February 16, 2012

Sectarianism in the Eye of the Beholder: Shehadi Responds to Landis

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

And the hits keep coming. Nadim Shehadi articulates much better than I do the fundamental point of contention with Josh Landis regarding the question of Lebanese and Syrian sectarianism. I’m hoping MESA can be persuaded to host an installment of this very interesting exchange in Denver later this year. See below.

*

This is another attempt to divert the debate into a Lebanon vs Syria one and using Lebanon as a ‘bad example’ to in a way justify the situation in Syria. This is similar to the way Joshua uses Lebanon to say that Syria could descend into a civil war like Lebanon, or Iraq for that matter. I am not sure if this fulfils any purpose because we are all agreed now that the regime is in fact gone and there is no need to justify its behaviour.

But I think it is worth going back to Elias’s old theme of sectarianism, the meaning of the concept and the manner in which it is used. This demonstrates a huge gap in thinking between two modes which Joshua puts his finger on as being the process of transformation from dismantled empires to post-colonial states.

One of the most difficult questions in mathematics, economics, politics, electoral law etc… is the method of aggregating from an individual preferences to group preference. In fact the issue is not resolvable. The best illustration of that is the multitudes of electoral systems and laws which are in fact attempts to aggregate from individual to groups. This is probably the bottom line in the debate on sectarianism.

Old Empires recognized groups at the expense of individuals and modern states systems are based on individual preferences or ‘citizen’ at the expense of groups. There are in fact two Turkish models: the Ottoman one and Ataturk’s modern ‘citizenship’ or ‘laicite’ model. The latter is no less oppressive to groups than the former was for individuals. In fact the debate over the relevance of the modern Turkish model to the region ignore the impact the development of this model had on group identities in Turkey: Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Kurds etc… etc….

The Lebanese model adapts elements of the former Ottoman model to the state, the idea is to to defuse the group representation issue and take it out of the equation in order to allow the space for individuals to act as citizen and think beyond groups towards the state. This at least was the interpretation of Michel Chiha and one can argue till kingdom come about the merits of the system and the extent to which it was either a success or a failure and why.

The main point I would like to make is that crude sectarianism does not really exist on the ground and can be more often found in the eye of the beholder. This is both apparent in the analysis on Syria and the references to Lebanon. In statements like:

It took Lebanese Muslims 15 years to unseat Christian power and it still isn’t complete, seeing as Christians still have an undemocratic 50% of parliament preserved for them and refuse to push for a census.

Let us expand a bit on what this means: in pre-civilwar Lebanon the 99 member parliament was divided between 54 ‘Christians’ and 45 ‘Muslims’ both broadly defined. The post Taif parliament is 64 to 64. Is this how ‘Muslims’ unseated ‘Christian power’? And are Lebanese Muslims still trying to capture the rest of that percentage with Christians still clinging to power and refusing to have a census? Was the Lebanese ‘civil war’ between Muslims and Christians in that crude manner? Is Lebanon still ‘undemocratic’ until there is a census that fine-tunes parliamentary proportions with demographic data?

A statement like the above demonstrates the flaws in a ‘sectarian’ analysis much more than it illustrates the flaws of the power sharing system in Lebanon (and there are many). Joshua’s analysis of Syria suffers from the same flaws. The regime is not ‘Alawite’ etc.. etc… Such an analysis plays on the fears of minorities and as Joshua says manipulates them – and this is probably a good description of how the Syrian regime’s mentality sees Syria now and how it saw Lebanon.

I think a comparison between the Lebanese and Syrian models is useful for an analysis of the future of the region and how states would square the circle between individuals and groups. There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ state or a ‘cohesive’ one either in Europe or in the region and god forbid we should ever try to achieve any, this is what the great European civil war which some people call the 2nd World War was fought about.

In fact it is possible that the colonial powers (bless them), unintentionally did us a huge favour by jumping a step and creating these ‘artificial’ states rather than leaving it to us to follow their example and create them through 400 years of inter-European fighting. If the post-colonial system is being dismantled on the ground, it will probably also gradually wane as an analytical framework too.

QN you owe me a beer or two in Boston and I hope Josh can pass through sometime in April. [QN: Ahlan wa-sahlan. Looking forward to it.]

best

nadim
wordpress stats

 

February 14, 2012

More on Levantine Sectarianism

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

Joshua Landis sent me a response to my post from a few days ago, which I publish below. I think we’re talking past each other in certain ways, but I’ll let the readership sort that out.

