Qifa Nabki | A Lebanese Political Blog

Lina Khatib has an interesting article over at Foreign Policy about Wednesday’s attack on the U.N. Special Tribunal investigators at a gynecological clinic in Beirut. She comments on Nasrallah’s strategy here:

“He went on to question, “who would accept someone looking at the gynecological files of a mother or a sister or a daughter?” By invoking the issue of women’s honor, Nasrallah is appealing to a traditional set of values that makes the event dogmatically unacceptable. The STL’s investigators provided the perfect pretext for this framework, not only by physically entering a Hezbollah stronghold where they are certainly unwelcome, but also by sending men to a gynecological clinic.”

Lina is right: as legitimate an excuse as the STL may have had to visit the clinic, they seem to have played directly into the hands of Hizbullah, which has slowly but surely developed the most sophisticated messaging strategy this side of Cupertino, CA.

Not that this is so relevant, but can anyone imagine a more succinct exemplum of the lessons of Foucauldian (well, more like Saidian or Massadian) critiques of political, medical, and sexual imperialism? Behold the White Doctor stride self-righteously into the colonial clinic! Watch him violate the honor of the subject race, just as the empire preys on the defenselessness of the colonized’s body politic… Is this not what (a post-colonial studies graduate student’s) dreams are made of?

Makes me wonder whether Walid Bek (known purveyor of Continental philosophy and all things erudite) isn’t moonlighting at the Hizb’s press office these days…

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Investigators with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) had a rude awakening yesterday after being attacked by angry Lebanese citizens in the course of a routine information-gathering mission.

Upon visiting a gynecological clinic in al-Dahiyeh — a southern suburb of Beirut and stronghold of the Shiite party Hizbullah — a crowd of angry women attacked the investigators and reportedly stole a briefcase from them. A condemnation of the attack by the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal was echoed by various Lebanese political parties as well as the United States.

The attack “is a deplorable attempt to obstruct justice,” the tribunal said in the statement. “Those who carried out this attack must know that violence will not deter the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a court of law, from fulfilling its mandate.”

Reports are now emerging that some of the attackers were men dressed as women in full-length burqas, and Future Movement official Mustafa Allouch told reporters that the attack was “a clear message from Hizbullah to the STL.”

Meanwhile, the Hizbullah television station Al-Manar stated that the incident was “a blatant attack by the international investigating commission on a gynecological clinic,” and noted that “the women’s response was spontaneous and firm.”

The Qnion has learned that after receiving medical attention later that day, the STL investigators insisted on continuing with their duties rather than returning to The Hague.

“We weren’t going to let the attack deter us from finishing what we started,” said Geert van Whiffenpoof, the team leader. “We had other places to visit and important information to gather.”

However, the investigators were soon to discover that public opposition to their activities was not confined to the women of al-Dahiyeh.

The first stop the UN team made upon leaving the American University of Beirut Hospital was a small farm on the outskirts of Sidon, in order to question its owner, one Sa’eed Ghadban, about his acquaintance with one of the suspects in the Hariri assassination.

Upon leaving the farmhouse, however, the team encountered a large crowd of animals — cows, goats, horses, sheep, and other beasts — blocking their exit.

“They were really angry,” said Jan van Snurkensnuffle. “They were braying and mooing and quacking. It was actually quite terrifying.”

A flock of chickens charged the investigators who managed to escape unharmed.

Reports are now emerging that some of the attackers were men dressed in animal costumes, and Future Movement official Mustafa Allouch told reporters again that the attack was “a clear message from Hizbullah to the STL.”

For its part, the Hizbullah television station Al-Manar stated that the incident was “a blatant attack by the international investigating commission on a humble farm” and noted that “the animals’ response was spontaneous and firm.”

Upon returning to their hotel that evening, the investigators decided to make a stop at Barbar, a popular local eatery.

“They have the best shawarma I’ve ever had,” gushed Willem Beentrekker. “I love going there after a long hard day’s work.”

