September 09, 2013
The diminishing role and influence of the United States in the Middle
East is reflected in its inability, over the past decade, to influence the
course of events in Lebanon. Since the murder of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in
2005, U.S. policy almost exclusively consisted of to bucking up a pro-western
group, the March 14 coalition. America’s two objectives were indicting Hezbollah
for the murder of Hariri, and ultimately the disarmament of the group.
This single-minded attempt to weaken and corner Lebanese Hezbollah
only provoked the group to further intransigence and violence, undermining
local and regional attempts at reconciliation in Lebanon. Rafik Hariri’s son
Saad, who became prime minister in 2009, was encouraged onto a confrontational
path that resulted in the fall of his cabinet in 2011, ironically while he was
in Washington visiting President Obama. Hariri lost the premiership, the
confidence of his Saudi backers and the political game in Lebanon. Fearing for
his own safety, he has been in a self-imposed exile from Lebanon, traveling
between Paris and Riyadh for the past two years.
Since the Arab uprising season started in 2011, the Middle East has gotten
more complicated (especially if you ask top U.S. policy makers). But, what is
happening in the troubled region is also very simple. The social contracts that
bound Arab societies together are unraveling. In most cases, the political
fabrics were woven by colonial powers and/or by authoritarian rulers of one
variety or another. With the uprisings, the authoritarian lid is being tossed
aside, replaced, or put under severe pressure. In a rational world, influential
men and women representing the variety of sectarian, ethnic and ideological
groups would get together in each affected country and renegotiate the contract
between them. In the real world we live in, the unraveling is leading to an
existential struggle for power, with or without the fig leaf of a national
dialogue. The U.S. cannot resolve all the problems of the region, but U.S. foreign
policy must steer carefully with conflict management and mitigation in mind—the
U.S national interest so dictates, as in Lebanon, so in the rest of the region.
Lebanon’s
Syria Problem
It has become a cliché among Levant scholars that Lebanon is a
microcosm of the Middle East, and therefore a key to understanding the region. True
enough. In Lebanon, the impact of the Syrian war is shaking the very foundation
of the Lebanese social contract, known as the Lebanese National Pact.
The national pact guaranteed, in 1943, the 17 recognized religious
sects in Lebanon a place on the country’s political map—a seat, that is, at
every level of government. It also consecrated a grand bargain between
Christians and Muslims on the basis of which Muslims would forgo the
inclination to belong to a greater Arab union or an Islamic Umma beyond
Lebanon’s borders, and Christians would forgo their inclination to retreat to
an exclusive pro-Western religious enclave in the mountains. In return, there
would be a state every sect could call home.
On foreign policy, it was decided that any matter of national import
would only be decided on the basis of consensus, or not at all.
The pact worked relatively well, at least in times of relative calm, largely
between 1943 and 1975, despite a brief period of critical tension in 1958. In
1975 and again in 2005 and 2011, tensions mounted on issues that could neither
be decided by consensus nor ignored. In 1975, the military presence of the Palestine
Liberation Organization in Lebanon, and constant Israeli incursions against
this presence, led the various groups in Lebanon to take matters into their own
hands, in favor of and against the Palestinians. The fabric of the state was
ripped asunder as a result, and state institutions no longer functioned as
neutral agencies meant to serve all groups equally.
The current serious strife in Lebanon goes back to 2005, with the
murder of Rafik Hariri and the immediate sense among the March 14 partisans
that Syria and Hezbollah were behind the assassination. At least half of
Lebanon rose against Syrian military presence and decried the hijacking of
state institutions by Lebanese factions that supported and/or did the bidding
of the Syrians in the country. In 2008, it was the turn of Hezbollah and their March
8 faction, to decry what they saw as the use of the instruments of the state
against them by the majority that had won control of parliament and cabinet.
In each case, major agreements that ended the conflict referred back
to the national pact in mediating between Lebanese factions: Thus, the Taif
Agreement sealed a deal that ended the long civil war by amending the pact to
reapportion power between the sects, making representation in parliament equal
between Muslims and Christians, and recalibrating executive authority to stress
the need for consensus before major decisions were taken on using the
instruments of power. In a similar vein, the 2008 Doha Agreement ended internal
clashes by reinforcing the national pact’s principle of consensus and
preventing the majority in control of the cabinet from taking action against
the security interests of Hezbollah.