*

Dear Elias,

Please allow me to respond to your earlier post, entitled “Who is Right on Syria?. You write that I incorrectly place Syria in the larger context of minorities in the region. Let me re-iterate by original argument. The following is what will be published in an article for Middle East Policy in a week or two:

“Let us place the regime in regional perspective. The Asads stand atop the last minoritarian regime in the Levant and thus seem destined to fall in this age of popular revolt. When they do, the postcolonial era will draw to a final close.

Following World War II, minorities took control in every Levant state, thanks to colonial divide-and-rule tactics and the fragmented national community that bedeviled the states of the region. It is estimated that, due to their over-recruitment by the French Mandate authorities, Alawis already by the mid-1950s constituted some 65 percent of all noncommissioned officers in the Syrian military. Within a decade, they took control of the military leadership and, with it, Syria itself.

Unique among the Levant states was Palestine, where the Jewish minority was able to transform itself into the majority at the expense of Palestine’s Muslims. Neither the Christians of Lebanon nor the Sunnis of Iraq were so lucky or ambitious. Nevertheless, both clung to power at the price of dragging their countries into lengthy civil wars. The Lebanese war lasted 15 years; the Iraqi struggle between Shiites and Sunnis, while shorter, has yet to be entirely resolved.

The Alawis of Syria seem determined to repeat this violent plunge to the bottom. It is hard to determine whether this is due to the rapaciousness of a corrupt elite, to the bleak prospects that the Alawi community faces in a post-Asad Syria, or to the weak faith that many in the region place in democracy and power-sharing formulas. Whatever the reason, Syria’s transition away from minority rule is likely to be lengthy and violent.

Even though the Alawis make up a mere 12 percent of the total population, the regime continues to count on support from other minorities, who fear Islamists coming to power, and from important segments of the Sunni population, who fear civil war.

The Asads have been planning for this day of popular insurrection all their lives…..”

You write:

I don’t agree with his larger historical reading of why Lebanon and Iraq had sectarian civil wars in the first place. He finds the origins of those civil conflicts in the colonialist legacy. Broadly speaking, the Europeans came along and created these states that are not really states, and put certain sectarian minorities in charge of them. And the wars that eventually came about were the product of the masses revolting against those minoritarian elites.

That model fits Iraq better than it does Lebanon, whose civil war was the product of many different forces. Yes, there was a movement against Christian political superiority, but it was just one of the many factors that created and prolonged the conflict. Let’s not forget about the roles played by the Israelis, the PLO, the Syrians, Saudis, Americans, and others.

I am not sure if we really disagree. You suggest that I am blaming the sectarian strife in the region on the colonialists. I do only in part because it was the French and British who conquered the Ottoman Empire and had the thankless task of trying to turn a multi-ethnic empire into nation states. If the Russians or Germans had divided up the Ottoman Empire, I think they would have failed as well. This is because no “natural” borders and no “natural” nations existed. This process is not unique to the Middle East. European nations have emerged out of the collapse of multi-ethnic empires only after centuries of nationalist turmoil, ethnic cleansing, and compromise and integration. To a large extent, all nations have had to be constructed, as we all know.

Yes, the French and British tried to divide and rule. What other choice did they have? But the sectarian, regional, and family divisions that they exploited already existed. I do not subscribe to the argument that they were “constructed” by the colonialists. They manipulated but didn’t create them.

My intent was not to blame the present mess on the foreigners but on the difficulties of turning empires into nations, which has always been a violent process.

Of course there are many other reasons besides sectarianism for the Lebanese Civil War, as you rightly point out. There are many other reasons for the Syrian revolt than sectarianism. The regime failed to deliver enough economic growth, limit population expansion, limit corruption, etc. We could go on and on.

My point in underlining the common communal struggles of the Levant states is to argue why I disagree with the many analysts who have been predicting a short battle and early collapse of the regime. It took Lebanese Muslims 15 years to unseat Christian power and it still isn’t complete, seeing as Christians still have an undemocratic 50% of parliament preserved for them and refuse to push for a census. Sunnis in Iraq are still battling to get back power from the majority Shiites, eight years after having been flung flung power, which they so brutally abused. Palestinians are still killing Israelis to get back what they insist is theirs. I am simply underlining how difficult it has been for the various religious communities of the Levant to establish a common national political community, where they can work out their differences through compromise and consensus, rather than barbaric fighting. This is, of course, not unique to the Middle East. Americans are guilty of ethnically cleansing the Indians and stealing their land as well as oppressing black Americans.

