Qifa Nabki | A Lebanese Political Blog

The Lebanese media is caught up in a frenzy trying to parse the results of yesterday’s summit in Beirut. A few observations are in order.

The little information that has trickled out of the closed-door meetings held in Damascus and Beirut seems to suggest that the point of King Abdullah’s visit was both to instill confidence among his allies in Lebanon and to take the temperature of Syria and Hizbullah on the issue of impending indictments.

Al-Akhbar reports that Assad was unequivocal on the point that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) should be terminated because Lebanon could not bear the results of its anticipated accusations. Furthermore, he insisted that Hizbullah remained a red line for Damascus and any attempt to target it would be regarded as part of an Israeli conspiracy against the Lebanese resistance.

A glimpse of King Abdullah’s response to Assad’s entreaties appeared in today’s cover story in An-Nahar:

واذا كانت مسألة المحكمة الخاصة بلبنان والقرار الظني المرتقب صدوره عنها قد احتلت صدارة الاهتمام قبل القمة بفعل تحريك الأمين العام لـ”حزب الله” السيد حسن نصرالله المستمر لها، فان المعلومات التي تواترت من بعض الاوساط التي شاركت في اللقاءات التي عقدت على هامش القمة افادت ان الملك عبدالله ذكر “أن جهوداً تبذل من اجل معالجة مسألة المحكمة، لكن المسألة ليست سهلة لانها اصبحت في يد المجتمع الدولي”. ونسبت أوساط نيابية وسياسية في قوى 8 آذار الى الرئيس الأسد ان العاهل السعودي “تعهد تأجيل صدور القرار الظني وفرملة عمل المحكمة وانه سيسعى لدى الولايات المتحدة من أجل هذا الهدف على رغم الشكوك في نجاح هذا المسعى“. لكن مرجعاً حكومياً سابقاً قال لـ”النهار” إن “أبرز ما حملته القمة الثلاثية هو العمل على التهدئة، أما المحكمة فليس لأحد القدرة على تغيير مسار عملها”.

[Gist: The Saudi king promised to try to postpone the issuance of the indictments, but noted that this was difficult because the Tribunal's proceedings were in the hands of the international community. Parliamentary and political sources from the March 8 coalition also claimed that the king said he would discuss postponing the indictments with his American allies but doubted the success of such an endeavor.]

These reports seem to confirm that there is little appetite on the March 14/Saudi side to pursue a maximalist path against Hizbullah using the STL as a weapon. On the other hand, all that the Saudis have offered so far by way of a compromise is to try to postpone any indictments, rather than joining Syria and Hizbullah in condemning the whole thing as a Zionist conspiracy.

In other words, the two maximalist positions (viz., dismissing the Tribunal altogether, or accepting its findings come hell or high water) seem to be off the table for now, or at least are only on the table to serve as initial bargaining stances. The shape of a compromise solution between these two positions depends on what kind of pressure can, in fact, be placed on the Tribunal by outside actors such as the Lebanese government and the Saudi king, and also on the likely repercussions of pursuing only certain indictments and not others.

I hope to pursue this question of compromise solutions a bit further in the next few days as more information becomes available. In the meantime, feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

I’ll be updating this thread with links to commentaries on the visit of King Abdullah and President Assad to Beirut.

Nick Noe argues that Hizbullah is not afraid of the indictments harming its relations with Syria or leading to a Sunni-Shiite civil war in Lebanon, but rather that it harms the resistance brand.

Sami Moubayed urges Saad Hariri to listen to Syria and take a “U-Turn on the STL.”

The Israeli news outlet Channel 1 declares that the prime suspect in the Hariri murder is senior Hizbullah official Mustafa Badr al-Din (alternate spelling Badreddine), the brother-in-law of Imad Mughniyyeh.

Badr al-Din was apparently one of the several Hizbullah members interviewed by the STL a few months ago, and he was identified as a major suspect in the crime by the famous Der Spiegel article that appeared last year.

Nick Blanford in the Christian Science Monitor on Beirut summitry.

