Fady Noun From L'orient Le Jour

Aoun en Syrie : plus de vent que de pluie…

L'orient le Jour

11/12/2008

La tournée supermédiatisée de Michel Aoun en Syrie, terre de saint Maron et « berceau du christianisme », continue d’alimenter la chronique, l’opinion restant très partagée sur son opportunité, alors que le contentieux syro-libanais reste si lourdement chargé. Le fait que le chef du CPL ait rendu compte de sa tournée au chef de l’État a adouci quelque peu les réactions, dans la mesure où cette démarche laisse penser que Michel Aoun respecte malgré tout les institutions nationales. 
Toutefois, le Bloc national a réagi violemment à l’information selon laquelle un émissaire du général Aoun se rendrait incessamment à Bkerké pour informer le patriarche des résultats de sa visite, M. Carlos Eddé allant même jusqu’à demander au chef de l’Église maronite de ne pas le recevoir... Un geste improbable, en totale contradiction avec la tradition patriarcale maronite. 
Ce sont principalement les milieux chrétiens qui se sont offusqués de l’étalage médiatique de la visite en Syrie. Par contre, ce sont surtout les milieux sunnites qui ont réagi à l’idée d’un amendement de l’accord de Taëf lancée par Aoun à partir de Damas. 
La réaction la plus mesurée et la mieux argumentée est venue de l’ancien Premier ministre Nagib Mikati, qui a rappelé au chef du CPL qu’un amendement de ce type relève des questions consensuelles qui doivent faire l’unanimité des communautés libanaises, et qu’une majorité parlementaire, aussi large soit-elle, ne suffit pas à légitimer un amendement, surtout s’il concerne les prérogatives respectives des trois premières présidences. 
En tout état de cause, les observateurs estiment que, une fois retombé le côté sensationnel de la visite, la tournée du général Aoun en Syrie ne pourra faire ombrage ni à la présidence de la République ni au rôle de Bkerké. Du reste, l’échange d’ambassadeurs entre le Liban et la Syrie, sur le point de se concrétiser, marquera la suprématie des processus institutionnels. Notons aussi, sur ce plan, la visite de 24 heures que le chef de l’État effectuera, dimanche, en Jordanie. 
Côté international, la situation au Liban continue d’être suivie de près. À ce sujet, et à la veille de la reprise du dialogue national (22 décembre), on annonce que le président Nicolas Sarkozy est attendu au Liban le 5 décembre pour une visite de 24 heures. Selon une source diplomatique, citée par notre correspondant diplomatique, Khalil Fleyhane, cette visite illustre l’inquiétude que la France nourrit à l’égard d’un dialogue national en difficulté. 
Reçu par la secrétaire d’État Condoleezza Rice, à Washington, le ministre Nassib Lahoud, en tournée aux États-Unis, a cru comprendre, pour sa part, que l’évolution de la situation régionale ne se répercutera pas négativement sur le Liban. 
Enfin, l’actualité locale a été marquée, durant le long congé de l’Adha, par la visite de l’ancien président américain Jimmy Carter, dont l’association souhaite pouvoir suivre le bon déroulement des prochaines élections. Le ministre de l’Intérieur a démenti hier qu’une décision ait déjà été prise en ce sens, mais affirmé que son ministère poserait les critères qui qualifieraient toute association qui voudrait être présente sur le terrain, en juin prochain.

Sami Moubayed From Middle East Times

Lebanon's Aoun in a Syrian gambit

Middle East Times

04/12/2008

When I lived in Lebanon in the 1990s, the streets of what was once-called East Beirut were covered with graffiti saying "Aoun is coming back!" 

This referred to former army commander and prime minister Michel Aoun, who was ousted from Baabda Palace, the official residence of the president, by the Syrian army in 1990. Last year, the same streets were filled with colorful orange posters saying "Aoun for president". 
Aoun returned to Lebanon after 15 years in exile on May 7, 2005. The Syrian army had left a month before and Aoun had marketed himself as the man who led the ejection of Syria through United 
Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which demanded an end to its decades-long occupation of Lebanon. 
He ran for parliament in 2005, won with a landslide victory, and ran for president in 2007, but was defeated by current President Michel Suleiman in a parliament vote in May this year. 
Aoun had returned to Lebanon on the offensive, hateful of everyone and everything that kept him in exile for so long, and promising destruction of the existing order and sweet revenge. The Beirut he returned to in 2005 was very different from the war-torn city he had left behind. 
It did not bear the hallmarks of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister assassinated in 2005, yet, all the actors of Beirut 1990 are still there and most of them have been more than troubled by his comeback. 
They were even more alarmed by the 73-year-old's groundbreaking five-day visit to Damascus, which started on December 3. It is purportedly to signal that "the general", as his supporters call him, has finally turned a new page with his former enemies in Damascus. 
At Beirut airport on his return on May 2005, Aoun told the masses, most of whom were too young to remember the civil war, that Lebanon would never be governed again by "political feudalism" and a "religious system that dates back to the 19th century". This, his first encounter with the press and well-wishers, was less than diplomatic, when annoyed with all the commotion the ex-general barked at those welcoming him, claiming they were noisy. 

He then called for an end to the "old fashioned prototypes which represent the old bourgeoisie which persists without any questioning", effectively a promise to strike back at Lebanon's entire political establishment. 
His appearance at Damascus Airport this week was very different, there he was seen smiling to the TV cameras, aware of the shock waves he was sending through the pro-West March 14 Coalition which was no doubt watching from Beirut. 
Aoun’s Syria trip is scheduled to include a visit to the "Street called Straight", the Roman street that runs from east to west in the heart of old Damascus; churches throughout the Syrian capital's Bab Touma neighborhood; and the Grand Umayyad Mosque that was visited by Pope John Paul II in 2001. 

He is also slated to speak to students at universities, and tour Christian villages in the countryside, where a grassroots welcome is awaiting him. Although officially only a party leader (the Free Patriotic Movement) and member of parliament, who commands the largest Christian bloc, he was welcomed at Damascus International Airport by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad, and had a high profile audience with President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday. 

"We spoke with our hearts and minds ... so there remains no trace of a past in which there are many painful things," said Aoun after meeting Assad, in reference to his former "war of liberation" against Syria. "I left behind the past when I came to Syria," he noted. "We want to build the future, not dwell on the past." 
Aoun added, "What was once forbidden has now become halal - very halal," claiming that his visit turns a new page in Syrian-Lebanese relations. 

Before returning to Lebanon in 2005, Aoun had promised a "tsunami" in Lebanese politics. His appearance in Damascus on Wednesday goes some way to achieving that. The average age of his supporters when he returned was 20, young men and women who were easily enchanted by the fiery speeches Auon gave from exile in France. 
A generation hungry for reform and hope, they supported Aoun as an exiled leader. They rooted for him again in 2007 when he was running for president - a job he has coveted since 1988. But Aoun understood early on since his return that Christian support alone is no longer enough to govern Lebanon. The nation changed dramatically both during and after the civil war, and no president could be voted into power if he were not supported by the Shi'ite majority, which is loyal to Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah. 

Aoun last year made a pact with Nasrallah, pledging to support Hezbollah and its war against Israel, and to run as running mates for the elections in 2009. 

A long road for Aoun 
Aoun was born in 1935 to a poor family in Haret Hraik, a Shi'ite neighborhood that is currently a stronghold for Hezbollah. Aoun attended Catholic schools, lived with a religious family, but declared years later that he "never differentiated between Ali and Peter, or between Hasan and Michel". 
One of the first questions fired at him by a journalist on his return to Lebanon was whether he intended to visit his native neighborhood, which is swarming with Shi'ite warriors today, and meet with Nasrallah. He replied affirmatively, but this was long before he made his now famous pact with Hezbollah. 
Aoun finished high school in 1955, enrolled at the Military Academy and graduated in 1958, while a popular uprising was raging in Lebanon against then-president Camille Chamoun. Aoun watched attentively as the Lebanese army, which he was entering, remained loyal to its president. 

When Aoun was 40, his country descended into civil war, as the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat fought with the Muslims of Lebanon against the Maronite forces of Pierre Gemayel, who were backed by Syria. By the late 1970s, the Lebanese army had fractured along sectarian lines, yet Aoun, having learned from the 1958 experience, remained loyal to the central government. In the early 1980s, he became head of the "defense brigade" of the Lebanese army, a unit separating East and West Beirut. In 1982, he was involved in fighting against the Israeli army that occupied Beirut. 
That same year, Aoun created the 8th Brigade, which fought the Syrian army in the Souk al-Gharb pass overlooking Beirut. In June 1984, a reconciliation conference was held for all warring parties in Switzerland - brokered by Hariri - and army commander Ibrahim Tannous was fired and replaced by Aoun. 

Aoun complied, but took no part in politics, giving no press interviews between 1984 and 1988. In September 1988, 15 minutes before the end of his term, president Amin Gemayel appointed Aoun prime minister, breaching the National Pact of 1943, which said that a prime minister had to be a Muslim Sunni, and the president's office could be occupied exclusively by a Maronite Christian. 
Lebanon's Muslim prime minister, Salim al-Hoss, who had taken over after the assassination of prime minister Rashid Karameh, refused to step down, resulting in two Lebanese governments. Aoun's team reigned from Baabda Palace. 
When he came to power, Aoun only controlled limited areas of East Beirut.To establish himself as a cross-confessional leader, Aoun began his war on the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Maronite militia headed by Samir Gagegea, who is currently his main rival in the Lebanese Christian community. 
Aoun ordered 15,000 of his troops into action and wrestled the port of Beirut from the LF.He shelled entire neighborhoods of East Beirut and infuriated the Christians of Lebanon, who to date had kept East Beirut quiet and safe. On March 14, 1989, Aoun declared his "war of liberation" against Syria.
He even opened channels with Syria's arch enemies, such as Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Arafat, who described him as a "sword of nationalism" in Lebanon. Aoun finally agreed to the ceasefire proposed by the Arab League in September 1989, but refused to endorse the Taif Accord of Saudi Arabia of October 1989, claiming it did not call for the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon. 
Aoun's "rebellion" ended rapidly when in August 1990, his friend Saddam invaded Kuwait. The United States, eager to defeat the Iraqi dictator, wanted Arab support in Operation Desert Storm. 
It found no better way to achieve that than through an alliance with Syria for the liberation of Kuwait. Syria's late president Hafez al-Assad sent his army to the Arabian desert, and in reward the US gave him a green light to bring the Aoun saga to an end. On the morning of October 13, 1990, the Syrian army launched a massive operation on Baabda Palace and areas of East Beirut controlled by Aoun. The defeated general fled to the French Embassy in Beirut then moved to Paris, where president Francois Mitterrand gave him political asylum. 