I wish this process were “so twentieth century” but I fear it is not. I would argue that Lebanon was not so different from Syria. Yes Syria’s Baathist dictatorship resembles Iraq more than Lebanon’s lop-sided confessional arrangement before the Civil War, but I was not talking about political systems, I was talking about the difficulty in unseating the minorities, which had captured the lion’s share of political power in the Levant states. Didn’t Kamal Jumblat demand democracy and “one man, one vote” on the eve of the civil war, a demand which was not that different from those being made by Syrians today? Of course there are many differences between the two uprisings, but some similarities exist between the Levant societies that can help us understand why the present conflict seems so intractable and will probably be long and bloody. Back in May, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Riad al-Shaqfa stated that Bashar would fall “in the next few months.” The U.S. State Department has called President Asad a “dead man walking.” Israel’s defense minister insisted some time ago that Asad would fall in a matter of weeks.

I was simply trying to point out how absurd such predictions seem if compared to the time-frame for other sectarian power transfers in the Levant.

*

A quick comment from me (Elias/QN): I agree with a lot of what Joshua is saying here, but I think my original point still stands: We have to be careful about conflating Lebanon and Syria when it comes to the question of political sectarianism. Forty-two years of Baathist rule  is a different phenomenon from the situation that prevailed in First Republic Lebanon, and sectarianism has a different salience in these two contexts.

If the presence of minorities  mattered more to political dynamics than other historical factors (like the experience of authoritarianism) then one could imagine a very simplistic response to Josh’s argument: “Well, Syria is 75% Sunni, which is closer to Egypt’s 90% than Lebanon’s mix of Sunnis, Christians, and Shiites…” Obviously, that’s a  naive argument, which is my point. Sectarianism, in and of itself, should not be the primary lens through which we view a post-Assad Syria. It has, and will continue to have, political salience but to read Levantine political history predominantly through this prism risks homogenizing two very different contexts.

But what the hell do I know? I’m a medievalist. The forum is open for comment.

wordpress stats

 

February 10, 2012

Joshua Landis and Nadim Shehadi on Syria

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

Two very smart friends — Josh Landis and Nadim Shehadi — had interesting things to say in the comment section of the last post. I hope neither of them mind me bringing those comments up to the main page so that other readers can weigh in. The exchange was touched off by an interview that Josh recently gave on Charlie Rose, where he argued that Syria could be descending into civil war.

Nadim’s response:

Josh is right that Syria could turn into a Lebanon and Iraq but it can also be in the positive sense: in that it could develop a democratic system of power sharing – possibly with a senate but we have to wait till you finish your project before we say that.

It may also be that the logical conclusion of Josh’s argument is that both Lebanon and Iraq need Baath party rule to have stability and this is because of their sectarian divisions and diversity and this is a more worrying conclusion.

Josh was also right in saying from the very beginning back in January 2011 that the revolts would never happen in Syria because the army would stand by the regime and would not hesitate to shoot at the demonstrators, which is in fact what happened.

Violence has always been part of the argument and we have seen this in all the revolts be it Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen or Syria. The message there is that any alternative to the regime is much worse that the regime or even too horrible to even contemplate changing the regime. The regime’s power relies on maintaining that illusion and on us not being able to see beyond them.

This is the idea of power that I see Josh trying to maintain in many of his statements on Syria and this has become a genre echoed by others. Nick Noe’s piece is almost a prototype of that argument that many others also make. The aim is to maintain the idea of power, by showing that the regime is indispensable, irreplaceable and that whatever lies beyond it is too horrible to contemplate.

Below is my take on the maintenance of this ‘idea’:

Egypt Crisis: Re-evaluating Risk in the Middle East (Chatham House – Monday 31 January 2011)

Syria: Violence as a Communications Strategy (EUISS – 16 August 2011)

The Syrian ‘opposition’does not have to prove itself (The Guardian,1 October 2011)

*

Joshua’s response:

Dear Nadim,

You write: “This is the idea of power that I see Josh trying to maintain in many of his statements on Syria and this has become a genre echoed by others.”

You are correct that I have since the beginning believed that there is “no soft landing” for the Assad regime and that it would fight the kind of war that it is now fighting. This is what I wrote in the first article I published about the uprising, and, in fact, in a book review of Nikolaos van Dam’s second edition of his book in the 1990s for the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, when I first used the phrase, “there is no soft landing for the Assad regime.” This is what I understood van Dam essentially argued in his book, which I concurred with at the time. Here is how I concluded the review:

Van Dam is not optimistic about the prospects for meaningful economic reform in Syria or the possibility of a Velvet Revolution in the future. He points out the Asad’s anti-corruption campaigns have been ineffectual because the President refuses to discipline his security chiefs, many of whom are the worst offenders. He doubts that the country can make a peaceful transition to a post-Asad government, because Asad has allowed his regime to become ossified. No purges have been carried out and few top personnel have been changed in the last 25 years. Consequently, no new generation has been groomed for power or schooled in the art of government. Only the President’s son, Bashar, seems to be in line to inherit authority from his father. Other members of Asad’s inner circle have likewise been grooming their sons to succeed them. He notes that the Sunni majority has not given up its “negative attitude towards Alawi religion and Alawis in general,” and adds that he finds it “very difficult to imagine a scenario in which the present narrowly based, totalitarian regime… can be peacefully transformed into a more widely based democracy.

