August 8, 2011
I recorded a discussion with Michael Young this weekend about the situation in Syria and its impact on Lebanon. You can watch the whole thing at the Bloggingheads website, but be sure to come back and comment.
Michael is the opinion editor of the Daily Star, and the author of a very interesting book about Lebanon called The Ghosts of Martyrs Square, which I discuss here and here.
June 21, 2011
Mona Yacoubian and I chat here about the new Lebanese cabinet and the challenges facing it, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the events in Syria, and the new US draft legislation targeting Hizbullah.
Be sure to also check out Joshua Landis’s conversation with Ausama Monajed about the Syrian uprising. I believe it was recorded prior to President Assad’s latest speech, but it’s still worth watching.
I hope to record another segment later this week with a friend of mine who is an expert on Turkish-Israeli relations. Stay tuned.
May 21, 2011
Camille Otrakji and I recorded a segment about the situation in Syria for Bloggingheads, which you can see here. To read my interview with Camille from a few weeks ago (which generated 724 comments from the readership), click here.
May 2, 2011
And now for something completely different.
If you’ve been following events in Syria, you’d know that the English-language press is mostly deeply critical of the Assad regime (while the Arabic press displays a slightly wider range of views). I thought it would be worth trying to present a minority report on the situation from a Syrian friend of mine, although, as you will see, he argues precisely that his position is actually held by a very significant majority (albeit a rather quiet and frustrated majority) of Syrians.
Camille Otrakji is a Syrian political blogger based in Montreal. Although he tends to keep a low profile, Otrakji has been, for the past several years, at the forefront of many of the most interesting and influential online initiatives relating to Syrian politics. He is one of the authors and moderators at Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment, and the founder of Creative Syria, a constellation of websites including Mideast Image (a vast collection of original old photographs of Middle Eastern subjects) and Syrian Think Tank (an online debate site hosting many of Syria’s top analysts). Last year, Otrakji courted controversy with a new initiative devoted to the subject of Syrian-Israeli peace, entitled OneMideast.org. He agreed to speak with me about the latest events in Syria, and I’m sure that his views will generate plenty of discussion.
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QN: You were recently quoted in The New York Times, arguing that the current situation in Syria is “all being manipulated,” and that the activists are deceiving the Syrian public and the world. Could you elaborate on this?
Otrakji: I believe that a clear majority of Syrians support many of the demands of the peaceful protesters. On the other hand, only a minority of Syrians are willing to risk destabilizing their country in order to try to achieve full regime change after a painful drawn-out conflict.
You might disagree with me if your impression of the state of the protests movement is the product of Aljazeera and BBC Arabic endlessly looping some bloody clip of the day and creating an impression that victory is near for “the Syrian people” who are demonstrating against their despised tyrant. In the early days of the Libyan revolt, Aljazeera created the same “victory-is-easy” impression for the Libyan people and they believed it, and until today they are killing each other and destroying their country.
Despite weekly calls from opposition figures for millions to demonstrate, based on the numbers of people we have seen in the streets of Syria thus far, it is clear that less than 1.0% of the country (about 150,000 Syrians) has joined the protests. This is not Egypt or Yemen, where you had hundreds of thousands or even millions of people protesting every day. In Syria we’ve seen a few thousands here, a few hundred there, mostly on Fridays. And yet western governments, the Syrian opposition, and the media covering Syria are all enthusiastically and casually using the term “the Syrian people” from the first day a few young men demonstrated in the Ummayad mosque. This implies they have the support of the entire Syrian population, which is a very serious distortion of the facts. How do you think the pro-stability Syrians feel when everyone, from Western officials to journalists imply that they are automatically on the side of regime change? No one reported that for weeks Syrians were demonstrating each night in many cities supporting their President. These daily demonstrations, festive and loud, stopped only when interior ministry told the supporters to stop showing their support because they were too noisy. The only time millions demonstrated in Syria was the day Assad’s supporters went to the street in most of Syria’s large cities. It was bizarre that most of the media decided that all these Syrians were chanting and dancing in the streets because they were afraid of the regime, simply because schools and some government offices were given the day off on that day. Ironically, some of the same journalists were also making the point the revolution is bound to succeed because “the barrier of fear has been shattered”.
In addition to distorting the true size of the protests movements, everyone seems to overlook the fact that unlike Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Syria’s protestors have mostly been men. “The Syrian people” include women too, as you can see from the pro-Assad demonstrations. Why didn’t any of those Western financed women rights organizations express any concern after seeing tens of all-male demonstrations so far?
While most protests were genuinely peaceful, many were confrontational and violent. Syria’s police and security personnel are not used to such challenges and sadly in some cases some of them probably reacted with unnecessary violence. But out of an estimated 150,000 protesters so far up to 500 died according to opposition figures. Government claims 78 died, and I believe the real figure is in between, closer to opposition figures. The government claims that many died in armed confrontations. Given that 80 soldiers and policemen also died, it is only logical that non-peaceful armed men were among the hundreds of “civilian” casualties. In other words, not all civilian casualties were peaceful protestors.
Many others probably died through excessive security personnel violence. We need to keep in mind that despite the bitter feeling all of us today have after hundreds died, an investigation of what happened should be conducted.
None of us has access to the truth, but I think it is fair to conclude for now that the numbers imply that it is not true that there is an official policy of shooting randomly at any demonstrator. Many fatal mistakes took place, but many others died while they were taking part in non peaceful confrontations with the army or police. Those who compare Syria’s casualties figures to Egypt’s need to keep in mind that in Egypt protesters were not engaging the army in battles. The 850 who died there were all non armed.
QN: But surely there is public discontent with Bashar al-Assad, or else people would not be risking their lives to demonstrate against the regime.
Otrakji: The revolt started out as a legitimate one, when it was based in Dar’aa. The people there were genuinely fed up with the local head of security, who was a relative of the president, and so at first they protested against his abuse of power and his corruption. But this took place against the backdrop of the events in Egypt and Tunisia, so certain groups decided to try and capitalize on this act of protest in Dar’aa and turn it into a nationwide revolt.
QN: Which groups?
Otrakji: There are many groups who are trying to destabilize the regime. You have the regime change activists overseas, who are financed by various American programs that the Obama administration continued to finance despite seeking better relations with Syria. And you have American technologies that allow you to manipulate anything online. For example, you can help generate virtual members among some of the 150,000 that the Syrian revolution 2011 page on Facebook is proud of.
Then there are many Salafists around the country, guided by Syrian, Saudi, or Egyptian religious leaders. And it is possible that some of the four anti-regime billionaires might be trying to stir the pot for their own, different, reasons; Abdul-Halim Khaddam [former vice president of Syria, currently in exile in Paris], Ribal al-Assad [Bashar’s cousin, and son of Rifaat al-Assad], Saad al-Hariri [current caretaker Prime Minister of Lebanon and son of the slain Rafiq], and Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud [former Saudi ambassador to the US, among other things].
QN: So this is all the work of these outside groups?
Otrakji: No, of course not. As I said, the revolt had a legitimate spark. And there is no doubt that many Syrians are dissatisfied with many aspects of the current regime. But most Syrians would much rather see some meaningful reforms undertaken in a peaceful fashion over the next five years under the current regime, instead of trying to sweep the regime away and dealing with the prospect of sectarian civil war. If Bashar were to sign several laws: (1) permitting the formation of political parties; (2) lifting the tight censorship in the press; (3) and modernizing and limiting the role of the mukhabarat (intelligence services), I believe that 80% of the Syrian people would be fully on board with that. They would say to the opposition: “Thank you very much for your courage. You did a valuable service by giving the regime a ‘cold shower’. But now we’ve had enough of the protests and we want to go back to work. We will give Bashar the benefit of the doubt, until the next presidential election.”