Bobby Worth in The New York Times from a few days ago.

Deborah Amos on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Meris Lutz in the Los Angeles Times.

Stay tuned for more links throughout the day…

Beirut will host a rare summit of regional leaders this weekend–all the more remarkable for having been organized on very short notice.

There are reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be joined by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Erdogan and Ahmadinejad are apparently planning visits as well in the next several weeks.

The aim of the visit is to “defuse tension” on the local Lebanese scene, a euphemism for figuring out what the heck to do about an alleged impending indictment against Hizbullah members by the U.N. Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The fact that the Saudi and Syrian leaders are personally handling this crisis suggests that they are leaving nothing to chance: an STL indictment against Hizbullah could thrust Lebanon into complete political paralysis and possible sectarian violence. What the summit also reveals, however, is that, unlike in years past, the Saudis and Syrians seem to be working together to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Had the current crisis emerged two or three years ago (when the Middle East was in the grip of a mini Cold War) it is safe to imagine that the March 14 coalition and its Saudi allies would have been very happy to use the indictments to try to push Hizbullah into a corner, furthering pressuring its regional sponsors in Damascus and Tehran.

Instead, what we’re seeing today from Saad al-Hariri and the Saudis is a much more cautious policy of containment which recognizes the valuable political capital that may soon be delivered via an STL indictment against Hizbullah, but which also recognizes the folly of bearing down too hard on the Shiite party. If Hizbullah feels pressured, as they did in late 2006, there’s a significant likelihood that they will respond as they did then, by resigning from Hariri’s cabinet along with their allies. If they are joined by AMAL, the FPM, and Jumblatt’s ministers, this would bring down the government.

This seems to be an outcome that both the Saudis and the Syrians want to avoid. The question is, however, what kind of middle path is available? If the summit is a success, we should know within about a week.

The most significant piece of information that was announced last night during Hizbullah secretary-general Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah’s press conference was not the fact that members of his party would soon be indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. That much we’ve known (or, at least, been told) for several months.

Rather, the most noteworthy thing that Nasrallah said was the following:

“Before his trip to Washington, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri visited me, and I am grateful for his visit. What I am about to report right now comes from my estimation that [al-Hariri] was eager… and prepared to cooperate for the sake of protecting the country. So he said to me: “ Ya Sayyid, in such-and-such a month… an indictment will be issued that accuses members of Hizbullah [of assassinating your father]. These people are renegades, and the party has no connection with them.  I promised you in the past that if such a thing were to occur, I would declare publicly that Hizbullah has no connection with it… [and that] there were some renegades who carried out this operation.” [And we discussed] the country and the sensitive conditions, and how we need to cooperate, etc. ” (Click here for the Arabic clip)

This is, in my opinion, the most important statement that Nasrallah has made since his speech of June 8 2009, in which he accepted the election results and effectively ended a four-year period of political polarization between the March 14 and March 8 blocs.

Why was this statement so significant? Because it signaled that, for all intents and purposes, Saad al-Hariri and the Saudis are ready to close the book on the Special Tribunal and allow it to die a quiet death. There is no desire anywhere — except among certain politicians in the Kata’ib and Lebanese Forces — to use the STL as a battering ram against Syria or its allies in Lebanon. If anything, given the new strategic dynamic in the region, the STL has become a liability for Hariri and the Saudis; they’ve been painted into a corner because of it, and are now looking for a way to make a graceful exit.

This is not to say that the STL could not be damaging to Hizbullah; in fact, its ability to hurt everyone involved is precisely what has aligned Hariri and Hizbullah’s interests. The press conference last night was meant to send a message to those who still harbor hope that the STL can be used to their political advantage. The message was clear: “The train has left the station. If you don’t believe me, ask the Prime Minister, the slain man’s son.”

Update: Nick Noe has a response to this post, which can be read here.

