the Syrian interior – take hold.

The directives by Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to their citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon is one of many prices the Lebanese would have to pay should they choose to poke their nose further into the Syrian crisis and ignore the pressing need for a salvation government in anticipation of arms proliferating and the situation flaring up on a wider scale.

*This think piece by George Solage appears in Arabic today in the independent Beirut daily al-Joumhouria. Solage is a longtime media aide to Lebanon’s former defense minister Elias el-Murr. 

Syria “chaos” entraps Lebanon

The victim, his blood-stained and bullet-riddled Range and a riot scene 

The so-called April 1975 “Ain el-Remmaneh incident” was the spark that set off Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

Yesterday’s unprovoked killing by Lebanese soldiers of a Lebanese Sunnite cleric opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could mark the date of Lebanon’s head on plunge into Syria’s “chaos.”

Sheikh Ahmed Abdul-Wahed was shot dead, along with his travel companion Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Merheb, in his Range Rover at an army checkpoint at Kwaikhat in Akkar, a district in the north Lebanon governorate.

He was on his way to address a rally in the Akkar capital of Halba. The event was immediately called off.

The Lebanese army promptly said in a communiqué it deeply regretted the incident, promising a military inquiry. The state commissioner to the military court, judge Saqr Saqr, later ordered the arrest of the three army officers and 19 soldiers who were manning the checkpoint at Kwaikhat.

Abdul-Wahed, a 1969 native of al-Bireh in Akkar where he founded al-Noor Islamic school and charity, was devoted to helping Syrian refugees in Lebanon. He was close to the anti-Assad “March 14” alliance led by former premier Saad Hariri’s Future Movement.

News of the killing by the army drove angry people to the streets of Akkar villages as protestors cut off roads with burning tires. Protesters blocked roads elsewhere in Tripoli, the Eastern Bekaa valley and the Beirut highway to South Lebanon as well as in the Beirut areas of Verdun, Mazraa, Tarik el-Jdideh, Beshara el-Khoury and Qasqas.

Armed clashes overnight in Tarik el-Jdideh between supporters of the Future Movement and their rivals in the Arab Movement Party headed by Shaker Berjawi, an ally of the Syrian government, left three people dead and 15 wounded overnight.

The fighting in Beirut was the most intense since May 7, 2008, when Hezbollah gunmen swept through Sunnite neighborhoods and torched the Future Movement’s TV station after the government tried to dismantle the group's telecommunications network.

Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rasheed Qabbani has declared three days of mourning over Sheikh Abdul-Wahed’s death.

Future Movement MPs, including Khaled Daher and Marwan Hamadeh, said the incident was a targeted hit.

"If shots were fired at the tires, we would say there was a mistake. But we consider this a direct targeting from the army," he told Reuters.

"Frankly, we do not want to see the army here because it works at the service of the Syrian regime," he said.

Hamadeh said a number of lawmakers would seek a parliamentary probe into “the practices of some army intelligence and General Security personnel… that join efforts by the crumbling regime in Damascus to inflame the situation in Lebanon ahead of its downfall.”

Future Movement leader Saad Hariri also pointed the finger at Assad "infiltrators" in the military for the deaths.

"There are some infiltrators who want to use the military and its image to import the crisis of the Syrian regime to Lebanon in a desperate attempt to save Assad's regime from its inevitable end," he said.

Abdelqader Abdul-Wahed, the slain cleric’s brother, echoed the sentiments in an interview with Lebanon’s MTV. "Unfortunately, we have some infiltrated elements in the Lebanese army, possibly officers who work for the Assad regime," he said. "I hope the army institution cleanse itself from these elements."

After the Lebanese Army curbed the May 12-14 clashes between Tripoli's two adjacent districts -- the predominantly Sunnite “Bab al-Tebbaneh” and the overwhelmingly Alawite “Jabal Mohsen” – Lebanese Alawite chieftain Rifaat Eid talked tough at his Jabal Mohsen stronghold.

He told a May 16 press conference, “Everyone should be aware that sliding further into the unknown would mean no one could pacify Lebanon except through the intervention of an Arab army. And no one would be able to do so except Syria. If you asked me my opinion, I have no problem with (the Syrian army coming in). Better this happened today than tomorrow…”

Speaking in an interview broadcast the same day on Russian state news channel Rossiya-24, Assad put the blame for the Syria violence on the Arab Spring and said weapons bound for Syrian rebels were entering his country from Lebanon, adding: "And as I have said, if you sow chaos in Syria you may be infected by it yourself, and they understand this perfectly well." (See my May 17 post, “How Syria fire is creeping up on Lebanon”).