Unfortunately, within hours of downing the meal, all three men found themselves waylaid by severe stomach cramps, nausea, and diarrhea. After a long and sleepless night with alternating visits to the hotel bathroom, the three investigators boarded a flight to the Hague this morning.

Future Movement official Mustafa Allouch told reporters again that the indigestion was “a clear message from Hizbullah to the STL.”

For its part, the Hizbullah television station Al-Manar stated that the incident was “a blatant violation of sovereignty by the international investigating commission on proud Lebanese foodstuffs” and noted that “the shawrma‘s response was spontaneous and firm.”

One of the themes that came up repeatedly during Interior Minister Ziad Baroud’s panel discussion in Washington last month was the need for better strategic planning to address the myriad political, economic, social, environmental, and security-related challenges facing the country. I found myself wondering, as I left his talk, where Lebanon would be in, say, ten years.

Ten years seems like not very much time, until one looks back a decade and considers just how far the country has come. Ten years ago today, Rafiq al-Hariri was appointed prime minister of Lebanon for the fourth time. His bloc had recently swept the parliamentary elections, and he used the result to catapult himself back to the premiership, despite his problematic relationship with Emile Lahoud. Michel Aoun (speaking from his Parisian exile) denounced the newly formed government as a Syrian tool. Earlier that year, the Syrians and Israelis met for direct peace talks in Shepherdstown, WV.

It was a different world.

Since 2000, Lebanon has witnessed several monumental developments: a war with Israel; two elections; a string of political assassinations; a high-profile international murder investigation; the destruction of the Nahr al-Barid refugee camp; a presidential power vacuum; a series of mass public protests with hundreds of thousands of participants; and, most importantly, several Guinness World Records for the largest servings of hummus, tabbouleh, fattoush, etc.

Compared to most Arab countries, change in Lebanon seem to take place at warp speed.  However, while plenty has changed over the past ten years, most of the things that its citizens care about remain the same or have gotten worse. Unemployment is high, wages are low, traffic is awful, the electricity situation is deplorable, water resources are dwindling while seasonal rains cause massive flooding, air quality gets worse each summer, political stability is nonexistent… I could go on, but that’s what the Daily Star’s editorials are for.

By this point, ten years from now, there will have been two more parliamentary elections and two new presidents. The country’s population will be approaching five million people. Where do you think Lebanon will be, politically, economically, socially, etc.? What will be the state of the public debt? The energy sector? Privatization of industries? The status of refugees? The security situation in the South? Tourism? Infrastructure?

Vote above, and discuss below.

PS: Apologies to those of you who developed carpel tunnel syndrome scrolling to the bottom of a 528-comment discussion last week. We aim to please, not to injure.

At some point in 2006, I recall asking a friend of mine what he thought of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had recently been elected President of Iran. This friend (known to readers of this blog as “Abbas“) is a Lebanese Shiite living in Beirut, and a devoted partisan of Hizbullah. The conversation went something like this:

QN: So what do you think of this new Iranian president? Ahmadinejad?

Abbas: Fantastic. I love him.

QN: You like him better than Khatami?

Abbas: Definitely.

QN: How do you think Hizbullah feels about him? Will he serve the party’s interests?

Abbas: Of course he will. Who do you think brought him to power?

That’s right. Such is the mystique of Hizbullah in Lebanon that it wouldn’t be completely outlandish for someone to claim that the Iranian president’s rise was facilitated by the influence of his Lebanese allies. Nasrallah, after all, was a regional rock star while Ahmadinejad was revoking parking tickets as mayor of Tehran. (This was the gist of the discussion that followed, between me and Abbas).

Obviously, Abbas’s point was just another silly conspiracy theory (which we absolutely never tolerate on this blog), but it raises an interesting question. For the past few years, Iran’s reputation in Lebanon seems to have been tied to the fortunes of Hizbullah. Nasrallah was the public face of Iranian ambitions in the Levant, enjoying a 10% lead in popularity across the region over Ahmadinejad (according to the University of Maryland and Zogby International’s Arab Public Opinion Poll). This meant that more Arabs admired Nasrallah than they did Ahmadinejad, and anecdotally this struck one as true: Nasrallah’s popularity across the region was untouchable from the end of the July War through at least March 2008, and both Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad seemed to be riding on Nasrallah’s coattails.