QN: What do you say to those who argue, like Joshua Landis, that the regime’s days are numbered? Landis recently suggested that even if Bashar can weather this storm, the country’s economic woes are a ticking time bomb and eventually the country’s middle class will abandon him.
Otrakji: Dr. Landis might be right, it will be difficult. But I also want to point out that this is not exactly the first time Syria’s economy was predicted to be near collapsing. President Reagan was not the first to wait for his adversaries (the Soviet Union) to surrender after they go broke.
In 1977, when the United States and Israel decided to make peace with Egypt instead of going for a comprehensive peace treaty that included the full return of Syria’s Golan Heights and the occupied Palestinian territories, a key demand of Hafez Assad, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski offered this analysis: “The Syrian economy is in grave difficulty, with inflation running at 25%. If the Saudis were to offer major financial backing in return for a Syrian-Egyptian reconciliation, President Hafez Assad might have to assent, no matter how much he dislikes the idea of being forced to negotiate with Israel.”
Thirty four years later, we are facing a similar situation. The west is sending Syria messages through their Gulf Arab allies that say “You are in real trouble, if you play by our rules … if you terminate relations with Iran and disarm Hezbollah … if you cooperate with us when we need you to, then we can help you stay in power and turn a blind eye like we do in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia”.
This is not the most difficult challenge that the regime had to face. In 1977 it lost its Egyptian peace partner after Sadat signed a separate peace treaty with Israel. At the same time the Syrian regime was in Lebanon busy fighting a coalition of Muslim forces as it tried to protect the much weaker Christians. This led to a coalition of neighboring Arab states aligned with the Untied States and determined to overthrow the Syrian regime by supporting (financially and with arms) the Muslism brotherhood that tried to use force to overthrow the regime. Then Israel invaded Lebanon and defeated the Syrian army stationed there. The Syrian economy was suffering from years of grave and multiple challenges. Yet by 1983, a top U.S. State Department official had to admit: “Hafez Assad is as strong, perhaps stronger, than ever.”
In 2005, after the Hariri assassination, the entire world was out for Syrian blood. The Syrian army left Lebanon, and the Americans, Europeans, and the Arabs all thought that Bashar was finished. They said he was stupid, he had no vision, he was not even half the man that his father was. It is instructive to consider the fact that Bashar did not feel pressured to properly comment on the Hariri assassination and Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Rafiq al-Hariri was killed on February 14, 2005. Do you know when Bashar gave his first full address about the issue? November. When pressured, the Syrian regime takes the long view. It is a mistake to assume they have no cards to play.
QN: Can they afford to not communicate for that long?
Otrakji: It seems they believe they can. But this total lack of communication is making them lose popularity among those who used to be independents, and it is making many regime supporters furious. They would like to hear a convincing account of what is happening, but the regime hates to communicate. As a result, many supporters are by now on the fence. They prefer to suspend the revolution and give the regime enough time to reform as promised. But every Friday is forcing them to go through the painful exercise of waiting until the end of the day to hear the bad news. Last Friday, tens died. The regime’s opponents imply they were all peaceful protesters. The regime implies they were all armed men who attacked or were attacked by the army or police. Most Syrians believe the truth is somewhere in between.
On the other hand, I realize that communicating might be near useless anyway. Both the regime supporters and the opposition are engaged in serious propaganda and the result is that the more technology tools we have today, the more confused and suspicious we are. On Twitter you have a massive amount of fabricated opposition claims of regime brutality (in addition to the true ones). On facebook you get to see video clips that every group shares (if they support their arguments) or rejects (if it is embarrassing). This report from Syrian television claims that tens of demonstrators were actually only celebrating rainfall. This clip of a funeral of those who died at the hands of security shows a flying coffin that seems to be empty. I like this clip. It is funny, and it demonstrates how anyone with a bit of technical background, can manipulate digital media with ease.
QN: Why did Egypt go more smoothly?
Otrakji: There is a major difference with Syria. Egypt does not have the complex sectarian and ethnic makeup that Syria does. We have Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druzes, Kurds, Armenians, and various other ethnic and confessional groups. We have tribalism. We share borders and complex political ties ad history with Lebanon and Iraq, two of the most volatile countries in the region. We are in a state of war with Israel, and we are a central member of the Iranian-Hizbullah-Hamas axis that puts us in the crosshairs of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. All Syrians are aware of their country’s vulnerability to instability, which is why the vast majority are genuinely supportive, or tolerant, of the current regime, even if they are restless waiting for more reforms. Syrians are risk averse; they’re just not willing to take the risk that Egypt took, because Egypt has much less potential for internal fragmentation. It is 90% Sunni Muslim, 100% Arab, no tribes, no Kurdish issue, has endless empty deserts separating it from its neighbors, and opted to sign a peace treaty with Israel ending its state of war.
QN: So what’s going to happen?
Otrakji: There is no way to know. Ultimately, it’s in the hands of the mostly non-sectarian risk-averse Syrian people, but it could still spin out of control if the current events are manipulated by groups that are trying to stir up sectarian conflict. If you read the older posts on the Syrian Revolution Facebook page (before they got a facelift and professional PR help), you wouldn’t believe how much religious language you find, and also how much deception there is. They were trying to whip up sectarian hysteria, to radicalize Syria’s Sunnis so as to bring down the regime. This is not what most Syrians want, but they have enough Syrians they can potentially influence.
QN: What is the likelihood, in your opinion, that the regime can be toppled by the current opposition, assuming that they can garner more support in the main cities?
Otrakji: The problem with this question – which everybody is asking – is that it fundamentally misunderstands the whole idea of “the Syrian regime”. What does this mean? What are you talking about when you say “the Syrian regime”?
QN: The Assad family, for starters. The major power-brokers and security chiefs. The corrupt oligarchs like Rami Makhlouf. Those are the opposition’s targets.
Otrakji: Corruption is indeed part of the reason many in “the regime” will resist those trying to force them out and I don’t think the Syrian people will rest anymore unless they are convinced that corruption will be curtailed.
But I think we need to look at Lebanon to understand what is really happening in Syria. After decades of Lebanon’s experience with democracy (flawed democracy) you still had Amin and Bashir Gemayel inheriting the leadership of their party and people from their father Pierre. Walid from Kamal Jumblatt, Saad from Rafiq Hariri… and the same applies to the Frangiehs, Chamouns or the Karamis.
You also have an understandings where a 5% segment of the population (the Druze minority) can sometimes have a veto power over potential decisions that the nation’s elected leaders might be contemplating.
When Druze leader Walid jumblatt switched to the March 8 side, providing them with a new majority and the right to name Lebanon’s next prime minister, Saad Hariri was furious. He warned that only the Sunnis can name the country’s (Sunni) prime minister, regardless of who has a parliamentarian majority.
Although there is no strong regime in power like the one in Syria, Lebanon still did not yet feel ready to take the risk to try to adopt one-man-one-vote democracy. And the same families that collectively held power over the different segments of society are still there decades later. Even Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has been there for decades. Messing up with this imperfect system can open a can of worms.
Iraq’s current government coalition was mostly made in Damascus. Every candidate and major political or religious figure visited Damascus before an agreement was reached. No other capital in the region or outside received that many Iraqi VIP visitors. How did Syria get to be that influential in Iraq?