The key to Asad’s success has been his ability to rule through his metaphorical village. Whether the dynastic principle that Asad and his men have been pushing will catch on in Syria is an open question. Van Dam gives us little reason to believe that Syria is developing either the political institutions or broader national identity that may someday replace the parochial loyalties and narrow prejudices which now define politics in Syria.

My bleak view of the situation in Syria has guided my analysis from the beginning. I suspect the war that is now beginning to grip Syria will last some years before it is over. So far, I believe my pessimistic view has unfortunately been justified.

Many have suggested that my analysis is motivated by some “idea of power” that I am trying to promote or belief in the regime’s goodness. I would argue the opposite. It is because of my understanding of the regime’s use of patrimonial loyalties that I have been frightened of the outcome. Others have suggested that my marriage to an Alawi (which was well after I wrote the book review quoted above) changed or guided my views. I would suggest that my ideas were well established before falling in love with Manar and that my subsequent intimate knowledge of the Alawi community only confirmed by belief that Syria’s sectarian problems were deep and not easily finessed. Of course living in Lebanon for years during the civil war as Christian and Muslim killed each other laid the foundation for my understanding of identity politics in the Levant. I was living in Damascus during the Hama uprising and brutal suppression of the revolt, which also colored my views.

At this point, there is no going back for the opposition and I do not believe that the regime can right itself, as I explained in my – “The Regime is Doomed” — article.

I have tried to explain from the beginning how I believed events will unfold. If they are scary, it is because I think they are scary and will be scary and unhappy for some time to come. You are right to point out that I misjudged Syrians when I argued that I thought the Arab Spring would not blossom or take root in Syria. I can only hope that in the end things will work out for the best. Syria needs a new form of government. You note that my faith is weak, and in that, I confess, without pride or smugness, you are correct.
wordpress stats

 

February 8, 2012

Who is Right on Syria?

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

Greetings from dissertation-land. I’ve tried my best to keep my head down over the past few weeks, hence the long spell between posts. Since the comment section is stirring with a discussion about the events in Syria, though, I thought I’d throw a quick post up with some of the most interesting bits and pieces from the news from the past few days.

The NY Times had one of its “Room for Debate” roundtables yesterday, with contributions from Rime Allaf, Sharmine Narwani, Andrew Tabler, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Ed Husain.

Nick Noe advocates a bargain with the devil, also in the NYT.

A reporter from Al-Akhbar interviews members of the Free Syrian Army in Lebanon.

Josh Landis speaks with Charlie Rose, Fouad Ajami, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Tom Friedman.

A very quick note about one of Josh Landis’s points, in the above interview. Josh often says that Syria could turn into another Lebanon or Iraq, and I think he’s right, in the sense that we could see a full-blown sectarian war there, depending on which outside powers get involved.

However, I don’t agree with his larger historical reading of why Lebanon and Iraq had sectarian civil wars in the first place. He finds the origins of those civil conflicts in the colonialist legacy. Broadly speaking, the Europeans came along and created these states that are not really states, and put certain sectarian minorities in charge of them. And the wars that eventually came about were the product of the masses revolting against those minoritarian elites.

That model fits Iraq better than it does Lebanon, whose civil war was the product of many different forces. Yes, there was a movement against Christian political superiority, but it was just one of the many factors that created and prolonged the conflict. Let’s not forget about the roles played by the Israelis, the PLO, the Syrians, Saudis, Americans, and others.

This may sound like hair-splitting, but I think it’s important to choose our words carefully when we talk about the prospects of sectarian violence, and how to avoid it. If Syria resembles either of these nightmare scenarios, it would be Saddam’s Iraq, not pre-civil war Lebanon. The preponderance of power held by the state, the large and relatively powerful army facing ragtag (but gradually more organized  and foreign-funded) militias, the legacy of authoritarianism, the Baath party, etc… these are all commonalities shared by Assad’s Syria and Saddam’s Iraq, not 1970s Lebanon.

Lebanon, past and present, is a cautionary tale in many respects. But not, I would argue, for the current situation in Syria.

wordpress stats

 

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.
wordpress stats

 

April 20, 2011

How Sectarian is Syria?

