LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
NOVEMBER 2/06
Biblical Reading For today
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5,1-12.
When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
He began to teach them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Free Opinions & Studies
President Lahoud and the 'Trust'- Randa Takieddin Al-Hayat 02.11.06
Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads . By Walid Phares November 01/06
Hezbollah and the Political Ecology of Postwar Lebanon.By Gary C. Gambill - Monitor- 02.11.06
Implications of the Israel-Hezbollah War. By Gary C. Gambill. Monitor. 02.11.06
Latest New from the Daily Star for November 2/06
Mount Lebanon mufti lashes out at Hizbullah
National Gathering Sunnis say Dar al-Fatwa is 'for all Lebanese'Berri says Israeli attacks targeted commercial rivals
Full speed ahead for plans to revamp refugee camps
Maronite Bishops appeal for calm in political arena
Israel insists on violations despite wide condemnation
World powers weigh in on debate over Hariri tribunal
Washington warns of 'mounting evidence' of bid to bring down Siniora Cabinet
Research team tests Khiam soil samples for signs of radiation
Builders race to finish bridges before weather worsens
De Freij lauds increased European role in Lebanon
Lebanon's advertising sector feels postwar pinchLatest New from miscellaneous sources for November 2/06
Bishops Worried Over Mounting Divisions Among Lebanese-Naharner
Sallukh: No Weapons Being Smuggled in from Syria-Naharner
U.S.: 'Mounting evidence' of Plan to Topple Saniora's Government-Naharner
Jumblat: Hizbullah Advocated Street Demonstrations Will Paralyze Lebanon-Naharnet
Israel: We will Continue Overflights Despite Protests-Naharner
Hezbollah seeks bigger role in cabinet-Independent OnlineDocumentary shows IDF battling Hezbollah
US faults Syria, Iran, Hezbollah on Lebanon-Reuters
Crossfire War - Israel Conducts Mock Air Attack on Hezbollah ...NewsBlazeJumblatt: Hezbollah street demonstrations will paralyze Lebanon-Ya Libnan
Briefly: Hezbollah leader says talks are under way-International Herald Tribune
War With Hezbollah Causes Israeli Cannabis Prices To Skyrocket-All Headline News
Hezbollah Threatens Resignations-All Headline News
HEZBOLLAH THREATENS STREET PROTESTS-Free Market News Network
Report: Hizbullah Rebuilds Military Force Despite U.N. Presence-Naharner
Syria still arming Hezbollah, politician says-Washington Times
Analysis: Lebanon and the UN council-United Press International
PM: Hizbullah no longer threat to north-Jerusalem Post
Hizbollah sets deadline for Lebanon govt-The Age, Australia
Hezbollah: Talks Over Israeli Soldiers Under Way-CBS 5 - Green Bay
Editorial: Peace Moving Away-Arab News, Saudi Arabia
Israel's Peres "sceptical" about UK's Syria overtures-ReutersBlair launches secret diplomatic mission to Syria: report-People's Daily Online
LEBANON: Up to 200,000 still displaced after war, UN says-Reuters
Syria switches to the Euro due to US sanctions-Ynetnews
Lebanon and the UN council-Monsters and Critics.com
Hezbollah threatens street protests-San Jose Mercury News
Pressure Builds for Diplomacy Between Syria and America-New York Sun
White House Accuses Syria, Iran
By ANNE GEARAN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 1, 2006; 1:11 PM
WASHINGTON -- The White House on Wednesday accused Syria, Iran and the Hezbollah militants they back of hatching a plan to undermine or topple the democratic government in Lebanon.
The White House also warned that the world will not allow any diversionary tactics to scuttle possible prosecutions for the assassination of a Lebanese politician who had tried to draw his country away from Syrian domination.
U.S. troops coil barbed wire used as a cordon around Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, where an American soldier was abducted Oct. 23. (Hadi Mizban -- Associated Press)
White House spokesman Tony Snow cited "mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah, and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government." His written statement did not detail that evidence, but seemed to single out Syria as the primary culprit.
Snow said there are indications that Syria's goal is to prevent the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora from approving the statute for an international tribunal that would try those accused of involvement in former Prime Minister Hariri's assassination in 2005.
"Any such effort to sideline the tribunal will fail, however, for the international community can proceed with establishing it no matter what happens internally in Lebanon," Snow said.
He added that the United States is committed to the quick establishment of a tribunal.
Answering questions from reporters later Wednesday, Snow said the Saniora government is a powerful democratic example for the Middle East.
"We're making it clear to everybody in the region that it ought to be hands off the Saniora government and let them go about and do their business," Snow said at the White House.
The White House statement echoed accusations from U.N. ambassador John Bolton on Monday. Snow said such tactics as manufactured demonstrations, violence or physical threats to Lebanese leaders would be a clear violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and three United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The White House statement came as the militant group Hezbollah threatened street protests to force early elections in Lebanon. Hezbollah is demanding creation of a "national unity" cabinet that would give the Islamic militants and their allies veto power over key decisions.
Report: Hizbullah Rebuilds Military Force Despite U.N. Presence
Naharnet: Hizbullah has stepped up the rebuilding of its military infrastructure despite the deployment of Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, a British daily has said. "Standing firm against international pressure to disarm, the Shiite group is rearming and rebuilding tunnels and trenches destroyed by the Israeli army during this summer's 34-day war," The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday. It quoted a Bint Jbeil resident in the south as saying that Hizbullah is working fast to rebuild its security infrastructure. "Militants in Shiite strongholds have interconnected tunnels and bunkers under their houses. These are being rebuilt under cover of the reconstruction work," the man told the daily. He also said "cables and telecommunications equipment had been installed and the number of trucks delivering aid and supplies made it easy to disguise weapons smuggling." The daily quoted another resident as saying that "Hizbullah is everywhere. But after the war the fighters put away their guns and uniforms and went back to being school teachers, engineers, farmers and business people." However, The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon argues that the presence of 8,800 peacekeepers and more than 12,000 Lebanese soldiers south of the Litani river has severely restricted Hizbullah activity.
Deputy commander of the French UNIFIL contingent based north of Bint Jbeil Lt Laurent Trochet told the daily: "We have fixed outposts between which we patrol night and day…This makes the smuggling of arms very difficult." But, according to the Daily Telegraph, Lt Trochet admitted that the U.N. forces had very little intelligence about Hizbullah activity. "I imagine that the people here are Hizbullah, but they don't show themselves," he said.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 which brought an end to the Israel-Hizbullah war on August 14, calls on Hizbullah to disarm and urges the end of arms smuggling to the group.(AFP photo shows a Hizbullah flag flying behind French soldiers on patrol in the southern village of Bint Jbeil)
Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 10:45
Bishops Worried Over Mounting Divisions Among Lebanese
Naharnet: The Council of Maronite Bishops expressed concern on Wednesday about growing divisions among Lebanese over the international tribunal that would try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassins and demands for the formation of a national unity government. The bishops, in a statement released after their monthly meeting, urged the Lebanese to unite and to work for the interest of the country. The council "expresses sorry for the… division over the international court, the national unity government and the new electoral law," the statement said. "This calls on all Lebanese to work for the Lebanese interest" rather than the interest of factions, it added. The Bishops' reaction came a day after Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that his group will resort to street demonstrations if the roundtable dialogue failed to produce a national unity government. Hizbullah and Gen. Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement have been calling for the toppling of Premier Fouad Saniora's government and the formation of a national unity cabinet.
Rival leaders – Christian and Muslim, Pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian – are scheduled to hold roundtable consultations in parliament on Monday to discuss the issue of the government and the electoral law. The statement also came a few days after Pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud slammed the international tribunal to try Hariri's suspected assassins. The anti-Syrian parliamentary majority accuses Lahoud and pro-Syrian groups of calling for the formation of a national unity government to obstruct the formation of the court. Hariri was killed in February 2005 along with 22 others in a huge bombing on the Beirut seafront. Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 10:57
U.S.: 'Mounting evidence' of Plan to Topple Saniora's Government
Naharnet: The White House on Wednesday sounded the alarm over what it called "mounting evidence" that Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah were "preparing plans to topple" Premier Fouad Saniora's government. "Support for a sovereign, democratic, and prosperous Lebanon is a key element of U.S. policy in the Middle East," spokesman Tony Snow said in a statement. "We are therefore increasingly concerned by mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hizbullah, and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically-elected government led by Prime Minister Saniora," said Snow. Last week, a well-known U.S. official told An Nahar newspaper that Syria was preparing an "intimidating political campaign" to overthrow the Lebanese government through Gen. Michel Aoun and his allies. Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah have been recently calling for the resignation of Saniora's government and the formation of a national unity cabinet. On Tuesday, Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned of street demonstrations if rival political leaders scheduled to meet at parliament Monday fail to agree on his demands.
"Any attempt to destabilize Lebanon's democratically-elected government through such tactics as manufactured demonstrations and violence, or by physically threatening its leaders would, at the very least, be a clear violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1559, 1680, and 1701," said Snow. He accused also Syria of trying to obstruct the formation of an international tribunal to try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassins. "There are indications that one goal of the Syrian plan is to prevent the current Lebanese government from approving the statute for an international tribunal…Any such effort to sideline the tribunal will fail, however, for the international community can proceed with establishing it no matter what happens internally in Lebanon," Snow said. The statement came two days after Druze leader Walid Jumblat sought U.S. backing for the international court to try suspects in Hariri's Feb. 2005 slaying. Jumblat said he discussed the proposed tribunal with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington. The Druze leader notably complained of opposition to the court from pro-Syrian President Emil Lahoud. "If someone opposes this international court, that means that he is covering up the crime," Jumblat said.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 18:00
Israel: We will Continue Overflights Despite Protests
Israeli warplanes will continue to overfly Lebanon despite protests from the United Nations and Beirut, an Israeli minister told public radio Wednesday.
"They can protest for as long as they like. Our reconnaissance flights will continue," deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh said in response to a question about the fierce international criticism of the flights. His comments come a day after the U.N. and France, which commands the U.N. peacekeeping force overseeing a truce that ended this summer's war between the Jewish state and Hizbullah, called on Israel to halt the overflights which they said were a violation of the ceasefire. "We consider them contrary to the spirit and the letter of Resolution 1701," the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in August that ended the July-August war, French foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said. "We call for all the parties to abstain from any act that could fuel or escalate tensions," Mattei told reporters. A U.N. statement issued in the name of special envoy to Lebanon, Geir Pedersen, condemned the persistent violations of Lebanese airspace. "Geir Pedersen expresses his serious concern at the continuing overflights by Israel which constitute a breach of Lebanese sovereignty and specifically of Security Council Resolution 1701," it said. Spain's defense minister Jose Antonio Alonso and the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana also "asked clearly" the Israeli government to end its air force's operations over Lebanon.
On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets carried out intensive mock air raids at low altitude over Beirut and south Lebanon. The overflights were concentrated over the capital's southern suburbs that were devastated by the war, security officials said. In the south, where the French-commanded peacekeeping force is policing the ceasefire resolution that came into force on August 14, the warplanes also carried out low-altitude mock raids, police said.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 09:51
Jumblat: Hizbullah Advocated Street Demonstrations Will Paralyze Lebanon
Druze leader Walid Jumblat has warned that Hizbullah advocated street demonstrations to topple Premier Fouad Saniora's government would paralyze the country and cause "chaos." Jumblat's comments were made Tuesday during a panel discussion at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, at the end of a U.S. visit where he met with top U.S. officials. On Hizbullah's demands for the formation of a national unity government, Jumblat said that the Shiite group and its Christian ally General Michel Aoun intended to form a new cabinet so they could control one-third of the government.
If the current government is overthrown, Jumblat said, "the country would live in paralysis." He said that the reason behind this demand "is to cause chaos, stop the international tribunal" and interrupt the implementation of U.N. resolutions." The idea for the international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of Premier Rafik Hariri, was floated in March by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Hariri was killed along with 22 others in a massive truck bombing in Beirut in February 2005, sparking large anti-Syrian protests in Beirut and leading, along with international pressure, to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon that ended nearly 30 years of military presence.
About means to disarm Hizbullah, Jumblat said that "we should persuade (Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei," adding that "our problem with Hizbullah is that it (the group) is an arc that begins in Lebanon, passes through Syria and ends in Iran." Jumblat emphasized the significance of establishing an international tribunal which is the only way "to deter the Syrian regime and bring the (suspected) leaders before justice, including Damascus' ruler," a reference to Syrian President Bashar Assad. "Without the international tribunal, Bashar Assad will not leave us in peace," he said.
Jumblat accused Syria of wanting to keep the issue of the Shabaa Farms area "vague," describing it as a "Syrian trick." Shabaa lies at the convergence of the Lebanese-Syrian-Israeli borders. Israel captured the area from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, and it is now claimed by Lebanon with Damascus's consent. Israeli troops have retained control of Shabaa Farms since their withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000 after two decades of occupation and has remained the flashpoint for cross-border fighting since then. Jumblat said that the anti-Syrian March 14 Forces had suggested during the first round of national talks earlier in March that Lebanon adopt the Swiss system where every Swiss is an army member. Jumblat said that Nasrallah has to choose between wanting to be "part of Lebanon and adhere to the Lebanese law … or be a state within the state, which is the current situation."
Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 13:27
President Lahoud and the 'Trust'
Randa Takieddin Al-Hayat - 01/11/06//
Do the Lebanese remember the words of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on the day President Hafez al-Assad passed away? Lahoud reported that the Syrian president had telephoned him before his death and told him: "I have entrusted Lebanon to you, and I will go in peace."
The only thing Lahoud did with this trust was the compulsory extension of his presidency and the amendment of the constitution. After the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his fellow companions, MP Bassel Fleihan, martyr colleagues Samir Kassir, Gibran Tueini, George Hawi and the assassination attempts against Minister Marwan Hamadeh and colleague May Chidiac: he does not care about Resolution 1595, and now he wants to block the establishment of an international court to try the criminals.
Is that the trust he received from Syria, because the International Tribunal is just around the corner and the truth is about to appear?
What democratic country has a president rejects the trial of criminals who assassinated his prime minister, because he had worked for the independence of his country, and murdered journalists, politicians, who had struggled for the freedom of speech and the sovereignty and dignity? What is the reason for President Lahoud's obstruction of the establishment of the International Tribunal? The President's comments on the Court suggest the fear and concern of those who had entrusted him with the results of the international investigation.
The Lebanese Justice Minister, Charles Rizk, a friend of President Lahoud, showed his loyalty to the Constitution, the homeland and international laws. He called for avoiding legal heresy. So, how can the Lebanese President contradict his minister, the international law, Resolution 1595 and the whole international community? How can he reject the right of the Lebanese people to know the truth about the heinous crimes committed in 2005, which may continue unless international law and the International Tribunal put an end to them?
Who gave Lahoud the trust of obstructing this Court, even thought it was unanimously approved by the National Dialogue Conference last March, as well as the Cabinet and the Prime Minister?On this sad day, which coincides with the memory of martyr Premier Rafik Hariri's birthday (November 1), who was assassinated in his 60s, how can the Lebanese allow all these abhorrent crimes go unpunished? How can the Arab citizen condone crimes of this magnitude to be buried away along with the truth? Indeed, the Lebanese president, whose newly extended presidential term was rejected by UN Resolution 1559 on legal terms, leads the country to a new serious crisis. Lebanon needs better conditions that would enable it to capitalize on the readiness of the international community to support and assist the country economically. However, it seems that President Lahoud - just as he did after the 'Paris2' Conference - wants to disrupt the International Tribunal, 'Paris3' and whatever can take this country out of its crisis.
Did Lahoud begin the process of returning the trust to whoever gave him power?
Blocking the International Tribunal and the refusal to prosecute the criminals will earnestly revive the pigeonholed battle for the removal of Lahoud from presidency. No one has the right to question a legitimate Lebanese demand: to uncover the truth about the crimes that have killed activists of freedom and sovereignty. This demand has been asserted by UN Security Council resolutions that were approved by the entire international community.
Will the Lebanese allow their martyrs' blood to be shed in vain because of legal heresies? Does the Lebanese ruler want the international community to say that Lebanon is worried about the truth? Judge Serge Brammertz has worked professionally and delicately based on pieces of evidence and away from the spotlight of the press. From his UN Commission's Montverde Headquarters in Lebanon, Brammertz has worked while avoiding any meeting with any Western or Middle Eastern politician. He only met with those he believed essential to his investigation. No one knows what Brammertz can come up with. But the guilty and those who committed the crimes know the size of their guilt and are worried of the results of the investigations. These investigations are proceeding normally, whether we like it or not. The International Tribunal is coming, despite the attempts to obstruct it. The international community is determined to punish the criminals.
Sallukh: No Weapons Being Smuggled in from Syria
Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallukh denied Wednesday suggestions by U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen that arms were still being smuggled in to Hizbullah from Syria. "The Lebanese army has deployed on the Lebanese-Syrian border since August 17 with about 8,500 troops, with forces also on the maritime borders and in territorial waters," said the minister. "Since that date no arms shipments have been seized on the land or maritime borders, and we know that the measures we have adopted are so tight that it is impossible for any shipment to enter without being seized," he said.
"These facts are confirmed by the Lebanese army command, which is the relevant authority." Without referring to him by name, Sallukh criticized Roed Larsen for saying on Monday that he had been informed by Lebanese authorities that undisclosed quantities of unspecified weapons were still being smuggled in. Roed Larsen told reporters at the U.N. headquarters in New York however that the Beirut authorities gave no details on quantities or types of weapons. Sallukh said: "We have previously asked for a clear and transparent mechanism to inform the United Nations about the situation in Lebanon in an official and documented way.""It is better than having people exploiting allegations ... which affect the stability of Lebanon and the region."
Israel has justified its continued violation of Lebanese airspace in defiance of international criticism as a means of monitoring what it says is persistent arms smuggling by Hizbullah. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which put an end to a month of devastating fighting between Israel and Hizbullah in July and August, required the Lebanese army to deploy to the international border to prevent arms smuggling.It also authorized an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force to help the Lebanese army to secure the border if requested.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 17:32
Nasrallah Warns of 'Street Demonstrations' if National Unity Government is not Formed
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has warned of "street demonstrations" if the roundtable dialogue failed to produce a national unity government.
In a late Tuesday interview with Al-Manar television channel, Nasrallah accused the parliamentary "ruling majority" of seeking to transform the beefed up U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) into a multinational force whose mandate would be to disarm Hizbullah.
"The ruling majority is seeking to make UNIFIL ... occupy Lebanon and disarm the (Hizbullah) resistance," Nasrallah charged.
He warned that any attempts by an international force to disarm the resistance would transform Lebanon into another Iraq or Afghanistan, adding that "this plan was already hoped for by the (leadership) before the Israeli aggression. It is an American-Israeli demand."
In the three-hour taped television interview, Nasrallah also said that "serious negotiations" were under way over the fate of two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture by his group sparked a month of brutal fighting in Lebanon.
He said a negotiator appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been meeting with Hizbullah and Israeli officials.
Nasrallah has offered to exchange the two Israeli soldiers for Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, but Israel has repeatedly refused. Although the U.N. resolution that ended the 34-day war called for the soldiers' unconditional release, Israel has exchanged prisoners in the past.
Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hizbullah ally, has called for a national dialogue among Lebanon's rival political leaders to consider a national unity government and the adoption of a new electoral law to end the political stalemate.
The talks have been postponed until Monday, November 6 because of the absence of several anti-Syrian leaders.
Nasrallah warned that if talks fail, Hizbullah would "go to the streets" to demand a unity government and call for early parliamentary elections
"If dialogue does not result in a government of national unity, we will resort to street demonstrations," Nasrallah warned. "It is our constitutional right, our democratic right to express out opinions in the street."
Hizbullah is calling for the formation of a national unity government to "face up to the challenges with which Lebanon is confronted." It wants the inclusion of other political groups, particularly that of its Christian ally, former General Michel Aoun.
Nasrallah also accused the "ruling majority" of seeking to sow fear among the public by harping on insecurity in the country.
"The ruling majority is weak and frightened," he said. "It has lost all credibility in the street." Nasrallah said the U.N. resolutions "were for the benefit of Israel and not for Lebanon." He said Hizbullah, despite attempts to keep arms from being smuggled to the Shiite group, has "regained all its vigor." The group has 33,000 rockets, he said -- up from the 22,000 he said his fighters had on Sept. 22. "The resistance in Lebanon is strong, cohesive, able and ready, and they will not be able to undermine it no matter what the challenges are," he said. The Hizbullah chief also accused the United States of being responsible for continued violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying U.S. policy in the region has failed. "Afghanistan is a failure ... In Iraq, there is clear failure on the security, military and political levels ... Who shoulders responsibility? It's the American administration and the occupation forces in control of the situation," he said. Nasrallah said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration and a state of collapse," and predicted the U.S. would be forced to leave the region in the future -- just like it left Vietnam after the war there three decades ago.(AFP-AP-Naharnet) Beirut, 01 Nov 06, 06:46
Spain, EU Ask Israel to Stop Lebanon Overflights
Spain's defense minister Jose Antonio Alonso and the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Tuesday called for Israel to stop flights over Lebanon.
Alonso and Solana "asked clearly" the Israeli government to end its air force's operations over Lebanon, they said at a joint press conference in Madrid.
The Israeli air force on Tuesday flew repeatedly at low altitude over Beirut and southern Lebanon, where the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is deployed, provoking a military response from Lebanon which said it had fired anti-aircraft weapons. France repeated its call for an end to overflights on Tuesday, saying it constituted "a violation of Lebanese sovereignty." Alonso and Solana said after their meeting in Madrid that Israel must respect resolution 1701 of the U.N. Security Council on Lebanon "like everyone else."Solana said the overflights "clearly" weaken the U.N.'s mandate in Lebanon.(AFP) Beirut, 31 Oct 06, 21:03
Tueni Attacks Lahoud's Mutiny on the International Community
Commenting on President Emile Lahoud's sudden attack on the international tribunal, MP and An-Nahar publisher Ghassan Tueni dubbed the head of state "ruling from outside the framework of international legitimacy and mutineering" on the international community. In an editorial front-paged by Lebanon's leading daily An-Nahar, Tueni expressed "our concern that the president's stand is the first step towards ending international sympathy for Lebanon … and perhaps an attempt to put this country again in the shadows of the security system," in reference to Syria's dominance over Lebanon's political theater for nearly three decades.Under the headline "Why Don't We Put Martyrs on Trial?," Tueni said Lahoud's criticism of the international tribunal was tantamount to "opening fire on everything related to the United Nations." He concluded by raising the question: "Does he (Lahoud) want to push Lebanon back into an international isolation and (change it into) an arena for wars staged by others and a base for terrorism?" Beirut, 31 Oct 06, 13:00
Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads
By Walid Phares
November 2/06
The strategic decision to carry out 9/11 was made in the early 1990s, almost ten years before the barbaric attacks on New York and Washington took place. The decade long preparations and the testing of America’s defenses and political tolerance to terrorism that took place before September 11th were a stage in the much longer modern history of the jihadist movement that produced al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. Decades from now, historians will discover that the United States, the West and the international community were being targeted by a global ideological movement which emerged in the 1920s, survived World War II and the Cold War, and carefully chose the timing of its onslaught against democracy.
Undoubtedly, the issue that policy planners and government leaders need to address with greatest urgency, and which the American public is most concerned about, is the future shape of the terrorist threat facing the United States and its allies. Yet developments since 2001, both at home and overseas, have shown that terror threats in general — and the jihadi menace in particular — remain at the same time resilient and poorly understood.
Defining the War
The jihadi war against the Soviet Union during the Cold War — and the struggle against the United States and some of its allies thereafter — are all part of a single continuum. Over time, jihadi Salafists and Khomeinist radicals alike have become proficient in selecting their objectives and infiltrating targets. Indeed, an analysis of the security failures that made 9/11 possible clearly demonstrates that the hijackers exploited systemic malfunctions at the national security level.
Learning these lessons is essential for better counterterrorism planning in the future. But the jihadists are also learning, and the advantage will go to the side which can adapt most quickly. If the jihadists learn to understand and anticipate their opponents, their tactics and strategies will mutate.
The first strain of mutating Islamist ideology is that of al-Qaeda and its affiliates. In his now - historic April 2006 speech, Osama Bin Laden confirmed his commitment to global, total and uncompromising jihad. “It is a duty for the Umma with all its categories, men, women and youths, to give away themselves, their money, experiences and all types of material support, enough [to establish jihad in the fields of jihad] particularly in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kashmir and Chechnya,” Bin Laden has maintained. “Jihad today is an imperative for every Muslim. The Umma will commit sin if it did not provide adequate material support for jihad.”1
Bin Laden’s latest risala (message) is as important as his initial declarations of war and of mobilization, laying out his most comprehensive vision so far. As this “world declaration” makes clear, the global Salafi agenda accepts no truth other than radical Islamist dogma. All non-Islamist governments must be brought down, and pure, pious ones erected in their stead. Global jihadism, in its Salafi-Wahhabi form, is ideologically at war with the rest of the world. The conflict is universal in nature. It encompasses the entire West, not just the United States and Europe. Russia, India, and at some point even China, in addition to moderate Muslim governments, must be brought down. Like no other document to date, Bin Laden’s speech outlines the final fantasy of the jihadi mind: world domination.
The second branch of jihadism is smaller, and concentrated in the hands of a single regime: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since its inception, Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution has seen itself as universal in nature. And today, flush with oil dividends, it is rapidly expanding its influence in Lebanon, the Persian Gulf, Iraq,
and Afghanistan. Similar to its Salafi counterpart, the Khomeinist world - view seeks to erect Islamist regimes, launch radical organizations and expand its ideology. But unlike in Wahhabism, the chain of command is narrow and tightly controlled; Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the unquestioned ideological head, while Iran’s radical president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, decides the time, place and scope of the battles.