Aoun remained in exile during the 1990s, when Hariri ruled Beirut, along with the Syrian-backed president Elias Hrawi and Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament. It was these Lebanese leaders who prevented his return to Lebanon because they feared his wrath for having obediently worked with Syria for so long. Hariri was killed on February 14, 2005, and after Aoun’s return three months later, he refused to attribute his comeback to the murder of Hariri, but rather to his 14-year crusade from Paris. 
The new Aoun was older, wiser and angrier than ever before. He wanted to take revenge on all who had wronged him since 1990. There was no sense in taking revenge on the Syrians, he argued, since they had left Lebanon. He instead focused his anger on March 14 leaders like Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora, and Walid Jumblatt, the current leader of the Druze community. 
He failed to become president in 2007, but the March 14 coalition said it would never accept him - for different reasons. Muslim politicians like Hariri and Siniora feared a strong Christian president like Aoun would overshadow their Sunni prime minister. The same applied to Jumblatt, and Gagegea, who saw himself - being the other Christian heavyweight - as the best candidate for the Lebanese presidency. 
To understand Aoun one must understand how faithful his supporters have been in backing him. When he wanted to fight the Syrians, they were anti-Syrian to the bone. When he wanted to ally himself with Hezbollah, they became strong supporters of what the general was telling them to do. They support anything he tells them. It's that simple. Such strict adherence to a political leader who is not leading a confessional group and one who is switching sides so very dramatically is rare even in a country like Lebanon. 
Aoun has no states supporting him or furnishing him with money, like Saad al-Hariri, the politician son of the assassinated premier, and Saudi Arabia, or Hasan Nasrallah and Iran. He does not hail from a traditional political family, like Maronite politician Suleiman Franjiyeh, Druze leader Jumblatt, or former Sunni prime minister Omar Karameh. With no state behind him, and no political family on his shoulders, it is remarkable that the general has survived so long in the patron-client system of the Middle East. 
He is now bracing himself for the upcoming parliamentary elections of 2009, which he plans on tackling with Hezbollah. Aoun realizes that he cannot rule Lebanon without them. For their part, Hezbollah leaders realize that they need someone like Aoun to legitimize the "arms of the resistance" among Lebanese Christians. Nasrallah is popular with Christians of south Lebanon but until Aoun came along in 2005, there were Christians in Mount Lebanon who frowned on his military tactics - especially after the liberation of South Lebanon in 2000 - claiming that Lebanon was being made to pay the price for Hezbollah’s war with Israel. 
Depending on who you talk to in Lebanon, Christians are either still enchanted with "the general" or have began to hate him, because of his alliance with Hezbollah and his latest cozying up with Iran and Syria. Shortly before his Damascus visit, Aoun landed in Tehran to meet with Iranian leaders - sending a strong message to Saudi Arabia, which supports March 14. A pragmatic man, he knows that all is fair in love and war; and all is justified in his quest to become president of Lebanon. 

Michael Young From Daily Star

Michel Aoun's minority package tour

Daily Star

04/12/2008

You have to hand it to Michel Aoun, he never goes half-way. Here was everyone else staying in Syria for a few hours, two days at the most, and here is Aoun opting for the full four-night, five-day holiday package tour, including visits to religious sites, open buffets, Damascus by night, and an audience with the dictator, all for the low price of his mortal soul. 

There will be much dispute over Aoun's choices as he "reconciles" with his old Syrian enemy - his partisans applauding the general, his adversaries finding fault. But a more obvious question is what does Aoun gain from this trip that he didn't have before embarking on the road to Damascus? And what does he lose? - assuming that many Lebanese, perhaps most, still believe that Syria was behind the killing of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, as well as of dozens of others beginning in 2005. 

To the first question, the easy explanation, an electoral one, is unconvincing on its own. If Aoun's gambit is that he has to become friendly with Syria to be assured that his candidates will be given more room on electoral lists in predominantly Shiite constituencies, as well as Jezzine, then he has already forfeited enough politically to achieve that. Rather, the general's deeper ambition (if "depth" can in any way reasonably be applied here) is to become the primary mediator between the Christians and Syria's regime. Aoun's immediate aim is to displace President Michel Sleiman from that role, but more generally to breathe life into a contentious notion associated with his principal Maronite political ally, Suleiman Franjieh, but also with Aoun's own son-in-law, Gebran Bassil: namely that Christians, in order to protect their community, have a long-term advantage in entering into a strategic regional alliance of minorities with the Shiites and Syria's ruling Alawites. 

If there are any doubts about this, the symbolism of Aoun's visit is there to dispel them. The point of the general's planed excursions to Christian shrines in Damascus is to show that Christians thrive under Bashar Assad. 

To the second question - what does Aoun have to lose by so flamboyantly settling his differences with a regime accused of systematic murder in the past three years? - the answer is: quite a lot. Through this gesture, the general has taken his followers farther than ever in their divorce from the Lebanese sectarian consensus. Aoun has repeatedly sold his alliance with Hizbullah as a successful effort to preserve that consensus following the 2005 Independence Intifada. That would only be true had Aoun remained a bridge between Sunnis and Shiites. Instead he took sides, and is now thumbing his nose at the Sunni community once more by effectively absolving the Syrian regime of guilt in the Hariri murder; or worse, making it plain that he cares little about that guilt. 

But it's the Christians who will ultimately have the most forceful say on Aoun's Damascus trip. And whichever way you cut it, most Christians do not share the general's views on an alliance of minorities, nor are they particularly eager to embrace the Assad regime, preferring a colder relationship of mutual respect. Aoun is under the impression that he can continue to manipulate Christian misgivings about the Sunnis to his advantage. However, those misgivings only have meaning in the context of domestic Lebanese affairs. Once the Christians see the general wanting to take the community into a regional confrontation with the Sunni Arab world, once they realize that Aoun's method for doing so is a partnership with a deeply mistrusted Syrian leadership and with Iran, their reaction will likely be one of suspicion, if only from a perspective of self-interest. 


Self-interest counts for a lot, but there is also the matter of principle. It sends a very different message when Lebanese officials, mandated by the government, meet with their Syrian counterparts, and when a parliamentarian like Michel Aoun does so. That's not to say that Aoun had no right to visit Damascus, only that by doing so outside the confines of formal state-to-state relations - the desirable framework for ties between Lebanon and Syria - he injects a form of unilateralism into his act that demonstrates he will ignore Syrian behavior in Lebanon, regardless of how it violates Lebanese sovereignty and United Nations resolutions. That's why Aoun's defending his visit as representing a new page in Syrian-Lebanese relations is so manifestly vain. Aoun claims to be representing all of Lebanon when he only truly represents himself. 

Why should that matter? Because it would have been useful, just this once, for the Lebanese to be united around their victims. Aoun's political career since his return to Lebanon has centered on a perpetual struggle against the legacy of Rafik Hariri, whom the general never forgave for having, in death, served as a mobilizing force against the Syrian presence. By transforming his stay in Syria into a grand tour, part political summit, part pilgrimage, by offering so large a dispensation to Bashar Assad and demanding nothing in exchange (except for what Assad will toss him by way of making the trip more palatable in Lebanon), Aoun has betrayed the memory of even those who sided with him in his darker moments: the soldiers who died for him on October 13, 1990, after Aoun had fled to the French Embassy and refused to issue them with an order to surrender; Gebran Tueni, who had his differences with the general, but always defended Aoun's partisans when they were arrested and mistreated by the Lebanese security services; Samir Kassir, who had engaged Aounist students at St. Joseph University and encouraged them in their fight against Syrian hegemony; Antoine Ghanem and Pierre Gemayel, who had, like Aoun, endured years of marginalization at Syrian hands. 

Egoism is sometimes a quality of great men. Aoun would agree after placing himself at the same altitude as Charles de Gaulle reconciling France with Konrad Adenauer's West Germany. But his is an egoism without a trace of greatness, without vision or a center of gravity. Aoun took the package tour of Syria, the one the budget tourists choose. He won't come away from the experience with his reputation enhanced.