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

A few days ago, I blogged about the debate that has begun to emerge among Mideast analysts with respect to the situation in Syria. One of the major sticking points in that debate is the question of what role Syrian “sectarianism” is playing in the anti-Assad protests and the regime’s counter-propaganda. A couple pieces of commentary caught my eye today, and I think they do a good job of illustrating the two main lines of argumentation on this issue:

(1) Joshua Landis & Ammar Abdulhamid at Blogging Heads: This interview is highly worth watching in its entirety. Landis asks all the relevant questions, and Abdulhamid — a Syrian dissident exiled in Washington and a leading opposition activist –provides a very interesting take on several issues, including: (1) the origins of the protests; (2) the multi-faceted character of the opposition; (3) what happens the day after the regime falls; (4) the future of Syria’s relationship with Iran and Israel.

On the question of Syrian sectarianism, Landis challenges Abdulhamid to respond to those who fear that Syria could disintegrate into a sectarian civil war, like Lebanon during the 70′s and 80′s, or Iraq after the US invasion. Abdulhamid’s response, to my mind, is not particularly convincing. He argues that Syria is exceptional; it is unlike Lebanon and Iraq, and will find a way to withstand a sectarian conflagration because it is “a country of minorities”. Furthermore, this exceptionalism is something that the regime itself has always touted.

The logic is easy to pick apart. Lebanon is even more diverse, minority-wise, than Syria and this did not prevent a sectarian civil war. Furthermore, it strikes me as problematic to use regime propaganda to bolster a claim of Syrian exceptionalism. Note that I am not arguing that Syria is actually a sectarian powder-keg; I just don’t think that Abdulhamid’s argument is very convincing.

(2) May Akl, “The False Hope of Revolution in Syria,” (Foreign Policy): In this piece by Michel Aoun’s US spokesperson, the Syrian protests are characterized as a fringe phenomenon instigated by Salafist elements who don’t have Syria’s best interests at heart. No real evidence is presented for this thesis beyond the notion that a recent army ambush had the tell-tale signs of a jihadi operation. Akl plays the sectarianism card with gusto:

Syria is a secular country where minorities are protected, and as much as they might want to see a regime change in their country, the majority of Syrians cannot accept their country becoming another Iraq — in terms of security — or another Saudi Arabia — in terms of religious rule.

Obviously a majority of Syrians — or, for that matter, the citizens of any country anywhere in the world — would prefer not to see their nation disintegrate into a bloody civil war. But that’s neither here nor there. The issue is whether or not the levels of dissatisfaction with the regime will eventually prevail over whatever anxieties may indeed exist about inter-sect relations.

Incidentally, it’s also worth comparing this Aounist position on Syria with Aoun’s own statement at a fundraiser in the US in the early 2000′s (Arabic YouTube clip; English translation below):

Hizbullah is the extension of the [foreign] policy of two countries — Iran and Syria — in Lebanon, and its operations are controlled by these two countries. We refuse to say that the responsibility [for Hizbullah's actions] lies with one organization only; when Syria itself is dealt with, Hizbullah will disappear from Lebanon. But if Hizbullah is hit in Lebanon, Syria will bequeath us a second Hizbullah and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. In a spirit of friendship with the Syrian people, I wish them salvation from a terrorist regime, because this people was the first victim of terrorism. Let’s not forget that Hama was the first example of terrorism, when in twenty-four hours the Syrian regime killed more than 30,000 citizens because they were opposed to its rule.

My point is not to play a game of gotcha with Akl or Abdulhamid, but simply to say that we should all recognize that the sectarianism question is very much open. We just don’t know how it is going to feature in the fallout of the Syrian revolution, assuming the protesters can prevail.

Can anyone recommend some solid reading on the current state of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood? Who are the experts?
wordpress stats

 

July 9, 2010

Syrian-Israeli Peace: A Conversation With Joshua Landis

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Arab Politics, Hezbollah, Interviews, Israel, Lebanon, Peace negotiations | Tags: , , , |
[107] Comments 

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like This!

wordpress stats

 

November 19, 2009

Hizbullah in War and Peace

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon | Tags: , , |
[30] Comments 

Update: See the bottom of this post for Joshua Landis’s response to Nick Noe’s article.

The much-promised post on the subject of Palestinian naturalization is coming soon, but in the meantime I thought I’d put up Nicholas Noe’s latest article for Bitter Lemons, to see what the QN readership makes of it.

**

Hizballah in war and peace

by Nicholas Noe

Four and a half years after Syrian troops were unexpectedly cajoled out of Lebanon, and more than three years after the end of a (nearly) “open” war with Israel, the Shi’ite movement Hizballah appears not only militarily stronger, as many of its enemies attest, but also politically and ideologically more secure, confident and, to a certain degree, coherent.