When Saddam Hussein oppressed Iraq’s Shia and Kurds, Syria protected their leaders in Damascus. Iraqi Prime ministers Maliki and Allawi, President Talibani, and many other Iraqis opposed to Saddam Hussein were living safely in Damascus for years before they went back to the new Iraq to lead it. At that time, all the other Arabs, not to mention the United States and Europe, were trying to be Saddam’s best friends.
Similarly, when Iran’s weight in post-Saddam Iraq tilted the country’s political balance in a way that marginalized Iraq’s Sunnis, Syria opposed its Iranian allies and decided to protect Iraq’s Sunnis, including the Baathist and Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq.
Lebanon’s majority coalition is made of Christians, Shia, Druze and Sunnis … all of them have one thing in common; They are Syria’s allies. Similarly, Lebanon’s opposition is made of a similarly colorful group that also has one thing in common … all are opponents of Syria. When Druze leader switched from being an opponent of Syria to a friend of Syria, the majority and opposition in Lebanon exchanged hats.
The Syrian regime, and only the Syrian regime, REALLY know how the Levant and Mesopotamia work. Try to let the Saudis decide and you will end up with one disaster after the other. Remember Saud Al-faisal‘s brilliant plan to send an Arab army to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon?
The Alawites, and to a lesser degree the other minorities in Syria, will not accept the current system to be swept away overnight and without reforms that guarantee minority safety and rights. You have to understand that most Alawites view Syria in much the same way that the Jews view Israel, the Kurds view Kurdistan, the Maronites in Lebanon, etc. This is the one country in the world where they can dictate their own affairs and don’t have to worry about being repressed as a minority. They are not going to accept that this reality changes overnight. If democracy is to come to Syria, it needs to happen gradually and in a region that is not boiling in sectarian anger. Most Syrians understand this. But many, understandably, do not.
QN: What is your opinion of Turkey’s alleged concerns over the Syrian government’s crackdown? Do you think that this valuable alliance could be in jeopardy if the violence continues and refugees start fleeing to Turkey?
Otrakji: If Syria collapses, this could lead to a potential disaster for everyone in its vicinity: Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and yes, even Turkey. The Turks have no desire to see Syria’s Kurds beginning to demand their own statelet, as this will impact Turkey’s Kurdish question in a major way. And Turkey surely would not want to see Sunnis and Alawites fighting each other just south of its border. These things can be contagious to Turkey’s own Sunni/Alawite population.
The main players in the region have no interest, at the end of the day, in trying to destabilize Assad. Even if they hate to admit it, they know that Syria’s regime plays a stabilizing role across the region. Rami Khouri agrees that we can expect major problems across the region if Syria is shaken. I think Syria has influence as far as Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Bahrain and … everywhere. In that sense, Syria is really not Egypt or Tunis.
QN: What’s the best case scenario for Syria, in your opinion?
Otrakji: I can’t discuss Syria without also discussing the Middle East. Here is the only thing that will work:
For now, demonstrations must stop, the President must speak to the nation to reassure everyone that he is indeed committed to serious and accelerated reforms that will please most Syrians. Press freedom law, political parties law, decentralization law (more power to the provinces) and gradually (within a year?) undoing the Ba’ath party’s monopoly on power.
The minorities in power in Syria need to start thinking of a five year plan to move to a democratic system. A Senate can help protect minority rights. Maintaining control of the army, like the case in Turkey, can provide another way to reassure the minorities. But otherwise, free elections that might bring anyone to power should be expected… after peace with Israel (please bear with me, I’ll explain)
“The International community” must help Israel and the Arabs reach comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The status quo is not sustainable. A majority of Egyptians want to scrap the peace treaty with Israel. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states are not going to remain stable forever. Iran and Saudi Arabia are probably going to consider different ways to escalate their cold war. Soon, a third intifada might start in the Palestinian territories. There is one way to start undoing all the pressure, a comprehensive peace treaty that is based on the return to the 1967 borders.
Since 1977 the US and Europe have been trying to weaken or destabilize Syria. This will destabilize the whole Middle East like it did each time they tried in the past. In Washington DC there is a group of legacy Middle East experts who tried, unsuccessfully, over the past years or decades, to weaken and isolate Syria. Dennis Ross, Elliott Abrams, Lee Smith, Jeff Feltman, and many others who passed away. For them, it is a personal battle that they never won. But they succeeded at least in ensuring that Syria never received a visit from an American secretary of State since 2003. No matter who is the President of the Untied States, one of the long term enemies of Syria makes it inside the new administration to help ensure nothing constructive comes out.
If President Obama is serious about progress in the Middle East, he has to personally take charge of relations with Syria. Leave the Syria “experts” out of it. You cannot be a democracy within the borders of the United States but a bully in the way you deal with smaller states. You know that when Syria was considered an ally of the Soviet Union, the Russians allowed Hafez Assad the liberty to meet with American Presidents. They did not punish him for that. The same applies to Iranian allies of Syria. They never complained when President Bashar Assad met with American officials or when Syrian experts were discussing peace with Israelis in Turkey. The US should learn from Iran and the former Soviet Union how is it possible to be a friend of Syria without dictating your terms on your weaker friend.
Religion and politics make an explosive mix. Most of the region’s problems come from Saudi Arabia (Sunni Islam’s Kingdom), Iran (Shia Islam’s kingdom) Israel (the Jewish state) and soon from America’s Zionist Christians. If you want Syrian minorities to be less fearful of full democracy get the Salafists off their back first. This one is calling for sacrificing one third of Syria’s population to get rid of the infidels, while the other one is about to explode if he does not see the minorities out of power in Syria immediately. In Egypt, top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are saying their real goal is “to rule the world!”. Salafists in Egypt are already threatening to enter Christian monasteries and to take over Sufi mosques. Even in Tunisia, Jordan and Northern Lebanon, Salafists are increasingly trying to play a big role.
In five years, everything can be resolved. But we have to retire the “moral clarity” mentality that used to consider Hosni Mubarak a part of the “International community” simply because he was a US puppet. Many of the heroes and prophets of moral clarity worked for Qaddafi when he paid the right price. Some of them worked for the Bush Sr. administration when a decision was made to kill tens of thousands of young Iraqi soldiers after they surrendered. That same 1991 war was made possible after many, including the President, lied to the American people to help them support that initially unpopular war. Don’t try again to spend 500 million dollars to manipulate the Lebanese people against Hezbollah before they go to vote. When you do that, the Syrian regime will be more assured that opening up its political system will lead to American (and Saudi) manipulation… until both countries accept to become genuine friends of Syria. It is really wrong for the Obama administration to send an ambassador to Damascus while trying to finance those who are trying to overthrow the regime then to complain that engagement with Damascus is not working too well.
The United States must decide between solving the problems of the region, or letting it explode. Forget what your Syria experts say; Syria is where you need to start. This regime has 40 years of intensive and extensive experience in this region. Make use of it, THEN talk to the regime about what it takes to retire from power while the region is at peace.
Am I confident any of that will take place? … The regime’s reforms yes, the rest no. It is hard not to be pessimistic about what the region will go through this year.
March 8, 2011
Gary Gambill, current editor of Mideast Monitor and former editor of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, is one of the sharpest commentators on Lebanese affairs. His analysis is always meticulously well researched and well written, and I’ve enjoyed reading him for years. This interview was conducted over email. Please feel free to respond with your own questions, and perhaps Gary will take some time to engage the readership in the comment section.