Hizbullah’s secretary-general Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah gave a press conference this evening, in which he addressed the issue of forthcoming indictments from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

You can watch the entire thing on YouTube (see here for parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). For those who don’t speak Arabic, a summary in English is available here. The salient points are the following:

1. Saad al-Hariri visited Nasrallah before the former’s recent trip to Washington DC, and informed him that the STL would soon issue indictments against members of Hizbullah for the murder of former Premier Rafiq al-Hariri. Saad assured him that when these indictments were announced, he would absolve the party of any responsibility, and insist that these accused figures were “undisciplined” members and not connected with the leadership in any way.
2. For his part, Nasrallah categorically refused any connection between the party and the crime whatsoever, and insisted that the most likely culprit was Israel.
3. Nasrallah demanded that the leadership of March 14th engage in an honest and thorough review of all the “mistakes” it had made over the past four years (with its accusations against Syria and its allies).

Perhaps the most important point that Nasrallah made was that this press conference was only Part I of a two-part series. The second installment, he promised, would present all kinds of highly sensitive information dealing with the Tribunal itself and its proceedings.

It will be interesting to hear how Saad al-Hariri and his allies respond to the press conference tomorrow. I must say that the fact that Nasrallah disclosed the details of a private conversation between him and Hariri is highly unusual. It makes it impossible for the latter to climb down from it in a graceful way, which leads one to wonder whether Hariri knew what Nasrallah would say tonight, or whether he was just snookered.

Judging from all of the cozying up to Syria in the past several months, my suspicion is that Saad Hariri and his advisors would like nothing more than to put the entire STL episode behind them, and are looking for a way to save face while doing so.

If everything that was said tonight is true, then Nasrallah’s strategy (familiar to any West Wing devotees out there) was a shrewd one: break the story yourself so as to control it as best you can. By the time that the STL gets around to indicting Hizbullah members a few months from now, the development will be old news, already dissected, analyzed, and picked over by Beirut’s punditocracy. No one will be surprised, and (if Nasrallah, Jumblatt, and increasing numbers of former M14ers get their way), no one will really care.

Some further reading…

• On the rumors of Hizbullah being infiltrated by Israeli spies, click here to see Nasrallah’s response. It’s a classic…

I received the following note from Nadim Shehadi on the subject of property ownership by Palestinian refugees. Reports suggest that we seem to be nearing a deal on a limited overhaul of the legislation related to civil rights for refugees in Lebanon. There is consensus among the March 14th Christian parties and the Free Patriotic Movement that social and labor rights should be improved but property ownership should remain off-limits.

I asked Nadim to weigh in on whether he thought this was an acceptable compromise. (For previous discussions with Nadim and others about this legislation, see here.)

*

Click to enlarge

I sent you a photo of the cover of a pamphlet from 1966 by the general secretariat of the heads of the Order of Monks in Lebanon about foreign property purchases. The quote in the bottom left hand corner translates as:

“There is no difference between land lost by the power of the gun and land lost by the power of money. In fact, land lost by purchase is more lasting and more serious.”

This is to illustrate that the question of foreign ownership of land in Lebanon is a long standing one, and partly to answer your question about the property ownership issue for the Palestinians.

There is no doubt that foreign property ownership is a controversial matter and one that will always remain an issue that raises anxieties and has to be borne in mind when discussing Palestinian rights to property ownership. It is not a trivial matter and I do not take it lightly.

But the question is certainly not all about Palestinians – it is mainly about Gulf money buying up all the land, which was facilitated by the amendment to the property law of 2001 (the same amendment that excludes Palestinians from buying property.) This again is a highly emotional issue and it is difficult to address it with rational arguments: they will simply not be listened to. When a subject is that sensitive the best course is not to raise it or approach it at all.

But in the case of Palestinians it is different because Palestinians used to be able to purchase property legally before 2001 like any other foreign national. Also, like any other foreign property purchase, it was subject to registration taxes of about 16 to 17 percent. Palestinians used to buy land in the name of Lebanese and then obtain a power of attorney giving them sole control over the property. This was common practice at the time not only with Palestinians but with many foreign buyers in general. It made sense because they could later sell it without having to pay the tax.