Indeed, as far as Hizballah is concerned, the March 14 movement that helped kick the Syrians out and that managed to maintain a narrow parliamentary majority in last summer’s election (reportedly with the help of more than $750 million in Saudi financing) has effectively ceased to exist. There is, quite simply, no domestic power right now that can substantially challenge or even “contain” Hizballah’s independent arsenal–all the more so since there is also no credible external power to provide the kind of support that would be vital in such an effort.

Reconciliations and “thawings” with nearby Damascus are instead the order of the day, as Saudi and Egyptian power in the country retreats and regional differences sharpen around the unexpectedly swift decline of the “settlement camp” as a whole.

These external factors, of course, have greatly helped in solidifying and clarifying Hizballah’s overall position. But as key theoreticians in the party, including its current head, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, have long argued, the main existential danger threatening the movement’s twin goals of fully liberating Lebanese territories and hastening the demise of the Jewish state of Israel (setting aside the threat that a regional peace deal may pose) has always been the specter of internal division–not the army divisions that the IDF or the US Marines could conceivably muster up.

This was the lesson learned early on by Hizballah during the end of the Lebanese Civil War when conflict broke out with the Shi’ite Amal movement. Those bloody months saw the only sustained drop in Hizballah attacks on Israeli forces and their proxies during the occupation of South Lebanon and raised the possibility of a Shi’ite implosion.

Now, with the crumbling of domestic opposition, Hizballah finally feels confident enough to take a much-needed breather on the home front and concentrate its energies more fully on what it views as the main event with Israel–a confrontation that party leaders and cadres believe is nearing.

This is not to say, however, that there are no domestic vulnerabilities. There are, and, for the most part, they remain just under the surface as a spider web within which Hizballah still must operate.

Briefly, one would include on the list: the 2006 July War that ravaged the movement’s Shi’ite base and raised the countrywide “reasonability test” for any future conflict (is Hizballah going to go to war for a good enough reason?); its use of arms internally last year that magnified its sometimes violent, sectarian aspect; its loss in the June 2009 elections, demonstrating the overconfidence and atrophy in Hizballah’s vital political alliances; the “Shi’ite Bernie Madoff” scandal that sullied Hizballah’s reputation for incorruptibility; and, certainly, the Iranian election unrest that damaged Nasrallah’s increasingly tenuous claim to be heading a party that effectively synergizes reason and faith.

The problem here for Hizballah’s opponents is that these vulnerabilities (of which there are certainly more) would have to be activated and organized around in order to create a new domestic alliance able to decisively undermine Hizballah’s desire and ability to use violence. Unfortunately, as it currently stands, the potentially preponderant actor in Lebanon, the United States, appears unwilling and/or unable to invest in this particular course of action. This applies especially to convincing the Israelis to lend a critical hand by not objecting to sophisticated arms transfers to the Lebanese army, turning over to the UN small parcels of territory considered as occupied by the Lebanese government and shifting away from IAF over-flights that baldly violate UN resolutions and risk sparking another devastating war.

An internal debate may finally take place very soon in Washington over Lebanon policy–perhaps because policymakers have woken up to the idea that a war between Hizballah and Israel is more likely in the near term than a conflict with Iran. Yet deep divisions within President Obama’s “team of rivals” combined with the political and intellectual vortex that Lebanon has long been for Americans, all lessen the chance that any unconventional thinking on how to approach Hizballah might actually be translated into action.

In the absence of a “peace process” then, and without an oblique, non-military strategy on the part of the US to tighten the political, ideological and moral spider web around Hizballah, the movement has declared that it is now even more certain another victory is in the offing–war or no war, as Nasrallah argued recently.

If Israel launches a preemptive strike because it discovers a “game-changing” weapons transfer, for example, or as a prelude to an attack on Iran, Hizballah will be domestically protected since its response will likely be deemed as justified by important segments of Lebanon’s body politic. Even if Israel somehow resists attacking in the event of a strike on Iran, there are numerous other means by which Hizballah can become involved in an open conflict with the domestic backing it deems vital. Shooting down and/or capturing an Israeli pilot overflying Lebanon, for example, would likely entail a wide response by Israel but would be difficult for Hizballah’s opponents to condemn, given the violation of Lebanese sovereignty.

Either way, Hizballah is supremely confident that it can adequately protect itself both politically and militarily in any new conflict with Israel. In fact, the overwhelming sentiment within the party seems to be that a confrontation is not only inevitable, but that when it comes it will finally lead to the total collapse of Israel. This means, above all else, that the relative quiet of the past few years has not brought restored Israeli deterrence, but instead the deferment of a conflict that Hizballah feels vastly more secure in waging.

