Syria

Archived Posts from this Category

January 16, 2012

Lebanese Parliamentarians’ Salaries & Benefits

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, Reform, Syria
[8] Comments 

I can’t resist plugging my father’s recent appearance on Al-Fasad, a great evening talk show in Lebanon that addresses political and economic corruption. Abu Elias addressed, among other things, the issue of parliamentarian compensation in Lebanon, which is scandalously high.

This was the second installment in a series on the subject. See here for his first appearance on the show. And for English speakers, here’s a report from a couple years back that deals with this issue (but its figures do not take into account the expense incurred for insurance premiums…)

On another note, I recommend checking out this Wikileaks cable from 2009, which sheds interesting light on the personalities of the top brass in the Assad regime. (h/t Rime Allaf)

Finally, I feel I should explain my infrequent posting these days. Over the past few months, I’ve been working on finishing up my dissertation, launching a new research project, and preparing for a new job. I’ve got a couple months left before I graduate, and then things should be back to normal around here. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep up appearances…

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December 28, 2011

Syria’s Defecting Bloggers

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Arab Politics, My articles, Syria | Tags: , , , , |
[240] Comments 

I’ve been a little obsessed with the changes in the Arab blogosphere over the past year, and the Syrian blogs are among the most interesting to me, perhaps because I’ve been reading several of these bloggers for years. The shift in perspective as a result of the uprising is remarkable. People like Robin Yassin-Kassab and Off the Wall (and their readers) are elaborating, dialectically, a new meaning of Arab liberalism.

Here are the first few paragraphs from my weekly piece for the New York Times global opinion page, which deals with this subject.

*

The images out of Syria this month are gut-wrenching. Two suicide bombers killed dozens of people in Damascus on Friday, an alarming ratcheting-up of the violence in a conflict that some fear is starting to look more like a civil war by the day.

Within hours of the attacks, Twitter, Facebook and the Arab blogosphere were boiling over with claims and counterclaims. Some accepted the Syrian government’s statement that Friday’s bombers were affiliated with Al Qaeda; others, who are sympathetic to the opposition, want to see President Bashar al-Assad fall (see here, here and here).

This highly polarized response is symptomatic of a broader culture war that has recently emerged among Syria watchers. For the first decade of Assad’s presidency, most Syrian blogs I read were fairly supportive of the regime because of its commitment to the Palestinian cause and its opposition to the United States and Israel. But this year has changed everything. (keep reading)
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November 23, 2011

Hizbullah, Mikati, and the STL Funding Showdown

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, Syria | Tags: , , , , |
[18] Comments 

Ever since Najib Mikati took over as Prime Minister of Lebanon earlier this year, things have gone relatively smoothly. With no opposition in the cabinet, there have been few opportunities for conflict (with the exception of the odd squabble between Michel Aoun and his disgruntled allies).

All that could change next week. The cabinet must finally take up the ticking time bomb that they’ve been avoiding for months (and which was the downfall of Saad Hariri’s government), namely the issue of funding the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

For obvious reasons, Hizbullah is opposed to funding the court, as is AMAL. And Michel Aoun, per his usual custom, has played the role of the intransigent rejectionist to the hilt, going so far as to declare: “Even if Hizbullah approves the funding, we’ll vote against it.”

The problem is that it’s not in Hizbullah’s interests, at this stage, to create an international incident over the STL, and this is what may well happen if Lebanon reneges on its obligation to the court. The Americans and Europeans have made it abundantly clear over the past several weeks that there would be dire consequences if Lebanon severs its ties to the STL.

What this means is still  unclear. However, when one combines Lebanon’s recent stance at the Arab League on the Syrian uprising with the prospect of ending its cooperation with the Tribunal, it seems straightforward to assume that Hizbullah’s opponents (in Lebanon and abroad) will seize the opportunity to argue that the Mikati government is nothing more than an extension of the Syrian regime, and should be treated as such by the international community.

Hizbullah would prefer to avoid such a scenario, as they understand that their position on Syria has not done them many favors in Lebanon or the rest of the region. The problem is, even if they wanted to find a solution that would keep the hounds at bay while allowing them to save face by voting against the funding, it’s not clear how they would do so.

As far as I have been able to ascertain from my conversations in Beirut this week, approving the funding requires a simple majority vote in the thirty-member cabinet. At present, Hizbullah and its allies hold eighteen seats, while the remaining twelve are divided between ministers loyal to Mikati, President Sleiman, and Walid Jumblatt. In other words, there is no way to compose the necessary majority to approve the funding without using ministers from the shares of Hizbullah, Amal, or the FPM.

So we’re faced with a situation whereby either one of those three parties has to reverse its policy on the funding, or they all hold a firm line and Lebanon drops the STL like a bad habit. Neither scenario is  ideal, from the current majority’s perspective.

One possible solution that has been floated is that the cabinet passes the hot potato to the Parliament, where  a majority in favor of the funding can be assembled by having Walid Jumblatt vote with his old allies. I’m not sure this is a constitutionally legitimate move, but I’ve been told that it could be the basis for a typically Lebanese fudge.

Whatever happens, we’re sure to see Saad Hariri make a serious push next week at the Tripoli gathering to put as much pressure as possible on Najib Mikati to resign. My sense is that Hizbullah would prefer to keep this government afloat and out of the Syrian cross-fire, but not at the expense of voting for the tribunal themselves. If the parliamentary solution doesn’t work and the cabinet can’t muster the votes, Mikati will probably walk and Hizbullah will let him do so.

In that scenario, we’ll be back to treading water with no government, and things will be… interesting, yet again.