Elie Fayyad from L'Orient le Jour

En rire ou pas

L'orient le Jour

21/11/2008

Le général Michel Aoun comparant sa visite projetée en Syrie à celle de Charles de Gaulle dans l’Allemagne de l’après-guerre ? Voici ce qu’un lecteur nous écrit au sujet de cet improbable parallèle : « Quelqu’un de bien connu a dit qu’il faudrait rire au moins une fois par jour pour rester en bonne santé. Merci infiniment au général Aoun pour contribuer régulièrement à notre bien-être. » 
Il y en a qui en rient, il y en a qui en pleurent. Certains applaudissent et d’autres hurlent à la « mégalomanie ». D’aucuns font même de la surenchère : à leurs yeux, de Gaulle n’est pas à la hauteur, c’est à Jules César qu’il faut remonter pour trouver matière à comparaison. Pendant qu’en face, on évoque une fable de La Fontaine où il est question d’une grenouille et d’un bœuf. 
Dans un registre moins excessif, plus argumenté, certains lecteurs s’interrogent : de Gaulle s’était rendu dans une Allemagne vaincue et dénazifiée, une Allemagne où des troupes françaises étaient encore stationnées. À qui Michel Aoun rend-il visite ? Au pays des Assad ou à celui de Michel Kilo ? 
Une chose est sûre : au vu des réactions que ses diverses interventions suscitent, le général Aoun ne laisse quasiment personne indifférent. Rares sont les hommes politiques qui suscitent autant d’éloges dithyrambiques que de sarcasmes au vitriol. 
Et cette tendance est précisément en plein essor en cette phase préélectorale, dans laquelle le chef du CPL se retrouve en permanence au centre de l’actualité. La raison en est bien simple : ses alliés ne pouvant faire, électoralement parlant, davantage que leur plein – déjà atteint –, c’est son score à lui, et à lui seul, qui déterminera la victoire ou la défaite du projet politique du Hezbollah aux prochaines législatives. 
Car le doute n’est plus permis : l’énigmatique troisième voie, que le général affirmait vouloir rechercher aux débuts de l’actuelle législature, est déjà très lointaine. Par choix ou par contrainte, le CPL s’est laissé glisser lentement mais sûrement dans le sillage du parti de Dieu jusqu’à en épouser souvent les vues et la rhétorique. 
Or cette évolution ne s’est pas faite sans reniements successifs, le plus lourd de conséquences n’étant peut-être pas la visite programmée en Syrie, mais plutôt le document du général Aoun sur la stratégie défensive. 
Laissons de côté la vision martiale (et spartiate) de la société et du pays que développe le général dans ce texte. Elle fait déjà l’objet d’une littérature, pour ou contre, de plus en plus approfondie et volumineuse. Après tout, c’est sa conception, et elle est partagée par de nombreux Libanais. Même si elle relève d’un volontarisme qui heurte les sentiments de nombreux autres Libanais dans ce qu’elle comporte de relents totalitaires. 
Attardons-nous simplement sur un passage qui témoigne de l’ampleur des reniements opérés et qui dit combien Michel Aoun n’est plus lui-même : « (…) La tentative d’Israël de désarmer la Résistance afin de contrôler le pouvoir de décision libanais et, partant, d’imposer ses solutions dans le contentieux avec le Liban et les Palestiniens. Il est aidé en cela par la communauté internationale qui s’emploie à mettre en œuvre de manière sélective les résolutions (du Conseil de sécurité) en insistant sur l’application des textes récents et en ignorant les anciens (…). » 
Ne parlons pas de l’époque où il vantait sa contribution personnelle à l’une de ces résolutions récentes (la 1559), ni de celle où, fraîchement élu à la Chambre, il ouvrait le premier le feu sur l’arsenal du Hezbollah, alors que certains piliers du 14 Mars en étaient encore à quêter piteusement les impossibles fruits de la désastreuse « alliance quadripartite ». 
« La tentative d’Israël de désarmer la Résistance (…) » : ainsi, le général partage aujourd’hui le mépris du Hezbollah pour tous les Libanais hostiles à son arsenal. Ils n’existent tout simplement pas ! Pis encore : ils sont sous-entendus dans le mot « Israël » ! 
Voilà bien le genre de déclarations qui sied à une table de « dialogue » ! 
Mais il y a plus grave encore : de tout temps, le Liban officiel, et en particulier le général Aoun, s’est accroché aux résolutions onusiennes concernant ce pays comme à une planche de salut afin de fuir la trappe que constituent pour lui les textes plus globaux relatifs au Proche-Orient. Les premiers étaient perçus comme raffermissant son indépendance, son immunité intérieure, alors que les seconds le consacraient dans le rôle de théâtre de règlements de comptes régionaux. On se souvient d’ailleurs du combat mené par le général et ses partisans pour faire prévaloir la résolution 520. Tout comme on se souvient des efforts permanents de la Syrie – ils se poursuivent à l’heure actuelle – pour contrer les résolutions « libanaises ». 
De tout temps, le Liban officiel s’est accroché à ces dernières… jusqu’à Émile Lahoud. Après le retrait israélien du Liban-Sud, en 2000, ce président fut véritablement le premier à inverser la donne, à jouer la carte du maintien du Liban dans la sphère de jeu de l’axe syro-iranien. 
Il y a quelque temps, il a été écrit que le « aounisme » est devenu aujourd’hui la « phase ultime » du « lahoudisme ». Avec une énorme différence : Émile Lahoud ne draine pas les foules. Michel Aoun, si. 
Or justement, au vu de l’évolution de son discours politique, il y a un terrible contraste entre la stature apparente qu’a atteinte le général Aoun et le poids réel du rôle qu’il a à jouer. Les superlatifs – positifs ou négatifs – que l’on sort à tout bout de champ à son sujet finissent par dissimuler l’enjeu véritable qu’il représente aujourd’hui, celui d’un simple appoint. 
Certes, on a besoin de lui pour gagner les élections, mais c’est à peu près tout ce qu’on lui demande. Si l’opposition gagne, ce seront les options du Hezbollah qui seront au pouvoir, et si elle perd, c’est au général que la défaite sera forcément imputée, puisque les vraies batailles n’auront lieu que dans les circonscriptions chrétiennes. 
Derrière l’écran de fumée, se cache une réalité tangible : Hassan Nasrallah a réussi une gageure. Il recrute même en temps de paix.

Harry Hagopian From Newropeans

Lebanon: Torn between War & Peace!

16/10/2008

Newropeans

Harry Hagopian

It was not so very long ago that the majority of the Lebanese people celebrated joyfully the brokering of the Doha Agreement that promised to put an end to the interminable chapters of political and physical violence. 

One of the more unusual ways in which they tasted this hopeful sense of coming together was the introduction by Häagen Daz of the ‘Doha Agreement Ice Cream Cone’. For just LL 10,400, the Lebanese could buy a cone that was the result of a joint venture between the American ice cream giant in Lebanon and Qatar Airways. The promotion was expected to last so long as the mood in the country remained one of reconciliation - or at least until the politicians “started fighting again.” 

However, I did not see those cones being sold at any of the outlets when I visited Beirut recently. Did I not look hard enough, or was it likely due to the fact that reconciliation had weakened as a marketable currency in the country? 

Over the past three months, much has happened in Lebanon. The Lebanese got a new president at long last, and a national unity cabinet was put together that also amended the previous electoral law of 1960. Mind you, it did not grant Lebanese expatriates the right to vote in the next parliamentary elections, nor did it lower the voting age from 21 to 18 although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines anyone over 18 as an adult. Moreover, Presidents Assad and Suleiman also importantly agreed - at least in principle - to establish formal diplomatic relations, with Damascus and Beirut opening embassies in their respective countries for the first time in 64 years since independence from French mandate. 

But in addition to those developments relating to the Doha Agreement, and even though ice cream cones are not easy to find in the market, there are a few hopeful efforts at reconciliation underway, all the way from the national all-factions dialogue under the aegis of the president, to the parallel efforts aimed at bridging the yawning gaps between bickering Christian political parties to the one-on-one meetings of bellicose political leaders such as those of Al-Mustaqbal and Hizbullah. 

Yet, whilst all those sanguine efforts are trying to contribute toward the stabilisation of the country, tensions remain quite dangerously high. There are murderous attacks and inter-confessional spurts of violence occurring for instance across the northern town of Tripoli that is largely a Sunni bastion. An oft-quoted example is the recurrent violence between the Baal Mohsen district (that is pro-opposition) and Bab al Tabbaneh neighbourhood (that is pro-majority). There have also been bloody attacks against Lebanese soldiers as well as civilians on buses or in streets. Those examples exacerbate the fears of many Lebanese that darker clouds could easily re-appear on the horizon again After all, Tripoli is geographically close to Syria, and some pundits harbour the suspicion that an unsettled Tripoli could be used by Syria as justification to extend its influence over Lebanon or even send its army back into the country. Indeed, it is no mere detail that the highest-ranking Salafi Authority in Lebanon, Dai al-Islam Shahhal, warned against an incursion by the Syrian Army into north Lebanon saying it would open "the gates of hell and lead to what is similar to Iraq and its misery." 

Meanwhile, in the midst of this ominous rumble of developments, the issue of the arms in possession of Hizbullah is also casting a dark shadow over any genuine reconciliation. Given that one man’s meat is another’s poison, literally half the Lebanese population consider that Hizbullah should disarm with its weapons coming under the control of the Lebanese army. The other half believes that they should stay with Hizbullah and its Shi’i Amal allies since they would be used in resisting Israeli aggression and occupation. And the major - though not exclusive - justification for resistance by those factions insisting on keeping their arms is that Israel detains the Shaba’a Farms as well as the Lebanese part of the village of Ghajar (with recent reports that Israel might return it to Lebanon next month) and Kfar Shouba hills that were meant to be returned to Lebanon - either directly or through an initial UN trusteeship - also in accordance with UNSC Resolution 1701. 

But what are those Shaba’a Farms anyway? 

The tiny sliver of lush land 25 square kilometres across is located at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and northern Israel. Israel seized those Farms from Syria in 1967 when it occupied the nearby Golan Heights. Ever since then, those Farms have been caught in a tug-of-war over ownership. Lebanon claims them, with the backing of Damascus, while Israel insists they are part of Syria. 

The confusion over the borders actually dates back to 1923 when Britain and France, who held the mandates of the League of Nations over the territories now comprising Israel, Lebanon and Syria, failed to outline their borders clearly. Lebanon has accused Israel of refusing to return the Farms in order to benefit from the bountiful natural resources of the region, particularly its water resources. According to officials, the Farms hold 23 natural water sources and also strategic or military importance due to their altitude. 

When UNSC Resolution 1701 brought an end to the 33-day war between Israel and Hizbullah in the summer of 2006, it called upon the UN secretary-general to propose a border demarcation for those Farms. The UN ruled that the withdrawal from Lebanon was complete and that the Farms were Syrian. 

Nevertheless, in March 2008, the Lebanese geographer Issam Khalifeh published a book full of documents claiming the Farms were indeed Lebanese, including a 1946 deal in which Damascus recognised Lebanon's sovereignty over the territory. Attached to the report was a map with 48 border markers, but Syria has refused to let this paperwork be sent to the UN, perhaps because it did not wish to go down road of recognition and delineation of an international border. 

All these are issues that are clearly weighing upon the Lebanese mindset, and in the process retarding any progress from a state of brittle uncertainty to one of relative stability. However, what is also clear to me is that the major objective of all the parties above all else are the parliamentary elections of spring of 2009 that might well decide which parties enjoy the majority of votes - and therefore of seats and of power. So whilst there is a government in place for running day-to-day affairs, everyone understands that the political focus today revolves truly around those elections. 

But here is another hitch! In some sense, it is almost predictable what percentages, districts and seats the Sunni, Shi’i and Druze candidates would get in the parliamentary elections next year. The real guesstimate is the future number of Christian seats that will be obtained by the different Christian coalitions since their future is very much in play now - particularly given their divisions in an almost irredeemable - roughly 50:50 - ratio. Only last week, the Maronite patriarch, HE Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, expressed the hope that Christians would respond to the initiatives of the Maronite League and “would sit together because other sects have achieved reconciliation”, adding that “agreement among all the Lebanese is impossible.” 

A straw poll conducted by Now Lebanon explored the reason hampering inter-Christian reconciliation. The results revealed that 38% thought it was due to electoral interests and the requirements of electoral mobilisation, whilst 14% thought that it was due to a lack of serious efforts to respond favourably to reconciliation endeavours, and a large percentage of 49% attributed it to lingering personal feuds among Christian leaders. 