But what if there is no new war? Here, too, Hizballah sees a strategic gain since it believes Israel has passed a turning point such that the Jewish state’s perceived internal factors of decline (much discussed by Israelis themselves) can be decisively accelerated with the increasing application of pressure.

Revenge for Commander Imad Mughnieh’s assassination, then, does not have to be had in some kind of a spectacular attack and it does not have to be rushed. The revenge is ongoing and permanent, Nasrallah suggests, since as the missile capability of the “resistance axis” extends over and around Israel, fear multiplies the corrosive effects of occupation, demography, international missteps, political corruption and a military might that (supposedly) cannot sustain large casualties.

Of course, Nasrallah might very well be radically mistaken in all of this. The crucial point, though, is that both he and the party seem to firmly believe otherwise–a certitude and a righteousness mirrored by many of Hizballah’s Israeli opponents who are apparently no less eager to put their own Dahia doctrine, as well as Nasrallah’s “Tel Aviv doctrine” of mutual maximum destruction, to the test.

Sadly, if such a war does indeed come, as appears increasingly likely, one thing is certain–it will cost far more lives on both sides than the last round did.

Published 19/11/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Nicholas Noe is the editor-in-chief of Mideastwire.com and the author of a 2008 Century Foundation white paper entitled, “Re-Imaging the Lebanon Track: Towards a New US Policy”.

**

QN’s Response

Here are a few quick thoughts from me. While I do think that Nick’s diagnosis of Hizbullah’s current strategic position is probably accurate — with respect to the party’s strengths and vulnerabilities — I also suspect that the threshold of the “reasonability test” for any future conflict is a little lower than he portrays it to be.

There is very little appetite in Lebanon for another conflict with Israel, even among Hizbullah’s staunchest allies. And while the Lebanese may indeed rally behind the party if Israel launches a preemptive strike, I just don’t see that happening. Much more likely, in my opinion, is a preemptive strike on Iran, and any overt attempt by Hizbullah to retaliate would be, in my opinion, deeply unpopular in Lebanon.

I think back to the shooting of Samer Hanna, the Lebanese Army helicopter pilot who was accidentally killed by a Hizbullah fighter last year. The incident enraged large swaths of the Christian population, including the Aounists. Sure, they found ways of excusing Hizbullah and turning their anger upon the March 14 politicans who tried to score political points out of the tragedy, but the anger and frustration were there.

How forgiving are Hizbullah’s co-nationalists going to be in the wake of a war that is more destructive than the 2006 conflict?

Joshua Landis’ Response

It is hard to believe Hizbullah is really as confident as they make out. Certainly, “the resistance,” and that includes Hamas and Syria, must do something. The ball is in their court. Israel has won, at least it would seem that way for the time being.

What do I mean by won? The Gaza solution. Israel has defied Obama, who claims that only the two-state solution is viable. It has presented an alternative solution, the Gaza solution. By bombing Hizbullah hard and bombing Hamas hard Israel has mapped out a policy. It seems to be working. No Western power complained when Israel smashed Gaza, nor have they complained since.

No Hizbullah attack in over 3 years and quite on the Gaza front as the population languishes in its tents – that is success of the starkest kind. If the “resistance” does not respond within the year, there will be precious few remaining Israelis – or Westerner politicians for that matter – who will argue that concessions need to be made for peace. Hizbullah may talk a confident game, but the Israelis have promised that Lebanon will be Gaza’ed if Hizbullah strikes. I believe them.

wordpress stats

 

April 10, 2009

“So much for Lebanon’s so-called Cedar Revolution…”

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

cedar revolution...

Michael Young had an article in yesterday’s Daily Star entitled “Syria Will Win Lebanon’s Elections.” Young-haters will gleefully read it as a sign of surrender by one of March 14th’s most ardent and eloquent spokesmen, while his fans will tell you that there’s nothing new about this latest offering: Michael Young has been sour on March 14th for a good long while. Here’s the take-away:

“The March 8-March 14 dichotomy no longer seems appropriate today, despite the furious debate in Lebanon over who will win next June. Whoever wins, Syria will emerge on top, its crimes forgotten and its interests protected. That may sound benign when expressed this way, but those interests will certainly expand in the future, to Lebanon’s detriment. So much for Lebanon’s so-called Cedar Revolution, never a revolution in the first place, and now as exposed as any old tree to being cut down.”

I seem to meet a lot of bitter March 14ers these days. Michael Young is not alone in his frustration with the coalition and its changing fortunes. The departure of the Bush administration and the Syrian-Saudi rapprochement have yanked the rug out (so people say) from beneath the feet of the Independence Intifadists, who now sit and wait for an election that will almost certainly give them a less convincing mandate than the 2005 polls, assuming that they even win at all. To be frank, I can identify with this embittered group, in certain ways. Sure, I seem to spend quite a bit of time and energy on this blog criticizing the leaders of M14 (both politicians and “messaging strategists”), but, at the risk of sounding duplicitous… I can explain.