Future Battlefields
By understanding the objectives of these forces, it is possible to extrapolate some theaters of likely confrontation in the years ahead.
Iraq
Today, U.S. - led forces in Iraq are battling al-Qaeda and other Salafi forces in the so - called “Sunni Triangle.” In the south, meanwhile, Coalition forces have engaged Iranian - supported militias, such as Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army. U.S. and Iraqi forces will continue to battle on both of these fronts, in Iraq’s center and south. The Salafi strategy will center on classical terrorist attacks, while Iranian - supported forces are likely to attempt to infiltrate and take control of Iraqi forces. U.S. - Iraqi counterterrorism cooperation will continue to expand, but a decisive victory for Baghdad cannot take place before Iranian and Syrian interference has receded - and that will not happen until both of those regimes are weakened from the inside. Hence, American support for democratic and opposition forces in Syria (and by extension Lebanon) and Iran is the surest way to ensure success in Iraq.
Afghanistan
The consolidation of the Karzai government in Kabul is essential to American strategy, both as a bridge to a younger generation of Afghans and as a counterweight to the appeal of the Taliban. Al-Qaeda is committed to preventing such a development. It has a vested interest in causing the country’s post - Taliban government to fail, and in preventing a new generation of citizens from being exposed to non - Salafi teachings. U.S. and NATO forces therefore face a long - term struggle against jihadists in that country, both on the military and the socio - cultural level. Sustaining engagement there will depend on two factors: American public support, and the outcome of the struggle between fundamentalists and the government currently taking place in Pakistan.
Pakistan
Many of the components of the worldwide war with jihadism are concentrated in Pakistan. So far, Pakistan’s radical Islamists have been able to block their government from taking back control of the country’s western tribal areas and uprooting the fundamentalist organizations in its east. But potentially even more dangerous is the possibility that jihadists could take control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. In this context, the most serious threat to the United States would be the collapse of the Musharraf government and the Pakistani military at the hands of radical Islamists. Should this happen, the U.S. would be under direct nuclear threat from a nuclear - armed al-Qaeda regime — one that would have tremendous control over
many other Muslim countries.
Asia
A major shift in south Asia will not only impact Afghanistan and Pakistan, but is likely to spill over into Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the southern Philippines, with ripple effects on U.S. allies Australia, Thailand, and India. The U.S. will be deeply and adversely affected by the expansion of jihadism in Asia. The most serious threat to the United States would be the collapse of the Musharraf government and the Pakistani military at the hands of radical Islamists. Should this happen, the U.S. would be under direct nuclear threat from a nuclear - armed al-Qaeda regime — one that would have tremendous control over many other Muslim countries.
Iran
While the Salafi threat is likely to extend east into Asia, Khomeinism is likely to expand westward, from Iran to southern Lebanon via Iraq’s Shi’ite areas and Syria’s Alawite - dominated regime. Since its inception, the radical regime in Tehran has had a vision of itself as a great power, and consequently perceives itself to be on a collision course with the “Great Satan”: the United States. The imperial vision of a Shi’a Crescent from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean held by Iran’s leaders mirrors the Sunni Caliphate envisioned by al-Qaeda and its followers — albeit one with a modern twist: nuclear weapons. Bolstered by its partnership with Syria and the strength of its proxy force in Lebanon, Tehran today envisions a global confrontation with the United States. As such, the Iranian regime represents a cardinal threat to democracies in the region and, by extension, to the United States.
Syria
Ever since Hafez al-Assad chose to permit Iran to expand its influence in Lebanon, a Syrian - Iranian axis has existed in the region.2 During the Cold War, Damascus was able to outmaneuver the U.S. on a number of fronts, chief among them Lebanon. By 1990, the latter had been abandoned by Washington to Syria. The Ba’athist domination of Lebanon, in turn, led to the ascendance of Hezbollah. But America’s post - 9/11 volte - face brought the dangers of Syrian - occupied Lebanon into sharp focus. By 2005, Syria had been forced out of Lebanon, but Bashar al-Assad remains defiant. Today, in the aftermath of Hezbollah’s war with Israel, Syria, like Iran, finds itself hurtling toward confrontation with the United States.
Lebanon
Since the 1970s, Lebanon has been a key battlefield between the forces of terror and the West. The country houses a dense conglomeration of anti-democratic forces, ranging from Hezbollah to pro - Syrian groups to extreme Salafists. Since the 1983 attacks on the U.S. Marine barracks, the United States has altered its strategy toward Lebanon several times, but today, Washington finds itself forced to contain a rising Hezbollah and support a struggling “Cedar Revolution.”
Sudan and the Horn of Africa
All the indications suggest that al-Qaeda is planning to open a new battlefield in Africa. In the speeches of Bin Laden and other Islamist leaders, Sudan represents a central arena of confrontation with the infidels, and a major launching pad for world jihad. The jihadists aim to thwart the international community in Darfur and reignite a holy war in southern Sudan. In addition, fundamentalists are expanding their influence in Somalia, and conspiring against U.S. ally Ethiopia. Here again, the U.S. and other democracies find themselves on a collision course with radical Islamists, even though international engagement in Africa today is essentially limited to humanitarian assistance.
Europe
With the Madrid and London attacks, the many plots foiled in Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, the violence in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, the French “intifada” and the “Cartoon Jihad,” Europe has well and truly become the next battlefield. Transatlantic cooperation could give way to tensions between America and its European partners, as European jihadis become a danger to the United States. Indeed, jihadi penetration of Europe, particularly Western Europe, is expected to facilitate the infiltration of North America.
Russia
Since the 2002 Moscow theater hostage taking and the subsequent Beslan school massacre, jihadism has engulfed Russia. Wahhabism has already taken hold in Russia’s southern provinces, and jihadists are thinking beyond Chechnya, toward the dismemberment of the Russian Federation. Russian strategy, for its part, has been peculiar; while Moscow has confronted fundamentalists at home head - on, it nonetheless pursues a policy of support for Iran and Syria — and, by extension, Hezbollah. In doing so, Russia’s foreign policy has become antithetical to its own national security. The U.S. and Russia have a solid basis for collaboration against international terrorism, but unless Moscow abandons its tolerance of Tehran’s radicalism, the two countries will miss a strategic opportunity to defeat world terror in this decade.
Latin America
While the Soviet legacy has mostly dissipated in Latin America, with Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba the last ailing vestige of the Cold War, it has taken just one decade for new threats to emerge. The populist regime of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela not only poses a challenge to liberal democracies in the region, it also serves as a conduit for foreign jihadi threats. With an alliance with Iran in the making and with an al-Qaeda and Hezbollah presence in the country, Venezuela is facilitating the activities of a network of forces inimical to U.S. interests. Deeper in the continent, meanwhile, both al-Qaeda and Hezbollah have successfully put down roots in the Andes and the Tri - Border Region between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. With the long and porous Mexican - American border a major vulnerability, another future threat to the U.S. is brewing to its south.
Canada
Finally, American security is also at risk from the north. Not only is Canada considered a passageway by which international terrorists can enter the United States, it has also become a site for the proliferation of jihadi groups. The arrests made in Toronto in the summer of 2006, and the coordination between U.S. - born radicals and their Canadian “brothers,” are signs of a new era — one in which Islamists view the United States and Canada as one strategic arena for operations. Washington therefore will increasingly need to coordinate its counterterrorism strategies with its northern neighbor, despite the differences in political culture, institutions and attitudes.
The Home Front
For the United States, winning the War on Terror depends on two battlefields. The first is overseas, where Washington must confront jihadi forces and help allies to win their own struggles with terrorism. This will require the United States to support democratic change abroad, both as a counterweight to jihadist lobbies and as a means of assisting Arab and Muslim democrats to win the conflict within their own societies.
The second, however, is closer to home. Homeland security planners must be thinking seriously about a duo of unsettling questions. First, are jihadists already in possession of unconventional weapons on American soil, and how can the U.S. government deter them? This crucial issue tops all other challenges, for a terrorist nuclear strike on the U.S. has the potential to transform international relations as we know them.
Second, how deeply have jihadist elements infiltrated the U.S. government and federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and various military commands, either through sympathizers or via actual operatives?
As the recent scandal over the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program has shown, the answers are fraught with complications. Five years into the War on Terror, the U.S. has not fully made the transition from the pre - 9/11 legal counterterrorism framework to one based on intelligence, prevention and robust police action. And, without a national consensus about the seriousness of the jihadi threat, America will lose its own war of ideas.
The future enemies of the United States will be a mutation of current and past terrorist foes. In confronting these forces, knowledge of their ideologies, objectives and determination will make all the difference.
1. “Transcript: Bin Laden Accuses West,” Al-Jazeera (Doha), April 24, 2006, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F9694745-060C-419C-8523-2E093B7B807D.htm.
2. For a comprehensive analysis of this alliance, see Walid Phares, “The Syrian-Iran
Axis,” Global Affairs VII, no. 3 (1992), 83-86.
Hezbollah and the Political Ecology of Postwar Lebanon
by Gary C. Gambill
http://www.mideastmonitor.org/issues/0609/0609_1.htm
Hezbollah's recent confrontation with Israel is commonly portrayed in the Western media as a proxy war instigated by Iran, with Syria cast as either coconspirator or clingy sidekick, and a fragile government in Beirut looking on helplessly from the sidelines. To be sure, Tehran has a very intimate relationship with the militant Lebanese Shiite Islamist movement and generously provisions it with arms (through Syria) and financial aid. However, while Iranian influence is a powerful enabling factor, the underlying dynamics of the conflict are decidedly local and Lebanon's governing elite is hardly out of the loop.
In a region where anti-Israeli adventurism is a ticket to instant acclaim, Hezbollah has the distinction of being the only organization openly permitted by its own government to carry out acts of violence against the Jewish state. Following the withdrawal of occupying Syrian forces last year, Lebanon's newly-elected (but largely incumbant) government adopted the same permissive policy as its predecessors. Despite considerable prodding by the international community, it declined to interfere with the continuing flow of Syrian and Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah, made no effort to obstruct cross-border raids and rocket fire into Israel, and even refused to publicly condemn such attacks. All of this in the face of a militia that is less than one-tenth the size of the 60,000-strong Lebanese army (with which it has never come to blows).
This tacit recognition of Hezbollah's right to bear arms and carry out acts of interstate violence from Lebanese soil is symptomatic of a longstanding political pathology - the governing elite's vested interest in the diversion of Shiite Islamist militancy away from perceived injustices at home. During the occupation, the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri relied on Syrian fiat (and corruptibility) to build an upper-class utopia of flat taxes and cheap foreign labor that devastated the Shiite underclass, a state of affairs Hezbollah tacitly accepted (and Iran subsidized) in exchange for an exclusive license to fight Israel. While this Faustian bargain was born in the shadow of Syrian occupation, it generated conditions mandating its own preservation - entrenched interests so at odds with Lebanon's socio-economic demographics as to be indefensible in the face of serious domestic upheaval and a Shiite political hegemon addicted to battlefield glory and willing to forego pursuit of revolutionary change at home in return for state-sanctioned freedom of action to pursue it.
When Syrian troops withdrew last year, the most powerful factions of the governing elite recognized that they needed Hezbollah's endorsement to win control of parliament in the 2005 elections and form a stable government afterwards. They have grumbled ever since about the price tag, but it is the alternatives - sharing power, addressing the acute income disparities underlying the radicalization of Lebanese Shiites and embracing a more inclusive vision of the future that might draw them into the political mainstream - that they are unwilling or unable to accept.
Origins of the Quid Pro Quo
Hezbollah was established under the auspices of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) following its entry into the Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon to organize resistance to Israel's 1982 invasion. Radical Islamism was already on the upswing among younger Shiite clerics in Lebanon by this time, but the Iranians arrived with plentiful cash, much-needed weapons, and - most importantly - a proven model for mobilizing Lebanon's long dormant Shiite underclass.
While those who formed the nucleus of Hezbollah's leadership nominally embraced Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of wilayet al-faqih (the theological basis for clerical rule enshrined in Iran's 1979 constitution), in practice the goal of establishing an Islamic state in Lebanon was discarded (or indefinitely postponed) in the pursuit of armed struggle against foreign "oppressors" - namely, Israel and the West. This focus on jihad against outsiders converged perfectly with the interests of Iran's newly born Islamic Republic, which hoped to legitimize itself in the Arab world (by striking at Israel) and retaliate against the "Great Satan," while giving the Syrians a powerful incentive to permit a vast expansion of Iranian influence in Lebanon.