In 2009, something happened. Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad took a major beating in the regional popularity polls (conducted in April-May 2009), while Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shot from 9th place to 1st. How to explain this reversal of fortunes? Here’s my highly unscientific hypothesis:

1. After the May 2008 events in Lebanon (which occurred after the 2008 poll was conducted), Hizbullah’s reputation among Sunnis across the region was (temporarily) tarnished.
2. In early 2009, the region watched Israel attack Gaza as Hizbullah sat on its hands, unwilling to provoke another confrontation in Lebanon.
3. Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez accused Israel of committing genocide and expelled the Israeli ambassador from Caracas. Presto: instant celebrity.

Now, Chavez’s resistance credentials in the Arab-Israeli conflict are nothing compared to Hizbullah’s and Iran’s. But the fact of his turnaround seemed to count for something. Iran couldn’t dismiss its Israeli ambassador because it doesn’t have one. And if Ahmadinejad blamed Israel for committing genocide, no one would notice because he does this on his way to work each day. Meanwhile, the Chavez effect repeated itself this year. Who was the most admired leader in the Arab world  in 2010? Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Where was he in the polls in 2008 and 2009? Last place and second-to-last, respectively. While he also criticized the Gaza assault, his real surge in popularity was almost certainly tied to the flotilla incident.

This is a very circuitous way of saying that I found myself wondering today, as I listened to Nasrallah’s speech welcoming Ahmadinejad to Beirut, whether Iran is trying to step out of Hizbullah’s shadow in Lebanon. That sounds odd to hear, given the nature of their relationship. But I think that it’s not that far-fetched to imagine that Iran’s ambitions include winning over non-Shi’a Lebanese through a mixture of investment projects, military aid, assistance in energy exploration and infrastructure development.

After all, as we’ve seen, even Hizbullah’s popularity can take a hit. The party cannot keep Lebanon in Iran’s orbit all by itself. Thoughts?

The “false witness” issue has gone from being a conspiratorial throw-away line in one of Nasrallah’s early summer speeches, to a full-blown scandal involving several arrest warrants from the Syrian judiciary, and threats by Lebanese opposition parties to boycott cabinet sessions until the issue is resolved.

Who is to blame for this fiasco? While it is fairly clear that the false witness file is just one part of an opposition campaign to discredit the STL, I feel that Saad al-Hariri is ultimately responsible for allowing this issue to snowball. Did he not recognize months ago that this was going to be the opposition’s game plan? Did he think that he was going to get off with a poorly-worded mea culpa in a Saudi newspaper?

By remaining out of the spotlight and not tackling the issue head-on, he has allowed the opposition to take complete control of this story. And the longer he tries to ignore it, the more suspicious and deceitful he and his allies look. Does it matter whether or not the 33 summoned individuals actually offered false testimony or tampered with evidence? No. What matters is that the opposition has been given an open floor to argue that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is nothing but a vast conspiracy relying on false witnesses.

I’ve gotten a lot of flak over the past two weeks for suggesting that Saad al-Hariri’s premiership is little more than a sustained absence, and that March 8th politicians have better rhetorical chops than their counterparts in March 14th. Let me ask you naysayers once again: let’s imagine the tables were turned, and that a media campaign was being waged against Hizbullah. Would Nasrallah remain quiet, or would he respond to his accusers calmly and clearly (and, probably, disarmingly), batting away their claims like the wispiest of dust bunnies?

Compared to what Hizbullah is facing, the false witness issue is small potatoes. Nasrallah is allegedly staring down an STL indictment built on five years of in-depth investigation, interviews, and forensic evidence. What does he do in response? He goes on the offensive a few months in advance, and one-ups the U.N. with a three-part TV special featuring Israeli satellite footage and confessions from convicted espionage artists. Nasrallah could handle the false witness thing in his sleep. Meanwhile, Hariri seems to be asleep.