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari wrote in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dated May 17 saying, “In some Lebanese areas bordering Syria, several warehouses have been set up to stockpile weapons and ammunition that are reaching Lebanon illegally…”

He said the weapons are “moved first to Akkar, then to Wadi Khaled, ahead of their smuggling into Syria… Premises of charities run by Salafists and the Future Movement in Lebanese areas bordering Syria are being used to provide safe havens to al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood terrorists to launch hit-and-run criminal operations inside Syria. The injured among them are treated under fake names in hospitals and clinics affiliated to those (Salafist and Future Movement) groups and funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.” (See my May 18 post, “Syria seen lighting the Lebanon fuse”).

Lebanese political analyst Rosanna Boumounsef, in her column for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, says in light of the weekend developments in Akkar, “the Syrian regime’s resolve to forcibly drag Lebanon into its crisis leaves the Lebanese government in an extremely embarrassing position.”

Disputing the allegations made by Ja’afari verbally – as Prime Minister Najib Mikati has already done -- is not enough, she explains.  Ja’afari specifically wrote Ban Ki-moon and the president of the Security Council saying, “It would be highly appreciated if the annexed letter (describing Lebanon as a hotbed of terrorism) could be circulated urgently as an official document of the Security Council.”

This, Boumounsef writes, requires Lebanon “to respond in the same way – by writing a letter to Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council president challenging the contents of the Syrian document. This is part of the duties of the Lebanese government, irrespective of its makeup, since the document presented by Syria defames the whole of Lebanon and casts aspersions on its reputation. If the Lebanese government allowed the Syrian document to pass without a riposte addressed to the UN and the Security Council, it would be held accountable for document’s fallouts.”

Charles Habbour, in his think piece for the Lebanese independent daily al-Joumhouria published by former defense minister Elias el-Murr, sees Lebanon being forced to change direction and become Syria’s “playing field instead of its outlet.”

The north Lebanon turmoil, he says, shows Syria to be “in a hurry.” Within weeks of the attempt on the life of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea that was meant to destabilize the Christian community, Damascus turned its gunsight on the Sunnites to export its crisis.

Habbour says Damascus “decided to push Lebanon to change course. Instead of perceiving Lebanon as its political, diplomatic, financial and economic outlet, Syria wants Lebanon to become a playing field and a trump card primed for explosion, coercion or a tradeoff.”

Habbour gives three reasons for the U-turn by Damascus:

1.     Lebanon can no more serve as Syria’s “lung.” Given persistent pressure from the U.S. Treasury, Lebanese banks are finding it increasingly difficult to launder Syrian money or handle financial transactions with the Syrian regime and its supporters.

2.   Syria wants to use Lebanon as a bargaining chip. It is telling the Saudis that the regime’s confrontation with its Sunnites has now spread to Lebanon. It is also inviting the Americans to do a deal for the sake of regional stability.

3.     Seeing no end to the uprising, Syria wants to expand the lines of confrontation in an attempt to “escape forward.”    

“As usual, Lebanon is made to foot the bill,” Egyptian media celebrity Imad Adeeb writes for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat. “The crisis is in Syria and Lebanon pays the price. The killer is in Damascus and the fatality will be in Beirut. It looks as though Syria is sending a regional and international message saying, ‘If you pressured us further, we would wreck your summer, your interests and your allies.’

“It is the same old game dating back almost half a century – the mafia’s game of trading off one crisis for another, one prisoner for a new and one hotspot for an additional.”

Syria seen lighting the Lebanon fuse

World Atlas map of the Syria-Lebanon borders

Syria is now depicting Lebanon as a Taliban-infested Afghanistan, its eastern and northern regions as the hills and caves of Tora Bora and its seaport city of Tripoli as Kandahar.

The innuendos, Lebanese political analyst Rosanna Boumounsef writes in her daily column for Beirut’s an-Nahar, portend three menaces:

1.     Cross-border Syrian Army raids on Lebanese regions abutting Syria

2.     Pressure on Beirut to emulate Damascus in pouncing on its own people

3.     Dragging vast swaths of eastern and northern Lebanon into the Syria cauldron.

Boumounsef, among several other analysts, was commenting on Syria’s letter to the United Nations accusing some Lebanese areas of helping al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood terrorists set up home along the Syrian border.

"Some Lebanese areas next to the Syrian border are harboring terrorist elements from al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, who are jeopardizing the security of Syria and its citizens and striving to undermine the UN Special Envoy's six-point plan," Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari wrote in a letter marked “Urgent” and dated May 17.

The seven-page letter (six of them in Arabic) was addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and copied to the current UN Security Council president, Agshin Mehdiyev of Azerbaijan.

"In some Lebanese areas bordering Syria, several warehouses have been set up to stockpile weapons and ammunition that are reaching Lebanon illegally, either by sea, or at times via the airplanes of specific countries that are used to transport weapons to Lebanon before smuggling them to Syria, under the pretext they (the aircraft) are carrying humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees in Lebanon," Ja'afari said in the letter.