The problem we have now is that the amendment to the law in 2001 excluded Palestinians from the ability to purchase land and it also prevented them from inheriting land or passing it on to their children. This is land that was bought legally before 2001. What is required is to reverse that and allow Palestinians to own property like any other Arab and like they did for 53 out of the 62 years since they came to Lebanon. The larger issue of foreign property ownership is a separate and different problem and if there is an amendment to that law it should also apply to everybody. Once matters are under the law then the law will deal with any infringements or illegal occupation of land. I will not insult readers of Qifa Nabki by pretending to explain to them the benefits of the rule of law and the sanctitiy of private property.

What is certain is that the Lebanese state cannot expropriate private property; if it does, then it would be setting a precedent that would threaten more than just the Palestinians. There is a lot of scare-mongering about this and misrepresentation of figures. It’s as though 550,000 Palestinians will suddenly flood the property market and buy up the country and the Lebanese will not be able to buy even an apartment then. This is linked to the anxiety about foreign ownership which is deep rooted, as the pamphlet shows and is being awakened using the Palestinians.

This is the overall problem with this whole debate about Palestinian rights: it awakens all the ghosts and it is based on wrong and exaggerated facts. Maybe this is a necessary process and rationality will prevail in the end. If it does then we must hit the nail on the head and deal with all the rights issues once and for all to allow us to concentrate on much more important matters related to the Palestinian file.

*

Update: Ghassan Karam provides some useful background information:

“A few facts/details that might be helpful to the readers that are not familiar with the specifics of this issue.

“Lebanon had restricted the rights of foreigners in owning land by the law passed in 1969. The restrictions used to be 500 square meters per foreign person (spouse and children do not represent separate persons for the purposes of this law) The 2001 amendment increased the restriction to only 300 square meters per person and it added that the foreign person must hold the citizenship of an internationally recognized country. That is how the Palestinian refugees came to be disallowed from land ownership.

“Nadim Shehadi is right when he says that foreign land ownership in Lebanon is an emotional issue and as such reason does not count for much. Yet it is instructive to look at what the official figures say. The 2001 law limits the aggregate foreign land ownership in Lebanon to 3% of the total area. That amounts to just over 312 million square meters. The records indicate that outside of Beirut foreign land ownership in Lebanon is way within the 3%. Actually besides Beirut , Baabda, Metn and Aley it is under 1%. If the figures are accurate then foreign land ownership under the current restrictions could probably triple before it is to bump against the current ceiling.

“But these figures are not very reliable since over 1/3 of Lebanon has not been surveyed yet and so sales activities of unsurveyed land is not reported. But a quick back of the envelope calculation regarding the potential land ownership by the Palestinian refugees would be revealing.

“Since there are 400,000 registered refugees both in the camps and outside the camps and since the demographic structure is young with above average size of houshold then it would be fair to assume that there are about 80,000 households. The financial resources available to these households are meager but even if 1-in-4 decides to purchase land then the potential number of such transactions would be 20,000. Land in Beirut is one of the most expensive in the world and in Baabda, Aley, Broumana, Baabdat goes for over $1200 per square meter and therefore is out of reach for these potential new buyers. But even if we are to assume that each of the 20,000 manage to find and purchase a parcel of land od 800 square meters then the total 16 million square meters would represent only 5 % of the aloted aggregate of 312 million square meters for foreign ownership.

“This whole issue is an emotional one and is fueled by unsubstantiated fears. Common sense , decency, international law combine to say that the Palestinian refugees are to be treated just like any other potential group of investors in the country.”

I’ve written a review of Michael Young’s new book for The Nation. An excerpt is pasted below with a link to the rest of the review.