In other news, I’ll be giving a talk about Lebanese electoral reform at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, this Thursday at 12:00 PM. Feel free to stop by if you’re in the area. And finally, check out Jesse Aizenstat’s iPad ebook about surfing and politics in the Middle East.
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QN: In your recent article, Dreaming of Damascus, you argued that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could not sign a peace deal with Israel because this would undermine the legitimacy of his Alawite regime in a Sunni-majority country.
GG: Well, I argued that the unique sectarian composition of Syria’s regime makes it less politically capable than a representative government of making peace with Israel. One of the problems with writing op-eds is that one doesn’t have the space to clarify everything, so let me underscore a few points:
First, I’m not saying Assad doesn’t want a peace treaty with Israel – I suspect he would sign one if the expected gains outweighed the political risks. But what what are the political risks of accepting the terms currently demanded by Israel (breaking with Iran, an end to all direct and indirect support for anti-Zionist movements, trade relations, an occasional bouquet of flowers, etc.) for an Alawite-dominated regime in a majority Sunni country?
Second, my hypothesis is essentially structuralist. The constraint on foreign policy I’m postulating is generated primarily not by the preferences of either the Alawite minority or the Sunni majority (neither of which strikes me as more averse to peace than Egyptians, Jordanians, or Palestinians), but by the fact that a regime dominated by the former is governing the latter. The Assad regime has long managed Sunni resentment at being ruled by an Alawite-led regime (which we all know is common, particularly among the religious) by advancing regional causes that resonate with Sunnis (particularly anti-Zionism). This is why Al-Qaeda and non-Syrian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood have been friendly to Assad, and it is partly why Syria has been so stable. A strategic realignment away from the rejectionist axis would make the regime more vulnerable to internal and external subversion.
Third, my substantiation of the argument is essentially deductive. There haven’t been any other cases of heterodox Islamic minorities governing Sunnis in the modern era, so we have only the Syrian case to look at. The empirical data from this one clinical trial is consistent with my hypothesis (the Assad regime has, justifiably or not, repeatedly declined whatever terms happen to be acceptable to Israel at any given time), but it’s also consistent with other explanations of Syrian behavior. Although I lead the article with the claim that Assad “can neither be bribed nor intimidated into making a ‘strategic realignment’ until he first reconciles with the Syrian people,” I’m not saying that the sectarian power imbalance in Syria is the only determining factor.
QN: How would you explain Assad’s repeated attempts to get Israel to negotiate on the Golan, as well as the assessment of many of Israel’s top military advisors that Assad is serious about pursuing peace? Is he just playing the process and fooling even the most hard-nosed of his enemies?
Well, clearly Assad derives enormous benefits from the process of negotiating with Israel, irrespective of the outcome, so his desire to negotiate does not itself reveal much about ultimate intentions. Even if we take him at his word that he wants a settlement, he has said little publicly to suggest that he would be willing to make the kind of strategic realignment demanded by Israel even if it is willing to withdraw completely from the Golan.
Of course, Assad has every right to insist that normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel not automatically entail full-blown friendship (a demand that is certainly not typical of most peace settlements). I just don’t think he’s going to get his way. He doesn’t have his father’s international credibility, and he played a far deadlier role in sponsoring terrorism against Israelis. He’s going to have to show them the money to get the Golan back, and I don’t see him doing that anytime soon.
QN: In Syria’s Triumph in Lebanon: Au Revoir les Ententes, you argued that Syria has returned to dominance in Lebanon. How is the present state of affairs different from the conditions that obtained in the 1990s and early 2000s?
GG: Regional and international toleration has always been a critical enabler of Syria’s domination of Lebanon, and the attitudes of all the major external players are gradually reverting back to form. The fact that Western and Arab governments have stopped criticizing Syria’s conduct in Lebanon (apart from its transshipment of weapons to Hezbollah) and embraced the contrived fiction that Assad is “mediating” between Saad Hariri and Hezbollah is eerily reminiscent of the days when they pretended there wasn’t an occupation (the word itself was literally absent from American official statements on Lebanon until 2003). Continuing American antagonism toward Hezbollah suits the Syrians just fine – their value as a “mediator” is enhanced if Hezbollah isn’t getting along with the international community.
Internally, most Lebanese political elites are seeking amicable relations with Syria (even as many denounce Hezbollah). The lack of uproar over the recent disappearance of four Syrian political dissidents in Lebanon is really sad.
Syrian troops haven’t returned, but that’s the beauty of it for Assad. Domination without (or nearly without) occupation is exactly what Assad was trying to achieve in 2001-2004 with the drawdown of Syrian forces and the elevation of President Emile Lahoud over Hariri.
QN: Are there any opportunities for Lebanon to gain a credible measure of sovereignty over its affairs?
What is “sovereignty” in a country as divided as Lebanon? If you mean a government that asserts its prerogatives in accordance with the “will of the people,” Lebanon has the most sovereign state in the Arab world – it performs exactly as the country’s democratically elected leaders intend it to. The problem is that the “will of the people” is fractured and contradictory.
The Lebanese people will have to take it upon themselves to strive for something higher. The demonstration against sectarianism in Beirut earlier this month was a hopeful sign, but a few thousand people is a far cry from the kind of popular mobilization needed for the Lebanese to follow in the footsteps of Egypt and Tunisia.
QN: Who killed Rafiq al-Hariri?
GG: I’ve been very careful not to play into the Syria-bashing that has been in vogue in Washington, and I have serious doubts as to whether Syria was involved in some of the subsequent assassinations frequently attributed to it (especially Pierre Gemayel and Brig.-Gen. François al-Hajj). But in my view the Assad regime was almost certainly responsible for the Hariri killing. I’ll explain my reasoning step by step:
1. It would have been virtually impossible for anyone outside of Syria’s extended network of clients and proxies to cleanly pull off such a complex operation in the heart of Syrian-occupied Beirut. There certainly was no precedent of uninvited guests operating at anywhere near this level of sophistication under the nose of the Syrians. Israel probably could have pulled off the hit, but not cleanly (hundreds of former Israeli agents rotting in Lebanese prisons today testify to its sloppy covert ops). If the Israelis did it, there would have to have been a conspiracy on the part of both the UN investigative commission and at least some Lebanese security officials to bury evidence pointing in that direction. That seems wildly implausible to me.
2. It’s virtually inconceivable that elements inside this network would have taken it upon themselves to kill a leading Lebanese political figure without say so from Syrian intelligence officials in Lebanon, and virtually inconceivable that the latter would have given the order without authorization from Assad. There is no precedent of either, and it’s difficult to plausibly reconstruct what factional interests might have been served by “rogue” operators killing Hariri.
3. The behavior of Jamil al-Sayyid and other top Syrian appointed Lebanese security officials after the killing simply isn’t consistent with the frenzy of activity one would expect in the wake of an unapproved killing of such a major figure. These are the same guys who once sent tanks through the streets of Beirut because of a false rumor that Aoun was returning from exile.
4. The telecommunications evidence that Hezbollah members were conducting surveillance of Hariri before and during the assassination is pretty damning once you closely examine the methodology (e.g. “collocation” of cell-phone signals). Hezbollah would not have gotten involved without Syrian collaboration.
5. The Syrians had by far the strongest motive of anyone for wanting Hariri dead. Hariri was quietly coordinating with the emerging Christian and Druze opposition with the intention of crushing pro-Syrian loyalists in the 2005 elections, as well as with French and American efforts to pressure Syria to disengage from Lebanon. Hariri got killed right at the moment when everyone was wondering what in the hell the Syrians were going to do about Hariri.