[An earlier version of this post stated that a two-thirds super-majority was required to approve the funding. I'm now being told that a simple majority will do, as there are no new international treaties being signed.]
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October 12, 2011

Keep Syria Comment Alive

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Syria | Tags: , , |
[38] Comments 

Two years ago, several people who had never met and, in certain cases, did not even know each others’ real names, launched an online experiment called OneMideast.org.

The group consisted of ten Israelis and ten Arabs from a variety of professional backgrounds: academics, journalists, businesspeople, and various others. They had little in common apart from an interest in Middle Eastern politics, and a habit of spending hours on the Internet discussing current affairs with other political junkies on various Mideast-themed blogs. One of the most stimulating venues for such discussion was Syria Comment, a daily newsletter on Syrian politics authored by Joshua Landis, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Oklahoma.

The combination of anonymity, politics, and a crowd of amateur pundits does not usually produce ideal conditions for respectful and reasoned debate, as anyone who has visited the comment section of an online publication can attest. However, Syria Comment seemed to be different. It had its share of “trolls”, to be sure, but it also had something else: a core group of several dozen regular readers who spent hours each day discussing the latest news out of Damascus, Beirut, Washington, and Tel Aviv.

These readers—largely expatriate Syrians living in the West, but also many Israelis, Europeans, Americans, and other Arabs—espoused a wide spectrum of political views. There were Baathists and Syrian nationalists; leftists and pan-Arabists; American Zionists and Israeli anti-Zionists; pro-Western critics of the Assad regime; sectarian apologists of all stripes; Salafists; technocrats and neo-liberal capitalists living abroad; and many others. Whatever the topic of any given day—Syrian fiscal policy, democratic reform, the war in Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood—the mix of clashing perspectives made for vigorous and often enlightening debates.

It was at Syria Comment that I got my start as a blogger. Joshua graciously invited me to write my own posts about Lebanese affairs for his blog, even when they ran counter to his own politics or dabbled in pre-Qnion-esque satire. I have no doubt that much of Qifa Nabki’s early exposure during the build-up to the Lebanese elections in 2009 was due to Joshua’s endorsement and support.

Over the past several months, for obvious reasons, Syria Comment’s readership has exploded. After a valiant effort of daily updates containing anything and everything about Syria in the English and Arabic language press, YouTube, Facebook, the blogosphere, Twitter, etc., Joshua decided to turn over the maintenance of the site to two of his lieutenants (and good friends of mine), Ehsani and Alex. I woke up this morning to find that Ehsani (who has a real job as a banker in Manhattan) is also buckling under the pressure and will be taking a break from Syria Comment. This leaves Alex, who runs his own business in Montreal, to keep the site going.

As Mustapha notes over at Beirut Spring, many will gleefully read this latest development as a sign that Syria Comment is folding along with its supposed Baathist patrons in Damascus, which is silly nonsense. While I often disagree with Joshua on political issues, the accusation that his site is nothing but a mouthpiece for the Assad regime is a hollow critique, and one that misses the greatest virtue of Syria Comment, namely the role it plays as a forum for debate among Syria-watchers.

I recall, for example, the oddly disembodied camaraderie that emerged between many of the regular discussants at Syria Comment during the post-Hariri assassination years. We rarely seemed to reach a consensus on any issue, but if there was one thing that we all seemed to appreciate, it was the idea that sustained dialogue had a way of undermining deeply-held convictions and reconciling seemingly incompatible positions. The presence of a community—of strangers, perhaps, but a community nonetheless—made it possible to explore the multiple facets of a contentious subject over a series of days or even weeks, with the record of these interactions being preserved within the archive of the blog, a kind of collective memory of the conversation itself.

I’m no stranger to the challenges of trying to maintain an online forum without shirking one’s professional duties and family responsibilities, so I sympathize with both Joshua and Ehsani. However, I just want to say that if Syria Comment does indeed disappear — at this moment when it is needed most — we will have lost something very valuable indeed.
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September 26, 2011

Lebanon and the Arab Revolutions

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Arab Politics, Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , , |
[96] Comments 

Several months ago, I found myself in a group discussion on Facebook about the Arab revolutions. Egypt and Tunisia had recently toppled their dictators, and the freedom train seemed poised to roll into Yemen, Libya, Syria, and beyond.

It escaped no one during this season of political transformation in the Middle East that Lebanon was a strange study in stability. Usually a magnet for civil unrest and ideological fervor, the country felt oddly insulated from the waves of popular dissent that threatened to fashion a new Arab political order in the space of a single year.

True, Beirut had witnessed the odd ragtag anti-sectarianism march, but no sign of the enormous public demonstrations seen in Benghazi or Cairo. This was evidence, so my Facebook interlocutors suggested, of Lebanon’s political immaturity, its parochialism and fractiousness, and perhaps even the artificiality of its claim to nationhood. While the people of Egypt and Tunisia had demonstrated remarkable unity and bravery by standing as one to break their shackles, the Lebanese remained hopelessly mired in a rut of sectarianism and petty divisiveness.

Something about this reading struck me as simple-minded. This is not to say that I subscribed to the chauvinist ‘been-there-done-that’ argument that one regularly encountered among many Lebanese (who gestured gallantly toward the events of March 2005 by way of explaining why Lebanon had no need to partake in any revolutionary activities in 2011).

Rather, what I found problematic about the discussion on Facebook was its assumption that Egypt and Tunisia had reached the finish line in their struggle for democracy and self-determination, when it seemed fairly straightforward that these two countries (like the rest of their regional compatriots, the Lebanese included) were still very much at the starting line.