Although Hezbollah battled the Amal militia for control of Shiite areas and vigorously attacked Israel's Lebanese proxies, unlike other wartime militias, it never engaged in sectarian bloodletting (or fought a major engagement with the army) during the war. Ironically, this "purity of arms" (an important characteristic of its public image today) was partly the result of prodigious Iranian funding, which allowed Hezbollah to finance its operations and meet the social welfare needs of its constituents without competing with other militias for revenue.
Mobilizing the Shiite community to fight was not a difficult undertaking. The predominantly Shiite residents of south Lebanon had born the brunt of the Israeli invasion, which sent floods of refugees into the Beqaa and Beirut (already teaming with a 300,000 strong southern "poverty belt" of newly urbanized Shiites), eager for recruitment. Many politicized Shiites also felt victimized by the entry of an American and European multi-national force (MNF) into Beirut later the same year, not only because it was perceived as pro-Israeli, but also because its mission was to support a government beholden to the right-wing Christian Phalange Party (led by then-President Amine Gemayel) and Sunni Beiruti notables (e.g. Prime Minister Chafiq Wazzan) and quick to assert its newfound strength by unceremoniously ejecting Shiite squatters from posh neighborhoods of West Beirut near the airport ("too close to airplane flight paths," officials said).
Although Hezbollah avoided direct confrontation with the state, it lashed out with fury at the MNF, most notably with the October 1983 twin suicide bombings that killed more than 300 American and French servicemen, forcing its withdrawal in 1984. The following year, in the face of mounting Hezbollah attacks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began redeploying to a thin "security zone" in the south. In a community starved of communal victories, these accomplishments were a political atom bomb. Hezbollah won the loyalty of its constituents less by awakening their religious identity (though this was a major part of it) than by salving their perceived powerlessness. As Sandra Mackey aptly observed, Hezbollah's jihad "made giants of little men who had spent their lives at the bottom of Lebanon's social order."[1]
When the late Syrian President Hafez Assad completed his conquest of Lebanon in October 1990, he reached an understanding with Hezbollah and the Iranians to keep it this way. In effect, Hezbollah tacitly suspended its pursuit of revolutionary political and economic change at home in return for a virtually exclusive right to organize "resistance" to the IDF in south Lebanon (other Lebanese and Palestinian groups were allowed only subordinate token participation). Massive Iranian arms shipments, airlifted to Damascus and driven overland to the Beqaa, enabled Hezbollah to build one of the best-equipped paramilitary forces in the world and abandon the suicide bombings, hijackings, and kidnappings of civilians that fed into its reputation as a fanatical terrorist group.[2]
Hezbollah's military success owed much to the ascension of Hassan Nasrallah as secretary general in 1992. Nasrallah turned the organization into an exemplar of discipline, obedience, and corporative spirit (perceptible even in Hezbollah's soccer team, Al-Ahd, which is said to have gone an entire season without receiving a red or yellow penalty card). With the help of IRGC commanders, he introduced a much more rigorous level of training and sophisticated new tactics, causing Israeli casualties to mount steadily.
Nasrallah also introduced a sweeping reorientation of Hezbollah's propaganda and pageantry from religious to nationalist discourse, which characterized its battle against Israel as a national liberation struggle, not a holy war. This not only broadened its appeal among non-Shiites in Lebanon and the predominantly Sunni Arab world, but also struck a chord among its core Shiite constituency. Until the rise of Hezbollah, Shiites had played a marginal role in the Arab nationalist movement and were commonly seen as a potential "fifth column" of Iran or Israel. The outpouring of praise for Hezbollah in the Arab media that greeted every successful military operation against the Jewish state satisfied a deep-rooted longing of Lebanese Shiites to vindicate themselves.
In return for its near monopoly on "resistance" to Israel, Hezbollah was obliged to drop its objections to (and, with strict limitations, participate in) a political system that bars Shiites, who comprise over one-third of the population, from the two highest government offices (the presidency and premiership are reserved for Christians and Sunnis, respectively, while Shiites are granted the less powerful position of parliament speaker) and allots them only 21% of the seats in parliament.
More importantly, Hezbollah was not allowed to robustly challenge the economic edifice of Syrian-occupied Lebanon, which steadily widened income inequalities during the 1990s,[3] while channeling an estimated $1.5 billion annually (nearly 10% of Lebanon's GDP) in graft to various Syrian and Lebanese elites.[4] Nasrallah said nothing as the unregulated influx of unskilled Syrian workers into Lebanon pushed the predominantly Shiite urban poor out of the workforce and Syrian produce smugglers drove destitute Shiite farmers into bankruptcy. Hezbollah was permitted to condemn the evils of corruption and criticize Hariri's economic policies, but not to mobilize the kind of protests that might threaten the stability of Syria's delicately managed political ecosystem in Lebanon. When former Hezbollah Secretary-General Subhi Tufaili split from the movement and tried to launch a "revolution of the hungry" in the late 1990s, his followers were hunted down by Lebanese army troops.
This state of affairs was, in effect, subsidized by Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iranian funding (usually estimated at around $100 annually) enabled Hezbollah to build a vast network of social welfare institutions that compensated for the ravaging impact of Harirism on poor Shiites, while much larger inflows of Saudi money into the Lebanese economy allowed Hariri (who made his fortune in the desert kingdom and was very close the royal family) to compensate for the ravaging impact of Hezbollah's war on his efforts to attract international investment.
Hezbollah's exlusion from government enabled it to cultivate a reputation for keeping its hands clean (in contrast to Iran, where governing clerics grew pervasively corrupt), a virtue that Lebanon's political elite dearly lacked. While most informed Lebanese can rattle off jaw-dropping examples of illicit aggrandizement by every major figure in government today, few can recall even a rumor of corruption by Hezbollah leaders. In a country where sons of political elites are sent to prestigious Western universities and groomed for lives of luxury, Nasrallah's 18-year-old son died fighting Israelis in southern Lebanon.
Transition
Hezbollah's apparent reincarnation as a national liberation movement led many outside observers to predict that it would promptly lay down its arms and transform into a "normal" political party once Israeli forces pulled out of south Lebanon.[5] For three months after Israel's May 2000 withdrawal, not a shot was fired along the Israeli-Lebanese border, earning Nasrallah a personal audience with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several European ambassadors.
After the Palestinians launched the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, however, Hezbollah began launching sporadic cross-border raids and mortar attacks against Israel, citing a dubious territorial claim to the still-occupied Shebaa Farms enclave and Israel's failure to release 19 Lebanese prisoners in its jails. While these operations were largely symbolic (claiming around a dozen lives over the next five years), Hezbollah also began quietly expanding its rocket arsenal and playing a much more direct role in financing, training, and equipping Palestinian militants.
The conventional wisdom that Iran was responsible for Hezbollah's resumption of hostilities must be heavily qualified. Hezbollah's relationship with Iran is very intimate, even incestuous,[6] but this is precisely why it's unlikely that Nasrallah - the most beloved public figure in the Shiite Islamic world - lacked the freedom to do as he pleased. With reformers at the height of their power in Tehran, he could have found new allies to enthusiastically support any path he liked. Moreover, by this time Hezbollah's unparalleled popularity among Lebanese Shiites the world over had enabled it to significantly reduce its financial dependence on Iran (in relative, not absolute, terms) by raising its own funds at home and abroad.[7]
The Syrians, on the other hand, clearly had leverage over Nasrallah (every public figure in Syrian-occupied Lebanon faced the threat of instant termination for disloyalty) and a strong interest in obstructing normalization of Hezbollah. For newly ascended Syrian President Bashar Assad, the biggest problem with Hezbollah's normalization wasn't that he couldn't do without the strategic benefits of its participation in the anti-Zionist struggle (though this alone was certainly a sufficient motive), it was that the Lebanese postwar political and economic order he administered (and depended on financially) was simply incompatible with Shiite political and economic empowerment.
Assad's decision to call a halt to President Emile Lahoud's anti-corruption campaign (which had indicted several Haririst officials) and Hariri's return to office in 2000 after a two-years hiatus clearly signified that the core economic rules of the game in Lebanon were untouchable, while his refusal to permit Hezbollah to run against Amal in the Fall 2000 elections indicated that Nasrallah would not be allowed to convert his skyrocketing popularity into greater political power. While Nasrallah's loyalty to Iran and contempt for Israel may have been reason enough to invent a pretext for resuming hostilities, such slim pickings on the domestic front made it easy for him to ignore normalization advocates within Hezbollah and the Shiite community.
While Hariri complained privately to the Syrians (and to his Saudi and French allies) that Hezbollah's resumption of hostilities was obstructing his efforts to revive the economy, he had little interest in seeing it normalize - the prime minister wanted a docile Hezbollah that continued to honor its end of the quid pro quo (restraining Shiite impulses to challenge the state) while contenting itself with bellicose Jerusalem Day parades, and he believed that the Syrians could deliver that.
In fact, the Syrians probably couldn't have granted this wish (one reason for their lack of enthusiasm for the peace process with Israel). With Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leading a nationwide campaign of public demonstrations against the occupation, Assad needed Hezbollah to contain simmering Shiite resentment more than ever. In June 2002, Hezbollah briefly opened the floodgates by calling on the residents of a Shiite neighborhood in Beirut to disrupt a televised ceremony inaugurating the construction of a highway overpass (one of Hariri's senior economic advisors was badly beaten by a mob). In May 2004, Lebanese army troops shot dead five demonstrators protesting against fuel price increases, sparking riots throughout the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut, leaving the Labor Ministry in flames. While Hariri's economic policies fueled Shiite angst, the attack on a government ministry controlled by a staunch Syrian ally (then-Labor Minister Asaad Hardan is a senior leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, which advocates Syrian annexation of Lebanon) underscored that Shiite resentment was directed at the state writ large, and by extension the Syrians.
This is one reason why Nasrallah rarely endorsed the Syrian occupation in public speeches (in sharp contrast to Hariri and Lahoud) until 2003. He began speaking out in support of Syria (and even organizing pro-Syrian demonstrations) only after the West (and, more quietly, the Saudis) began pressuring Assad to disengage from Lebanon. Most Shiites suspected that this pressure was intended not so much to elicit a Syrian withdrawal, but to coerce Damascus into giving the Harirists and traditional Christian political elites more power and forcing Hezbollah to disarm.
The overwhelming majority of Lebanese Shiites oppose demands for Hezbollah's disarmament - not because they thirst for jihad against Israel (their perceptions of Israelis are very negative, but less prone to existential hatred than those of the Palestinians), but because they see the "resistance" as a form of compensation for being neglected by the state and a much-needed instrument of communal leverage and protection in uncertain times.[9] Most will not be willing to fully discard this bargaining chip until Shiites are given pride of place alongside Sunnis and Christians in setting the political and economic parameters of state policy.
The fact that UN Security Council Resolution 1559 called not only for the withdrawal of Syrian forces (which no one expected anytime soon), but also for Lahoud's departure from office (which would have allowed the Haririst parliamentary bloc to designate his successor) and the disarmament of Hezbollah was seen as yet another case of the West intervening against Shiite interests in favor of Sunni and Christian elites. As pressure for a Syrian withdrawal intensified after the February 2005 assassination of Hariri, Nasrallah drove this point home by calling a mass pro-Syrian demonstration that drew over half a million people, mostly Shiites, into the streets (a blunder, in fact, that provoked Lebanese Sunnis into joining anti-Syrian demonstrations in strength for the first time).
Hezbollah in the New Lebanon
The departure of Syrian forces in April 2005 did not alter the fundamental political dynamic underlying Hezbollah's special status - no one in the governing elite wanted to see Shiite Islamist militancy redirected to the domestic front, especially now that there was no Syrian referee. Furthermore, the Syrian withdrawal enormously strengthened Hezbollah's political clout ahead of the May-June 2005 elections. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri's Amal movement and other rival Shiite political forces that were reliant on Syrian patronage quickly subordinated themselves to Hezbollah (which graciously included them on its electoral slates), crowning the movement as Shiite political hegemon. In addition, Hezbollah was now able to form cross-sectarian political alliances freely, and it so happened that the two most powerful factions of the governing elite, led by the late Hariri's son, Saad, and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, needed Hezbollah's electoral support to stem the advance of Aoun's secular nationalist FPM and win control of parliament.
While the FPM's political platform was largely (if somewhat vaguely) concurrent with the socio-economic preferences of most Shiites and Hezbollah had a long history of low profile coordination with the Aounists at the grassroots level (e.g. elections for professional associations), Nasrallah ultimately endorsed the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition (after flirting with both sides) for practical reasons. Hariri and Jumblatt were offering entry into the government and assurances that major decisions would be made only with the unanimous support of the cabinet (effectively ruling out any state interference with Hezbollah's military activities) and their coalition was favored to beat the FPM-led Reform and Change bloc (owing to an electoral law that effectively disenfranchised most Christian voters).[10] Although Aoun may have offered Hezbollah similar assurances, Nasrallah's endorsement probably wouldn't have given the nationalists a large enough plurality to carry out any promises made.[11]
For the most part, the new government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (a stand-in for Saad Hariri) faithfully honored the letter of the coalition's understanding with Hezbollah. It not only declined to deploy the army along the border in south Lebanon, but even ordered it not to disrupt Iranian re-supply of Hezbollah.[12] Moreover, Siniora and other Lebanese officials studiously avoided casting aspersions on Hezbollah's right to bear arms and fight Israel, while frequently denouncing the Jewish state in language similar to that of militants.[13] While members of the ruling March 14 coalition who don't hold government offices (including Hariri and Jumblatt) frequently reiterated that Hezbollah must disarm under Resolution 1559, they too shied away from criticizing its operations against Israel. After a team of Hezbollah commandos launched a daring (but botched) cross-border kidnapping raid last November, Nasrallah proclaimed that it is Hezbollah's "natural right" to capture Israel soldiers and declared, "If anybody in Lebanon believes that capturing an Israeli soldier is a crime and a terrorist act, then he should tell us now."[14] There were no takers.
