Levantine discord and American dismay
March 23, 2005
Huge Hafez Assad poster in Raouche, Beirut, February 2005.
It’s getting hard to catch up on events (and non-events) in the Lebanon/Syria affair. Two bombs, several casualties and many demonstrations later, there is still no government in Beirut, and the opposition keeps changing its mind about what it wants. First it wanted an interim coalition government, but then it refused to participate in one. It wanted Lahoud’s resignation above all, but now the utmost priority is the elections. It initially screamed about Resolution 1559, but now it considers the Taef Accord to be the ceiling.
At least the tiresome war of rallies and counter-rallies is over for the time being, except of course for the exasperating parades taking place in a succession of Syrian cities, which only serve to point to an embarrassingly bad (and quite futile) PR effort from a party that probably couldn’t even preach to its own choir.
The message from Lebanon’s streets was clear: like everyone else, Lebanese are not entirely united behind a single political agenda, but the vast majority do agree on the basic premise of a Syrian withdrawal. Those who implied that Hezbollah’s manifestation was to support Syria’s presence weren’t listening to Nasrallah, whether in his first press conference and subsequent statements, or during the first Hezbollah-organized demonstration, when all he did was wave goodbye to Syria and thank it for its contribution to the pacification of Lebanon.
Hezbollah tried to make Syrians feel they were not all bad. Unfortunately, others in Lebanon continue with insults (through banners, emails, or text messages), some of which are downright racist. And, in many cases, people are actually adding injury to insult. According to Nasrallah, some 30 Syrians have been killed (with more reported since he made that statement last week).
I’m told that a friend of ours, a European diplomat posted in Damascus, took a day trip to Lebanon last week – in his car with clearly marked diplomatic plates – and was attacked by several Lebanese until he agreed to put a picture of Hariri in the car. One of our family friends went to Chtaura with his elderly mother, who waited in the car as he went into a bank; he had to rush out when a group of youngsters started to insult the frightened lady, banging on the car and kicking it. Thankfully, he was able to talk some sense into the young men, but how many similar situations are happening on a daily basis?
Violence against Syrians has been regular and completely unwarranted, targetting people who have absolutely nothing to do with the Syrian regime. Most Syrians have for a long time been opposed to its handling of Lebanon (don’t believe reports that everyone is upset by the departure from Lebanon – rather, many are upset by the mishandling in the last months and years).
The Bush administration has, for its part, reacted with dismay to some of these developments. Democracy is people power, according to the Americans – but that was without factoring in Hezbollah. Poor Bush: every time he begins to praise democratic foundations, he ends up having to recognize the people power of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and SCIRI and Dawa – all of whom were (and partly still are) Islamic resistance organizations.
Hezbollah has been on the American list of terrorist organizations for a while now; lo and behold, after realizing that its secretary general could count on the support of a significant part of the population (roughly half, if one considers the demonstrations), the US now seems to imply that it might reconsider its classification of the group.
America is probably also quite surprised to see the Syrians initially retreat so quickly, having listened to a number of “experts” explain that the Syrian regime would fall if it had to leave Lebanon. Well, the Syrian people were never happy with the presence of their troops there, and they never felt they received anything in return apart from Lebanese resentment – which they can live without.
In the end, the country which recently sat on the Security Council and voted for Resolution 1441 on Iraq, which entertains diplomatic relations with the US, which cooperated heavily in the “war on terror” and in the Iraqi out-of-country voting program, and which repeats at every opportunity its wish to renew peace talks with Israel – that country is being threatened daily by the US. On the other hand, the organization that still calls for death to Israel could win U.S. backing for a role in Lebanon's political mainstream.
Some have said that Syria understands only force, not reasoning; the same possibly holds true for the US.