There’s certainly no question that Lebanon’s politics are crippled by sectarian institutions and the false idol of consensual governance. However, sectarianism is surely not the only flavor of social divisiveness that can undermine democratic processes and institution building. Economic inequalities, ethnic and tribal divisions, religious fundamentalism, etc. represent other major challenges. As inspiring as the events of the last year have been, they hardly represent a litmus test for the viability of a national identity, much less a certificate of sovereignty and self-determination.

I was reminded of this discussion recently by an excellent article in The New York Review of Books, by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley. They argue that the Arab revolutions have been effectively overtaken by the Arab counterrevolution, the primary agents of which include entrenched economic elites, military leaders, former regime operatives, and foreign powers, all of whom are now seeking to shape events in their favor (and are largely succeeding).

The essay is worth a close read, but I thought I’d draw your attention to an excerpt that struck me as relevant to the question of Lebanon’s membership in the Arab Spring club.

“Revolutions devour their children. The spoils go to the resolute, the patient, who know what they are pursuing and how to achieve it. Revolutions almost invariably are short-lived affairs, bursts of energy that destroy much on their pathway, including the people and ideas that inspired them. So it is with the Arab uprising. It will bring about radical changes. It will empower new forces and marginalize others. But the young activists who first rush onto the streets tend to lose out in the skirmishes that follow. Members of the general public might be grateful for what they have done. They often admire them and hold them in high esteem. But they do not feel they are part of them. The usual condition of a revolutionary is to be tossed aside.

“The Arab world’s immediate future will very likely unfold in a complex tussle between the army, remnants of old regimes, and the Islamists, all of them with roots, resources, as well as the ability and willpower to shape events. Regional parties will have influence and international powers will not refrain from involvement. There are many possible outcomes—from restoration of the old order to military takeover, from unruly fragmentation and civil war to creeping Islamization. But the result that many outsiders had hoped for—a victory by the original protesters—is almost certainly foreclosed.“

I am very rarely optimistic about Lebanon’s short-term political prospects. We seem to go from one election to another pinning our hopes on the notion that the next crop of plutocrats will not be as feckless as the last. However, reading over Agha and Malley’s prognosis, I could not help but think that Lebanon’s problems seemed somehow more manageable than its neighbors’.

Consider the fact that of the three major players shaping the future of the post-Arab Spring states, only one (the members of the old political class) possesses any real political muscle in Lebanon. The army enjoys widespread  support but is not a major political and economic force, as it is in places like Egypt and Turkey, or in Iran, where the army controls entire industries and maintains its monopolies with the assistance of the state.

Lebanon has Islamists, but there is no mainstream movement calling for the creation of an Islamic state. A recent Pew Research poll found that only a small minority of Lebanese Muslims (second only to Turkey) were in favor of harsh punishments for adultery, theft, and apostasy.  Meanwhile, it is rare that one meets a Maronite today who believes their country should be a Christian homeland in political and spiritual communion with France.

Finally, even our politicians, as odious as they are, hardly constitute a unitary and hegemonic “regime”. For all of Lebanon’s problems — a weak central authority, political and economic corruption, clericalism, foreign influence, sectarian structures and mindsets, patronage networks, etc. — it remains a multi-polar arena, with all the “self-regulating” mechanisms that such a structure engenders.

Would I trade this brand of dysfunction for the challenges facing reformers in Egypt, Libya, or Syria? I don’t think I would. I’ll take entropy or centrifugality (or whatever physics-inspired euphemism one might use to put a positive spin on our chaotic system) over the deeply rooted political, military, and economic structures of a post-dictatorial regime.

Thoughts?
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September 7, 2011

Wikileaks Sheds Light on Origins of Aoun’s Alliance With Hizbullah

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, Syria | Tags: |
[48] Comments 

Apologies for the brief hiatus in blogging. I’ve just returned from a trip to Beirut, arriving just in time for the start of the academic semester here, so things are quite busy. I’ll try to do some catch-up over the next few days, but in the meantime, here’s a brief comment on a couple items from the latest Wikileaks cable dump.

Some of you will recall our discussion of Michel Aoun’s return to Lebanon in 2005, as recounted in Karim Pakradouni’s book Sadma wa-Sumud. Pakradouni claimed that Aoun cut a deal with the Syrians, whereby he could come back to Lebanon provided that he did not call for Emile Lahoud’s impeachment or the disarmament of Hizbullah. Naturally, Aoun has denied this story and Pakradouni later recanted it.

We may never know exactly what the terms of the agreement were, but two diplomatic cables from 2005 shed a little bit of light on Aoun’s transformation from a fire-breathing, Hizbullah-disarming, UNSCR 1559-championing anti-Syrian oppositionist to a fire-breathing, Hizbullah-championing, UNSCR 1559-decrying pro-Syrian power-broker.

On March 21 2005, one week after the landmark million-strong rally in downtown Beirut, Aoun met with the US Deputy Chief of Mission in Paris to offer some thoughts about the situation in Lebanon. Here’s the gist of what he had to say:

  • I represent the true opposition to Syria in Lebanon. I helped bring about the Syria Accountability Act and I was the only Lebanese politician to publicly support UNSCR 1559. The current members of the opposition are still afraid of Syria after 30 years of “hostage mentality”. They need time to become fully liberated.
  • Hizbullah needs to be disarmed. There are no grounds for maintaining its militia, and the pretext of Shebaa is ridiculous. However, the best way to disarm the party is through negotiation and soft power rather than full-on confrontation. If the US can give some guarantees that Hizbullah officials will not continue to be targeted by US courts, then Nasrallah may be willing to deal on military issues.
  • Syria’s regime will fall after it withdraws from Lebanon. It will probably be replaced with a majority Sunni government, and this will dramatically impact Hizbullah’s power in Lebanon.