Without the presence of Syria as a referee, the traditional quid pro quo between Hezbollah and the ruling elite has proven to be less stable, with both sides scheming to get better terms. In December 2005, Nasrallah directed all five Shiite ministers to boycott cabinet meetings in an effort to pressure Siniora into officially stating that Hezbollah is not a "militia" subject to disarmament under Resolution 1559. The two-month boycott almost succeeded. According to Michael Young, the opinion editor of Beirut's English language Daily Star, "Hariri supported a draft agreement reached in Saudi Arabia that would have resolved the ministerial crisis by having the government consent to open-ended resistance by Hizbullah in South Lebanon."[15] Standing in the way of such a deal was Jumblatt, who feared that the Druze would be isolated by a Hariri-Hezbollah accord and, lacking his own powerful foreign patron, was more receptive to pressure from Washington. In the end, Nasrallah settled for a televised declaration by Siniora that his government "will never call the resistance by any other name" (stopping short of denying that Hezbollah was a militia).
The ruling coalition's tacit endorsement of Hezbollah's continuing war against Israel was fueled by the keen awareness that no prominent Shiite public figures (aside from a few close financial associates of the Hariri family and discredited scions of the old feudal elite) would be willing to serve in the cabinet if Nasrallah called for a boycott. This is not because secular Shiites fear retribution by Hezbollah (which has no history of violence against political opponents), but because they would be ostracized by the Shiite community at large.
Most Shiites see Saad Hariri as a proxy of the Saudi royal family, handpicked to carry on his father's mission of transforming Lebanon into a corrupt, elitist republic with an "open for business" pro-Western foreign policy. The Shiite community's quiet acceptance of Syrian occupation was fueled substantially by fears that this vision of Sunni/Saudi domination (garishly expressed in the thousands of Saudi vacation homes that sprouted up in Lebanon during the 1990s) was the likely alternative. Siniora, the late Hariri's finance minister, is seen as a functionary sworn to preserve the ill-gotten gains of the occupation (Nasrallah is fond of claiming that Hezbollah alone used the Syrians in pursuit of a public good). Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, spoke for many (both Shiites and non-Shiites) in a March 24 sermon when he lambasted the "thieves who made a fortune out of running the country" and called for a government of people "with clean plans and a clean history."[16]
The March 14 coalition has displayed little willingness to introduce the kind of "clean plans" that might alleviate this mistrust. In the Shiite community, true reform is understood to mean a reversal of policies that enriched the few at the expense of the many during the 1990s. By this standard, the current government is fundamentally anti-reformist. Siniora's economic reform program calls for greater gasoline and value-added taxes that would heavily burden the poor, while leaving one of the world's most regressive income tax scales in place and conspicuously neglecting obvious remedies to rampant corruption (e.g. independent regulatory bodies across the board).
Shiite distrust of the Harirists has been further inflated by the worldwide upsurge in sectarian violence against Shiites (particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan), mostly by adherents of Saudi Arabia's militant Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islamic fundamentalism. Although there have not been any major outbreaks of sectarian violence against Lebanese Shiites, Sunni jihadists have expressed deep contempt for Hezbollah,[17] and Hariri has cultivated close ties with radical Sunni Islamists in Lebanon.[18]
Such concerns are hardly confined to the Shiite community. Most Christians feel that they were deliberately disenfranchised by the ruling elite in the 2005 elections (much as they were during the occupation) and fear Haririst/Saudi domination of Lebanon (though they typically object less to the inegalitarian economic fundamentals of Harirism than with the rampant corruption and state paralysis associated with it).
Hezbollah's growing alignment with the predominantly Christian FPM is partly rooted in these shared concerns. Together, the Hezbollah/Amal bloc and the FPM-led Reform and Change bloc (which swept all 21 seats elected in the few Christian majority districts that survived Syrian gerrymandering) control enough seats to obstruct the March 14 coalition's drive to impeach Lahoud and replace him with a Christian ally of the Hariri family (e.g. Ghattas Khoury). Faced with the choice of either consenting to the succession of Aoun or allowing the discredited Lahoud to remain in office until the expiry of his term in 2007, the coalition has opted to wait.
In February 2006, Aoun and Nasrallah signed a memorandum of understanding outlining a broad range of social and economic reforms, as well as modest political reforms that would erode Haririst political power, such as guaranteeing equal media access for candidates and allowing expatriate voting (the biggest Lebanese expatriate communities being Christians in the Americas and Shiites in West Africa). Most Christians are supportive of the FPM's efforts to build bridges to Hezbollah (77% approved of the February 2006 memorandum according to a survey by the Beirut Center for Research and Information).[19]
FPM officials insist that the question of Hezbollah's arms is simply impossible to resolve until fundamental reforms have given all Lebanese a stake in the system. Those who privately lobby Western governments to up the pressure on Hezbollah know that disarmament cannot precede reform, Aounists charge, but either have a direct interest in strained Sunni-Shiite relations (i.e. Jumblatt) or want to induce Hezbollah to be more accommodating on domestic economic and political issues (i.e. Hariri). Aounists preach that this proclivity to invite outside diplomatic, political, and military intervention in pursuit of even the most mundane objectives is the root of the country's weakness. In this case, they say, the costs will be much higher than foreign occupation - in view of regional sectarian tensions, failing to bridge the sectarian divide in Lebanon could mean civil war.
After the War
The July-August 2006 Israeli military campaign impacted Lebanon's political landscape in four critical respects. First, the unprecedented scale of the destruction swept away the perception that the "resistance" can violently confront the Jewish state at little or no cost to the Lebanese public. Second, the onslaught bolstered public support for Hezbollah among Lebanese Shiites (and, to some extent, non-Shiites). Third, the war demonstrated that the Bush administration's support for the March 14 coalition is squarely subordinate to its support for Israel (a fact of life obscured by the warm receptions accorded to Hariri and Jumblatt in Washington earlier this year) Finally, the war and its aftermath exposed the endemic corruption and paralysis of the Lebanese state. [for a detailed discussion of the war and its impact, see Implications of the Israel-Hezbollah War in this issue of Mideast Monitor for discussion of the above]
In simultaneously raising the costs of violence against Israel, weakening the March 14 coalition, and bolstering Nasrallah's political clout, the war has given Hezbollah an uprecedented package of incentives to throw its weight around in pursuit of communal political and socio-economic goals for the first time. Whereas in the past Nasrallah has said that Hezbollah will not disarm so long as Israel is a threat, he is now suggesting that it will not disarm until there is far reaching reform in Lebanon, a position he knows that the vast majority of Shiites support. "When we build a strong, capable, and just state that protects Lebanon and the Lebanese, it will be easy to find an honorable solution to the question of the resistance and its weapons," he declared at a "victory rally" on September 22.[21]
In the same speech, Nasrallah explicitly joined Aoun in calling for a more representative national unity government (i.e. including the FPM), followed by the drafting of a fair electoral law and early parliamentary elections. This has put the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition in the uneneviable position of having to reject textbook democratic transition steps to preserve its political dominance - a stance that Hezbollah and the FPM are convinced will be unsustainable in the face of mass protests (should it come to that).
Critics of Hezbollah insist that Nasrallah is simply saying what he knows the public wants to hear in order to bring down the government and advance his primary goals of establishing an Islamist state and destroying Israel - an argument that plays well in Washington. Aoun, on the other hand, has staked his credibility on the belief that Nasrallah will ultimately privilige the material welfare of Lebanese Shiites (if not the Lebanese people as a whole) over his radical anti-Zionist beliefs and loyalty to Iran. With no insurmountable obstacles to sweeping reform now on the horizon in Lebanon, time may soon tell if he is right.
Notes
[1] Sandra Mackey, Lebanon: Death of a Nation (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 218.
[2] Hezbollah operatives have been linked to numerous overseas terrorist attacks, including the bombings of the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina in the early 1990s and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers US military base in Saudi Arabia. However, they appear to have been Lebanese operatives working directly for the Iranians who may or may not be answerable to Hezbollah (which denied involvement in all of these attacks).
[3] Although there are few reliable statistics on this, according to the World Bank "income inequality is generally believed to have increased" during the 1990s. Lebanon: Country Brief, World Bank, September 2005.
[4] The report was researched by a private company, Information International, commissioned by the United Nations Center for International Crime Prevention. See "Lebanon loses 1.5 billion dollars annually to corruption: UN," Agence France Presse, 23 January 2001; The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 January 2001.
[5] See, for example, Augustus Richard Norton, "Hizbullah: from Radicalism to Pragmatism," Middle East Policy, January 1998.
[6] Over the past two decades, some IRGC officers stationed in the Beqaa have gone native, marrying Lebanese wives and raising families. Some figures in Hezbollah's external operations branch, such as the notorious Imad Mughniyieh, have evolved into adjuncts of Iranian intelligence after spending years in Tehran.
[7] Although Iran's yearly contribution of some $100 million remained an important financial bedrock, by the end of the 1990s it was far outstripped by the movement's own fundraising (both at home and in the Lebanese Shiite diaspora), revenue from investments in Lebanon, and proceeds from overseas criminal enterprises ranging from the blood diamond trade in West Africa to cigarette smuggling and audiovisual bootlegging in the Americas.
[9] Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, "Hizbullah's arms and Shiite empowerment," The Daily Star (Beirut), 22 August 2005.
[10] The electoral law, drafted by Syrian military intelligence in 2000, bundled most majority Christian administrative districts (qadas) with larger Muslim districts to ensure that most of the 64 Christian parliamentary seats are elected in majority Muslim districts. In north Lebanon, for example, four predominantly Christian qadas were linked with three Sunni Muslim qadas. In Baabda and Aley, Christian minorities are imbedded in majority Druze districts. Christian towns in south Lebanon are subsumed within Shiite majority districts.
[11] The only district contested by both the March 14 coalition and the FPM in which Shiite votes were decisive was Baabda-Aley (where Jumblatt's electoral slate narrowly defeated the FPM). However, Hezbollah's endorsement of the FPM would likely have swung the votes of many secular Sunnis with leftist and Arab nationalist views.
[12] In February 2006, a Lebanese army patrol stopped a convoy of twelve trucks carrying Katyusha rockets and other weapons at the Syrian border and impounded them, but Siniora personally intervened a few days later and ordered that they be allowed to continue on to their destination (an account the prime minister himself later confirmed to the media). In April, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned in a report to the Security Council that the Lebanese Army has "not been authorized to prevent further movement of the ammunitions" from Syria to Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. See Third semi-annual report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, 19 April 2006; "Hezbollah endures in Lebanon; Islamic guerrillas not easily disarmed, Western nations find," The Chicago Tribune, 19 April 2006.
[13] Commenting on the killing of seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach in June, allegedly by Israeli shellfire, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi (a Jumblatt appointee) denounced the "premeditated terrorist mass bloodshed" of Israel and called on the Palestinians to overcome their differences and unite. The Daily Star (Beirut), 13 June 2006.
[14] Al-Manar Television (Beirut), 25 November 2005. Translation by BBC Worldwide Monitoring.
[15] Michael Young, "What's gotten into you Michel Aoun?" The Daily Star (Beirut), 26 January 2006.
[16] "Fadlallah warns against non-Lebanese 'solutions'," The Daily Star, 25 March 2006.
[17] In 2004, influential London-based Syrian Salafi scholar Abu Basir al-Tartusi (Abd-al-Munim Mustafa Abu-Halimah) published a treatise claiming that Hezbollah is using the conflict with Israel to spread Shiite Islam throughout the world, as "there is no better window through which this goal . . . will reach the hearts and emotions of others in a faster way, than through the Palestinian window and the Palestinian cause." [See The Lebanese Hezbollah and the Exportation of the Shi'ite Rafidite Ideology, translation by the Site Institute, 23 May 2006] In a rambling anti-Shiite tirade released over the Internet on June 1, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi singled out Hezbollah as "an enemy" of Sunnis and accused it of protecting the Israeli border from attacks by Sunni groups. [A Series of Three Audio Lectures by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: "Did You Get the Message of the Shi'ites", translation by the SITE Institute, 7 June 2006.