A friend of mine, Thanassis Cambanis, has a new book out about Hizbullah. Between 2000 and 2007, Thanassis worked as a reporter for the Boston Globe, and served as the paper’s Iraq bureau chief from 2003-05 and Middle East bureau chief from 2005-07. He’s also worked for The New York Times and various other media outlets, and currently teaches journalism at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

QN: The academic and mainstream literature on Hizbullah is vast. Why another book? What do you feel was missing from the public discussion about Hizbullah that needed to be said?

TC: I’m only half kidding when I say that I set out to write a book about the Middle East that was fun to read. This book should be of interest to scholars of Hezbollah, but it’s not a work of scholarship — it’s a work of narrative journalism. I set out to answer the question of why Hezbollah was growing more popular, more compelling to its fans, and more influential. Who joins Hezbollah? Who supports the party? Why? I spent the better part of three years following rank-and-file members and supporters, and they opened a window on the belief structure, motivations and daily life of Hezbollah’s soccer moms and scout leaders. Their worldview substantially advances our understanding of Hezbollah, I believe.

QN: The Western discourse on Hizbullah tends to lump this group in with organizations like Hamas and al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, you argue that “no other group has mastered the formula for radical strength as Hizbullah has done.” Where does Hizbullah fit on the Arab political landscape, and what makes it different from other Islamist groups?

TC: Some of the differences are easy to spot. Hezbollah has governed multitudes of its supporters for nearly 30 years, and it has participated in electoral politics in Lebanon since 1992. More than any other Islamist non-state actor, it has experience providing services and taking part in politics — and learning from its mistakes. Other differences are less easy to delineate, but important. For instance, Hezbollah and Iran share a belief in wilayat al faqih, or the rule of the jurisprudent, the foundational concept of Iran’s clerical regime. But one could argue that Hezbollah has remained closer to the radical basis of the Iranian revolution than Iran’s own clerics.

But you asked about Arab politics and you mention two other bugbears that happen, like Hezbollah, to be listed as terrorist groups by the United States. Al Qaeda is a different kettle of fish — a nihilist group that has virtually no territorial responsibilities and whose ideology diametrically opposes modernity. Hezbollah embraces modernity, capitalism and prosperity. It doesn’t want its followers to recreate medieval times; it wants its followers to grow rich, obtain political power, and use that platform to spread Islam and support the fight against Israel.

Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has changed its approach to shed the terrorist label it acquired with the suicide bombings and kidnappings of the 1980s. Since the 1990s, Hezbollah’s guerilla operations have studiously focused on military targets. Hezbollah’s indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in Israel is calibrated in response to what Hezbollah sees as indiscriminate targeting of civilian areas in Lebanon by Israel. Hezbollah doesn’t send suicide bombers after soft civilian targets or plant bombs on buses.

QN: Neither, for that matter, does the Muslim brotherhood. What makes Hizbullah different from the MB?

TC: The most significant thing that differentiates Hezbollah from other Islamist groups is the credibility and thoroughness with which it cultivates the loyalty of its community. It neither buys nor bullies support from its core audience (although it is by no means shy about using brute strength against detractors); it trains, convinces, and inculcates them through a layered web of classes and activities — scouts, primary schools, summer camps, weekend courses for working parents, college and career counseling, and the mosque.

Arab regimes — and many of the Islamist groups that oppose them, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan — in practice have accepted the reality of Israel. They might not like it, but they’re looking for ways to coexist, if grudgingly. Hezbollah has stood that approach on its head. The “axis of resistance,” led by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, opposes Israel; Hezbollah has convinced many of its fans and followers that Israel can, in fact, be defeated by force. That perception is new, and reinvigorates a maximalist strain of militancy that had been on the wane.

QN: In your reading, how beholden is Hizbullah to the foreign policy agenda of Tehran?