The national pact is again being tested by the war going on inside
Syria. With no consensus on which side to support in the Syrian conflict, each
group in Lebanon is taking matters into its own hands. Since the Lebanese state
institutions could be used one way or the other, these institutions are
grinding to a halt over matters that may seem purely domestic but in reality reflect
the impact of the regional struggle on the vital interests of the various Lebanese
factions. Elections are on hold because of lack of agreement on which electoral
law to use. The old 1960 law favors the March 14 grouping, an advantage which
the March 8 coalition wants to eliminate, while the new proportional systems of
representation being proposed may, depending on which version is applied,
better reflect the rising numbers of Shia Muslims, thereby increasing the
representation of Hezbollah. As a result of postponing the election, the term
of the current parliament had to be extended, against the wishes of many in the
March 14 coalition. On the executive
side, with no agreement on appointing a new head of the Lebanese Armed Forces,
led to extending the term of the current leader, General Qahwaji, perceived by
many Lebanese as too accommodating of Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian regime
forces in Lebanon. A similar disagreement over the replacement of the head of
the Internal Security Forces led to the resignation of the cabinet of Prime
Minister Najib Mikati. The designate prime minister, Tammam Salam, has been
unable to form a new government.
The Lebanese have been trained, by years of conflict, to function and
go about their daily business with or without governmental institutions. The
problem, however, is that the paralysis of state institutions reflects the intractable
nature of the conflict between the main protagonists. In principle, there is a
national dialogue forum for resolving major disagreements. Given that each side
seems to consider the struggle for Syria to be an existential one, not only to
the Syrian factions doing the fighting, but also to their respective Lebanese
partisans, there is very little chance a reconciliation session, or any number
of them, would resolve the issue. The only thing that stands in the way of
another major blow-up is imbalance of power that exists between Hezbollah and
the forces opposed to it. March 14 does not have the wherewithal to fight and
March 8 is so dominant that it has no need to.
In sheer numbers, March 14, which includes the vast majority of Sunnis,
roughly half of the Christians and the entire Druze community (at least when
their leader Walid Jumblat is a willing partner) outnumber the Shia and their
allies. Politically, this coalition should prevail. Lebanese realities, however,
dictate a no-winner/no-loser formula, which means elections are more or less
irrelevant from a policy perspective. Further, the only sect that is more or
less unified in Lebanon is the Shi’ite one.
Militarily, the Sunnis, since the end of the civil war, have had no military
capability. Salafi leaders emerged over the past few years and, armed with
private funding from the Gulf, are attempting to fill the vacuum. The militias
that have formed mainly in Tripoli to the north and Saidon in the south, are
poorly organized and equipped militias and the leaders who emerged have neither
the ability to sustain a long conflict nor the leadership to engage
politically. They took a serious blow in the June, 2013 events in Saidon. By
taking on the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), they discredited themselves with
most Lebanese, and came up short in any case.
The Christians are divided: former LAF Commander Michel Aoun and March
14 went their separate ways over domestic politics. Aoun, whose Free National
Party represents a large number of Christians, joined the March 8 coalition,
thereby further bolstering Hezbollah. Former warlord, Samir Geagea, stands
opposed to Aoun and Hezbollah, but has no fighting capability worth mentioning.
The Druze are too small and vulnerable, which explains Jumblat’s
balancing act. The Druze have maintained a small fighting force of some
stature, but this is mainly for defensive purposes and cannot sustain itself in
the face of a serious onslaught.
In the face of this faltering March 14 coalition, Hezbollah stands as
a solid front, socially, politically and militarily, with a several thousand
strong militia equipped with sophisticated weapons capable of holding off the Israel
Defense Forces, let alone any Lebanese force, to include the LAF.
U.S.
Options
The U.S. has two choices in Lebanon, reflecting I would argue, similar
choices in the region: support pro-Western factions or facilitate
reconciliation. Continuing along the previous path in Lebanon, March 14 could
be encouraged to pry Aoun’s Christians away from the March 8 coalition and,
with some encouragement, new Saudi funds could be used to pump up the group. Such
a course of action could only lead to the Syrian conflict spilling over into a
full-fledged war in Lebanon. The other course of action would be to encourage a
genuine national dialogue in Lebanon, which means an accommodation between the
two main groups. This parallels the alternate scenarios in Syria: an ultimate
accommodation between the warring Syrian communities, or a struggle to the
bitter end.
In Lebanon and Syria, the Iran-Saudi Arabia conflict reigns supreme. With
or without a strike on Syria, a grand bargain between the U.S. and Iran would
hold the key to any regional reconciliation. A very unlikely happy ending, it
would seem under current circumstances. The alternative however is an all-out
war which, unfortunately in the Middle East, is always an option.
Nabeel Khoury is Senior Fellow for Middle East and National
Security at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He previously served as
Deputy Chief of Mission in Yemen (2004-2007), Deputy Director of the Media
Outreach Centre in London (2002-2004), and Consul General in Morocco
(1998-2002). In 2003, during the Iraq war, he served as Department spokesperson
at U.S. Central Command in Doha and in Baghdad.