[18] During the 2005 parliamentary election campaign, Hariri paid the bail for four Sunni jihadists who had been arrested in September 2004 for plotting to bomb the Ukrainian and Italian embassies in Lebanon and sent Siniora to personally attend a celebration where they were welcomed after their release. [Al-Safir (Beirut), 18 June 2005] One of the first acts of Lebanon's new parliament was the passage of an amnesty law freeing over two dozen suspected Sunni Islamist terrorists (seven had been detained for plotting to bomb the Ukrainian and Italian embassies in September 2004; twenty-six of the detainees were captured in 1999 during a brief, but bloody, Sunni Islamist uprising that left 40 people dead).
[19] Al-Diyar (Beirut), 11 February 2006.
[20] Al-Manar Television (Beirut), 29 July 2006.
[21] Al-Manar TV (Beirut), 22 September 2006. Lower-ranking Hezbollah officials talk even more explicitly of sweeping change. "Maybe after this it will be the right time to settle all our problems in Lebanon, all of the 'isms' we are famous for: nepotism, corruptionism," Ibrahim Musawi, the foreign news editor of Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television, told one Western journalist. [Jon Lee Anderson, "The Battle for Lebanon," The New Yorker, 7-14 August 2006.]
© 2006 Mideast Monitor. All rights reserved.
Implications of the Israel-Hezbollah War
by Gary C. Gambill
© 2006 Mideast Monitor. All rights reserved.
The July-August 2006 conflagration between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite Islamist Hezbollah movement defies the common presumption that the Arab-Israeli conflict is inherently zero sum - that Israel's loss is always a commensurate gain for its adversaries, and vice versa. As UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown remarked during the fourth week of fighting, this was an "odd war" in which "both sides think they're winning."[1]
In fact, both sides achieved significant gains that may ultimately outweigh their losses and shift the dynamics of the conflict into a stable equilibrium. Israel made concrete strategic and diplomatic gains in its decades-long quest to pacify its northern border, while failing spectacularly to achieve rather fanciful declared objectives and tarnishing its image of military invincibility (a disastrous combination in Israeli politics, but hardly a crushing national setback). Hezbollah won a resounding political victory at home, at the expense of constrained freedom of action to fight Israelis abroad, a state-sanctioned indulgence that most Lebanese Shiites would just as soon the group give up (while remaining armed).
The war was less favorable to non-participants. The Israeli onslaught appears to have eroded public confidence in Lebanon's ruling March 14 coalition by demonstrating that its most attractive perceived virtue (American backing) was largely a mirage and exposing the political paralysis and corruption of the state. The Bush administration gained some strategic leverage over Iran, but its unswerving support for the Israeli campaign fueled a spike in anti-American sentiments in Lebanon and the region, while Arab governments that tacitly followed its lead suffered a major public relations setback. While Iran and Syria loudly rejoiced at seeing their Lebanese ally take to the battlefield against Israel, the political payoffs accrue mainly to Hezbollah alone and will militate against future outside efforts to incite anti-Israeli violence from Lebanese soil.
Background
Following the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah continued to launch sporadic cross-border raids against Israeli forces (under the pretext of liberating the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave and freeing a handful of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails); increased the scope of its financial, logistical, and material support for Palestinian terrorist groups; and stockpiled a massive arsenal of over 12,000 rockets capable of hitting northern Israel, including several hundred capable of hitting Haifa and a few dozen capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Hezbollah's low-level campaign against Israel was carefully crafted to maximize its domestic political returns (vis-à-vis Syria) and support Iranian strategic objectives, while falling within the perceived limits of Israeli tolerance.
While cross border violence by citizens of a neighboring country without any interference from their government is a state of affairs that even the most dovish Israelis agree shouldn't be tolerated, the Israeli government declined to respond forcefully to Hezbollah provocations for nearly six years. Fierce Israeli reprisals for cross-border attacks risked provoking Hezbollah into raining rockets on northern Israel, which would push any Israeli government ineluctably into a full-scale war in Lebanon. In view of Israel's preoccupation with the second Palestinian intifada, American desire for stability in Syrian-occupied Lebanon, and continued hopes that Syrian President Bashar Assad would come to the peace table, the day of reckoning was continually put off.
Hezbollah repeatedly stated that that its rockets were intended only to deter Israeli air strikes, and this may well be true - the rockets gave it the freedom to wage low-level, politically lucrative "resistance" to Israel without risk of devastating retaliation. However, in building an arsenal powerful enough to deter Israel (and constructing a massive network of fortified bunkers and tunnels to protect it) Hezbollah acquired a devastating first-strike capability (i.e. firing all of the rockets as quickly as possible before Israeli civilians have taken to air raid shelters).
The conclusion of Israeli and American officials that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was prepared to launch a first strike in response to a military campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities may have been erroneous (Hezbollah has never displayed any willingness to sacrifice its pursuit of political hegemony among Shiite Lebanese to advance Iranian interests). However, it was entirely consistent with Hezbollah's observable deployments, and with its extensive efforts to gather intelligence on Israeli industrial sites and other strategic targets which would be viable only in a carefully calibrated all-out assault (as opposed to the frenetic "shoot and scoot" tactics in an ongoing conflict).
Israel continued to tolerate the attacks throughout 2005 because of its pullout from Gaza, pressure from the Bush administration (which was anxious to bolster the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition), and looming Israeli elections (which rendered any escalation in Lebanon subject to suspicions of diversionary political motives).[2] This tepid reprisal policy not only encouraged Hezbollah to continue the raids, but also bolstered Nasrallah's ability to win the acquiescence of the Lebanese political establishment after the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The withdrawal left the most political powerful faction of the country's governing elite (led by the Hariri family and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, with support from traditional Christian political and religious leaders) unable to secure victory in parliamentary elections or form a stable government without Hezbollah's endorsement. In return for it, the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition agreed (much as it did during the occupation) not to obstruct Hezbollah operations against Israel or interfere with the flow of Iranian arms shipments to the militia.
The tidal wave of public outrage in Israel following Hezbollah's July 12 abduction of two Israeli soldiers gave Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a blank check to wage a full-scale war in Lebanon. Although the declared goals of the Israeli campaign evolved during the fighting, it was geared toward the pursuit of distinct military, strategic, diplomatic, and political objectives. The military objective was simply to degrade Hezbollah's operational capacity as much as possible, while minimizing human and economic costs; the strategic objective was to re-establish Israeli deterrence (both of Hezbollah and its enemies in general); the diplomatic objective was to enable the Americans to drum up international support for a multinational force explicitly authorized to obstruct Hezbollah attacks; and the political objective was to provide a sufficient pretext for the March 14 coalition to support a robust international deployment aimed at containing (and eventually disarming) Hezbollah.
The apparent genius of the plan was that Israel's drive to de-fang Hezbollah converged neatly with American and European interests in weakening Iranian strategic power, the March 14 coalition's aspiration to govern Lebanon as it sees fit, and Saudi Arabia's ambition to downsize the Arab world's most influential Shiite political force.
The Military Outcome
Israel's primary military objective was to degrade Hezbollah's ability to launch cross-border air and ground attacks, within whatever window of opportunity allowed for by Olmert's diplomatic campaign. This relegation of military objectives behind diplomatic and political goals (evident in Israel's reluctance to launch a major ground offensive until the last few days of the war) has been roundly criticized in Israel, but it was based on the recognition that no military outcome would be decisive unless Hezbollah faced an effective arms embargo or domestic constraints in refitting its paramilitary apparatus after the war. In addition to being diplomatically counterproductive, a sustained ground war against man-for-man the powerful guerrilla force in the world (with elite commandos equal or better than their Israeli counterparts in many kinds of tactics) would have been very costly. IDF incursions into Hezbollah-controlled territory have often been disastrous in the past (in 1997, 12 Israeli commandos died in a single raid).
In view of the limited resources committed to the campaign, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief-of-Staff Gen. Dan Halutz's claim that Israel won "a victory on points, not a knockout" is a valid analogy up to a point.[3] Hezbollah appears to have lost a substantially greater share of its military assets and infrastructure than Israel. The Israeli military claims to have killed over 500 Hezbollah's fighters (against its own losses of 118 servicemen) and eliminated most of the group's medium and long-range rockets. However, there was no reduction in Hezbollah rocket fire during the 33 days of fighting because an estimated 95% of the rockets fired at Israel were short-range 107mm and 122mm Katyushas,[4] which are very difficult to detect from the air.
Indeed, there was no observable degradation of Hezbollah military capabilities at all during the war. The quality and endurance of its military performance exceeded Israeli expectations in virtually every domain, from the volume and accuracy of rocket fire into northern Israel (which peaked in the final week of the war) to the sophistication of its communications network and artful camouflage of heavy military equipment and bunkers (belying the initial assumption of Israeli war planners that air power alone would be sufficient to destroy them). On the second day of the war, Nasrallah called a Lebanese television station from his bunker and instructed viewers to look out their windows as a Hezbollah missile slammed into an offshore Israeli warship (the crew of which was evidently unaware that Hezbollah even had a coastal defense capability). There were reports that Hezbollah even managed to intercept IDF radio communications.[5] After the war, Brig. Gen. Guy Zur, the commander of 162nd Armor Division, later proclaimed Hezbollah to be "by far the greatest guerrilla group in the world."[6]
In contrast, Israel's military performance fell well short of expectations. Troops were sent into battle without sufficient food, water and basic supplies, apparently because of recent cuts in defense spending. The prioritization of diplomatic goals accounts for much of the vacillation and hesitancy of Israeli officials in directing the campaign - a leadership failure terribly out of step with Israeli military doctrine. While the Israeli military campaign was hardly a success, the war nevertheless greatly curtailed Hezbollah's freedom to project its military power, owing to Israel's strategic and diplomatic successes.
The Strategic Outcome
When Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora informed the assembled heads of Lebanon's main political blocs that hotel rooms for the 2006 summer tourist season were booked solid during the last round of Lebanon's national dialogue conference in June, Nasrallah reportedly replied, "You see, Mr. Prime Minister, the weapons of the resistance do not scare off tourists."[7]
The Israeli campaign was intended first and foremost to scare off the tourists - to raise the costs of Hezbollah's adventurism to such a degree that deliberate provocations will not be politically tenable for the foreseeable future. Even Nasrallah himself has more or less acknowledged that this goal was achieved. "If I had known on July 11 . . . that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not," he said in an August 27 interview.[8]
The Israeli campaign also enhanced Israeli deterrence of Hezbollah in another important respect. One of its principal aims, according to Israeli security analyst Yossi Alpher, was "to prove to Nasrallah that civilian Israel is far, far stronger than a spider web" and signal that "strategic decisions will not be influenced by civilian casualties."[9] He was referring to the so-called "spider web theory" popularized by Nasrallah, which holds that Israel's dazzling technological superiority masks a weak consumer society that is losing its willingness to make sacrifices in defense of its interests (an assessment that more than a few Israelis would agree with). For all of the postwar acrimony in Israel, there is now an almost unanimous willingness to make sacrifices in pursuit of national security.
This is why Hezbollah's claim that the war enhanced its deterrence of Israel isn't valid. To be sure, as Nasrallah boasted, the fighting demonstrated that "war with Lebanon will not be a picnic."[10] Indeed, The Jerusalem Post proclaimed that the "wholesale injury to Israel's civilian infrastructure" by over 4,000 Hezbollah rockets fired during the war was "unprecedented even by comparison to past [Israeli] wars."[11] However, upgraded Israeli perceptions of Hezbollah's capabilities have not translated into enhanced deterrence - they have left a sizable majority of Israelis eager for a rematch.
Nevertheless, the strategic balance sheet was by no means uniformly positive for Israel. Olmert may have compromised Israel's strategic credibility by initially demanding the unconditional release of its soldiers as a prior condition for a ceasefire, then later dropping the demand. Although not demanding their release may have been unthinkable in view of Israeli public opinion at the time (as Olmert is now quick to point out), this vacillation may weaken perceptions of Israel's resolve the next time one of its citizens is kidnapped. Much will depend on whether Olmert agrees to trade to trade the three Lebanese it held prior to the war (on terrorism charges) for the release of the two Israeli soldiers, or merely exchange the Hezbollah fighters it captured during the war.