TC: Iran’s relationship to Hezbollah is symbiotic. Without Iran’s weapons and money, Hezbollah would simply not pose the military threat it poses today. To a large extent, Hezbollah’s reach and resilience depends on Tehran’s cash. On the other hand, much of the revolutionary zeal that has faded in Iran remains vibrant among Hezbollah’s followers. Ahmedinejad talks a lot about fighting Israel, and his government funds and trains plenty of paramilitaries. Hezbollah, however, has been fighting Israel continuously since 1982, actually doing what Ahmedinejad mainly just talks about. Hezbollah, in this read, gives legitimacy to Iran’s mullahs, in addition to allowing Tehran to project military power right up to Israel’s border.

There’s not much daylight between Tehran and Dahieh, so we haven’t seen a real test of what would happen if Hezbollah’s foreign policy interests diverged from Tehran’s.

QN: What if Iran’s nuclear program were threatened or attacked?

TC: Good question. I asked Mahmoud Komati, on Hezbollah’s politburo, that question and he laughed. Foreign diplomats keep asking the same question, he said — and Hezbollah doesn’t really want to give a clear answer. “You don’t declare something which would reduce your enemy’s fears,” he said.

An attack on Iran could test the “special relationship.” Iran might want to retaliate via Hezbollah. But Hezbollah would have lots of trouble selling to its own public an unprovoked attack on Israel simply at Tehran’s bidding. If Hezbollah could engineer the perception of an Israeli provocation or attack, that’s a different story; it would then be able to rally support for a war. Iran, I think, values Hezbollah not only as an asset but as a strategic partner, and wouldn’t ask Hezbollah to do something that would destroy its long-term prospects.

QN: What do you believe the party will do in the event that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon indicts some of its members for the assassination of ex-PM Rafiq al-Hariri?

TC: They’re already preparing a maximalist response. One scenario (which you’ve discussed) is that Hezbollah could choose to distance itself from indicted party members, calling them loose canons. But Hezbollah appears uninterested in such an outcome. Instead, it seems, it will deny the Tribunal’s legitimacy and jurisdiction. The entire Hezbollah presentation about Israel was largely intended for its own supporters, to build the case for later refusing to hand over any indicted party members.

On my most recent visit to Lebanon in September, I saw that Hezbollah had recruited a lot of rough shabab in Haret Hreik. My Hezbollah-supporting sources there (including some party members) found these new members disquieting and even alarming; they lack Hezbollah’s potential discipline. As one Hezbollah member told me, “I can’t imagine any use for these kids except in an internal street clash.”

QN: You spend a good deal of your book discussing Hizbullah’s masterful communications strategies. How successful do you believe the party has been in promoting its theory that Israel was responsible for Hariri’s murder? How seriously is this theory taken beyond Lebanon (say, in Egypt, Jordan, etc.)?

TC: Again, they’re not trying to convince you or me; they’re talking to an audience like the dozen men I sat with in Srifa on Eid. These men told me that the CIA was responsible for 9/11 and that Israel was clearly responsible for all the assassinations in Lebanon. So the presentation about Israel and Hariri’s assassination reinforces something these Hezbollah supporters already are inclined to believe. Bizarrely, I interviewed a secular Shia human rights activist in Bahrain earlier, during Ramadan, and at the end of our conversation about the government crackdown there, he brought up Nasrallah’s presentation about Israel and Hariri. He, to my surprise, was completely convinced. “If an outside power were trying to start a civil war in Lebanon,” I asked him, “why would they only kill only members of one side?” His answer: “They know what they’re doing.”

I’m more interested in whether Hezbollah can continue to spread its gospel of Islamic resistance — perpetual war plus a committed religious lifestyle — beyond the confines of Shia Lebanon. Al Manar Satellite Television plays a key role here, but I’m not sure how heavily it is viewed during calm periods like the present. It’s only must-see TV during wars and other Lebanese crises.

QN: Who listens to Hebollah outside Lebanon?

TC: In Gaza, the deputy foreign minister Ahmed Yousef spoke to me at length about the lessons he’s learned from Hezbollah as an organization and Nasrallah as a leader. He’d like to build a Hamas television and radio network modeled after Al Manar and An Nour. He’d also like to build a diplomatic corps modeled on Hezbollah’s office of international relations.