A Forest of Fathers

One weekend during the spring of 2008, I found myself in a discussion with a friend about Lebanon’s latest political crisis. In Beirut the office of the Lebanese prime minister was being besieged by a sprawling tent city of protesters led by the country’s opposition, demanding the resignation of the premier and his cabinet. The business of government had long since ground to a halt, as had all commercial activity around Martyrs Square, not far from where the protesters were gathered; and multiple efforts to reach a compromise between the opposition and the “March 14″ loyalists, a coalition of Sunni, Christian and Druse parties backed by the Bush administration and its European and Arab allies, had ended in failure. Pundits warned daily of a descent into the abyss of sectarian violence and civil war.

Like many Lebanese, I found this state of affairs to be both maddening and deeply ironic. Three years earlier, Martyrs Square had been the scene of what was heralded around the world as Lebanon’s rebirth, a popular uprising 1 million strong demanding the end of Syria’s military occupation of the country. This uprising—dubbed the Cedar Revolution—was triggered by the assassination of a billionaire former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, the architect of Lebanon’s postwar recovery. Syria was widely blamed for the assassination, and the ensuing protests—unprecedented in size and in their brazen defiance of Damascus—coupled with intense international pressure, succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. While no one could have imagined that Lebanon’s endemic divisiveness was now a thing of the past and that a strong democratic state would emerge spontaneously from the ashes of Syrian tutelage, there was a palpable hope, naïve in retrospect, that the Lebanese could finally take their first step toward building such a state.

Nothing so optimistic had come to pass. In the three years since the withdrawal of Syrian troops, the country had been racked by a series of high-profile assassinations and a devastating war with Israel. An international tribunal established to investigate the murder of Hariri seemed to have stalled, and street violence was mounting between youths allied with opposing factions. Most significant, the country had no president. The previous one, Émile Lahoud, a pillar of the pro-Syrian regime, had resigned four months earlier, and the polarized government could not reach agreement over a successor.

All of this I related to my friend—a Syrian expatriate living in New York City—expressing my amazement at how Lebanon had turned into a farce, its political system so broken that it could not even carry out the most elemental of democratic processes: voting a person into office. Amused by my frustration, he suggested that far more remarkable than Lebanon’s paralysis was that the Lebanese state had survived without a president for more than 100 days, with no attempted coups, military takeovers or invasions. Imagine such a thing anywhere else in the Middle East: a power vacuum at the highest levels of government “lasting five minutes, let alone four months.” The laws of political gravity, he mused, do not apply in Beirut as they do in other Arab capitals. What’s more, they never have.

(Keep reading)

Moving right along in our series of interviews with various experts and friends of the blog, I’m pleased to bring you this conversation with Dr. Joshua Landis, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and author of the widely-read Syrian affairs blog, Syria Comment.

Josh and I sat down over a virtual finjain qahweh to chat about Syrian-U.S. relations and the prospects of a peace deal between Syria and Israel. As always, feel free to leave questions and criticisms in the comment section, and perhaps our guest will respond in person.

*

QN:  Engaging Syria seems to be a low priority for the current administration. At the same time, President Assad looks content to cultivate his relationships with regional powers like Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. With little urgency on either side, how likely would you say it is that we will see any substantive change in the U.S.-Syrian relationship over the next few years?

JL: Without peace between Israel and Syria, there will be no real change in the regional security architecture or the relationships that define it.

Israel and America are very close allies. No US administration is going to be good friends with Israel’s main Arab enemy. There are tremendous pressures in Congress and at every level of US society to punish Syria further.

QN: President Bashar al-Assad has publicly stated that he is prepared to sign a peace agreement with Israel, and the two countries have come close to an agreement on at least two occasions in the last ten years. What is preventing a deal from going forward, and how might the obstacles be overcome, in your opinion?

JL: The single most important reason why Israel and Syria have not been able to achieve peace is that Syria is too weak. Israel does not believe it will achieve sufficient security, economic, or diplomatic gains by giving back the Golan. Syria is not a major threat to Israel even with a beefed up Hizbullah and new friend in Turkey. So long as Washington remains resolutely on Israel’s side, preserving Israel’s military edge, sanctioning Syria, and thwarting diplomatic efforts to hinder Israel’s expansion into neighbors’ land, Jerusalem has little incentive to withdraw from the Golan. Only very heavy pressure will convince Israelis to make the difficult decision to repatriate its 20,000 settlers and allow the 100,000 inhabitants of the Golan who were expelled in 1967 to return to their land and homes.