A month and a half later, Aoun met with the US Chargé d’affaires three days before his return to Lebanon. The content of their conversation was similar to the previous discussion with the DCM, but there were a few key differences:

  • The current March 14 opposition has rebuffed my appeals to join them in an electoral alliance. They are trying to prevent me from returning to Lebanon, and so there’s no way for me to work with them. So unfair! I hate them!
  • Hizbullah, on the other hand, is an honest and reasonable party and so I’ve decided to ally with it. BFF!
  • I’ve come to an agreement with Lahoud allowing me to return to Lebanon (but I’m not going to divulge the details of that agreement).

We might conjecture, therefore, that the period between March 21 and May 4 2005 was critical to the post-Hariri-assassination history of Lebanon. Had the anti-Syrian opposition made room for Aoun, things might have developed in a very different way than they did.

On the other hand, we know that contacts between Aoun and the Syrians had begun long before these conversations even took place. Aoun sent an envoy to Damascus in January 2005 to discuss a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and the relations between the two countries. What seems most likely to me is that the Assad regime was looking for a way to bring Aoun back to Lebanon as an ally, in order to provide a counterweight to the political opposition that was coalescing in advance of the 2005 elections.

Rafiq al-Hariri knew all about Aoun’s maneuvers and probably guessed what the Syrians were up to, which was why he devoted so much time in his discussion with Walid al-Muallim attacking the “radical Christians” and pretending like he had nothing to do with 1559. If the Syrians did in fact take the decision to kill Hariri, it would have been because they had lost faith in their ability to control him, whereas Aoun, ironically, seemed like someone they could work with.

Anyway, food for thought…
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August 13, 2011

The Last Meeting Between Rafiq al-Hariri and Walid al-Muallim

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , |
[68] Comments 

The Lebanese newspaper al-Joumhouria (recently launched by former Lebanese Defense Minister Elias al-Murr) published a four-part series last week containing an alleged transcript of the final meeting between Rafiq al-Hariri and Walid al-Muallim. The date of the meeting is not specified, but based on a few contextual remarks from within the text, I would guess that it had to have taken place mere days before Hariri’s assassination.

At the time, al-Muallim was Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister and al-Hariri had recently resigned as Prime Minister of Lebanon. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the upcoming parliamentary elections, but the two men spent a great deal of time talking about the rocky relationship between al-Hariri and Bashar al-Assad.

Several months earlier, in mid-2004, the US and France had started to put together UNSCR 1559, which demanded an end to the Syrian presence in Lebanon and the disarmament of Hizbullah. The resolution passed on September 2, and the following day the Lebanese parliament (under Syrian pressure) voted to extend President Emile Lahoud’s term for an additional three years, despite widespread opposition.

A month later, there was a failed assassination attempt on the life of former minister Marwan Hamadeh (who had resigned from his post in protest of Lahoud’s extension). A few weeks later, on October 20, Hariri resigned from his post as Prime Minister, and there were rumors that he had joined the anti-Syrian opposition (comprised at the time of Walid Jumblatt, the exiled Michel Aoun, and some other Christian politicians.)

The meeting with al-Muallim took place against this background. As you will see, Hariri attempts to burnish his bonafides as a stalwart Syrian ally while also expressing his frustration with Bashar’s leadership and the Syrian security regime in Lebanon. He simultaneously insists that he had nothing to do with 1559, while hinting archly that even if he had played a role in organizing it, he would have had good reasons for doing so.

Shortly thereafter, al-Hariri was dead.

There is a noteworthy resemblance between the historical moment captured by this transcript and the present situation. In both instances, Bashar is faced with a mutiny from unexpected quarters. In 2004-05, it was his formerly trustworthy allies in Lebanon and usually-dependable France; today, it’s a considerable segment of his own population, along with valuable allies in Ankara and Riyadh.

More comments later. For now, enjoy the transcript (Arabic readers should read the entire thing by following the four links posted below.)

PS: For another interview with Hariri from roughly the same period, see here.

**

Excerpts from Part 1

Hariri: I am dedicated to the success of the Syrian-Lebanese relationship, and I want this to be your achievement, in view of my great respect for you, and I know that you are a good and decent man and that you don’t have any hidden agendas. There’s no doubt that the Lebanese-Syrian relationship is not in its best of times, and it may get worse, but this does not concern us. It has been shown and I’ve told you personally that Syria is of utmost importance to me, and I could not do anything to hurt it. I’m someone who has a say in the affairs of this country, and I will not accept that the governance of this country will be in the hands of someone who is opposed to or even neutral with respect to Syria. I want our government to be allied with Syria. But Lebanon will not be ruled by Syria forever, and we’ve reached a stage where we are hurting ourselves and hurting Syria in every respect…

[They discuss the proposed district map which Hariri claims is designed to diminish his parliamentary bloc.]

Hariri: My dear Walid, I’m going to speak to you honestly. In the Ta’if Accord, we agreed with our Christian brothers to give half the deputies of parliament to the Muslims, and half to the Christians. And we agreed at the same time to hold elections on the basis of governorates [i.e. larger districts, as opposed to the smaller qada’, which was used in the 2009 elections]… as long as Beirut remained a single district, because we didn’t want any radical Christian deputies. Name me a single one of my Christian deputies in Beirut who is radical. When Suleiman Frangieh threatened to divide Beirut in such a way that would separate Christians and Muslims, the deputy Ghattas Khoury, a Maronite, began to adopt more moderate positions so that he could be nominated. In this district map, Gebran Tueni will be nominated. They say that Michel Aoun will also run, and Solange Gemayel as well. What will we do? I will personally run in the same district, and this district map will not help them. I will win this district and that one, and the radical Christians will win this one. They won’t be saved from al-Hariri, however the three or four radical Christians who win will curse Syria all day long, and this will be the genius result that they will have achieved.