Those polls notwithstanding, I am convinced that the Lebanese Christians could play a central role in the forthcoming elections and that in the process would also hold the balance of power between the other political parties so they could then perhaps advance those community demands that have been ignored for long. Broadly put, there are now two competing Christian camps. On one side, Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces and Amin Gemayel’s Phalanges are still struggling for an end of Syrian influence and attempting to mobilise support for the need to restore a fully sovereign Lebanese state. They would claim to pursue this strategic choice by pressing Hizbullah to disarm and also by setting up an international tribunal charged with investigating Rafiq Hariri’s murder. On the other side of the Christian political divide, General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement has challenged the inert political system as a whole and broken its isolation by forging a controversial “understanding” with Hizbullah and by allying himself indirectly with the Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh. 
The divisions between the two Christian camps are fundamental and stretch back decades in some instances. Today, the leadership of this community is at stake. General Michel Aoun wants to be that undisputed leader, which is why he is attacking the other leaders relentlessly, undermining the role of the Maronite patriarch and even sniping at the president. However, his position is becoming increasingly untenable. He is gradually losing the support of key allies in the form of the Metn leader Michel Murr and of the Armenian Tashnaq party, and as a consequence is trying to compensate his losses in Mount Lebanon by winning over some areas in the South (that he visited recently), as well as in Ba’albek and Hermel. 
A third option to this bipolar configuration still remains unclear. What are President Michel Suleiman’s own plans? In his inaugural speech, he emphasised demands and concerns that are significant to the Christian community in Lebanon. Other than rejecting the naturalisation of the Palestinians and facilitating the return of the displaced, he highlighted administrative reform, decentralisation, empowering the presidency and ensuring better Christian representation in high-ranking civil positions. If he were to field his own parliamentary list, or support such a list, it would weaken Aoun considerably and lead toward the re-formation of the Christian camp. In fact, with his stewardship of intra-Christian reconciliation, the President holds a few cards and his influence could grow considerably and make significant differences in the forthcoming elections. 
In fact, what is remarkable to me is that Christians and Muslims are seemingly reconciling more easily in Lebanon than the Christians themselves - a fact that not only underlines the virile tussle for power and control, but also that their continued bickering would run the risk of leading even further to their gradual erosion. After all, the political landscape keeps changing with the almost cyclical re-balancing of outside powers that are playing the Lebanese card of pitting the Lebanese against each other. In fact, the recent difficult hopes for conciliatory moves between the Lebanese Forces and Marada can only benefit the whole country politically even thought there is a lot of bloody history between both sides. 

I am being cautiously optimistic that things will not change too dramatically in the country this side of the 2009 parliamentary spring elections. Barring any major eruptions of terror and mayhem, and with the parties using their networks to consolidate their own positions, I would argue that Syria is also waiting for the results of the 2009 parliamentary elections to see what leverage it will have internally. While internationally, it is also awaiting the results of the US presidential elections, as it knows that the US alone can determine Syria’s position as a regional player, its role in Lebanon, the advancement of its negotiations with Israel, and of course, its position vis-à-vis the international tribunal. I also suspect that Syria will probably make no concrete moves for now on diplomatic relations, and on most sensitive issues, including border demarcation, the Shaba’a Farms and Lebanese detainees. But one key concern for me is the fact that Iran might still prove to be the wild card that would interfere and upset the political applecart. 

Ever since 11 November 2006, when a number of ministers resigned from the cabinet, Lebanon has witnessed assassinations, demonstrations, sit-ins, internal and external threats, a temporary military takeover of west Beirut, exacerbated tensions in the north of the country, attempts at re-enforcing the mechanisms of government and many internecine feuds that have been followed by attempts at dialogue and reconciliation. So what is all this doing to the whole country? 

Lebanon is simply being weakened in major dribs and minor drabs, cleaving parts of the country from each other whereby different politicians claim to work for the one nation but pledge their allegiances to their own factions. Confessionalism, always a Lebanese misfortune, is increasingly overwhelming the political apparatuses, and in the process widening the chasm between different politicians and the ordinary people and altering facts on the ground. My constant dread is that a combination of internal divergences and external threats would lead to new rounds of bloody fighting. 

After all, has this not happened before? It often saddens me that Lebanese politicians are so gifted in splitting hair and believing in the absolute truths of their own arguments let alone those of their regional or international supporters that they act as clan leaders rather than global politicians and in so doing turn deaf ears to a vox populi that aspires for peace, coexistence and harmony in the country. A divisive blend of religious myopia, political self-interest and nefarious outside interferences from all sides are together rending the country apart and stymieing the creative gifts of a people that talks about the oneness of Lebanon but ends up shaking that oneness at the seams. Does anyone pause to think of the whole picture? 

Last week, following an agreement between Al-Moustaqbal and Hizbullah parties, the Lebanese have taken down the provocative posters. This is a move in the right direction, but will it augment the chances for peace? Or is it simply that the Lebanese sagas will continue until such time as there is a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement? Has Lebanon lost all control over its own geopolitics and is now a fallible pawn on the chessboard of international politics? The Arab World (no matter how one defines this amorphous term) is too divided in its interests to buttress up Lebanon, and the West is too greedy to care much about it either. So this small country is paying the price of international politics and local power plays. 

Given such realities on the ground, is it surprising that the song Khalas (Enough) by the Lebanese musician and singer Nicholas Sa'adeh Nakhleh has become a chart-topper? After all, ordinary people are saying khalas, and I suspect they will also rally round his next song Unity once it comes out since it too will speak volubly to the majority of Lebanese instincts. 

Torn between war and peace for so long, will Lebanon finally find peace? More to the point, will it be allowed to find it?

Michel Touma from L'Orient le Jour

PERSPECTIVE - Entre libanisation et hezbollahisation

L'Orient le Jour
01/09/2008

Lorsque le Courant patriotique libre a signé le 6 février 2006 le « document d’entente » avec le Hezbollah, il a tenu à préciser avec insistance, dans un premier temps, qu’il ne s’agissait là nullement d’une alliance entre les deux formations, mais plutôt d’une sorte de déclaration de principes commune. Et pour faire avaler à l’opinion publique la couleuvre de cette démarche politiquement contre nature, certains cadres du CPL entretenaient l’illusion selon laquelle l’objectif recherché était de stimuler une « libanisation » du Hezbollah, reconnaissant ainsi implicitement l’existence d’un problème sur ce plan. Trop contents de bénéficier ainsi d’une couverture chrétienne inespérée, les dirigeants du parti pro-iranien ont rapidement qualifié leur nouvelle relation d’alliance stratégique, n’hésitant pas à mettre sur le devant de la scène le général Michel Aoun à chaque fois qu’une position tactique quelque peu délicate devait être prise par le 8 Mars.
Emporté par la dynamique implacable enclenchée le 6 février 2006, le chef du CPL n’a pas tardé à placer ses liens avec le Hezbollah sous le label d’« alliance éternelle ». Et la politique étant indubitablement la résultante d’un rapport de force, en guise de libanisation de la formation chiite, c’est plutôt à un étrange phénomène de hezbollahisation du CPL auquel nous avons assisté. La dernière en date des manifestations de cette hezbollahisation a été la réaction du courant aouniste à l’agression caractérisée perpétrée par les miliciens du Hezbollah contre un hélicoptère de l’armée dont le pilote a été abattu. Alors que, à titre d’exemple, l’ancien Premier ministre Sélim Hoss, connu pour ses positions mitigées et prudentes, a adopté une attitude très ferme au sujet de cette attaque, le CPL a entrepris de publier un communiqué particulièrement laconique de quatre lignes, se contentant de déplorer l’incident et de réclamer timidement qu’une enquête soit menée par les autorités concernées, sans faire aucunement mention des circonstances du drame ou de ses auteurs.
Qu’un courant qui était jadis à l’avant-garde de la mouvance souverainiste en vienne à banaliser de cette façon une agression aussi grave que celle de Sejoud, cela ne peut avoir qu’une seule explication, à savoir que ce courant est devenu l’otage, essentiellement électoral, du Hezbollah. D’autant que son chef était commandant de l’armée et que son leitmotiv était précisément la prééminence de l’État et de l’armée face à toute milice ou faction cherchant à imposer un mini-État de fait accompli dans le pays. Un tel leitmotiv n’était-il pas d’ailleurs le prétexte brandi haut et fort (surtout avec force) pour justifier les deux batailles successives menées en 1989 et 1990 ? Un leader a, certes, le droit de changer de comportement. Mais en général, il est préférable que cela se fasse dans la bonne direction et non pas à contre-courant de l’histoire…
Il reste que bien au-delà de telles considérations d’opportunismes politiques et de calculs politiciens, l’affaire de l’hélicoptère a mis en évidence, d’une manière dramatique, le caractère chimérique du principe prôné désormais ouvertement par le général Aoun, portant sur la « complémentarité » entre l’armée et la « Résistance » (en l’occurrence le Hezbollah). Car, comme le soulignait hier en substance l’ancien député Salah Honein dans une interview à La Voix du Liban, il ne saurait y avoir de complémentarité entre une thèse et son antithèse, entre deux forces armées ayant chacune son propre projet politique, pas nécessairement convergent avec l’autre.
Dans des cas extrêmes, une coordination bien huilée pourrait être, à la rigueur, envisageable entre des troupes gouvernementales et une forme de résistance populaire, mais à la condition que la décision de guerre et de paix soit du seul ressort de l’autorité centrale, que la chambre d’opérations militaires relève uniquement de l’armée régulière et que – plus important encore – la résistance en question soit celle de toutes les composantes nationales, et non pas celle d’un seul et unique parti. Surtout lorsque ce parti s’obstine à refuser que quiconque puisse ne fût-ce que discuter du « droit » qu’il s’est lui-même arrogé, par la force des armes, de monopoliser tout acte de résistance. Et de surcroît, cette complémentarité défendue par le général Aoun constitue une véritable insulte à l’intelligence des Libanais du fait que, de par son financement, ses racines, sa structure, son idéologie, la source de son armement, le soutien logistique, politique et matériel qu’il reçoit, le Hezbollah est organiquement tributaire, dans ses grandes décisions politiques, d’un mentor régional qui ne cache pas sa volonté de transformer le Liban en un terrain d’affrontements avec ses divers adversaires géopolitiques, occidentaux ou arabes.
L’agression de Sejoud a ainsi illustré, dans le sang, à quel point il est illusoire de concilier la logique de l’État central, rassembleur, avec celle d’un parti armé, motivé dans son comportement, et, depuis des décennies, par un projet supranational et une raison d’État étrangère. Le lieutenant Samer Hanna aura payé de sa vie cet antagonisme incontournable entre les impératifs d’une armée nationale, seule garante de la souveraineté, et la logique, conditionnée par des paramètres régionaux, d’une faction paraétatique qui s’emploie, pas à pas, progressivement, lentement, de façon pernicieuse, à accroître l’étendue des lignes rouges et des contraintes qu’elle cherche à imposer à l’État. Car irrémédiablement, le champ de son influence ne peut être qu’inversement proportionnel à celui du pouvoir central.