Am I ABSOLUTELY certain that the Syrians killed Hariri? No. Am I absolutely certain that the Libyans killed Musa Sadr or that Geagea’s Lebanese Forces killed Prime Minister Rashid Karami? Or for that matter that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK? No. But let’s not kid ourselves. Let’s also not pretend that every other government in the Arab world wouldn’t resort to murder in fending off serious political challenges. Recently leaked Egyptian State Security files indicate (if authentic) that the Mubarak regime carried out the Alexandria church bombing in a clumsy attempt to strengthen its pretext for tyrannical rule.
QN: You’ve argued that the STL (and the UNIIIC before it) was compromised by the blunders of Detlev Mehlis.
GG: Yes. Mehlis either was duped into staking the credibility of the UNIIIC on dubious witness testimonies in his first interim report to the Security Council or knowingly attempted to pass off unreliable witness testimonies as solid evidence. So he was either incompetent or unethical. All hope of a judicial process that would be broadly perceived by the Lebanese people as impartial and just was lost on his watch, which is a shame because his successors seemed to have pulled it together. The upcoming indictments are, according to all indications, based on compelling evidence that has in no way been tainted by the missteps of Mehlis, but they won’t be perceived as such by a great many Lebanese of all sects. Don’t be surprised if Hezbollah one day erects a statue of the German prosecutor.
QN: What kind of effect, if any, will the published indictments have upon the political arena in Lebanon, particularly if they do name members of Hezbollah?
GG: It’s difficult to say. On the one hand, incontrovertible evidence of Hezbollah’s involvement is a glaring violation of its long-standing pledge not to use violence to settle domestic political disputes. This is a much more serious violation of its so-called “purity of arms” than its route of Sunni and Druze militias in May 2008 (which at least was in defense of a fiber optic telecommunications system unquestionably vital to its military struggle against Israel). The late Hariri made no secret of his desire for peace with Israel and unquestionably encouraged his foreign allies to intercede on his behalf with Syria, but he cannot be said to have posed a clear and present danger to the “resistance” – killing him was out and out murder even under Hezbollah’s own moral code. I myself was VERY skeptical of the allegation when Der Speigel first broke the story of Hezbollah’s involvement in May 2009, but the evidence now appears indisputable.
However, Hezbollah’s saving grace is the fact that large numbers of Lebanese (85% of Shiites, 54% of Christians, and 21% of Sunnis, according to one recent poll) don’t accept the legitimacy of the tribunal. Moreover, there has been a long lead time between confirmation of Hezbollah’s rumored indictment last summer and the indictments themselves. People have had a long time to adjust to the news and draw their own conclusions, so unless the indictments contain a surprise we don’t know about, the worst may already be over for Hezbollah.
QN: How do you assess the current position and identity of the Free Patriotic Movement? How durable is the alliance between the Aounists and the “Resistance camp”?
GG: I haven’t been paying close attention to the inner workings of the FPM as of late, but I expect its alliance with Hezbollah to endure for quite some time. Aoun’s decision-making, from his choice of election partners in 2005 to his alliance with Hezbollah the following year and subsequent reconciliation with Syria, has been largely driven by the constraints and opportunities afforded by the positions of other players. The refusal of March 14 to accept his presidential candidacy (despite the fact that his party won over two-thirds of the Christian vote in the 2005 elections) made this alignment an inevitability. Any other Lebanese politician in his situation would have done the same thing (indeed, Hariri and Jumblatt DID do essentially the same thing when they allied with the Shiite bloc against Aoun in the 2005 elections). That’s how the game is played in Lebanon, and Aoun has proven to be a quick learner since returning from exile. The presidency is his if he can live long enough to claim it in 2014.
August 16, 2010
Last month, I reviewed The Ghosts of Martyrs Square, Michael Young’s new book, for The Nation. Shortly after the review appeared, I got in touch with Mr. Young and invited him to expand upon certain themes from his book in the form of a QN interview.
Very much looking forward to the discussion that follows.
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Q: You ended your book by saying that sectarianism, at best, can be “a way station on the path toward a Lebanon that is a common concern for all its citizens.” Elsewhere, you have spoken of the need for a new “social contract” in Lebanese political life. Could you describe what you think that social contract might look like, in broad terms?
MY: In Lebanon’s post-Independence history, there have been two broad agreements to define sectarian relations: the National Pact of 1943 and the Taif Accord of 1989. Both were the culmination of previous political developments, traditions, proposed reforms, interferences by outside powers, and so forth. For better or worse, they came to define political relations in Lebanon, at least in a formal way, though often, as during the years of the Syrian military presence, Lebanese political life was shaped by Syrian interests and by Syria’s ability to exploit Lebanese divisions and power relations.
The result was a further degradation of our constitutional institutions, adding to their already considerable degradation during the 15-year war. In that context, what remained of our social contract as something positive disintegrated. Left in its place was a negative understanding of social relations, whereby Lebanese society was no longer there as a common concern for its citizens, but as a place defined largely by a minimalist sense of self-preservation, usually communal self-preservation, with Syria serving as able manipulator of this very negative notion of statehood. Communal leaders calculated largely in terms of how their decisions might play out with respect to Damascus. When the Syrians left, the Lebanese were too divided to develop a new social contract, as well as being prevented from doing so, a reality infinitely complicated by the fact that Hezbollah has no interest in a social contract that offers it anything less than full autonomy to retain its weapons, mainly on Iran’s behalf.
What social contract would I welcome? We can go into the details later, but in general, and ideally, one in which sectarianism has been transcended, but also where the liberal impulses that sectarianism has created spaces for–paradoxical spaces, for sectarianism is often based on illiberal institutions–are preserved. What preoccupies me in Lebanon above all is liberty, and the ability of the society to block or avert the rise of a single party or coalition of forces that may seek to impose its will on all. The confessional system has, for better or worse, been the prime mechanism preventing this. But as you noted quite correctly, I see it only as a way station toward a system where the Lebanese define themselves not by their differences, but by their common desire to defend a pluralistic, democratic system.
To achieve this, and I’m speaking in very broad terms here, the Lebanese need to find mechanisms to gradually break down bastions of sectarianism, albeit within a sectarian context at first, because this bargain alone can offer the tradeoffs allowing the communities to accept change. Otherwise, nothing will be achieved; society will not suddenly agree to jump from sectarianism to a system shorn of sectarianism, nor is this even sociologically realizable. Resistance to such an endeavor would undermine reform from the start.
I must add, however, that I don’t see that any progress will be possible until a solution can be found to Hezbollah’s arms. No community, least of all the Sunnis, will engage in national negotiation on reform in the face of a militia that has made amply clear, above all in May 2008, that it will resort to violence against its fellow Lebanese to defend its autonomy. Hezbollah is an anti-state, in many respects, and it would block any efforts to surrender its weapons in return for greater power to the Shiite community–though, for what it’s worth, I have proposed such an exchange in several of my articles. My point was, let’s impose this choice on Hezbollah and follow the liar to his doorstep, as the Arab saying goes, and compel Hezbollah to admit that it views its partisan interests as more important than those of Lebanon’s Shiites. But Hezbollah knows one thing better than most: without its weapons the party would effectively cease being Hezbollah.
Q: You have frequently criticized various Maronite Christian political leaders (from Michel Aoun to the Gemayel clan and Suleiman Frangieh) for their “inability to come to grips with the sectarian contract of 1943… [and] the Taif Accord,” and you’ve characterized many of their proposals as leading towards “communal suicide.” To what extent are these leaders merely pandering to public opinion on the “Christian street”, and is there any politically viable way to sell deconfessionalism to Lebanon’s Christians?
