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Danger in Pushing Syria Out of Lebanon
COMMENTARY 1/11/04
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kessler1nov01,0,2816197.story
By Martha Kessler,
Martha Kessler, a senior Middle East analyst with the CIA until her
retirement in 2000, is the author of "Syria: A Fragile Mosaic of Power" (Government
Printing Office, 1988).
Early in September, the United Nations Security Council passed a
resolution calling for the departure of all foreign troops from Lebanon.
The resolution — intended to intimidate Syria, which wields de facto
control of the Lebanese government — was sponsored by the United States
and France, a surprising couple that cooperated for different but
compatible reasons.
France would like to reestablish a sphere of influence in Lebanon, as
Paris had in the post-colonial ancien regimes in Lebanon. The United
States wants a more pliant Lebanon, a weaker Syria, a breakup of the
triangular relationship among Lebanon, Syria and Iran, a safer
neighborhood for Israel and greater U.S. influence in the region.
But the resolution failed. Its immediate goal was to stop Syria and its
allies in the Lebanese parliament from passing a three-year term extension
for Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who is firmly aligned with Damascus.
Instead, the extension was granted, and the occupation ! of Syria
continues. Now the United States is talking of escalating the stakes by
freezing the personal assets of uncooperative Lebanese and Syrian
officials until all foreign soldiers are withdrawn. That talk is widely
thought to have prompted the resignation last week of billionaire Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who has extensive financial holdings in the
U.S.
This muscular diplomatic effort to push Syria out of Lebanon may seem
acceptable, even lofty, particularly given the dressing up of the entire
project in "greater democracy" attire. The problem is that it could have
consequences not unlike those we are experiencing in Iraq. The Arab world
is a complicated, ancient culture, and any project to reshape all or parts
of it, no matter how ideal the goal, is dangerous and open-ended. What's
more, Syria and Lebanon have an intertwined history, geography and
socio-religious fabric; destabilizing one could, in theory, destabilize
the other.
For nearly three deca! des, Syria has been a powerful force in Lebanon. It
initially moved troops into the country in the mid-1970s during the civil
war, a war fueled by religious sectarianism, radical fundamentalism and
agitation by a massive Palestinian refugee population. President Hafez
Assad, who had been in office only four years when Lebanon exploded,
reluctantly sent troops across the border to try to recalibrate the
fragile political balance between Christians and Muslims. It took Syria
about 14 years to reestablish a modicum of peace in Lebanon. Today, Hafez
Assad is dead, and his son, Bashar, is president, and there are still
thousands of Syrian troops in place.
As our war rages on in Iraq, it is important to remember that before
Baghdad, it was Beirut that was synonymous with brutality and terror. At
different stages in that bloody, 15-year conflict, every major group —
Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Druze and Palestinians — fielded multiple
militias warring in battles where sides sh! ifted regularly and civilians
were always targets. The Lebanese population was traumatized by urban
warfare. Western educators and clergy were gunned down, two Lebanese
presidents were assassinated, U.S. diplomats were executed, and Americans
and Europeans were held hostage for years. The truck bomb, which has
proved so deadly in Iraq, was born and perfected in Lebanon. Its victims
included the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. Embassy Annex and the U.S. Marine and
French barracks, among others. The tactics developed and perfected in
Lebanon are all over the Iraq battlefield today.
Lebanon's tragedy finally ended in 1989 with the Taif Accord, brokered by
Syria and Saudi Arabia. The process of rebuilding and healing is far from
finished.
Today, Syria (officially invited into the country as part of the Taif
Accord) still has preeminent influence in Lebanon. It is a fair charge
that the Syrians have often used their prolonged presence in Lebanon for
their own interests — mainly to! fortify themselves in the struggle with
Israel (including their effort to retrieve the Golan Heights from Israeli
control). Syrian troops today are down from a peak of about 35,000 to half
that number.
But no one can be sure how the Shiites, Sunni Muslims, Christians or other
Lebanese groups would react if Syria were to leave Lebanon altogether. The
factors that destabilized Lebanon in the 1970s are still present and in
some respects more combustible:
• The Islamic resurgence is now a worldwide phenomenon. Israeli and
Western interventions in Lebanon in the 1970s, Soviet and American
interventions in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and U.S. confrontations with
Iraq in the 1990s and into the present have stimulated the growth of those
components. Lebanon, like Iraq now, once attracted extremists and
certainly could again.
• Palestinians in Lebanon, who tipped the religious balance in favor of
Muslims during the war, have since the 1970s come to despair of an
equitable pe! ace and see no hope of departure from Lebanese refugee camps.
Ariel Sharon, who led the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and played a
role in massacres at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, is a flint for
firing up Palestinian agitation.
• Lebanon's democratic trappings, which masked "warlordism" before its
civil war, have been adjusted, but the shared values and spirit of
compromise necessary for building durable democratic institutions are
still decidedly absent. Religious, regional and economic fault lines are
still there — their depth impossible to gauge with confidence. The
warlords are still there too.
Frankly, Lebanese leaders are more likely to accept a Syrian patron than a
return of the French era or the advent of Pax Americana. As is true of
virtually every other small state in the area, a strong patron is still
required. The people of Lebanon, like many others in the region, view
Washington's motives very cynically. And in the wake of nearly two decades
! of strife, the stability they have established even with Syrian
overseers is preferable to a vague promise of future democracy.
The time may come when Lebanon and others in the Middle East do not see
such a stark choice between security and democracy — or more aptly,
between security and political reform and liberal pluralism. The spectacle
of Iraq almost certainly gives pause to the notion of overnight
transformation delivered by foreigners. Solving the region's chronic
problems — a disinherited Palestinian people, enmity between Arabs and
Israelis, and economic development — is a safer approach and would move
the entire region forward.
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