He said, “On March 13, an unidentified warship anchored off (the Lebanese coastal city) Jounieh as small boats went about moving its arms cargo to shore so it could then be moved to Syria. Weapons-laden vessels also docked at the Aquamarina near Jounieh. Their weapons shiploads were moved first to Akkar, then to Wadi Khaled, ahead of their smuggling into Syria.”

Ja’afari said, “Premises of charities run by Salafists and the Future Movement in Lebanese areas bordering Syria are being used to provide safe havens to al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood terrorists to launch hit-and-run criminal operations inside Syria. The injured among them are treated under fake names in hospitals and clinics affiliated to those (Salafist and Future Movement) groups and funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”

In the Tripoli governorate town of Kalamoun, he said, “there are about 50 terrorists led by Khaled el-Tanak, Khaled Hamza and Zakaria Ghaleb el-Kholi” who carry IDs rubberstamped by the UN allowing them to travel unhindered first to Danniyeh, on to Akkar and then to Wadi Khaled, where they would infiltrate into Syrian territory to mount terrorist operations.

Ja’afari added in his letter that Colonel Riad al-Asaad, head of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), “recently arrived in Lebanon to prepare for creating a Syrian buffer zone commencing in Lebanese territory.”

Lebanese Premier Najib Miqati Friday picked holes in the Ja’afari letter and said his government “is fully performing its duty in combating all terror operations, in monitoring the Lebanese borders, in controlling the security situation and in addressing any security gaps.”

Miqati said, “Violations are also occurring from the Syrian side of the border, as everyone knows the crisscrossing nature of the frontier between the two countries and how difficult it is to control the extensive border area between them.

“Therefore, we consider the remarks voiced by the Syrian envoy as exacerbating the disputes, at a time when we are seeking, through the relevant diplomatic and security channels, to bridge differences and tackle problems calmly, carefully and in such a way as to safeguard the good relations between the two countries and peoples.”

Rosanna Boumounsef

Rosanna Boumounsef, in her news analysis for an-Nahar, says Lebanon is “immensely and deeply troubled” by the Syrian charges. The account by Ja’afari is “extremely dangerous” as it engrosses Lebanon “forcibly and publicly” in the Syrian quagmire.

The likely fallouts, she says, are at least three:

1.   There is the prospect of more frequent thrusts by the Syrian army into Lebanese border area under the pretext of the “hot pursuit” of so-called terrorists. The Ja’afari letter effectively delineates all the targeted Lebanese Christian and Sunnite area, including Jounieh, Danniyeh and Akkar. The letter also came hot on the heels of Lebanese Alawite warlord Rifaat Eid’s remark welcoming the Syrian army’s return to Tripoli to restore law and order in the troubled city. (See my earlier post, “How Syria fire is creeping up on Lebanon”).

2.    The second possibility is to pressure Lebanon’s political and security authorities to emulate the Syrian regime’s crackdown on what its dubs Muslim Brotherhood terrorists.

3.    A third likelihood is to stir up internecine strife in Lebanon. Syria’s Lebanese allies have long been describing Tripoli as an “outlaw city.”

Boumounsef notes the Syrian regime’s modus operandi is to try and take advantage of the situation in Lebanon to pressure its Arab and foreign detractors by threatening to sow chaos in neighboring countries. Only this week, she says, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a Russian broadcaster, “If you sow chaos in Syria you may be infected by it yourself, and (Syria’s detractors) know this very well.”

Syria itching for Lebanon to join the fray

The FSA coat of arms (from Wikipedia.org)

It looks as though the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad wants to embroil its proxy Beirut government in the fight against the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Syrian and Arab media today quote Ali Abdul Karim Ali, Syria’s first ambassador to Lebanon, as saying: “The highest percentage of arms and armed people is filtering through a sisterly state -- Lebanon… The smuggling of arms, the infiltration of armed men (into Syria) and the welcoming (in Lebanese safe havens) of (FSA) mercenaries are incompatible with dissociating oneself (a reference to Lebanon's policy to dissociate itself from the 10-month uprising in Syria).”

His remarks come hot on the heels of reports that Damascus has requested the deployment of the Lebanese Army to the border with Syria.

The request, reportedly made “through military channels,” is for Lebanese Army regulars to be posted specifically in and around the border town of Arsal in the Bekaa Valley and in northern Lebanon’s Akkar and Wadi Khaled districts. All three areas are hotbeds of Syrian uprising supporters.

The answer of the Lebanese military was that such moves required a “political decision” by the government. The split in Lebanon on the crisis in Syria presumably hampers such a decision.

The governing March 8 alliance supports Assad to the hilt, while the March 14 alliance backs the Syrian opposition unreservedly.

To coincide with Ambassador Abdul Karim Ali’s remarks, a pro-Assad Beirut daily today leads off with two news features. One, signed by Osama al-Kadri, is about gunrunning to Syria from the Bekaa. The other, penned by Radwan Murtada, dubs Wadi Khaled as “an advanced military post for the Free Syrian Army.”