MY: Certainly, there is demagoguery involved in the way many Christian, particularly Maronite, leaders have opposed political reform as laid out in the Taif Accord. That said, a parliamentary majority in 1989, as well as Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, were defenders of Taif, so I think we need to be careful when we say this.
The problem today is that it is very difficult to persuade the Maronites in particular that their surrendering sectarian quotas in parliament and the presidency may be the only way for the community to extract itself from an often debilitating sense of decline. To an extent I can understand this fear. The state the Maronites will surrender power to is hardly one inspiring confidence. What is necessary for such a reform process to work is a national dialogue that can address fears on all sides, but particularly on the side of the Christians, who have the most to lose from a termination of the 50-50 ratio in parliament.
On the other hand, I feel, perhaps idealistically, that only when the Christians liberate themselves from the belief that their role in Lebanon is intimately tied into the number of seats they hold in parliament and Maronite control of the presidency, will they begin to examine more carefully the vital role they play, or can play, in Lebanese society; and only then will Christians gain in confidence. If everything is reduced to numbers and shares, the Christians, naturally, will feel perennially weak, because the numbers and shares are not in their favor. But when we talk about the intangibles—the fact that Christians add a dimension to Lebanon not found in most other Arab societies, that they tend to form a cosmopolitan community with great depth in the diaspora, hence are more powerful than they know, that educationally and historically Christians have brought a lot to Lebanon—then the Christian self-image can change.
Alas, I see very little impetus for change among Christians today. The community, which is in most respects my own, for I’m half-Maronite by birth, is characterized by a lack of political vigor and imagination, of economic innovation and daring, and of intellectual dynamism when it comes to the community and its role in Lebanon.
Photo credit: the NYT's very talented photog in Beirut (and elsewhere), Bryan Denton
I think that Muslim leaders, at least those concerned with Lebanon’s future as a pluralistic, open society, would much prefer a confident Christian community to a depressed one. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not sensible to view Lebanon in a mechanistic, static way as either a Christian or Muslim country. This is a place with infinite and invigorating fault lines, but if we want to focus on sect, than the least we can say is that it is a country of Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians, each with their very different priorities, worldviews, histories, and so on. The dynamics between these three large groups (and granted the internal divisions within each community) are complex, and to me have rendered anachronistic the simplistic Christian-Muslim dichotomy of the past. In this context, self-isolation is disastrous.
But let me add one final thought, and a key one. The Christians are better off embracing political reforms now, voluntarily, and I mean by this the Taif reform process, than finding themselves one day forced to surrender sectarian quotas because the Muslims are in agreement that the time has come for them to do so–because after all that is what Taif mandated. Better to negotiate reform from a position of strength, rather than to clutch on to eroding powers, behaving as an increasingly isolated irritant to the other Lebanese communities.
Q: How would a peace agreement between Syria and Israel impact Lebanon, in your view?
MY: That depends on what basis it is agreed. During the 1990s, the principle according to which the Syrians, the Israelis, but also the Americans and the Europeans, conducted negotiations, was that Syria would recover the Golan Heights, and only then would a discussion be opened relating to Syria’s presence in Lebanon. In specific terms this meant delaying all discussion of Resolution 425 (1978), which called for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory, until the parties could resolve the Israeli occupation of the Golan under Resolution 242 (1967). Needless to say, this was effectively a way of saying that no one would challenge Syrian hegemony over Lebanon while peace negotiations were taking place.
This equation broke down in May 2000, when the Israelis withdrew from Lebanon, even though Syria and Hezbollah tried to keep the southern front open by literally inventing the Shebaa Farms pretext. I believe it was Nabih Berri who managed to dig the issue up from some dark recess. Hardly a soul at the time could find the farms on a map.
But until the Israeli withdrawal, when negotiations were still ongoing, the Syrian president, Hafiz al-Assad, believed that once an agreement was reached between Syria and Israel, no one would really challenge the Syrian role in Lebanon afterward, particularly if Damascus offered to guarantee the Lebanese side of a peace agreement with Israel and compel Hezbollah to go along with any final settlement.
In other words, Assad had managed to lock himself into a negotiation where he would be handed back the Golan, but then would receive Lebanon as an additional incentive, or should I say endowment. It was very cynical, a clever move on Assad’s part, and I am persuaded that that is still Bashar al-Assad’s aim–of course assuming that negotiations resume one day. Certainly, Bashar’s interest in re-imposing Syrian domination over Lebanon would indicate it is.
I don’t see a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel before one that takes place between Syria and Israel. Nor am I persuaded that Syria will enter into talks with Israel without the Lebanese card in hand first as leverage for a favorable deal. Going even further, I don’t see that the Syrians really regard the Golan Heights as a priority; their priority is to win back Lebanon, which politically and economically reaps much more, even as they are far more interested in a process of negotiation than a settlement, which would force the regime to dismantle a substantial part of its security apparatus—which it doesn’t want to do, because it protects the minority Alawite regime.
By the same token, I don’t see that there is much interest in Israel to hand over the Golan, particularly in the absence of a comprehensive settlement that includes the Palestinians as well. And since Israel does not seem willing to give up anything on that front either, I think we can safely say that no serious peace negotiations are in store for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure if I answered your question, but perhaps in the grimmest way possible I have.
Q: What kinds of reform mechanisms might actually bring about real institutional change in Lebanese politics? When Nabih Berri proposed the creation of a national commission to explore the possibility of implementing the Taif Accord, the response from the Christians was instantly hostile, and they were abetted in their rejection of his proposal by their allies in the Future Movement (and to a lesser extent in Hizbullah). Similarly, the Boutros Commission’s draft law and subsequent electoral reform proposals from Interior Minister Ziad Baroud have been summarily dismissed. How does one move forward without a strong executive pushing reform through?
MY: I think you’re addressing several issues here: the nature of reform, the fear of the Christians, who will lose the most in any reform effort, and implementation of reform. I’ll look at the first and third, as we’ve already discussed the Christians.
On the nature of reform, I believe that Taif has outlined a mechanism that is specific enough to be a road map toward change, but also vague enough that it allows flexibility. Taif, as I said earlier, was an accumulation of ideas on political reform that had been circulating since the mid-1970s. I agree that ultimately Lebanon should move toward a deconfessionalized parliament, though I believe it necessary to establish, at least for an initial period, a Senate where all the communities can be represented, to reassure the groups who will be expected to lose the most power, above all the Maronites.
I think a rotation of senior posts between all communities, or even between the Maronites, Sunnis, Shiites, and Druze (if a Senate is created), if that is the best we can hope for, would be a step in the right direction. Yes, the proposal is sectarian in many ways, but it would also break the unhealthy bond that communities have tended to create with particular leadership posts. In this way it could widen the horizons for all the communities, particularly the Maronites, who cannot see that their insistence on retaining the presidency, the weakest of the top three posts, is marginalizing them.
Alongside this, I am also in favor of deeply changing social relations. Civil marriage has to be permitted, and the establishment of a non-sectarian sect is something to be considered. The religious establishments in Lebanon are stifling, and that is the problem. They will resist this, and the politicians as well as a substantial portion of the population that falls for the canard that greater secularization is somehow an abuse of morality will side with them. However, that doesn’t prevent Lebanese society from gradually striving to create secular spaces. Reforms aiming at deconfessionalizing the society may create the momentum needed to introduce significant changes in society, though we should not underestimate the difficulties.