[…]

Al-Muallim: This is not our concern.

Al-Hariri: It’s absolutely your concern. You want us to kid ourselves? I’m telling you the truth. Through these games of spite and electoral strategies, Lebanon is going to end up opposed to Syria and to me, and this gang [i.e. the “radical Christians”] is going to get away with their plan. The Maronite Patriarch – and they did all of this to satisfy him – … says that UNSCR 1559 is an international matter and that we have nothing to do with it. The electoral law was passed in the Parliament while he was in Rome, and before he met with Chirac, he said that he supported 1559. And after he saw Chirac, he said that the Lebanese should work hand in hand to apply 1559. Why?

I once said to the President [Bashar al-Assad]: “At the end of the day, your supporters [in Lebanon] are the Muslims, and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. We may disagree or agree with you, we may get fed up of you, you may be disgusted with us, but at the end of the day, we cannot separate ourselves from you, nor can you separate yourselves from us. No one can shed his own skin…

Excerpts from Part 2

Hariri: I know who is behind UNSCR 1559. [Syrian Foreign Minister] Farouk al-Shara has convinced Bashar that I’m behind it, because he failed and he want to cover his failure up with me. You’ve known about 1559 since June, and the French told you about it, and the Americans knew. And you know that were it not for the extension [of Lahoud’s presidency], 1559 would never have come out, and you know that this talk [of me being behind it] is wrong.

Muallim: Your Excellency, we want to solve the problem… I have gone to great trouble to come and see you and to convince President Assad. There are intelligence reports about the role of Rafiq al-Hariri in UNSCR 1559 […]

I don’t want to say it, but there’s a negative view of you right now, a view that the Lebanese opposition [comprised at the time of Jumblatt and the anti-Syrian Christian parties] would not be able to stand on its two feet were it not for Rafiq al-Hariri, and that the Future Movement is in the opposition. […]

President Bashar, like any responsible president, defers to the intelligence reports.

Hariri: I spent four years fighting these reports, and I gave up because I couldn’t fight them anymore. My communication with you and President Assad is cut off. You have your people in Lebanon who are solely concerned with Rafiq al-Hariri and sending reports about him. They’re going to send a report saying that I met with you and they’ll change the details completely and invent a dialogue … And I told him [i.e. Bashar]: “Look where Abu `Abdo [i.e. Rustom Ghazaleh] has gotten you.” […]

The Syrian ambassador in France was summoned and they spoke to her about Lahoud’s extension many times, and you concluded that Rafiq al-Hariri was behind anything that came out of France, as if France has a flimsy government that is controlled by Rafiq al-Hariri. Am I French or American, or the earth’s center of gravity??

Muallim: You were Lebanon and Syria’s foreign minister.

Hariri: These were the words that infuriated Farouk al-Shara`.

Muallim: Abu Baha’ [i.e. Hariri] was the foreign minister of both countries.

Hariri: Think about this. Let’s imagine a friend of ours whom we’ve known since 1982, i.e. for 22 years, and we never lost touch with him. And he was a prime minister for 12 years. Why did he change this year? Let them [i.e. the Syrians] ask themselves before they ask me. Why did he change to such an extent that he was prepared to work with everyone against Syria? There’s a reason. He did not change and he remains himself, but he was brought to a point where he couldn’t take it anymore. Why? What happened? Is it his fault or theirs? Am I a French, or European, or American collaborator at heart???

Muallim: They are talking about your influence…

Hariri: Why did I use my influence there? I’ve known Chirac from the beginning, and for the past nine years he’s been walking in lockstep with Syria. When he came to the Lebanese parliament, he said that the Syrian presence would remain in Lebanon until the announcement of peace. I made him say those words and I made him say whatever else he said…

Muallim: They’ve put you in a corner.

Hariri: Why? Who?

Muallim: Us, and our [security] apparatus here.

Hariri: Listen, Walid. There are several elements to the French position. Syria’s diplomats have not grasped the importance of Lebanon to the French. I know what will happen.

Muallim: I am speaking with honesty because I want to deal with this issue.

Hariri: And I am speaking honestly and I know what is going to happen. And I knew about many things that were happening but I didn’t get involved. I was not behind 1559, but I didn’t stop it either. I’ll tell you why. There was a petition launched by Michel Aoun in France after the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSRA) came out, and 103 French deputies signed it. So Hani Hammoud came to me, and he is a Lebanese-French journalist [and current senior advisor to Saad Hariri] living in France. He came to this exact office and he said: “Mr. Prime Minister, Michel Aoun has launched a petition and 103 French deputies have signed it so far, out of a total of 560 or 650, and it has to do with SALSRA. And some of those who have signed it belong to Chirac’s bloc.” I asked him: “When?” He said that it had happened within the past 24-48 hours. So I contact Chirac and he told me that he had not known about it, and on the same day or the next I called him again and he informed me that the matter was true, and that he had raised hell and called the head of the parliament and had put a stop to it. And I thanked him. At that point, it was claimed in Syria that al-Hariri was behind it!

Muallim: You did not tell the President about what you did.

Hariri: I didn’t tell him. There were many things I did that I did not tell him about… I assumed that this all took place spontaneously, but they assumed that I was behind it and that I then put an end to it so as to pretend I was doing them a favor. And at the time, I was going through a period of being attacked and defamed, so I told myself: “Even if you bend over backwards for these people [i.e. the Syrians], they’re not going to be satisfied and they won’t trust you.”