Michel Touma

Jean Issa from L'Orient le Jour

L’albinos et l’albatros

L'orient le Jour
22/08/2008

Tirée de mots croisés comme le fer par Tristan, une définition œnologique de l’albinos : blanc de blanc. Qui n’y voit goutte, et goûte à l’ivresse de se croire lui-même invisible. Comme l’autruche en son sable, et l’on se demande, perplexe, où elle peut bien en trouver à Sydney (Chaplin). Du côté de nos chapelains patelins du coin-coin CPL, bien mauvaise vue itou. 

Car il y a, dans la nomenclature officielle qu’ils prétendent réviser dans leurs devoirs de vacances, une vacance, un blanc qui saute aux yeux de tout lynx bien constitué, constitutionnellement. Ques aco ? Tout simplement, tout bêtement, l’inventaire de gradation suivant : numéro un, le président de la République ; numéro deux, le président de l’Assemblée nationale ; numéro trois, le président du Conseil ; numéro cinq, le vice-président de la Chambre ; numéro six (ou six bis, selon la parité Taëf), le vice-Premier ministre. 

Et le numéro quatre ? C’est comme le Cinzano mauve, ça n’existe pas. Chez nous, en effet, il n’y a pas de vice-président de la République. Par la vertu d’un vice de forme, et même de haut-de-forme. 

Et c’est autant de gagné, une solde d’épargnée pour nos popoches de contribuables ultrapressurés. Car un vice quelque chose, quand ça ne supplée pas en cas d’absence du titulaire, ou quand ça n’est pas chargé d’une vague mission humanitaire, voire honoraire-protocolaire comme représenter la Maison-Blanche à un mariage de jazzman à Maison Rouge, ça ne sert strictement à rien. À preuve qu’à Washington DC, une blague connue dit que la seule occupation-préoccupation du vice-président est d’aller demander, chaque matin, comment va le président. 
Mais tant que brèche il y a, pourquoi ne pas s’y engouffrer. Trois jeunes tambours… Après tout, ils étaient trois en 89. Un maronite, un grec-orthodoxe et un grec-catholique. Que devient l’étoile du troisième mirlitaire comme persiflait Allais ? On pourrait la redorer en exigeant pour lui, et pour la logique de la numérotation, qu’il se voie attribuer la vice-présidence de la République. 

D’autant que s’il est juste que les grecs-orthodoxes, quatrième communauté, ont droit à une gâterie supplémentaire (encore que la vice-présidence de la Chambre, hein-hein), il est injuste que les grecs-catholiques, qui viennent juste après, n’aient aucune, mais alors là aucune, part du gâteau. Certes, cela nécessiterait une révision de la Constitution. Mais bien d’autres exigences des prosyriens aussi, le CPL le sait-il. 
Et puis, et enfin, comment voulez-vous que l’albatros aounien prenne son envol, vers la colline inspirée de Barrès et de Baabda, sans ces deux ailes que Saëb Salam chantait jadis à tue-tête. Du temps où lutter pour la participation avait un sens politico-national, et pas du tout perso-lucrativo-électoral.

Michael Young from Daily Star

The battle of the two Michels has begun

Daily Star
21/08/2008

Weeks ago, Michel Aoun's political adversaries were already predicting that the general's first act once the government was formed would be to demand that the prerogatives of the deputy prime minister be clarified. The post is traditionally "reserved" for the Greek Orthodox community and is currently held by Aoun's comrade Issam Abu Jamra. They sensed that Aoun would use the dispute to yet again try to rally support among Christians by claiming to be defending their interests against Sunni dominance - since the deputy prime minister's job description must necessarily be elucidated at the expense of the Sunni prime minister.

On Tuesday, this discussion took on more rarefied airs when the minister Tammam Salam and the parliamentarian Ghassan Mukheiber of the Aoun bloc exchanged statements on the role of Mukheiber's uncle, Albert, when he was deputy prime minister in the 1972 government headed by Tammam Salam's father, Saeb. Mukheiber argued that his uncle had stood in for Salam when the prime minister was abroad, while Salam insisted this was not true. Mukheiber went on to state that now was a good time to define the duties of the deputy prime minister, which must have pleased Aoun while also allowing Mukheiber to score some points within his own Greek Orthodox community. 
In the midst of a hot summer, this somehow qualifies as news. Aoun has long been a master of institutional guerilla warfare, in which he scores points by consistently applying sectarian pin pricks. However, something may be changing. The small-mindedness of the deputy prime minister debate may actually play to Aoun's disfavor because it comes as the president, Michel Sleiman, is seen by many to be filling his political space with more momentous achievements - not least his visit to Damascus last week. In the competition over Christian representation, Aoun's weapons are now looking less effective than Sleiman's. 
A lot of this is based on perceptions, of course. Sleiman came back triumphant from Syria, but the results of his summit with President Bashar Assad were, to be kind, very limited. On the fate of prisoners in Syria the Lebanese got a committee with no deadlines set for its work. On border demarcation Lebanon got another committee, again with no deadlines set, with many people apparently unaware that the demarcation question has been drifting from one committee to the next for decades. On the Shebaa Farms the Lebanese adopted the Syrian position that there could be no delineation of borders before Israel's occupation ended, thereby leaving the geographical identity of the territory in limbo. And before traveling to Damascus, Sleiman, through a spokesman, declared that the Syrian-Lebanese Higher Council, the starkest memento of the years of Syrian hegemony, would not be dismantled. 

What did Lebanon get in exchange? The promise of an embassy and diplomatic recognition. That's not negligible, but we might want to look at this from Syria's perspective. A Syrian embassy in Beirut would not be like the Kuwaiti or even the Egyptian embassy. It would be an axis point for Syria's allies in the country, a very useful means of allowing the Assad regime to exert its political influence in Beirut on a day-to-day basis in a way it cannot do so today. Many remember the considerable sway that the United Arab Republic's ambassador in Beirut, Abdel-Hamid Ghaleb, had at the start of President Fouad Shihab's mandate. Diplomatic recognition on its own does not guarantee respect for Lebanese sovereignty. 


Despite all this, Sleiman benefited domestically from his summit with Assad, and came back to take in hand the volatile situation in Tripoli. The public could not but approve, whatever the results, and Aoun is beginning to realize that he is losing ground among his coreligionists. Nor can the general gain much anymore by persistently baiting Fouad Siniora, when the prime minister seems to be working so well with president. This was evident in the preparation for Siniora's trips to Egypt and Iraq, both partly designed to help overcome the electricity crisis. Aoun's frustration was understandable. Siniora, with Sleiman's tacit approval, circumvented the energy minister, Alain Tabourian, whose Tashnag Party is allied with the Aounist bloc. The president and prime minister, each for reasons of his own, are happy to collude against Aoun. Better still, they are playing on the recent tension between the general and Tashnag over the fact that Aoun gave them the Energy Ministry in his quota of ministerial portfolios, when they had asked for the social affairs portfolio that Aoun instead reserved for Mario Aoun, a member of the Free Patriotic Movement. 

It may be a reach to suggest that Sleiman is making a bid for the Armenians at this early stage, by showing them that they have more to gain by allying themselves with him than with Aoun. But ultimately that may be precisely what the president does as Michel Murr begins preparing a candidate list in the Metn, one facet of a broader strategy by Sleiman to nibble away at Aoun's base before parliamentary elections next year. It is known that the president wants a bloc of his own in Parliament, and he may be able to count on assistance from Aoun's rivals in this regard. That explains why Aoun has so fervently defended Hizbullah lately. He needs Shiite help to win compensatory seats in the Baabda constituency, in Jezzine, and in Zahleh. Some are suggesting Aoun also has an eye on the Maronite seat in Baalbek-Hermel.  
The elections are still a long way off, but Aoun is already entering the period he dreaded after he was forced in Doha to accept Sleiman's election. For better or worse the president is now the person most Maronites and Christians in general are looking toward to defend their communal wellbeing. This is forcing Aoun to behave recklessly, as when he tied Hizbullah's disarmament to the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, a position that made many in his electorate gag. Aoun also erred in appointing his son-in-law to head the cash cow Ministry of Telecommunications, contradicting his earlier claims to be a different type of politician who opposed nepotism in politics.  

Aoun is a cat of many political lives, so it may be unwise to write him off just yet. But even cats need branches to sit on, and the general is finding that these are not as numerous as they once were. He is picking secondary fights and is now beginning to sound like a lost voice in the desert.

Emile Khoury from L'Orient Le Jour

L’arsenal et l’appétit du Hezbollah font trembler le Liban politique

L'Orient le Jour - Émile KHOURY
02-08-2008

Le fusil qui parle. Et qui est même très loquace. Quoi de plus éloquent, de plus clair, de plus net, de plus précis que le langage musclé du Hezbollah. Un discours, mieux que menaçant, décisionnaire. Au point que l’on se surprend à sourire de la naïveté qu’il y a eu à perdre du temps sur la déclaration ministérielle. Quoi qu’en dise le texte, le parti n’en fera qu’à sa tête en faisant donner corps à ce qu’il veut et en torpillant ce qui ne lui convient pas. Par tous les moyens, en commençant au besoin par les armes, pour faire court et pour soumettre l’État à sa volonté, en attendant de se l’approprier. Sinon en totalité, du moins en légataire principal d’un indivis avec les intrus traditionnels que l’on sait, et leurs bons amis du cru.
Des députés loyalistes rappellent qu’au lendemain de la guerre de juillet 2006, alors que le Hezb criait à la victoire divine pour avoir pu éviter l’élimination, Assad n’avait pas hésité à déclarer que le pouvoir devait revenir, au Liban, à ce vainqueur. En base de l’équation, sans doute héritée du passé éliminateur de son propre père, qui veut que celui qui l’emporte sur le terrain ait le droit de régner. Un point de vue militarisé, quasi dictatorial, approuvé de suite alors par le général Michel Aoun en sa qualité d’allié indéfectible du triomphateur.