Ultimately, will Lebanon be able to shed the confessional system? I think such a process will take much time, as it’s in our DNA, and it would be naïve to insist, in the name of political correctness, that this can and should be done rapidly. Nor do I believe it’s a good idea to enforce deconfessionalization by writ, since it simply would not work.
I will address only briefly the issue of executive power as mechanism for pushing reform. Which executive power do you mean? The president’s? The prime minister’s? The cabinet’s? Each institution reflects Lebanon’s sectarian contradictions. Either everyone must agree, which requires tradeoffs, or nothing gets done. Is this the definition of a dysfunctional system? Of course it is. But when you speak of a “strong executive”, what you’re really doing is creating a vicious circle: You need a strong executive to impose reform, but you need reform to create a strong executive… And the sectarian nature of the system has a tendency to neutralize both sides of that equation.
You mentioned the Boutros Commission. With all due respect for its work, and for many of those participating in its meetings, among whom I count several friends, that project was a pie in the sky. In no way would the political class have ever accepted such a scheme, nor did the Lebanese even understand it, so complicated were its proposals. It was the work of intellectuals and academics, individuals of high intelligence doubtless, but it went against the sordid grain of how Lebanese politics are generally conducted. It was never going to get very far among the politicians who had the final say on it.
It was a gamble, I suppose, to at least introduce new ideas into political practice, to get the ball rolling, such as allowing expatriate Lebanese to vote, which I think is necessary. However, beyond that it was dead on arrival. I agree with you that electoral reforms, particularly things like proportional representation or the direct election of the president, have the capacity to fundamentally alter the Lebanese political system. Yet that is precisely why the political class will undermine such measures at every turn.
Q: In your book and in various other writings, you’ve criticized the figure of the “statist”: the politician who has no regard for the sectarian system and tries to break it in favor of a more consolidated central hierarchy. Statists include figures such as Fouad Chehab and Bashir Gemayel, but also Michel Aoun and Hassan Nasrallah. In your view, was Rafiq al-Hariri not a statist? What about March 14th’s politicians today, with their calls for “building the state”? And is statism necessarily a vice?
MY: I would certainly not include Nasrallah in the category of “statist”, as I consider Hezbollah to be, almost by definition, a personification of an anti-state. Bashir Gemayel wanted to strengthen the state, certainly, but I believe he saw the state very much in sectarian terms, as the life raft of the declining Maronites, so I would greatly hesitate to place him in the same sentence as Fouad Chehab.
As for Aoun, he is no more than an opportunist when it comes to the state—a man who will fight the Lebanese Forces in 1989 and 1990 because allegedly he could not accept an armed militia, this in a time of generalized civil war; but who now advocates Hezbollah’s right to retain its weapons, at a time when there is a state, or some semblance of one. I believe that Aoun’s driving ambition always was to join the ranks of the traditional political class, and he saw the state as his ticket. Now that he’s succeeded, all he really wants to do is preserve a dynasty by handing the political and economic power of the Aounist movement off to his sons in law, because he doesn’t have a son of his own. Meanwhile he will say and do anything for or against the state to maintain his power, and keep this semi-filial venture alive.
What about Hariri? Hariri was a statist, but he also very much became a traditional politician. When he began his reconstruction effort in the early 1990s, he did two contradictory things: he revived those state bureaucracies he needed to advance his agenda, and in some cases tied them more rigidly to the prime minister’s office. For example, he revived and streamlined the Finance Ministry and gave new impetus to the Council for Development and Reconstruction, whose budget was attached to his office.
But Hariri also sought ways to circumvent the ministries and administrations he could not control, and in that sense his project could not really be called a project of national administrative resurrection. In some ways perhaps this was understandable, as it allowed him to move his program forward. But the state wasn’t the better for it. He tried an administrative reform effort, but all it really turned into was an administrative purge, one he was forced to backtrack on. So in that sense Hariri was a paradoxical statist, at best.
But Hariri also became a quintessential traditional leader. He devastated the traditional families in Beirut in the 2000 elections, effectively replacing them, though he had already made major political inroads in the capital as of 1992. He became the leading Sunni, and succeeded through his wealth and patronage networks in expanding his reach to Sunnis around the country, even if the Syrians always made it a priority to contain or undercut him, particularly in the North and Beqaa where their means of intimidation was especially efficient. By the time he became prime minister in 2000, Hariri was the main enemy to a powerful part of the state, particularly its intelligence and security services, and that year’s election was the first major revolt of the traditional politicians against Emile Lahoud.
But after this long introduction, let me hasten to correct you. I’m not critical of the statist, as such, despite my libertarianism. Some level of state presence is always necessary. Fouad Chehab, for instance, merits considerable admiration. Lebanon’s first major post-Independence institutional reform program occurred mainly during his mandate (though Camille Chamoun was not idle on that front), and I’ve always had great respect for many of those who rose from Chehabist ranks, such as Fouad Boutros, Elias Sarkis, and so on. Rather, I’m critical of the abuse that has often accompanied statism in Lebanon.
To simplify, there have been two broad power structures in Lebanon, even if that has changed in the last decade and a half. There have been the traditional leaders, whose power derives from such things as family, money, or some other form of primary loyalty; and there have been those seeking to challenge the traditional leaders, and whose only available instrument has been the state, and specifically the sticks of the state, namely the security and intelligence services.
At the time of Chehab, as you well know, the political system drifted into a conflict between the traditional leaders and the Deuxième Bureau, or the military’s intelligence service. We saw a lesser replay of that under Emile Lahoud in 1998, when he tried to use the various security services against Rafiq al-Hariri. But Lahoud was no Chehab, and Hariri benefited from the collaboration on occasion of the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan, who saw an opportunity to cut Lahoud down to size, play Hariri and Lahoud off against one another, and ensure that Lebanon remained under Syria’s thumb.
In the past 35 years, after the war started, state institutions have gradually deteriorated, and the Syrian presence, particularly after the war between 1990 and 2005, exacerbated this, even if there was improvement in certain sectors. The judiciary is in urgent need of reform; the state bureaucracy tends to be inefficient, bloated, and corrupt; the army is a house of many mansions; the electricity utility is a cancerous mess, and so on. For one to defend the state in Lebanon imposes a question: What state are you defending? Certainly, the traditional sectarian leaders have contributed to corrupting the state, but so too have those within state institutions.
We can’t hide behind a wall of theory here. What practical means can Lebanon adopt to ameliorate the state? Unfortunately, the answer has eluded generations of political leaders, and in the absence of an answer, the traditional leaders have benefited.
However, I wouldn’t want to suggest that I defend the traditional leaders. They do, in general, allow for a more pluralistic system by default, because they balance each other out; and such equilibrium, or call it gridlock, has, historically, created wider spaces for free expression. But beyond that the political leaders, from all persuasions, have tended to feed on the state and derail all reforms. But to righteously raise statism as one’s standard is meaningless if the state is as bad or worse than the traditional leaders.
July 9, 2010
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.
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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.
July 2, 2010
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.
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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?
June 30, 2010
Dr. Nadim Shehadi (bio) has very kindly agreed to answer some questions about the issue of improving the civil rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. This blog hosted two very interesting discussions on this topic a couple of weeks ago, and so I’m grateful to Nadim for agreeing to discuss the policy dimensions of the issue.
Please feel free to leave any additional questions you may have in the comment section.