QN: President al-Assad has suggested that he could bring Hizbullah to the negotiation table, if Israel got serious about signing a peace deal with Syria. Some analysts argue, however, that much has changed since 2000, and Syria no longer has the same influence over Hizbullah. What’s your read?

JL: First, this is a silly argument for not making peace with Syria. Second, it is based on a misinterpretation of the nature of the alliance between Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah. The presumption is that since Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, Hizbullah no longer has to fear a Syrian invasion of southern Lebanon and thus may thumb its nose at Syrian interests. But this is to misunderstand the nature of their cooperation, which is not based on coercion. It is based on common purpose and interest. Both Iran and Hizbullah have stated that they understand that Syria’s primary national interest is to get back the Golan. They accept this. That is why in 2000, when an ailing Hafiz al-Assad flew to Geneva to sign a peace agreement, neither Iran nor Hizbullah sought to torpedo the agreement.

Syria, Hizbullah, and Iran have preserved their alliance and amicable relations through major changes over the last three decades. Syria has said that the strategic environment in the region will change with peace. Hizbullah will move in tandem with Syria and reposition itself in Lebanon and the region when Syria signs peace with Israel. That does not mean that Hizbullah will cease to exist or commit suicide. But its priorities will change, as will Syria’s.

It must be remembered that Hizbullah’s arms and missiles come across the border from Syria.There is no other dependable route for them to reach southern Lebanon. Syria, for its part, depends on Lebanon’s Shiite community and Hizbullah for much of its influence within Lebanon. The two will need each other even when peace is signed with Israel. They will not break over that issue. They have not in the past and there is no reason for them to do so in the future.

QN: Do you think war is on the horizon? And if so, will Syria get involved militarily?

JL: I do think that war is on the horizon — not the immediate horizon, but it will come sooner or later so long as the casus belli is not resolved. Syria will not give it up without a fight. It is looking for wars to change the balance of power and to push Israel back on its heels.

During the 2006 war, Israel bombed Lebanon with 7,000 tons of explosives, while the explosives from the approximately 4,000 rockets and missiles Hezbollah fired on Israel added up to “only” 28 tons.

This was a very bad deal from Hizbullah’s point of view, and Nasrallah was quick to apologize to Lebanon and explain that he had neither wanted nor intended war. All the same, both Iran and Syria were shocked and gratified by Hezbollah’s professionalism and fighting prowess. The low-tech missiles worked better than anyone could have expected.

In short, the 2006 war was inconclusive enough to provide Syria, Iran and Hizbullah with a strategy for the future — lots of improved, mobile and smallish missiles spread out over a greater expanse, including Syria. Assad has made it very clear that if Israel doesn’t chose peace by returning the Golan, Syria will remain committed to war and keep stocking up on and improving its missiles and air defense systems.

Syria will try to stay out of any war, as it has in the past. But President Assad understands that he must be willing to go all the way in order reassure his allies and push the Israelis to reconsider their assessment that Syria is too weak and incapable. If Hezbollah’s powers and war plan are to be enhanced, it must have the strategic depth that only Syria can provide. This means greater Syrian involvement and risk. Syria has little choice but to assume greater risk.

Damascus figures that its only hope of getting back the Golan is to force Israel to reassess its security calculations. Hopefully, this will happen without another war, but momentum in the region does not seem to be on the side of the peacemakers.

Syrians say that Israel got a small taste of this possibility in 2006. Israelis counter by pointing to Gaza and claiming that in the next round all of Lebanon will be returned to the Dark Ages and the Assad regime will be terminated.

This may all be posturing but I don’t think so. If there is one thing Syrians agree on, it is that the Golan is theirs. They have grown in confidence since 2006 and are convinced more than ever that what was lost in war, can only be regained by war. Likewise, Israelis have become more militant and righteous. They are increasingly convinced that only military solutions can provide them with results that they want and deserve. All of this suggests that war lies in the future.