Muallim: What, so suddenly?

Hariri: Yes… Bashar probably spoke to Farouk [Shara`], who told him that “Hariri was behind this whole thing, and that he put an end to it so as to ‘do us a favor’. There are 103 deputies who have signed the petition, and there will be 400 within three days…” I can’t do anything more than what I’ve already done. And this whole thing happened a little over a year ago [i.e. in late 2003, shortly before SALSRA was passed by the US Congress], and ever since then, I have not gotten involved, until the Arab League Summit in Tunis [on May 22-23, 2004]. Prior to that, I’d had a very angry meeting with Bashar and Ghazi [Kanaan] and Mohammed Khallouf [a Syrian intelligence commander] and Abu `Abdo [Rustom Ghazaleh]. This was a meeting that even God wouldn’t dare put anyone in, and very serious things were said, both by Bashar and the others.

Muallim: Even by Ghazi? [Hariri and Kanaan were known to have a good relationship].

Hariri: Yes. Ask Ghazi about it. I left the meeting having realized that the situation had gotten to be extremely dangerous, and that I was dealing with a young president, and that if I clashed with him, I’d be clashing with Syria. And I said to him: “Do you really believe that I was behind the petition and then put a stop to it so as to pretend I was doing you a favor?”

He asked me what I thought. I said: “If this accusation is true, then I should not return as Prime Minister of Lebanon, and if it is not true, then the accusation should not be made.” After this discussion, I did not meet him until the summit in Tunis. I asked to see him, and they told me that he would see me in Damascus. After I knew what the issue was, I asked to see him to explain the truth to him but he refused. And I didn’t want to speak with Abu Jamal [Abdulhalim Khaddam, Syria's vice president] or “the guy here” [i.e. Rustom Ghazaleh]. So several months passed, and I didn’t meet with Bashar until Lahoud’s extension happened. He asked to see me, and it was publicly announced that we met for only 14 or 15 minutes. First of all, I’m a prime minister, and you summon me to a meeting for fifteen minutes? Ok, so what’s the point? This was made public, along with the details of our meeting in all the media outlets. Why? On the day of the extension, he summoned me and said: “You always say that you are with Syria, and this will prove if you mean what you say, or if you don’t.” So I said to him: “Mr. President, I’ve been allied with Syria for 25 years. Are you telling me that if I don’t agree with you on this issue, this means I’m against Syria?” He said: “Yes.” So I responded: “I need to think about this.”

So I went to my house in Faqra, and I considered the issue from all angles. And I knew that with the number of deputies in my parliamentary, I could thwart the extension, but that would mean that I would be thwarting Bashar al-Assad, and I couldn’t accept that. There would be a reaction to that, and they would try to elect Suleiman Frangieh instead and make a huge issue out of it. On the other hand, I also knew that the extension would hurt Bashar. He didn’t ask for my opinion; he simply said: “I’ve decided.” So I sat alone racking my brain all night long, and I thought that perhaps he would reconsider his position. I spoke with him the following day and met with him, and we agreed and made the decision.

Then I got on the plane the next day and flew to Morocco, and came back the same day to Beirut. And because I was so frustrated, I fell in the shower and broke my shoulder. That’s the story of my shoulder [which everyone in Beirut joked had been broken by Rustom Ghazaleh]. At that point, Chirac contacted me and asked me not to go along with the extension. He said: “We’re friends, and I reject this whole move.” And I said to him: “It’s ok, I’ve made my decision.”

Excerpts from Part 3

Hariri: There’s something I don’t understand. Farouk al-Shara` got in touch with [Spanish Foreign Minister] Mouratinos on Thursday morning [i.e. Thursday September 2, 2004, the day before Parliament was scheduled to convene to vote on the Lahoud extension.]

Muallim: Mouratinos contacted Farouk, and asked him to postpone the parliamentary session by 24 hours. That’s what Farouk told me.

Hariri: It was Farouk who contacted Mouratinos, and there’s no point in lying about this, because what happened is the source of the problem. And Farouk told him: “We’re trying to get in touch with the French, and they’re not responding. We want your help.” And Mouratinos said: “I’m ready.” And Farouk said: “We are willing to not go forward with the extension [of Lahoud] if France and the US stop the resolution [i.e. 1559] in the Security Council, at which point we will come to an agreement on a Lebanese president and we can discuss the Lebanese situation.

Muallim: I was told that the exact opposite happened [i.e. that Mouratinos made the offer.]

Hariri: [ignoring him] Mouratinos conveyed this to the French, and it was passed along to the US and other countries. I learned these details later. Ten countries responded positively. Meanwhile, Farouk changed his mind and informed them that “We [i.e. Syria] cannot stop the parliamentary session. You have to speak to Nabih Berri.” So they spoke with Nabih, so that it wouldn’t be said that Syria was pulling the strings. Nabih came and chastised Mouratinos, called the session to be held the next day, we voted for the extension, and I couldn’t understand what was going on.

Why did this happen? The UN resolution was going to be stopped. Did the Syrians think that it would not pass in the Security Council, so they agreed to a deal one minute and then changed their mind the next? I don’t want an answer.

Muallim: And I don’t have an answer. I was recently put in charge of this issue, so I’ve only come to learn.

Hariri: You’re the teacher! What are you talking about?

Muallim: I’m telling you honestly that I can’t imagine a positive role for Syria in Lebanon without Rafiq al-Hariri, nor can I imagine a diplomatic relationship [between Syria and Lebanon] that would harm France. What are we to do now? Leave France aside for the moment…What concerns me is you and Bashar al-Assad, nothing else. What steps need to be taken to make this relationship blossom again without the intelligence apparatus?