Torpillage
Les circonstances régionales et internationales ne lui permettant pas de renverser la table, et le pouvoir, le Hezb a donc entrepris de le paralyser. En retirant ses ministres du gouvernement, en lançant le sit-in des tentes, en multipliant les provocations et les troubles de rue, en organisant des manifestations et des grèves, en poussant Berry à fermer le Parlement. Puis en bloquant la présidentielle pendant six mois. Toujours sous la menace de son armement qu’il a d’ailleurs fini par utiliser en mai pour envahir Beyrouth-Ouest et attaquer la Montagne.
Pendant tout ce temps, le président Siniora et la majorité ont su tenir bon. En résistant, malgré leur bon droit, à la tentation de faire remplacer les ministres démissionnaires, pour ne pas inciter le Hezb à une rébellion armée qui aurait fait sauter le pays. Et en faisant d’importantes concessions apparentes, qui étaient en réalité autant de pièges qu’en face on ne pouvait éviter. Comme de présenter la candidature du général Sleiman, en retirant de la course les candidats du 14 Mars. Comme de consentir, à Doha, à la loi électorale de 1960. Ou comme d’octroyer aux prosyriens le fameux tiers de blocage. En se contentant, qui plus est, d’un portefeuille régalien contre deux au président.
La Syrie y a trouvé matière à crier de nouveau victoire. En affirmant avoir elle-même inspiré, sinon fabriqué, l’accord de Doha, en faveur de ses fidèles du Liban. Là où elle a manifestement raison, c’est dans le fait que cet accord s’est trouvé tout de suite, à son profit, aussi tronqué et dévié que Taëf. Par exemple, en ce qui se rapporte à ses clauses ordonnant que seule règne l’autorité sécuritaire de l’État, sans recours aux armes nulle part sur le territoire, par qui que cela soit. La réponse ne s’est pas fait attendre : des agressions aux missiles contre des bastions loyalistes dans la Békaa, notamment à Taalabaya, à deux pas de la frontière syrienne.

Succession
Mais, à moins d’un improbable retournement total de la situation extérieure, il est exclu que Damas puisse rétablir sa tutelle directe sur le Liban. C’est donc le volet purement intérieur, articulé sur la volonté de domination du Hezbollah, qui marque l’actualité. L’épée de Damoclès de l’armement a servi pour imprimer, au bout de trois semaines, un sens déterminé à la déclaration ministérielle, au programme du gouvernement.
Le Hezbollah a exigé que l’on évoque, en bien et en soutien naturellement, la résistance qu’il prétend incarner. Donc son droit, tout aussi prétendu, de décider seul de la guerre, comme il l’a fait en juillet 2006, quand les bombardements de l’aviation, de l’artillerie terrestre, des chars et de la marine d’Israël se sont acharnés sur l’infrastructure nationale, les ponts, les chaussées, les centrales électriques, bien plus que sur les positions du Hezb, volatiles par définition de guérilla.
Encore une fois, mention spéciale pour Rabieh. C’est là que des responsables du Hezb, en visite, ont lancé des accusations de trahison contre tous ceux qui s’opposent à l’armement du parti, dirigé vers l’intérieur. Pour ajouter qu’il n’y a pas de Liban sans la résistance, et pas de déclaration ministérielle. Prenant les devants, leur hôte avait déclaré que « l’arsenal du Hezbollah est un armement de résistance dont le Liban ne peut se départir avant que ne soient réglés tous les problèmes relatifs à Israël, dont celui du retour des réfugiés palestiniens et du rejet de l’implantation ». Faisant fi de ses anciens principes, du temps de sa propre résistance à certain autre occupant, il consacre ainsi la pérennité de fait d’un armement irrégulier, au mépris de l’État souverain, libre, indépendant. Il lie en effet le désarmement à un règlement global irréalisable avant de longues années, voire des décennies. En foulant aux pieds le droit élémentaire du Liban de dissocier sa propre cause du conflit israélo-arabe, question palestinienne en tête.

Leçon d’histoire
Un droit tout à fait vital que le regretté président Élias Sarkis défendait à cor et à cri devant le monde entier, bien qu’il eût eu les pieds et les poings liés. Ainsi, la note libanaise à la conférence de paix de Madrid précisait clairement que « la participation du Liban ne signifie pas qu’il lie la solution de son problème au règlement du conflit régional. Car le Liban estime qu’il faut traiter sa question de manière séparée, en raison de son caractère d’urgence, de son effet destructeur sur ses structures politiques, économiques et sociales ». Autre homme d’État libanais, et bien qu’étant durant la guerre dans un camp différent, le regretté président Rachid Karamé a certifié cette même nécessité de dissociation dans son intervention à l’ONU, le 5 octobre 1984.
De plus, en quoi l’armement du Hezbollah peut-il influer sur la question de l’implantation ou du retour des réfugiés palestiniens ? On ne voit pas trop, d’autant que ce problème ne relève pas de la responsabilité du seul Liban, mais de celle de tous les pays arabes. Comme l’ont reconnu les résolutions du sommet arabe tenu à Beyrouth. Si les alliés de la Syrie veulent vraiment rejeter l’implantation, le meilleur moyen c’est encore de la prier de ne pas conclure d’accord avec Israël tant que le droit de retour n’aura pas été assuré.
Enfin, le général Michel Aoun souhaite-t-il maintenir son blanc-seing à un armement qui a été dirigé vers l’intérieur ? Veut-il que ce fusil commande Beyrouth puis le Liban tout entier ? Croit-il encore que l’arsenal est réservé à la libération, alors que l’armée et la Finul se sont déployées au Sud et que Chebaa va passer sous tutelle de transmission onusienne ?

Layal Abu Rahal from Menassat

 'Operator? Please dear, get me Palestine, and hurry up please!'

Menassat
Layal ABU RAHAL
01/08/2008

There is a famous Lebanese song by the singer Sabah that goes like this: "Hello, hello, hello, Beirut? Please, dear, get me Beirut, and hurry up please!" 
A Palestinian friend, Imad, was humming the tune over the phone when he called from Kuwait this week. 
Like Amid, many Palestinians in Lebanon have been putting new words to the old tune in the past few days: "Hello, hello, hello, Palestine? Please dear, get me Palestine, and hurry up please!" 
The reason is that the Lebanese government has officially lifted the ban on calls to the 970 country code this week, making it possible for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to call their relatives in historic Palestine for the first time in decades. 
"I am thrilled with the news, but I cannot help feeling bad about all the years I spent in Beirut without being able to contact my family and relatives who are still in Palestine," Imad said. "Still, better late than never." 
The 970 country code was established in 1993 and was issued to the Palestinian Authority which at the time was in control of both the West Bank and Gaza. 
Since then, the Islamic Hamas party has taken control of the Gaza Strip, while President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party controls the West Bank. But the Hamas-Fatah split has apparently not affected the phone network. 
Yesterday, MENASSAT was able for the first time to call its Gaza and West Bank correspondents on their 970 numbers. (The 972 numbers, which are also in use in Gaza and the West Bank, are still off-limits because they belong to the Israeli phone system.) 
The Lebanese decision is a radical new development for the roughly 700,000 Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon, who for decades have had to rely on alternative methods (international calling cards, call-back systems and the like) to call their relatives in historic Palestine. 
The decision was announced on July 29 by Lebanon's new Communications Minister, Jubran Basil. Sources confirmed that both the Ministry and the Palestine Liberation Organization's embassy head in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, had been working on the deal for some time. According to the ministry, the logistics for lifting the ban were already in place; it was a lack of political will that held up the decision until now. 
After the announcement, Palestinians throughout Lebanon rushed to call their relatives in the West Bank and Gaza. 
Approved by Hezbollah 
Despite the welcome news, political insiders told MENASSAT that the timing behind Basil's announcement was purely political. 
Some Lebanese newspapers said the minister consulted with both Lebanon's newly elected president, Michael Sleiman, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora shortly before his decision was announced. 
It was a means of providing "political cover," one source said, while others asserted that Basil would not have taken such a step without first consulting with Lebanon's Shia resistance movement, Hezbollah. 
For the same reason, the sources said, this decision could never have been taken under the former Communications Minister, Marwan Hmadeh, who belonged to the pro-Western parliamentary majority. 
(Basil is a member of Michel Aoun's FPM party which is allied with Hezbollah. He was appointed as part of a national unity government, which was formed after the Doha peace accord in May. Ironically, the May fighting was set off by a government attempt to investigate Hezbollah's own secret telecommunications network.) 

During a press conference this week, Basil sidestepped the political question. "I am not really sure of the reasons why the decision has been delayed for so long," he said. 
Now that Lebanon has lifted the ban, Syria is the only remaining country that doesn’t allow phone calls to the 970 country-code. 
Hisham Debsy, media adviser for the PLO embassy in Lebanon, told MENASSAT, "There is no security or political justification for keeping the phones lines with Palestine dead. Resuming international calls has been one of the major demands discussed as part of the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee, and was it was discussed with Prime Minister Siniora repeatedly." 
As to the timing of the decision, Debsy said, "All Palestinian requests take their time when discussed at the Lebanese political table. It seems every issue has to wait for the right circumstances to be solved." 
Debsy said this is a humanitarian issue first and foremost. "The 970 code has existed for 15 years, and it used by every other country in the world." 

Israel calling 
The reactions from Palestinians have generally been positive, and official thanks from the PLO in Lebanon have been sent to the new Lebanese government and Prime Minister Siniora for his role in sponsoring the talks. 
But Debsy bristled when asked about the possibility of security breaches in the telecommunications network now that the lines are reopened. 
"You have to refer to the Lebanese government for this answer. Israel did not wait for the lines to reopen in order to hack into Lebanese land lines and mobile phones," he said. 
Indeed, even if it was impossible to call Israel/Palestine from Lebanon, it has always been possible to call Lebanon from Israel/Palestine. 
Israel has recently taken advantage of that situation by bombarding Lebanese phone subscribers with automated voice messages. 
In a repeat of a tactic also used during the 2006 war, residents in Beirut and South Lebanon received calls warning them against allowing Hezbollah to become a "state within the state" and promising "harsh retaliation" against any future assault by Hezbollah. 
Just like in 2006, the Arabic voice on the other end of the line signed off with the words, "This is a warning from the State of Israel."