Nicholas Noe is the co-founder of Mideastwire.com and the editor of Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. He’s also the author of “Re-Imagining the Lebanon Track” (a Century Foundation white paper [pdf]) and a frequent commentator on Hizbullah and Lebanese political affairs.

Despite the fact that he has made his views clear in a variety of publications (from The New York Times to Tablet Magazine), he kindly agreed to rehash them with the QN readership in an exclusive interview.

This topic always tends to generate lots of debate, and I hope you won’t hold back this time either with your remarks, observations, and criticisms in the comment section. Perhaps Nick will sign up to address some of them in a second installment next week.

PS: If you haven’t yet checked out the Mideastwire blog, I highly recommend that you subscribe to the RSS feed, as it provides lots of translated content from various Arab news outlets on a daily basis for free.

*

QN: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you say it is that there will be another Israel-Lebanon war within the next two years? What would precipitate such a development?

NN: Two years is a very long time so I would say we are at the higher edge of probability of another war in that time frame (I personally think it will be hard for Israel to go to war before the Iron Dome is fully operational by the end of this year, thanks to the Obama emergency appropriation of $200 million last month). The only thing I see stopping this is some bold moves by the Obama administration in the next year because absent that, the other actors seem far less able and/or willing to take the necessary risks to prevent conflict.

What could spark it off? Its not worth speculating on specifics simply because there are, right now, so many different ways another conflict could be sparked off. The key danger is that for both Israel and Hizbullah specifically (the latter being but one part of the Resistance Axis), there are just so many ways by which they could get into another conflict with the relatively supportive national consensus both need. (If you believe Hizbullah would want to get involved should Israel hit the Iranian nuclear program, then Hizbullah only needs to shoot down one of the many manned overflights by the IAF in violation of UNSCR 1701 and international law generally – as but one of several scenarios – and M14 and other opponents domestically would not be able to say much after the heavy Israeli response and the full commitment by Hizbullah.)

QN: In a variety of publications, you’ve argued that the West needs to approach Hizbullah differently than it currently does. In brief, what are the outlines of this approach? (Imagine you were stuck in an elevator with Defense Secretary Robert Gates for one minute, and he asked you to tell him whether and how the U.S. should engage with Hizbullah. What would you say?)

NN: A new approach – it would probably look a lot like the “Team Red” exercise revealed yesterday by Mark Perry at Foreign Policy magazine! The contours are known: Only the Lebanese generally and the Shia specifically can integrate Hizbullah fully under the control of the Lebanese state. This would take as a first step:

1) removing the immediate possible flashpoints that ANYONE could use to spark a war – get the Israelis to shove the Shebba and Ghajar and Kfar Shouba hills over to the Syrian Ledger and off the OCCUPATION Ledger;

2) Stop these ridiculous manned overflights and replace them immediately with drones – recognizing that a) we now know from leaked documents to Haaretz that the overflights are mostly to scare the Europeans and Lebanese government into restraining Hizbullah and are not mainly about intel gathering and b) Israel now has one of the best spy satellites in the sky and could be enhanced further in its gathering capabilities by US cooperation etc.

3) Begin a UNIFIL/UN inspired process to expand and publicize the Tripartite Committee arrangement that already exists (i.e. Hizbullah and Israel are actually in proximity talks already on the border every time an incident happens!) This could look like another public commitement by Hizbullah (with a credible monitoring process – perhaps by expanding Tripartite to include Qatar? Turkey? Egypt? Germany?) to the terms of the April Understanding of 1996 that proved, even according to Israeli accounts, so successful in mitigating conflict. Remember – on the first day of the July 2006 war, Nasrallah called for returning to the terms of the April Understanding! I.e. let’s have both sides get into a process where the Dahiye Doctrine AND the Tel Aviv Doctrine are publicly walked away from.