While Iran's ability to incite anti-Israeli violence from Lebanese soil will be impaired for some time to come, its ability to mobilize other combatants in the anti-Zionist front may receive a boost from Israel's lackluster military performance. Indeed, the most powerful lesson of the war, to both Palestinians militants and the Israeli public, may be that borders are less effective in obstructing external attacks on Israel than in impeding forceful Israeli reprisals.[12] A comparison of monthly surveys by Near East Consulting of Ramallah suggests that Palestinians have been emboldened by Hezbollah's declaration of solidarity and battlefield performance.[13]
The Diplomatic Outcome
Israel's primary diplomatic objective of the campaign was to precipitate UN Security Council intervention in south Lebanon to block Hezbollah's freedom of action. In this regard, as the Wall Street Journal aptly observed, the governments of Israel, the United States, and Lebanon "were working together off much the same script" in the early days of the crisis.[14]
Resolution 1701, which ended the hostilities in mid-August, was a diplomatic coup for Israel, calling for the deployment of an expanded 15,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping force to ensure that Lebanese territory south of the Litani River "is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind [and] to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties." It prohibits other countries from sending weapons into Lebanon without the government's approval and calls for the unconditional release of the captured Israeli soldiers. Finally, while 1701 calls for the "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks," it calls for Israel merely to cease all "offensive military operations" (a deliberately vague phrase that allows Israel to justify virtually anything as a defensive military operation).[15]
The deployment of UNIFIL II in south Lebanon will likely prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its complex array of bunkers, tunnels, and surveillance posts in at least some areas of south Lebanon. Although Hezbollah can easily infiltrate commando units past UNIFIL and Lebanese troops to get to the border, it will have great difficulty gathering the kind of intelligence (e.g. on Israeli troop deployments and patrol schedules) needed to guarantee a high rate of operational success. Hezbollah will not have much difficulty storing short-range rockets south of the Litani, but it will not be able to fully deploy them without detection (and will likely be deterred from firing them in response to anything short of a major unprovoked Israeli air or ground offensive).
Notwithstanding the tough language of Resolution 1701, its lack of a Chapter VII mandate leaves UNIFIL subordinate to the authority of the Lebanese government. Prior to the war, the ruling March 14 coalition was too politically weak to make any major policy decision without Hezbollah's endorsement (let alone one that would erode its autonomy). The most ambitious aim of the war was to change this.
The Political Outcome
The crux of the Lebanese government's weakness is the fact that overriding Hezbollah's objections (i.e. by a majority vote of the cabinet) would lead to the departure of all Shiite ministers from the cabinet. Thus, defiance of Nasrallah is feasible only if the coalition can find credible Shiite public figures willing to defy a Hezbollah boycott and join a new cabinet, or if it is resolved to rule without any pretense of legitimacy in the eyes of Lebanese largest sectarian group. The first scenario requires a substantial erosion of Shiite support for Hezbollah, while the second requires a substantial hardening of non-Shiite (particularly Sunni) perceptions of Hezbollah. Public opinion polls conducted in Lebanon during and after the war confirm that the Israeli bombardment achieved the opposite on both scores.
The Israelis do not appear to have had any strategy for undermining support for Hezbollah within the Shiite community other than elevating its level of collective suffering. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) drove nearly a million mostly Shiite residents of south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut from their homes. While it did not specifically target Shiite civilians, the IAF was given substantial latitude to put them at risk in attacking Hezbollah targets. The fact that Hezbollah operated military command and control centers offices on the ground and subterranean floors of residential apartment buildings (and, in at least one case, a hospital) and routinely fired rockets from residential areas of villages made it virtually impossible to significantly degrade its military capabilities without exercising such latitude. Nasrallah was clearly confident that massive collateral damage from an Israeli assault would bolster, not dampen, public support for Hezbollah and the Israelis had no coherent strategy for minimizing this risk.
The deaths of 28 civilians in a July 30 Israeli air strike on the village of Qana, where 106 civilians taking refuge in a UN compound were killed by Israeli artillery fire in 1996, suggest that no special precautions were taken to avoid being baited into an eponymous repeat of the "Qana massacre" (a tragedy commemorated by a gruesome museum). Strangely, when the Israelis hacked into the satellite signal of Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television two days later and interrupted its evening news with their own message to the Lebanese people, no effort was made to cast blame for the deaths on Hezbollah. Instead, viewers were treated to crude images of guerrilla corpses, with captions claiming that Nasrallah was hiding the magnitude of Hezbollah's defeat on the battlefield.[16] The Israelis either failed to understand that Shiite support for Hezbollah is not integrally linked to its battlefield success or were more concerned with influencing Palestinian viewers.
The apparent willingness of most Shiites to stand by Hezbollah was buoyed by Nasrallah's repeated promises that the movement would pay to rebuild their homes and businesses destroyed by the air strikes (and quick distribution of $10,000 cash payments to each displaced family for alternate living expenses while their homes are being rebuilt). Hezbollah may not have expected the Israeli campaign, but it acted with the confidence of knowing that Iran could afford to rebuild far more than Israel could afford to destroy without alienating the outside world.
If Israel was hoping to sow dissension among Shiites, it committed a major blunder by bombing the residence of Lebanon's most senior and respected Shiite cleric, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, on July 15. Although frequently dubbed "the spiritual leader of Hezbollah" by many Western media outlets (a misnomer dating back to the early 1980s, when Hezbollah expressed allegiance to him as a way of legitimizing itself), Fadlallah openly disputes the religious authority of Iran's ruling clerics leaders and has a very contentious (if outwardly amicable) relationship with Nasrallah.[17] If anyone in the Shiite community had the stature and motivation to depart from Nasrallah's script and voice a more nuanced interpretation of the war with Israel, it was Fadlallah. Although several secular Shiite intellectuals criticized Hezbollah during and after the fighting in articles run by elite-owned newspapers and one Shiite cleric later challenged Hezbollah's claim to have won a great victory,[18] dissent against Hezbollah remained surprisingly marginal within the Shiite community, in spite of its immense suffering.
It appears that both the Israelis and the Americans were banking primarily on a souring of non-Shiite public perceptions of Hezbollah to push the Lebanese government into accepting a robust MNF deployment. While the immense collateral damage of Israeli air strikes was heavily concentrated in Shiite areas, the abrupt annulment of Lebanon's lucrative summer tourist season, cessation of air and sea traffic into the country, and destruction of major bridges and highway interchanges were acutely felt by all Lebanese. During the first few days of the war, displays of hostility toward Hezbollah among Sunnis, Christians, and Druze were widespread.
However, public anger at Hezbollah was quickly overshadowed by outrage toward Israel as the economic toll of the bombardment mounted, and then began dissipating as the progression of the war (seen through victims' eyes) appeared to corroborate longstanding Hezbollah propaganda claims. The targeting of Lebanon's infrastructure and industry gave credence to Nasrallah's warnings that Israel was looking for any pretext to destroy the Lebanese economy (a pitch that played on inflated perceptions many Lebanese have of their economy's importance). The Bush administration's refusal to call for an unconditional cease-fire during the Israeli onslaught seemed to validate one of Nasrallah's favorite admonitions - that the American support so brazenly flaunted by Hariri and Jumblatt was fickle and ultimately subordinate to Washington's alliance with Israel and pursuit of regional vendettas.
The war undermined the March 14 coalition's political leverage not only by revealing its modest placement in the scale of American priorities and boosting public support for Hezbollah, but also by exposing the Siniora government's total lack of planning for the contingency of a full-blown Israeli air campaign. The government did little to evacuate or aid displaced from south Lebanon in the first days of the war, a lapse in keeping with the state's longstanding neglect of its predominantly Shiite inhabitants. ''It's always Beirut, it is never the people in the south,'' former United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesman Timur Goksel remarked to a reporter. ''How will the government ever convince the people of the south that 'we are looking out for you?'''[19] The absence of March 14 Coalition leader Saad Hariri from Lebanon during the entire war didn't communicate a message of solidarity with its victims.
The government's relief effort mainly involved transferring aid supplies to local civic groups for distribution to victims, but even this modest task was hampered by incompetence and corruption. On August 6, spokesmen for 35 local humanitarian organizations called a news conference to complain that "relief aid is being apportioned according to political considerations," accusing the Higher Relief Committee (a government agency operating out of the prime minister's office) of favoring the charitable arms of groups in the governing coalition (e.g. Hariri's Future Movement) in the distribution of supplies.[20] There were reports that an official at the Ministry of Health and two accomplices were caught selling medicine donated by international aid agencies, and that one of them was quickly released because of his political connections.[21] In a scathing editorial, the English language Daily Star noted the stark contrast between the "mind-boggling efficiency and professionalism" of Hezbollah and the "inefficient and corrupt" political class.[22]
Perhaps the most damaging blow to the political class came in September, when the head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), Fadhl Chalak, abruptly resigned and accused the government of stalling its acceptance of hundreds of millions of dollars pledged by Arab states during the war, a delay that he said was intended to increase suffering in the south and turn the people against Hezbollah.[23] The allegation may not have been credible, but the fact that a leading figure in the late Hariri's economic team (and a Sunni) would so shamelessly court Hezbollah after a falling out with Saad Hariri speaks volumes about Nasrallah's post-war stature.
Implications
While Israel achieved significant strategic and diplomatic goals, the war against Hezbollah was a political disaster for Olmert, who suffered the most rapid plummet of public approval ratings for an Israeli prime minister in decades. While there is a strong public consensus in Israel that the military campaign was a failure, this is partly because of popular misconceptions (inflated by Olmert's bellicose rhetoric early in the campaign) about what was realistically possible to achieve. Israel might have dealt Hezbollah a more serious blow had a different military strategy been followed, but there was never a viable prospect of preventing its regeneration once the dust settled.
Although Hezbollah suffered strategic and diplomatic setbacks, the war dramatically boosted its domestic and regional popular appeal, while eroding the strength of its adversaries. This gives Nasrallah considerably more political leverage than he had before the war, effectively shelving any prospect of pressuring Hezbollah to disarm in advance (and therefore in lieu, many Shiites would say) of far-reaching political and economic reforms. Siniora ordered a Lebanese military deployment of unprecedented strength south of the Litani River, but only after reaching an agreement with Nasrallah whereby Hezbollah keeps its weapons out of public view and the army pretends it doesn't see them.[24] Much like the governing coalition's 2005 electoral pact with Hezbollah, this "don't look, don't tell" arrangement was billed as a compromise, but largely preserved the status quo ante. At any rate, the largely Shiite composition of the army effectively precludes any effort by Siniora to depart from this arrangement.[25] Although Siniora may be susceptible to pressure from the West to allow UN peacekeepers to gradually increase pressure on Hezbollah, the movement's military performance in the recent war has dampened European (particularly French) enthusiasm for robust intervention in south Lebanon far more than anyone cares to publicly admit.
Since there is no way for Israel to disrupt re-supply of Hezbollah short of bombing all trucking traffic from Syria into Lebanon,[26] the arms embargo imposed by Resolution 1701 cannot be enforced without the earnest cooperation of either the Lebanese or Syrian governments. The sudden proliferation of calls for negotiations with Assad among American pundits is a pretty good indicator of how dimly prospects for the former are viewed in Washington.
Nevetheless, the outcome of the war may prove to be a stable equilibrium. Though he has essentially defused internal pressure to disarm, Nasrallah appears to recognize that violent provocation of Israel will be far too risky for the foreseeable future. For the time being, Hezbollah is likely to concentrate on rebuilding residential structures destroyed in the war (with generous assistance from the Iranians) and warding off international efforts to secure its disarmament. Barring any major provocations, Israel will have little incentive (other than public clamoring) to re-ignite full-scale war (and little American encouragement to do so).
The implications of the war for outsiders cut several ways. Washington gained some strategic leverage over Iran (and, perhaps, some insights into the difficulties of combating a religious sect that celebrates martyrdom), but its refusal to call for an unconditional ceasefire during the fighting enflamed anti-American sentiments throughout the Arab world, weakened the Lebanese political coalition it was hoping to strengthen, and embarrassed Arab governments that followed its lead by criticizing Hezbollah early in the campaign. The war also set in motion congressional pressure on the administration to take punitive actions against the Lebanese government so long as Hezbollah is represented in the cabinet. All in all, the ability of the White House to decisively impact Lebanon's political trajectory has declined.
For Iran, the returns are mixed. The expanded UNIFIL deployment and Lebanon's new political map will discourage Iranian efforts to incite anti-Israeli violence from Lebanese soil (a significant, if not decisive, strategic setback) as Tehran comes under greater international pressure to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. Although Iran derived some diplomatic leverage from the crisis (underscored by the French foreign minister's visit to Tehran during the fighting), the conventional wisdom that Iran has emerged stronger "by showing the world that it is capable of wreaking havoc through its support of the Hezbollah militants" must be qualified.[27] The resolve of the United States and Western European governments to derail Iran's nuclear program has not been substantially weakened by the crisis (widely seen as taste of the kind of troublemaking that will be in store for the region once Iran achieves a nuclear deterrent), as was evident from the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1696 on July 31. However, the presence of European troops in close proximity to Hezbollah guerrillas may discourage support for American military action against Iran down the road.