Mahmoud HARB - L'orient Le Jour

Le tandem Hezbollah-CPL revient

à l’attaque dans un parfait unisson

28/07/2008

L'orient Le Jour

«Nous aspirions à un gouvernement d’union nationale. Mais en toute franchise, nous ne réclamons plus l’union nationale, mais simplement un partenariat dans la prise des décisions »… 
C’est en ces termes que le chef du bloc parlementaire du Hezbollah, Mohammad Raad, a sonné le glas de l’aberration constitutionnelle et politique, généreusement baptisée par l’accord de Doha « gouvernement d’union nationale ».
Il était certes évident dès le début, dès la parution du décret de formation du second cabinet Siniora, que le nouvel organe exécutif était voué à l’échec, à la paralysie, car, comme l’a relevé le patriarche maronite, « une voiture ne peut être attelée à deux chevaux dont l’un tire vers l’avant et l’autre vers l’arrière ». Néanmoins, un semblant de cohésion, de collaboration était préservé par les différents chefs de file et responsables des deux camps qui s’étaient évertués à maquiller leurs divergences intrinsèques et à refléter une ambiance « positive ». Même Hassan Nasrallah avait mis la main à la pâte, lors de sa dernière allocution, en se disant prêt à prendre « personnellement » part à toute discussion qui puisse aboutir à des résultats permettant de consolider l’union nationale.
Mais le parti de Dieu, par le truchement de son tonitruant député Mohammad Raad, a porté un sérieux coup à la détente globale. En effet, il a dénué de tout sens le débat au sein de la commission de rédaction de la déclaration ministérielle ainsi que le futur dialogue national à Baabda, en soulignant hier qu’« il n’y a pas de Liban sans Résistance ». Mohammad Raad a donc imposé une conclusion péremptoire à toute négociation autour de la stratégie de défense nationale d’autant qu’il a martelé que « la Résistance est un choix inéluctable et toutes les autres options sont vouées à l’échec ».
Le député du parti de Dieu a également versé de l’huile sur le feu et attisé la polémique stérile qui s’était progressivement dissipée avec l’élection du président Sleiman et la formation du nouveau cabinet. Il a en effet fait clairement allusion à l’épisode douloureux de la campagne militaire de son parti contre Beyrouth et la Montagne, en accusant ceux qu’il s’est « abstenu de qualifier de traîtres » de « tenter de faire du bruit autour des armes de la Résistance pour attirer l’attention de ceux qui les ont abandonnés, lorsque leur projet a été vaincu ».
Des propos similaires à ceux de Mohammad Raad ont été tenus simultanément par différents ténors du 8 Mars et notamment les ministres Mohammad Khalifé, Talal Arslane, l’ancien ministre Wi’am Wahhab ainsi que divers responsables du parti de Dieu. Étrangement, ce durcissement public des positions de l’ancienne opposition intervient au lendemain de la déclaration qualifiée d’ « embarrassante » par Walid Joumblatt du vice-président iranien, Reza Aghazadeh, qui avait affirmé jeudi que « si les négociations démarraient avec la communauté internationale sur le nucléaire iranien, des solutions seraient trouvées pour des problèmes comme l’Irak, le Liban et le pétrole ».
Les attaques verbales du 8 Mars contre le 14 Mars seraient-elles liées à la « révélation » du responsable iranien ? L’Iran chercherait-il à provoquer une escalade au Liban dans l’espoir d’astreindre l’Occident à lui accorder des concessions ?
L’on ne saurait le dire. Mais ce qui demeure certain, c’est que la montée au créneau du Hezbollah révèle l’échec des négociations bilatérales menées par Fouad Siniora le week-end écoulé et que les divergences au sein de la commission de rédaction sur le « droit » de la « Résistance » à poursuivre la lutte armée restent entières. Le nœud du problème réside dans le fait que le parti de Dieu exige une « inscription claire » dans la déclaration du « droit de la Résistance à libérer le territoire », alors que la majorité rejette tout retour à la formule avalisée par le précédent gouvernement. De source informée, on indique que le Hezbollah aurait rejeté trois propositions en la matière, élaborées, non sans l’aval de Nabih Berry, grâce aux contacts conduits par le Premier ministre, Fouad Siniora. Et la commission de rédaction qui s’est réunie hier pour la neuvième fois n’a toujours pas réussi à s’entendre sur la question à propos de laquelle les « désaccords persistent », comme l’a annoncé le ministre de l’Information Tarek Mitri à la presse, depuis le Grand Sérail.
De plus, la tâche de la commission a été compliquée par « les propos guerriers du député Raad qui a tenté d’exercer des pressions et de menacer » l’instance chargée de rédiger la déclaration ministérielle, selon les termes employés par le ministre Nassib Lahoud. Tarek Mitri a également dénoncé de son côté « le retour au langage menaçant de l’avant-Doha ». Et le chef du PSP a pour sa part jugé « inadmissible » le discours du chef du bloc Hezbollah « qui a clairement affirmé que tout refus de l’adoption de la précédente déclaration ministérielle serait un acte de félonie ».

Le dynamitage de Paris III par le CPL

L’infrastructure militaire du parti de Dieu n’est cependant pas l’unique obstacle auquel se heurte le processus d’élaboration de la déclaration ministérielle. Une source digne de foi a indiqué à L’Orient-Le Jour que le ministre des Télécoms et haut responsable du CPL, Gebran Bassil, a exigé « la suppression pure et simple des accords conclus à Paris III ». « Après de longues discussions, Gebran Bassil a légèrement reculé en revendiquant l’annulation du programme de réformes que le gouvernement s’était engagé à appliquer lors de la conférence Paris III. Ceci reste toutefois complètement inadmissible pour le 14 Mars », a précisé cette source.
Il convient de rappeler que ledit programme a été présenté par le Liban aux pays donateurs et aux instances financières internationales. L’engagement du pays à l’exécuter a constitué une condition sine qua non de l’obtention des aides financières accordées à Paris III. Son abrogation équivaut à la violation par Beyrouth de ses obligations internationales et met dangereusement en péril le versement des dons et prêts qui ont permis au Liban d’éviter de justesse la faillite et de continuer à honorer les paiements dus au titre du remboursement de la dette souveraine. Autrement dit, la reconsidération du programme de réformes nuirait sévèrement à la réputation du Liban sur les marchés financiers, priverait le pays d’une grande partie de la manne de Paris III et le mettrait au bord du défaut de paiement.
Pour la source précitée, l’exigence de Gebran Bassil « est surréaliste et impossible à satisfaire, chose que tout le monde sait ».Pourquoi le CPL a-t-il donc formulé cette demande ?Pour plusieurs observateurs, la revendication du ministre aoriste s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une stratégie de négociations adoptée par le Hezbollah et le Courant patriotique libre. Ces derniers chercheraient à imposer à la majorité l’équation suivante : le maintien du programme de Paris III ne se fera qu’en échange de la reconnaissance des « droits de la Résistance ».Cette attitude répond clairement au schéma qui prévalait sous l’occupation syrienne, lorsque les questions économiques étaient réservées aux responsables officiels de l’équipe « haririenne » alors que le dossier de la sécurité était sous-traité au parti de Dieu et aux officiers syriens et libanais. D’ailleurs, Hassan Nasrallah avait clairement émis son souhait de revenir à ce « partage des pouvoirs » lors de son discours du 26 mai dernier.Sauf que ce schéma n’avait guère réussi, la preuve étant que l’un de ses piliers a fini par être assassiné, un certain 14 février 2005.

Elie Fayad from L'orient Le Jour

Une république dans le congélateur

L'Orient Le Jour - Élie FAYAD

25/07/2008

Plus de deux mois se sont écoulés depuis la signature de l’accord de Doha. Celui-ci avait permis la levée immédiate du sit-in de l’opposition dans le centre-ville de la capitale et l’élection rapide d’un président de la République. Nombreux, à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur, en déduisirent que le processus de régénérescence des institutions de l’État était désormais enclenché après des mois d’impasse.
La formation d’un gouvernement dit d’« union nationale » nécessita, elle, bien plus de sueur et de temps. On s’offusqua des petits marchandages qui eurent raison des grands principes. C’est oublier que, tant dans son esprit que dans sa lettre, l’accord de Doha ne faisait, au nom du principe sacro-saint du consensus, que consacrer cette pratique au détriment de la Constitution et du système politique libanais.
Le monstre a vu le jour. Certes, on se félicita de ce qu’il fit la part belle en son sein aux chrétiens, tant de la majorité que de l’opposition, et ce pour la première fois depuis bientôt une vingtaine d’années.
Comment pouvait-il en être autrement du moment que sunnites et chiites s’étaient mutuellement neutralisés et que le glacis qui en résulta les contraignit tous deux à céder du terrain aux seuls qui détenaient désormais le pouvoir de faire pencher la balance dans un sens ou dans l’autre, c’est-à-dire leurs alliés chrétiens respectifs.
C’est ainsi que l’on vit le Hezbollah s’effacer devant les appétits du général Michel Aoun et le Courant du futur se dévêtir lui-même pour habiller FL et consorts.
Mais un monstre est un monstre. Sans vouloir le moins du monde sous-estimer ou mettre en doute les qualités individuelles de certains ministres, le gouvernement mis sur pied est monstrueux d’abord du fait même de sa composition et il le sera encore davantage lorsqu’il aura adopté la déclaration ministérielle qu’on est en train de lui concocter.
Là aussi, le marchandage est de rigueur. Il n’est certes plus question de répartir des portefeuilles et des strapontins, mais de placer des mots les uns à côté des autres. Ou les retrancher.
Les uns tiennent par exemple à introduire une phrase de ce type : « Le gouvernement soutient et encourage l’action de la Résistance au Liban-Sud. » Les autres n’en veulent pas du tout et préfèrent la formulation suivante : « Le gouvernement détient le monopole des armes et celui de déclarer la guerre et la paix. »
Comme il n’est pas possible de satisfaire tout le monde en accolant ces deux phrases l’une à la suite de l’autre, il faudra ou bien choisir l’une des deux – ce qui signifierait qu’un camp aurait pris le dessus sur l’autre – ou bien négocier âprement pour arracher un mot par-ci, un autre par-là. Avec le résultat que l’on imagine : forcément monstrueux.
On pourrait bien sûr multiplier les exemples, explorer tous les domaines, on aboutirait à l’unique constat : sous l’appellation fallacieuse d’union nationale, c’est la paralysie nationale qui est au cœur même du projet gouvernemental. Est-ce ainsi que l’on pourra régénérer les institutions de l’État ?
On dira ce qu’on voudra de l’accord de Doha, sauf que c’est un … accord. Ce n’est même pas un mauvais accord. C’est une fumisterie sans équivalent dans l’histoire du pays. Tout au plus une sorte d’arrangement en trompe-l’œil entre deux adversaires épuisés et à bout de ressources et destiné à donner le change à une opinion passablement désabusée et prête à tout avaler pourvu qu’on lui sauve son été.
Tout comme il y aura une autre fumisterie, celle par laquelle on cherchera à donner l’impression d’un pays uni accueillant avec faste des ex-détenus dont le moins qu’on puisse dire est qu’ils ne font pas l’unanimité autour de leurs hauts faits d’armes.
À l’heure où les crises s’aggravent, où la déliquescence gagne tous les secteurs, c’est avec de tels faux-semblants que l’on s’apprête à gouverner le pays durant les prochains mois.
Dans ce plaisant tableau, une seule échéance potentiellement porteuse de changement se laisse entrevoir à l’horizon : ce sont les élections législatives du printemps prochain. Jamais un scrutin n’eut d’enjeu aussi immense. Au-delà des hommes et de ce qu’ils représentent, de ce que l’on peut reprocher à la classe politique dans son ensemble et des griefs que l’on peut légitimement avoir au sujet du mode de scrutin et du découpage des circonscriptions, le Liban jouera véritablement son avenir dans ces élections-là.
Une grande partie de l’électorat n’en aura probablement pas conscience. Elle se comportera comme elle l’a toujours fait, les uns votant pour untel « parce qu’il nous rend des services et vient à nos enterrements », les autres boudant les urnes parce que « tous les hommes politiques sont pareils » et les troisièmes se laissant conduire massivement aux bureaux de vote sans se poser trop de questions.
Pourtant, les prochaines législatives seront doublement décisives : pour sortir le pays de la période de léthargie dans laquelle il est entré depuis l’accord de Doha et pour définir l’orientation politique et même philosophique qu’il prendra, peut-être de façon durable, pour ne pas dire définitive.
À condition bien sûr que l’on n’en fasse pas une nouvelle fumisterie.