(Exiting Syrian/Iranian apologist mode… entering USA/Saudi collaborator mode).

I know few people who were not, at one point or another, if only for a day, “believers” in the March 14th movement. This includes many people who have long since drifted away from their earlier convictions, or indeed renounced them vehemently. However, what I’ve found is that even when speaking with people who currently define their political alignment in terms of being against March 14th, the conversation usually winds up producing, curiously enough, some kind of conciliatory position vis-à-vis the “original spirit” of the movement: a spontaneous social uprising against a perceived historical injustice. I wrote an article on the psychological effect of this phenomenon, about a year ago for Syria Comment. Here’s an excerpt.

“What is often lost in the day-to-day analysis of Lebanon’s current despair and hopelessness, is the extent to which its paralysis stems, paradoxically, from two moments of staggering hopefulness. Beneath the surface clutter of parliamentary sessions postponed, foreign sponsors maligned, and electoral laws rejected, lie two emotional currents of deep nationalist aspiration, two currents which flow beneath the landscape of Lebanese politics like parallel subterranean rivers, welling up and intersecting at various points, then diverging once again and disappearing from sight.

I am speaking, of course, of the two monumental events which precipitated the current conflict, namely the “Cedar Revolution” of March 2005 and the “Divine Victory” of July 2006… In many ways, these two episodes were twin revolutions, remarkably similar to each other in their structural outlines and emotional resonance. They each represented a defining moment for a sizable portion of the Lebanese population, in which a dense set of accumulated resentments, anxieties, and righteous anger was focused upon a single historical injustice, and then exorcised – successfully – through a shocking and sublime victory. These twin revolutions made visible, for many Lebanese, a political reality previously unimaginable in Lebanon, a reality in which ordinary citizens were the masters of their own fate, where the dominance of foreign powers could be resisted successfully, and where national unity was not a purely hypothetical construct.

For the hundreds of thousands of people who would come together under the March 14 banner, the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri was a great crime, not against one sect but against the nation as a whole. The huge “Independence 05” rallies displayed an unprecedented degree of national unity… Having yoked their hopes and aspirations to the idyllic prospect of a new national beginning in Lebanon free of foreign tutelage, these citizens could not bear to see their gains dashed by what they perceived to be Syria’s attempt to bring Lebanon under its wing, once again.”

I suppose that this is my way of saying that I can understand Young’s bitterness vis-à-vis the state of the March 14th coalition and his paranoia about what the coming months will bring. However, at the same time, I think that he does not lay enough blame for the movement’s demise at the feet of its leadership. Like Young’s own editorials, March 14th’s leaders have continually looked beyond Lebanon’s borders to situate the source of the movement’s inertia. This was a state of affairs that the United States and the Sunni Arab regimes were only too happy to exploit in order to destabilize a despised regional opponent. As such, the movement never focused its energy on attending to Lebanon’s systemic dysfunctions, and instead tried to shoot the moon by exorcising all of Lebanon’s problems through regime change in Damascus.

It’s probably slightly unfair of me to give Joshua Landis the last word in an article about March 14th and Michael Young, but I believe that he made a strong point along these lines, in a recent email to me. He writes:

“Syria is both a blessing and curse to Lebanon. It is a blessing because it acts as the Sultan, stepping in to halt the damage done by Lebanon’s za`ama system and emulous factionalism  It is a curse because it is the Sultan. Authoritarianism is good for stability but not for freedom.

Lebanon has proven that its political system does not produce stable self-government. Its za`ims need an outside arbitrator to mediate their squabbles which turn to violent. Whether the Ottoman Sultan, the French, the Americans or more recently the Syrians, an outside authority has been drawn into Lebanon’s battles to resolve conflicts that Lebanese politicians seem incapable of resolving on their own.

Obama, like Clinton, will buy Syrian good behavior in Lebanon through the promise of lifting sanctions that Bush imposed and by pushing for peace with Israel and the return of the Golan. This will work for a period of time.

Ultimately, the only cure for Lebanon, in my humble opinion, is to reform the confessional system that pits one Lebanese community against another in such a fashion as to undermine a common sense of national identity and purpose. Only then will the Lebanese abandon their need for an external arbiter and inoculate themselves against Syrian influence. So long as the za`ama system leads to deadlock and a zero sum approach to politics, Syria will remain a blessing and curse to Lebanon.

Apologies for a long and rambling post.   Happy Easter.
wordpress stats

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 120 other followers