Burgeoning anti-Israeli hostility in the Arab world obviously has its benefits for Iran, although the devastation of Lebanon during the war might temper its ability to translate pervasive anti-Israeli hostility among Palestinians into organized acts of violence. The recent outpouring of popular support for Hezbollah across the region may discourage some Arab governments from overtly supporting American policy on Iran, but it has hardly mitigated their desire to see the end of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The pacification of south Lebanon is a significant strategic setback for Assad, and his blunder of having provided Hezbollah with substantial quantities of imported Russian anti-tank missiles (apparently with serial numbers intact) and other weapons will likely complicate, if not preclude, future Syrian arms purchases from Moscow.[28] However, he derived considerable political capital from the war - both because Hezbollah is very popular among Syria's youth and because its increased stature in Lebanon may blunt the March 14 coalition's hostility to Syria. It has also given him a new diplomatic lease on life, as a host of dignitaries in the American and Israeli foreign policy establishments have come out in favor of negotiations with Syria.
Notes
[1] See Israel, Hezbollah Claim Victories After Weeks of Fighting, PBS, 4 August 2006.
[2] When a team of Hezbollah commandos botched an attempted cross-border kidnapping raid last November, the Israeli press quoted unnamed sources in the Labor Party warning the government not to escalate hostilities "to score electoral points." Israel responded with a modest artillery reprisal, then promptly returned their bodies (rather than the usual practice of holding them as bargaining chips). "Feeling threatened, Hezbollah strikes at familiar enemy - Israel," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 30 November 2005.
[3] "No confidence in the commander," Haaretz, 21 August 2006.
[4] "Analysis: Hezbollah's recovery timetable," United Press International, 7 September 2006.
[5] "Hezbollah cracked the code; Technology likely supplied by Iran allowed guerrillas to stop Israeli tank assaults," Newsday (New York), 18 September 2006.
[6] "Israeli military studies Hezbollah's resilience; Guerrillas kept fighting in face of stronger force," USA Today, 14 September 2006.
[7] This is Jumblatt's recollection of the exchange. Al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 23 July 2006.
[8] "Hezbollah leader says he wouldn't have ordered soldiers' capture knowing it would lead to war," The Associated Press, 27 August 2006.
[9] Yossi Alpher, The revenge of the spider, The Crisis Today-An Insider's Briefing, 18 July 2006.
[10] Al-Manar TV, 14 August 2006.
[11] "Heal the North," The Jerusalem Post, 21 August 2006.
[12] The war had a powerful demonstration effect inimical to Israeli security, as explained by Anthony Cordesman: "[that] non-state actors can be effective; that fixed, narrow areas of defense to separate Israelis from Palestinians and others . . . can be bypassed, that they are not an effective way of defending Israel." Transcript of briefing by Anthony Cordesman, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 17 August 2006.
[13] In early August, 54% of Palestinian respondents believed that Hamas should "maintain its position on the elimination of the state of Israel," up from 44% in June (though the Israeli incursions into Gaza during this interval likely contributed to this spike). Near East Consulting, Palestinian Perceptions toward Politics, Peace, and the conflict in the Lebanon, 7 August 2006.
[14] "Why Israel's Plans To Curb Hezbollah Went So Poorly," The Wall Street Journal, 19 August 2006.
[15] UN Security Council Resolution 1701, 11 August 2006.
[16] "Israel hacks into Hezbollah TV, broadcasts propaganda," Agence France Presse, 1 August 2006.
[17] After being fired as director of Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television station in 2003, Nayef Krayem wrote in a public reply that he had been unjustly accused of "being with Fadlallah." Al-Nahar (Beirut), 12 May 2003. Cited in Hizbollah: Rebel without a Cause? International Crisis Group, 30 July 2003.
[18] Lebanese Shiite Mufti of Tyre Ali Al-Amin Harshly Criticizes Hizbullah for Its Conduct in the Recent Conflict, MEMRI, 26 August 2006.
[19] "Lebanon's Government, Once Bold, Keeps a Low Profile," The New York Times, 15 July 2006.
[20] "Questions abound over state's relief effort," The Daily Star (Beirut), 9 August 2006.
[21] "Questions abound over state's relief effort," The Daily Star (Beirut), 9 August 2006.
[22] "Hizbullah action, government inaction in poignant contrast," The Daily Star, 19 August 2006.
[23] See "Ruined Towns Look to Beirut, Mostly in Vain," The New York Times, 1 October 2006.
[24] Officially, the army is under ambiguous orders to "ensure respect" for the UN-demarcated border and "apply the existing laws with regard to any weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state." See "Lebanon Skirts Issue of Hezbollah's Arms," The Associated Press, 16 August 2006.
[25] Although precise data is not available, the proportion of Shiites in the military rank and file is believed to be even larger than in the population as a whole. See "Lebanese army shifts from spectator to peacekeeper in south Lebanon," The Associated Press, 16 August 2006.
[26] There have been rumors of tunnels dug beneath the border in the Akkar region. See "A Cease-Fire Drives into a Mirage on a Border that Disappears as It Gets Closer," The New York Times, 16 September 2006.
[27] Helene Cooper, "Caution: This Coalition Is Fragile," The New York Times, 23 August 2006.
[28] "Israel Says Syria, Not Just Iran, Supplied Missiles to Hezbollah," The Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2006.
© 2006 Mideast Monitor. All rights reserved.
Briefing: Lebanese Public Opinion
Four major surveys of Lebanese public opinion were conducted by local and international polling firms during and after the recent war between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement. The four polls, by the Beirut Center for Research and Information (BCRI), the French research firm Ipsos, Information International, and the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan, are generally regarded as statistically sound, but their use of suggestive wording, different estimates of Lebanon's sectarian demography, and different contexts (i.e. during or after the war) render the findings somewhat inexact. Nevertheless, they reveal important insights into how the Lebanese public perceived the conflict.
The BCRI Survey
800 adult Lebanese citizens surveyed, 24-26 July 2006.
Conducted at the height of the war, the BCRI survey's most striking finding is that 70% of Lebanese expressed support for Hezbollah's initial July 12 operation to abduct Israeli soldiers (71% expressed support for kidnapping operations in a March 2006 BCRI survey) and 87% expressed support for Hezbollah's subsequent "confrontations" with the enemy.[1] This in spite of the fact that between 25% to 50% of non-Shiite respondents believed that Israel would ultimately defeat Hezbollah.
The survey also reveals a point of even stronger consensus - only 10% of all respondents felt that the United States adopted a "positive stand" during the crisis (by contrast, 38% expressed support for the US role in Lebanon in a January 2006 BCRI survey).[2] Since perceived Western backing was a critical pillar of public support for the ruling March 14 coalition after the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon last year, this result has obvious political implications.
While the poll's timing (during the height of the war) and suggestive wording (e.g. "resistance" in lieu of "Hezbollah") skew the results somewhat, they are broadly consistent with subsequent polls.
All Sunni Shiite Druze Christian
Did you support the resistance's move to capture two Israeli soldiers for a prisoners swap? Yes 70.1 73.1 96.3 40.1 54.7
No 29.9 26.9 03.7 59.9 45.3
Do you support the confrontations carried out by the resistance against the Israeli aggression against Lebanon ? Yes 86.9 88.9 96.3 79.5 80.3
No 11.8 11.1 03.7 13.7 17.5
Don't
know 01.3 00.0 00.0 06.8 02.2
Do you believe that Israel will defeat the resistance? Yes 28.4 24.6 06.5 34.1 44.7
No 63.3 72.2 93.5 54.5 38.1
Don't
know 08.3 03.2 00.0 11.4 17.2
Do you believe that the US adopted a positive stand regarding Lebanon in this war? Yes 09.5 07.9 02.3 13.6 15.0
No 85.6 87.0 96.3 81.8 87.1
Don't
know 04.9 05.1 01.4 04.6 06.9
Do you believe that the Lebanese government's political and diplomatic movement is enough to face the assault? Yes 33.5 33.4 17.2 40.9 43.7
No 64.3 64.8 82.8 59.1 51.9
Don't
know 02.2 01.8 0.00 0.00 04.4
Do you believe the government assumed its responsibility to relieve the displaced? Yes 42.8 38.5 17.1 50.1 61.9
No 54.0 58.3 80.1 45.5 34.7
Don't
know 03.2 03.2 02.8 04.5 03.4
The Ipsos Survey
600 adult Lebanese citizens surveyed, 11-17 August 2006.
partial results as published in Lebanese media.[3]
The most important (though hardly surprising) finding of the Ipsos survey is that 84% of Lebanese Shiites believe that Hezbollah "should keep its weapons" after the conflict, while 54% of Sunnis, 77% of Christians, and 79% of Druze disagree. This finding is consistent with most assessments of Hezbollah's pre-war popularity profile - strong support from the vast majority of Shiites, much of the Sunni street, and significant Druze and Christian minorities. The fact that this adds up to only 49% of the population in the survey suggests that the number of Shiite respondents was based on a low estimate of the Shiite community's demographic weight.
Suggestive wording is also evident in this poll, though it is more subtle. The above question is phrased to elicit preferences about the desired state of Hezbollah's militia - and only a very strong supporter of Hezbollah would agree that it should keep its weapons under any and all post-war scenarios. Many Lebanese have a more ambivalent range of attitudes (e.g. not comfortable with the idea of an armed militia, but believing that specific circumstances require it). Answering no to this question does not imply support for its unconditional disarmament (e.g. absent an Israeli withdrawal from the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave). Consequentlly, the published results are not inconsistent with the BCRI poll.
All Sunni Shiite Druze Christian
Do you think that Hezbollah should keep its weapons after this war? Yes 49 46 84 21 23
No 51 54 16 79 77
Do you approve of an international force deployed on the Southern borders to support the Lebanese Army?* Yes 81 72
No 19 28
Level of satisfaction with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's performance during the conflict High 49 80 28 82 49
Avg. 42 36
Low 30 15
Do you fear internal sectarian consequences of the war? Yes 38
No 62
Do you envisage staying in Lebanon and building your future in Lebanon? Yes 52 49 60 46
No 48 51 40 54
* 67% prefer that the force be an observation and NOT an intervention force.
The Information International Poll
800 adult Lebanese citizens surveyed, 22-27 August 2006.
partial results as published in Lebanese media.[4]
The Informational International poll indicates that 57% of the public still supported Hezbollah's initial operation to abduct the Israeli soldiers over a week after the end of the war - down from 70% (as reported by BCRI) at the height of the fighting.
The percentage of respondents who consider the United States an "enemy of Lebanon" increased to 69% from 26% in a September 2005 Information International poll.[5]
Respondents Response %
All "supported" Hezbollah's decision to kidnap the Israeli soldiers on July 12 57
Shiites "supported" Hezbollah's decision to kidnap the Israeli soldiers on July 12 94
All rated the government's performance during the war "good" 43
All rated the government's performance during the war "acceptable" 35
All rated the government's performance during the war "bad" 21
All rated the performance of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea as "worst/weakest" 57
All rated the performance of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt as "worst/weakest" 56
All rated the performance of Future Movement leader Saad Hariri as "worst/weakest" 43
All rated the performance of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as "good/great" 79
All rated the performance of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun as "good/great" 79
All consider Israel an "enemy of Lebanon" 97
All consider the United States an "enemy of Lebanon" 69
All consider Britain an "enemy of Lebanon" 55
All expressed support for the deployment of Lebanese Army troops in south Lebanon 89
All expressed support for the deployment of UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon 78
All consider the "best candidate" for prime minister to be Fouad Siniora (the current prime minister) 28
All consider the "best candidate" for prime minister to be Salim Hoss 26
All consider the "best candidate" for prime minister to be Najib Miqati 22
All consider the "best candidate" for prime minister to be Saad Hariri 11
All consider the "best candidate" for president to be Michel Aoun 45
All consider the "best candidate" for president to be Boutros Harb 11
All consider the "best candidate" for president to be Nassib Lahoud 8
All consider the "best candidate" for president to be Samir Geagea 6
Poll by Center for Strategic Studies (CSS)
1200 adult Lebanese citizens surveyed, results released on 11 October 2006. results as published in the Jordanian media.[6]
This fourth poll of Lebanese public opinion was publicized by the English-language Jordan Times in mid-October. The most astonishing finding is that 78% of the public believes that the war would have happened regardless of whether the Israeli soldiers had been abducted (a view that enables Hezbollah to easily deflect blame).
Respondents Response (as paraphrased in the Jordan Times %
All "agree that the Israel-Lebanon war was a consequence of a joint Israel-US attempt to impose a Middle East order" 84
Shiites "said Hizbollah came out as the winner against Israel" 70
Sunnis "said Hizbollah came out as the winner against Israel" 36
Christians "said Hizbollah came out as the winner against Israel" 19
All "believe that the war would have happened whether Hizbollah captured the Israeli soldiers or not" 78
Notes
[1] Al-Safir, 2 March 2006.
[2] Al-Safir (Beirut), 31 January 2006.
[3] L'Orient Le Jour, 28 August 2006.
[4] "Poll respondents give high marks to Nasrallah, Berri, Aoun," The Daily Star (Beirut), 7 September 2006.
[5] Ibid.
[6] "CSS poll shows 84% of Lebanese agree war attempt to impose Middle East order," The Jordan Times (Amman), 12 October 2006.
© 2006 Mideast Monitor. All rights reserved.