Further afield, Hezbollah is trying to sell the idea that war is the answer, that Islam can guide all elements in one’s life from politics and parenting to war and education. The party is trying to bridge a lot of divides — between Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs; between Arabs and Persians; between Sunni and Shia. They’re trying to deepen Islam among their constituents while simultaneously appealing to non-believers who like Hezbollah’s anti-Israeli resistance. It’s not a balance that can survive forever.

Game-changers might include a Syrian peace deal with Israel; a change in Iranian regime; changes in Israeli strategy; and possibly, but less likely, a wholesale loss in credibility if Hezbollah clashes too much with its Lebanese rivals or falls prey to run-of-the-mill nepotism, za`im-ism (is that a word?), or corruption.

You can buy a copy of Thanassis’s book at Amazon here.

Tha’ir Ghandour has an interesting exclusive interview in today’s Al-Akhbar newspaper with an unnamed “security source close to Saad al-Hariri”. (There’s an English summary of the story here.) The gist of the source’s testimony is the following:

1. In 2006, the Lebanese intelligence services uncovered evidence of the involvement of certain Hizbullah members in the Hariri assassination.
2. A delegation was sent to speak to Hassan Nasrallah, advising him of the evidence, and suggesting that the party announce its willingness to prosecute any of its members that were implicated, just as Walid al-Mouallem had made the same promise with regard to any Syrian citizen connected with the crime.
3. The source also apparently suggested that Hizbullah hide or liquidate these individuals so that they could not identify who they got their orders from.
4. The offer was rejected by Nasrallah, which surprised Hariri’s delegation.

As you will recall, we heard something like this story from Hassan Nasrallah himself a couple months ago. What is most interesting about it, from my perspective, is the folowing quote:

فوجئنا يوم أقفل السيّد نصر الله الباب وقال إنه مسؤول عن أي عمل يقوم به أي عنصر من عناصر حزب الله، وكأن جسم الحزب غير مخترَق، ونحن نعرف تماماً أنه اختُرق وأعطيناه الأدلة على ذلك، وجرت تصفية المسؤولين الثلاثة في الحزب الذين أبلغنا الحزب عن تعاملهم مع إسرائيل.

Translation: “…We were surprised the day that Sayyed Nasrallah locked the door [on our offer to find an exit strategy to the problem] and said that he was responsible for any action carried out by any member of Hizbullah, as though the party were not infiltrated, and we knew precisely that it was infiltrated and we gave him evidence of that. The three members of the party whose collaboration with Israel we had notified Hizbullah about were then liquidated.“

Just a few days ago, I wondered aloud as to what Hariri’s strategy was going to be in the face of Hizbullah’s hardline position on the STL. If we are finally getting a glimpse of it, then it’s quite savvy. Rather than pushing back against Nasrallah with his own maximalist position (i.e. that Hizbullah pulled the trigger, with Syrian and/or Iranian assistance), Hariri is signaling that he would be (or at least had been) willing to help sell the “Israel-did-it” theory, but at a cost: that Hizbullah give up the members who had been “infiltrated” by the enemy.

This mechanism would fulfill the favored “no victors, no vanquished” formula that is the unspoken rule of Lebanese politics. It would give everyone a way to save face: Hariri would get to say that he had avenged his father’s death and Hizbullah would be able to say it was right all along about Israel. Of course, no one’s mind would really be changed: M14ers would continue to believe that Hizbullah committed the crime on Syria’s instructions, while M8ers would continue to believe that Hizbullah was being framed by Israel. But none of this would really matter.

Political historians (like detectives) are supposed to take into account the testimonies of all relevant parties when reconstructing their accounts of political developments. In this case, however, a pan-optic approach leads to an absurd and yet somehow fitting conclusion: that Israel infiltrated Hizbullah to assassinate Rafiq al-Hariri (the Sunni Premier who had been unknowingly infiltrated by Israel to disarm the infiltrated Hizbullah through UNSCR 1559) and then infiltrated the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon to pin the crime on Hizbullah.

I feel safer already.