Hariri: The situation in the country has progressed to the point where there can be no return to the prior state via a mere cosmetic situation. I have no desire to return as Prime Minister, and you have my word of honor on that… [unless Bashar al-Assad tells me he wants me to be]… But at the same time, I would want to be a Prime Minister with full powers, not one with the cabinet against him.

The interests of both countries demand that we define them and agree on them together, not that Syria appoints all the senior and junior officials in the country. I have not gotten to the point where I’m “butting heads with Bashar al-Assad”… this is empty talk… Why wouldn’t he summon me and ask me what actually happened?

Muallim: This is what should have happened.

Hariri: I heard that Hosni Mubarak told Bashar that Chicac told Mubarak that I had told Chicac that Bashar had “put a gun to my head.” I never said that. Maybe Chirac said that to Mubarak, but this is an expression that only foreigners use which means that someone has done something against his will.

Muallim: For goodness sake.

Hariri: I know that Syria will be hurt by this issue, but it didn’t ask my opinion or listen to me or treat me as a friend. Rather it treated me according to the logic of “You’re either with us or against us.” Let me ask you a question, Walid. If this matter was in your hands, wouldn’t you have summoned me and asked me for my opinion?

Muallim: Of course.

Hariri: Nobody contacted me. We’re not children [i.e. like Bashar]. You would have gotten in touch with me and said: “Ya Abu Baha’. There are some bastards behind this issue and we don’t believe them. How can you help us resolve it?” But this did not happen.

Muallim: During the previous stage, Farouk was in charge of everything.

Hariri: What is required of me? When an ambassador of such-and-such country comes to me and tells me that the Syrians are saying this and that, what should I do? Should I contact you? … It doesn’t require anything. Why wouldn’t Walid al-Muallim or Farouk or your deputies in Lebanon come to me and say: “Ya Abu Baha’, we don’t want you to be prime minister anymore.” I would have tendered my resignation in fifteen minutes. You saw what happened after the extension took place. Rustom said to me: “Things are not working out,” and I resigned. Did I start releasing statements and organizing demonstrations? I remained quiet for four months.

[…]

Muallim: How are we going to deal with the issue? I have no doubt that you are innocent [of the accusations].

Hariri: Our brothers need to know that I respect them and esteem them, but that I also respect myself. I’ve been faced with insults to my honor. Why? Let’s imagine that Rafiq al-Hariri did what he was accused of. Why did he change now after being with us for 25 years? They didn’t ask themselves this question. And the false talk that Marwan Hamadeh and Ghassan Salameh visited Rafiq al-Hariri in Sardinia and came up with UNSCR 1559… whoever says that is basically saying that we tried to kill Marwan Hamadeh. And this is one of your problems with Walid Jumblatt… Marwan Hamadeh did not come to Italy in 2004.

Muallim: He is a patriot. Is Walid Jumblatt not a patriot?

Hariri: Why did Walid Jumblatt get to this stage [i.e. opposing Syria]?

Muallim: He has his reasons.

Hariri: What are these reasons?

Muallim: There has been some bad behavior in the past, but things should not continue.

Hariri: But it is continuing. Syria cannot build its policies on the basis of intelligence reports. In the end, there are personal relationships between us, and there’s the general condition of the country to take into account…

Muallim: I know.

Hariri: In addition to that, nothing prevents others from causing problems for you – and with great ease – because there are major interests in play. You can’t imagine what’s happening right now. There are major financial interests, and the great nations have gotten involved and are coming between us. The question of the Syrian presence in Lebanon has been raised. What are you going to do? Are you going to continue to listen to so-and-so and so-and-so? This will not solve the problem.

The Ta’if Accord has two parts, one dealing with the relationship between Lebanon and Syria, and the other dealing with reforms… During my presence in the government and during the government of Salim al-Hoss, the President of the Republic was given prerogatives that he had not enjoyed since before the Ta’if Accords. And today we’re dealing with the issue of small districts [in the electoral law] and this will lead to the end of the Ta’if Accord and the return to the pre-1975 state. If small districts are used with the current electoral maps for Beirut, I would win more parliamentary seats than I could ever have dreamed of. I could run candidates in all the districts where I had a chance, and I reckon I would win. But even if Rafiq al-Hariri won, Lebanon would lose, and I don’t want that to happen.

[…] If the [proposed] law is passed in the Parliament, I will resign along with my deputies, and I’m giving you a formal notice of this.

Excerpts from Part 4

Muallim: I’m not comfortable with the break between you and President al-Assad, and this situation will lead to mistakes. You are reacting in certain ways because you don’t understand why things are happening.

Hariri: I know what’s happening. I can’t live within a security regime that is dedicated to interfering with me and writing reports to Bashar al-Assad that he believes. And I don’t know the contents of these reports, so I can’t respond to them.

Muallim: I will pass this on to the President.

Hariri: May God judge me for these words on the Day of Resurrection: it is a disgrace to suggest that Rafik Hariri is part of the opposition. Recently I learned from the Spaniards that they were going to put Hizbullah on their terrorism list. Do you know who prevented them from doing so? The French did. Do you know who prevented the French? Me. Why? After all, I’m in a dispute with you and perhaps you will use Hizbullah against me; I have no desire for a “gift”. I’ve sacked the deputies in my bloc who are loyal to you. I want to return with my own deputies.