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QN: How likely do you think it is that this Lebanese government will pass some kind of legislation aimed at improving the civil rights of Palestinian refugees?
NS: My view is that the likelihood is quite high, I feel that the debate has evolved a lot in the past four years and that the mood in the country is to discuss things in the open. It is normal for all the skeletons to come out of the cupboards on such a sensitive subject. I think that if a positive outcome is reached it would mean that Lebanon has really recovered from the civil war.
QN: If legislation is passed, what do you think its broad outlines are likely to be (as far as health, social security, labor, and property rights are concerned)?
NS: There are two options. One is that they resolve the issues gradually, one by one (i.e. employment, reciprocity, association law, property etc.) Two is that they do a whole package and resolve all the pending legal issues in one legislative move.
I am in favor of option two because the political cost of each gradual move is the same as for all the bundle together. They must hit it on the head and finish with this problem once and for all. If they do that then it will strengthen the government’s hand in discussing arms and security issues later. But to get to that stage they must also resolve the legal issues unilaterally without linking them to any quid-pro-quo over arms.
The danger with option one is that they would compromise at every stage and use up all the political credit leaving things unresolved. If this happens then the government’s position will be weakened when they come to discussing arms. If they use rights to leverage over arms they will get nowhere.
QN: Walid Jumblatt introduced the emergency laws at a plenary session of Parliament on June 15th, catching many of his allies and adversaries off guard. Why, in your opinion, has this issue come up at this moment in time?
NS: Jumblatt’s democratic gathering made a statement about Palestinian rights in 2005. At the time it was a demand to resolve outstanding issues away from the internal Lebanese political wrangling. This was partly a reaction to President Lahoud repeating over and over again that he wanted to renew his presidency and would never resign because he was there to protect Lebanon from the conspiracy of tawteen or permanent settlement. The issue of tawteen was exploited also by the Syrians who repeated that they were there to protect Lebanon from it.
Then there was the question of appointing Wael Boufaour of the PSP as minister of state for Palestinian Refugees. That mobilised the PSP into organizing a conference in January. After the conference it took them a long time to mobilize and produce the draft that was presented on the 15th of June. They took that long because they lost steam after the appointment of Boufaour did not materialize.
The laws were presented in a normal manner and they would have usually been automatically been sent to the parliamentary committees for discussion. But it seems that Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri tabulated them for discussion and a vote on that day and this is what took everybody by surprise.
QN: Do you believe that any such legislation is “a step towards naturalization”, as many politicians are claiming, or is this simply a scare tactic?
NS: The problem is that since there is no legal definition of what constitutes ‘naturalization’ or tawteen, potentially any step that facilitates or prepares the ground for permanent settlement could be interpreted as anti-constitutional.
A necessary step to break the deadlock is to agree on a legal definition of tawteen. The SSNP presented a draft law to that effect last week and if it is adopted it would be a very positive move.
In reality, the status of refugees is completely unrelated to naturalization. Their rights are the same whether they live in poverty in a camp or whether they live in luxury and even have acquired another citizenship. A Palestinian in Canada with Canadian nationality can still claim the right of return and compensation, it is theoretically an individual right that is not dependent on status. In any case, whatever the outcome of the negotiations over refugees, no refugee will be forced to do anything they do not want to do. The refugees will be presented with options that are clearly defined and each individual with exercise a choice between the different options. The implementation process will take at least 10-15 years after the agreement has been reached.
QN: Are fears about the impact of such legislation on the economy and on security justified?
This is the only really tangible question and a very important one. The problem is that we do not have proper data or impact analysis related to these legislations. The reason is that the debate so far has been more emotional than rational and touches on all the traumas and phobias that are the legacy of the civil war. This is true both for Palestinians and Lebanese.
It is very important to understand that the laws will not change things radically; this is because Palestinians in Lebanon work in most professions and do not obtain a work permit. The law is not really enforceable. The figures are really misleading too. In one of the speeches today, it was mentioned that there are 136,000 foreigners who were given work permits in 2007 and that only 261 Palestinians were given work permits and that this is discrimination. This is a false and very misleading image, it gives the impression that there are 422,000 Palestinians in Lebanon and that 421,739 of them are being ‘denied’ a work permit, denied is an often used word. The reason there are only 261 work permits is that only 261 were applied for.
In reality what you need in Lebanon is a residence permit and to obtain it you need to have a work permit. So if you are a resident already, like Palestinian refugees are, and do not need a resident permit then you do not need to bother getting one. The disadvantages are there, you do not get social security, and you can get exploited by your employer – and your employer exploiting you may even be another Palestinian refugee.
Doing away with the work permit requirement for the refugees will ease things and will probably not increase the Palestinian work-force by much. They are already here and they are already working they will just be happier and working legally. Many advocates insist on saying that Palestinians cannot work in 72 jobs and if you say no its 71.5 then you are treated worse than a holocaust denier.
The truth it that we do not really know the exact number of jobs they cannot legally do even if they wanted to. The Ministry of Labour lawyers identified 14 jobs that all foreigners are banned from if they do not belong to a country that has reciprocity agreements with Lebanon. A study of the various laws and agreements may reveal one or two more. But in the end what difference does it make? Palestinians have no incentives to apply for a work permit and you can neither force them nor stop them. Changing the law in a way adjust the texts to reality on the ground.
Advocates of Palestinian rights in Lebanon do a lot of harm by exaggerating the situation. Some of them are probably also still fighting the Lebanese civil war or the civil rights movement in the US.
I can give loads of examples. How many times have you read that Palestinians in Lebanon are denied the “right of association”? Whereas in reality there are in Lebanon more Palestinian associations, parties, NGOs, civil society organizations and clubs than anywhere else. The truth about this is that those who want to register their association have to have a board with a Lebanese citizen on it. If not they just don’t register and it does not make that big a difference. Allowing Palestinians to sit on the board of associations will only mean that more associations will register – it does not mean that you will create hundreds or thousands of new associations. The impact is minimal.
Property law is the worst; I do not see how the discrimination can be justified. It was only passed in 2001 and its application is even worse than the law itself. However, the amendment to the law that discriminates against the Palestinians will cancel itself out once a Palestinian state is recognized and since Lebanon accepts this through its affiliation to the Arab Peace Initiative then it is Lebanese policy to recognize the state. The impact of changing the property law to allow Palestinians the same quota as other non Lebanese citizens will initially mean that all those who own property already will be legalised. This is a complex issue and I am not sure about its impact. One thing is sure, the Lebanese state will never take away any Palestinian property in Lebanon on the grounds that it is illegally owned.
The big unknown is the issue of Social Security. Again numbers are not as frightening as it is assumed but we need to do a proper impact analysis on this to reassure those who are claiming that it will cost billions. Only Palestinians who are regularly employed and make social security contributions will benefit from it. Again the figures being thrown around are very inflated and alarmist. The entire Palestinian population in Lebanon is around 250,000 at most. Of these a maximum of 40-50, 000 are active and according to some studies up to 70 percent of them are in entrepreneurial businesses i.e are not employed in a job that would require social security registration.
QN: Any other thoughts?
NS: Khalass bikaffi 
Tayyib, one last thought if only to repeat the importance of not linking any solution to rights with any thinking about security.
 | danny on Lebanon, By the Numbers |
 | Ghassan Karam on Lebanon, By the Numbers |
 | 3issa on Lebanon, By the Numbers |
 | Qifa Nabki on Lebanon, By the Numbers |
 | Norman on Lebanon, By the Numbers |
What I’m reading…