Dominic Moran in Tel Aviv for ISN

Lebanon Deal Eases Tensions

Dominic Moran in Tel Aviv for ISN

18/07/2008

The Lebanese political settlement has eased tensions both domestically and in the wider Middle East, promoting movement on a number of diplomatic fronts while contributing to prospects for a potential regional realignment. 

With the makeup of Lebanese Premier Fuad Siniora's cabinet finally decided following weeks of wrangling, a ministerial committee met Thursday to formulate a limited government program, which, it is hoped, will carry the cobbled-together unity administration through to elections expected in spring 2009. 

Lebanon's 18-month political stalemate brought the consociational Lebanese governance system to the brink of collapse, ending in victory for the opposition in Qatar in May. 

Truce 
May's Doha agreement was a major diplomatic coup for the Qatari hosts, whose peripatetic foreign policy initiatives have reportedly caused considerable consternation in the US. 

The deal has also been rightly presented as a major blow to US and Saudi interests in Lebanon and to the allied majority 14 March coalition, which had held out for so long in the face of opposition demands for a veto over government decisions - which Hizbollah and allies enjoy in the new cabinet. 

Nonetheless, it is important not to overstate the impact of the agreement on the alignment of international interests in Lebanon, which remains largely the same. 

"The Doha agreement was a truce, it did not provide for a comprehensive solution to the crisis in Lebanon […] it simply prevented the Lebanese system from totally collapsing," Dr Hilal Khashan from the American University of Beirut told ISN Security Watch in a telephone interview. 

Opposition predominance continued in the grinding coalition formation process, with Hizbollah ally Michel Aoun compensated for his failure to secure the presidency with prominent cabinet posts. In "the formation of the cabinet, the March 14 majority had to make unpleasant concessions," Khashan confirmed. 

The Qatari deal signaled the new-found pre-eminence of the pro-Syrian opposition, confirming the results of sharp armed clashes earlier in the month. It remains to be seen what the long-term impact of this rise in power will be given the fractured state of the Lebanese body politic and rapid warming of Franco-Syrian relations. 

Speaking to ISN Security Watch, the International Crisis Group's Peter Harling was hopeful: "I think the impact [of Doha] has been extremely significant. 

"Unless violence takes over again this conflict will now play out within the framework of Lebanon's institutions, in particular, through the parliamentary elections in 2009 rather than on the streets through armed conflict as was the trend increasingly in the past couple of years." 

Sealing de-escalation 
The Lebanese political deal has arguably played a significant role in facilitating German-mediated Hizbollah-Israeli negotiations on this week's prisoner exchange and Syrian-Israeli talks on the Golan. 

It was no accident that news of ongoing Turkish-mediated talks on the Golan was broken by the Syrians around the time of the Doha summit and that the worsening Lebanese political crisis coincided with the February assassination of Hizbollah military chief Imad Mughniyah in Damascus. 

Wednesday's prisoner and body swap on the Lebanese-Israeli border was presented by Hizbollah as a major victory. However, a more sober assessment reveals that the deal may in fact be good for both sides, bringing down the curtain on the July-August 2006 conflict and lessening the chances for a resumption in hostilities. 

Israel says it is no longer holding Lebanese prisoners. Hizbollah doubts this but, if demonstrated, this means that the primary motivation for Hizbollah cross-border kidnap operations no longer exists. Israel's June negotiations offer to Lebanon also eases tensions despite Beirut's rejection. 

It is no coincidence that Hizbollah's agreement to the prisoner/body swap, which reportedly saw the Shia movement drop its demand for the inclusion of a large number of Palestinian prisoners in the deal, was only achieved in the wake of the Doha agreement and coincided with the formation of the Lebanese unity government. 

Doha also allowed Israel, previously concerned with the impact of the exchange on the 14 March coalition, a freer hand in negotiations despite stated concerns regarding alleged UNIFIL (UN Mission in Lebanon) failures to curb Hizbollah activities in southern Lebanon. 

"Hizbollah's concerns now are domestic […] and Israel knows that," Khashan said, adding, "The release of the hostages and swap of the prisoners means that Israel does not want to focus on Hizbollah right now. Israel wants to focus on the Iranian nuclear project." 

"I don't think that the swap makes much of a difference because Hizbollah doesn't want to take the initiative of a new round of confrontation with Israel at this point," Harling said. 

Saudi quiescence 
Saudi Arabia's primary ally in Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri's Future Movement, was specifically targeted by Hizbollah in its May strikes and is under threat of being outflanked by Sunni Islamist movements, a Beirut analyst told ISN Security Watch recently. 

"The Syrian perspective on this is that there is a real conflict of interests between Syria and Saudi Arabia which is made worse by personal issues," Harling said. In a controversial televised August 2006 address Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called Arab leaders "half-men" for failing to support Hizbollah during the group's conflict with Israel war. 

"The Doha agreement is perceived by the Saudis as a defeat," Harling said, adding, "It doesn't think it makes the relations between the two countries [Syria/Saudi Arabia] any better." He added that Syria appeared to be seeking a normalization of relations with the Saudis but that the understanding in Damascus was that "this will be difficult and take time." 

Egypt has reportedly been seeking a mediating role between the Saudis and Syrians, with no ostensible signs of progress. 

Khashan believes that "Syria has been making an effort so that the moderate Arab states will rehabilitate Syria in the Arab world. Syria would not part from Iran if she did not expect to improve her relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt." 

Embracing Syria 
Last weekend's inaugural Mediterranean Union meeting in Paris constituted something of a coming out party for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after years of isolation. 

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has led moves to rapidly rehabilitate bilateral ties with Syria. France played a key role in failed mediation efforts between Lebanese factions. 

"The Doha agreement has had a very spectacular impact on French policy," Harling said. "The French have initiated a phase of all-out normalization with Syria." 

The French post-Doha reversal is significant as Paris suspended diplomatic ties with Damascus in late December at the height of the Lebanese political crisis, accusing Damascus of blocking the election of a new Lebanese president. 

"The French are dealing with the Syrians on the basis of a green light from the Americans otherwise they wouldn't have gone that far in communicating with the Syrians," Khashan said. 

French President Nicholas Sarkozy reportedly told Lebanese President Michel Suleiman in Paris that he had "placed bets on trusting Bashar [al-Assad]," but that ongoing French support for the normalization process was attendant on the Syrian leader delivering on his commitments. 

These commitments include the swapping of ambassadors and demarcation of the Lebanese-Syrian border, important symbolic moves of limited practical significance. 

Divorce? 
Iran, which has sought to tighten economic and diplomatic relations with Damascus in recent years, is increasingly showing signs of concern that Syria could be on the verge of shifting foreign policy positions in a manner that would damage Iranian regional interests. 

An advisor to Iranian Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei warned this weekthat "fundamental consequences and changes" would occur in bilateral Iranian-Syrian relations should it sign a peace deal with and recognize Israel. 

Khashan believes that "a divorce is underway between Iran and Hizbollah on one hand and the Syrians on the other. It is a quiet divorce and the two sides are keeping up appearances and claiming nothing is wrong. 

"Iran right now is trying to ensure that Hizbollah will continue to exist as a military force without using Syria as a conduit for supplying aid to Hizbollah," he said. 

Asked whether the Iranian-Syrian alliance was at risk, Harling said, "It is a very pragmatic relationship. It is not deeply ideological. […]. Iranian and Syrian interests are not identical in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine, so tensions arise on a regular basis but I think that is part of the mode of this relationship. 

"The coordination between the two countries is deep enough for these tensions to be leveled out," he concluded. 

Awaiting Washington 
Syria hopes that the post-Doha French embrace and gradual warming of relations with other major European states will establish the basis for the resumption of ties with the US. 

Israel's decision to push ahead with Turkish-mediated talks on the future of the Golan Heights places pressure on Washington to relent and engage directly as Syria has made it clear that it will not agree to direct negotiations with Israel without direct US involvement. 

Al-Assad gave a clear message to both the US and Iran of his willingness to engage at the Paris talks and Bastille Day festivities. While avoiding direct interaction with Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert, he reportedly allowed messages to be passed via Turkish President Recep Erdogan and a photo-op on the Bastille Day podium with Olmert standing only meters away. 

A US-Syrian rapprochement is required to cement the gains made through the establishment of the Lebanese unity government but looks unlikely to occur ahead of the inauguration of a new US president next January; with Israeli political ructions also easing pressure for an immediate US policy shift. 

Harling argues that the US "focus is very much Iraq and Iran, and Syria is not seen by the current administration as anything more than a spoiler and an irritant. I don't think there is any appetite there for engagement and I don't think there is much time anyway to achieve anything." 

"Under the next administration, to me there is no doubt that […] engagement with Syria will take place, if only over Iraq," he said. 

"The Syrians want American approval and recognition," Khashan said. He believes that after the new US administration takes office and Syrian-Israeli talks pick up pace, "the Syrians will insist on US involvement and that will definitely come."