[…]

Three quarters of me are now in the opposition on account of the way that I’ve been treated, and everything I’m hearing says that Syria has written off Rafiq al-Hariri. Abu `Abdo comes to see me with a nice letter and the upshot is that the electoral law is in my pocket. How can that be, when the law works against me? What’s the relationship between the talk I’m hearing here and the other talk [from abroad] and the actions I’m seeing?

[More discussion. Muallim concludes that the time is not ripe for a meeting between Hariri and Assad.]
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August 8, 2011

Crisis in Syria: A Bloggingheads Diavlog with Michael Young and Elias Muhanna

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Interviews, Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , |
[92] Comments 

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.

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August 4, 2011

The SSNP’s Fiefdom in Hamra

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , |
[76] Comments 

If you read nothing else today, be sure to read this Jadaliyya anonymous account of an attack on a group of protesters outside the Syrian Embassy in Beirut. As anyone who lives, works, or pub crawls in Hamra knows, this area is SSNP territory.

Every six months or so, when I visit my family in Beirut (who live in this neighborhood), there are more and more SSNP banners hanging from walls and lampposts. Lately, it seems, they’ve been getting out their frustration with the situation in Syria by intimidating peaceful protesters.

As`ad Abu-Khalil has heard from a source he trusts that the attackers were not SSNP but rather Ba`ath party thugs, who have been throwing their weight around in Lebanon ever since the Syrian uprisings began. You may have heard about the incident of the Ba`ath Party official who walked into a pharmacy in Saida a few weeks ago, announced his full name and position, and proceeded to terrorize the owner and her employees because they had declined to sell something to his nephew earlier in the day. Unfortunately for him, the whole episode was caught on tape and put on YouTube (the action starts around 2:53; see here for a transcribed English translation).

This is beside the point, but I think it’s worth highlighting something the author of the Jadaliyya post insisted upon: these protesters were brought together by their condemnation of the atrocities in Syria as well as their disgust with “the March 14-March 8 political schism that has polarized Lebanon for six years now.” They deliberately chose to demonstrate in this neighborhood so as to avoid being labeled as supporters of any particular political party.

I encourage any like-minded readers of this blog who are living in Lebanon to find a way to get involved, join these protests, speak out, and help to end the rule of amped-up Baathist goons on the streets of Hamra.
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July 29, 2011

Western Intelligence and the Arab Revolutions

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, Syria | Tags: , , , , , , |
[63] Comments 

As I was perusing some of the latest Wikileaks cables, I came across this little nugget about Asif Shawkat, the former head of Syrian Military Intelligence and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad:

05PARIS6580 (September 26, 2005) — President Jacques Chirac’s Technical Advisor on Middle East/Americas Dominique Boche “reiterated that the content of the final Mehlis report would be decisive. If the report established direct [Syrian government] responsibility for Hariri’s assassination, Boche speculated that Bashar may give up second-tier officials up to the level of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan and former [Syrian Military Intelligence] Chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh, without touching brother-in law Asif Shawkat, in-laws the Makhlufs, or his brother Mahir. Boche added that he could not exclude any possibilities for regime stability after the Mehlis report; there could be a “palace coup,” with other powerful Alawis taking over; the Alawites could lose control to the Sunnis, who lack leaders; or Bashar could seize the moment to consolidate his authority and marginalize others, as he has started to do since the last Ba’th party congress. [French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary-equivalent for Egypt/Levant] Besancenot was more cautious than Boche in reiterating to us that the [Government of France (GoF)] did not want a “total destabilization” in Syria, nor did the GoF want isolation of Syria to lead to it increasing its “nuisance capacity” in the region…”

“Boche confirmed that [Syrian Military Intelligence] Chief Asif Shawkat had visited Paris and met with [French intelligence agency DST] head Bosquet and no other GoF officials, before departing France. Boche described Shawkat’s visit as part of long-standing liaison relationship between French and Syrian security services, and noted Shawkat usually visited France twice a year. Boche described timing for the visit as “unfortunate,” and claimed that there was a lack of coordination within the GoF, with the Elysee learning of the visit only after Shawkat had arrived. He added that Shawkat has a sick child, which could have been another reason for the visit. Boche offered no details on the contents of Shawkat’s discussions with the DST.”

Comment

As is clear from the cable, the French were very uneasy about seeing Syria destabilized as a result of the Mehlis Report. If they were that anxious about the political fallout of a humble UN investigation report, I can only imagine what kinds of conversations are taking place today between French and American diplomats about the situation in Syria. For anyone still puzzled about the double standard of the Obama administration on Libya vs. Syria, these cables offer a sobering reminder of the fact that for all the bluster about the Axis of Evil, Hizbullah, Iran, yada yada yada, the prospect of an Assad-less Syria is even more problematic to the West than the “nuisance capacity” of the current regime.

Also, why hasn’t anyone else commented on the fact that Asif Shawkat was visiting France twice a year “as part of a long-standing liaison relationship between French and Syrian security services“? This is Asif Shawkat we’re talking about: the man with no face, the hidden hand of the Syrian mukhabarocracy, etc. Try to find a picture of the guy online and you might luck out with a couple grainy shots here and there. Meanwhile, the French were hosting him on a biannual basis to talk intelligence.

It is well-known that Shawkat (who made Foreign Policy’s list of the Middle East’s Most Powerful Spooks in 2009) also worked with the Americans after the 9/11 attacks to set up intelligence sharing and cooperation, but that this relationship broke down after Syria declined to join the Iraq war in 2003. I guess what I’m saying is that, like Jamil al-Sayyid (whom Feltman outed as an American intelligence asset in another Wikileaks cable), Shawkat is a perfect example of a Middle Eastern strongman whom the West likes to vilify as a public enemy, but who is, in reality, very much a private ally.
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