Then – convening a Doha Two conference that would have Arab states funding a credible Lebanese army that could credibly defend Lebanese population centers etc. i.e. having the US accept a new QME between Israel and the actual STATE of Lebanon or, in other words, not vetoing arms transfers for SAMs, as but one example, that are deployed to defend the major Lebanese cities. (This is very hard because, of course, last year the US congress in all its wisdom mandated that there can be NO alteration in the QME between Israel and its Arab neighbors!)

Then – the US and EU and Arab allies fully supporting and pushing for a re-jiggering of the confessional system that integrates the Shiites more fully into the “legit” Lebanese state. This means working on the Grand Lebanese bargain which is now fairly clear: the Shiites cannot have their own private army, but the other sects cannot have exclusive hold to power positions in the state (army head, PM etc). What really needs to happen here is simple: expand on the FPM’s original 2006 deal with Hizbullah which for the first time set a horizon and terms on the weapons of the resistance. This needs to be laid out as part of a domestic grand bargain.

That all said – the problem with these steps is that I don’t think they ALONE will convince the Israelis or DC anymore that this is all worth the risks (although I would argue the risks of the current “non” approach are still far greater) – they could have worked and been convincing in 2005 when the Bush folks were on the cusp of gradually and peacefully integrating Hizbullah into the state, and perhaps in 2008 when Obama took office – if the actors had had the ability to see beyond their ideological constructs.

But now, with Hizbullah and the Resistance Axis so strong (or, with them at least believing they are so much stronger now) it would certainly take a peace deal with Israel and Syria to make this Lebanon track process credible in the Beltway(s) I think…. Remember in 2000 the Lebanon and Syrian tracks were one – but the US and Israel missed the boat.

The US and Israel seem to be hewing towards the maximalist position as always, though – which means, obtusely, that since there is clearly not 100% certainty that a peace deal between Syria and Israel would immediately disarm Hizbullah, then it’s a non starter.

QN: Can we speak of a common agenda behind the Resistance Axis, or is this just a convenient label that unites very different players?

NN: There is a common agenda – but of course it masks all the wedges and difference that really do exist. One sees that even in the simple exchanges that one has with the Resistance Axis actors themselves; i.e. this is not something that is very well concealed.

BUT the key problem is that these differences (these potential “wedges” to use US electoral-speak) have all been and are still being sublimated as a result of action and non actions by the opposed actors who just keep on delivering more reasons for the Resistance Axis to gel and strengthen. What is happening with Turkey is only one particularly glaring example of this ridiculous situation where “great” powers keep on shooting themselves in the foot.

Of course, the US has mostly been doing that for 60 plus years in the Middle East – the problem is that the bill is starting to come due and we don’t seem to have the credit to keep the party going much longer.

QN: Suppose Israel were to offer to withdraw from Ghajar and Shebaa and end its overflights over Lebanon in exchange for a peace treaty (provided that Hizbullah recognized Israel and agreed to turn over its arms to the Lebanese Army.) Do you think Hizbullah would agree to such a Lebanon-specific deal? Or is a larger agreement over the Golan a prerequisite?

NN: The way you sketched out the terms of the deal means that Hizbullah SAYS no and, far more importantly, is NOT compelled to say YES by its own constituency or the Lebanese in general.

I would argue that the real balance of power has shifted to such a degree that at this point that we (the US, Israel and its allies) would have to probably give up more now to fatally undermine the Resistance Axis’s rationale, desire and ability to exercise violence against our interests.

The bet that Nasrallah is making though – and I think he is right (though I wish he was not) is that as a Settlement Axis, we are probably not capabable of making such conessions – even though I think there are many convincing reasons why a policy of preemptive concessions would work to our interests, broadly defined.

For some time the US and Israel have been the preponderant powers in the region and, for us, the world. Have we learned the lessons of the decline of historic powers? That an enormously preponderant state can and should use its power sometimes to strategically concede to lesser powers – and that this action might be a sign of strength rather than, as the neocons still argue, weakness?