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Lebanon: Yet Another Foreign Policy Opportunity Screwed Up by the Bush Administration

by DHinMI, DailyKos (reposted)
In February 2005, shortly after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, the pro-Syrian Lebanese government resigned. The day it happened, I warned against any stupid pro-American triumphalism:

But whatever happens next in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to view it only through the lens of some kind of Middle Eastern "people power," a Cedar Revolution as soft and peaceful as the Velvet Revolutions of 1989 or the Orange Revolution of 2004.
Of course that's exactly what happened. Within hours, what happened in Lebanon was being called the Cedar Revolution, and the Bush administration was taking credit for the change. Over the next few days, bloviators like David Brooks were claiming that what happened in Lebanon was the result of the US invasion of Iraq. The problem was that Brooks, like most conservative champions of neocon foreign policy, is a simpleton when it comes to understanding the politics of a complicated place like Lebanon. One small piece of evidence is that he glowingly quoted Druze leader Walid Jumblat, who just a few months earlier had declared "we are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed [in Iraq] week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory."

Oops.

"Oops" can describe much of what's happened in Lebanon since early 2005. To be ever-so-slightly generous to nitwits like Brooks, in 2005-2006 there was some cause for optimism about reform movements in the Arab countries and the Middle East. As Economist Middle East editor Max Rodenbeck explains in a review of the new book by WaPo reporter Robin Wright, in those years there were signs of reform from Morocco and Egypt through Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

The Arab spring, [Wright] says frankly, did not endure...Wright is surely correct in ascribing some part of the blame to America's inept and counterproductive Iraq policy. As numerous interlocutors in the region tell her, not only did the debacle promote extremism and further isolate pro-Western liberals, it alerted people to the terrible risks of toppling tyrants. The Iraq adventure, in Wright's view, may have been the biggest American policy failure of all time. It could yet prove to mark the end of an imperial America's influence in the region, much as France and Britain's catastrophic invasion of Egypt in 1956 demolished the colonial powers' standing and dangerously boosted the fortunes of Egypt's reckless leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. That is surely a sound judgment.

Our debacle in Iraq has also strengthened and emboldened Iran, and there's little we can do about it. While many of the claims about Iran made by the Bush administration are B.S., it is true that Iran has become more bellicose, and whether or not they are are trying to weaponize their nuclear program, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently wants people to suspect they are. His standing in Iran has plummeted along with the economy, but he clings to power by stoking nationalism through the nuclear program.

Nobody knows the full extent of Iran's involvement in Iraq, but it clearly has strong ties to all of the Shia factions. Last month, when Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki unsuccessfully tried to subdue the Shiite militias that control Basra, in particular that of Muqtada al-Sadr, it took the intervention of Iran to work out a compromise, suggesting that Iran dictates the balance of power within Iraq.

Now we have Lebanon. Instead of shutting up and quietly working with the new Lebanese government in 2005, Bush and his lackeys chose to claim credit for what was mostly an internal reaction to the assassination of Hariri, almost certainly perpetrated by shady forces from Syria. (Whether the assassination was approved by, or even known by Syrian dictator Bashir Assad is less clear.) Syria withdrew from Lebanon, but doing so removed a check on the actions of the Lebanese Shiite militia/social movement/political party Hezbollah. Sure enough, with a year and a half Hezbollah was provoking Israel, with the result a several week war in southern Lebanon which seriously hurt both sides, but from which Hezbollah came out much better in terms of morale with its political base.

UN resolutions have called on Hezbollah, which fields one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Middle East, to disarm and cede military control in the south to the multi-sectarian Lebanese Army. The problem is that there isn't any power that can disarm Hezbollah, and it has no interest in forfeiting its military power. Far from some Cedar Revolution, Lebanon has seemingly intractable problems that are rooted in how power has been apportioned between the sectarian groups since the 1940's. It was highly unlikely that the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon was going to usher in a new dawn of Lebanese political harmony, regardless of how badly its population craves peace and a stable social and economic environment.

With 18 religious groups recognized by Lebanon's government, the situation is complex, but roughly speaking the main divide in the country is between the Sunni Muslims and Druze on one side and the Shiite Muslims on the other side, with the sizable Christian population split between the two camps. The Sunni/Druze faction controls the government by a narrow margin, but not by enough to really do much. All sides agree that army chief Michel Suleiman should be president, but the Shia faction is blocking his appointment.

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§Beirut Is Burning
by Hooman Majd, HuffPost (reposted)
If there were ever a perfect example of the Bush administration's utterly bankrupt, and provably impotent, foreign policy, it would have to be the State Department's reaction to events in Beirut over the last few days. The laughably weak U.S.-backed Lebanese government, in what can only be described as a moment of insanity, decided last week to take on Hezbollah by cutting off their private telephone network, an act that Hassan Nasrallah, perhaps the Arab world's most popular leader, described as an act of war. And war he brought, completely taking over West Beirut in a matter of hours, and humiliating the hapless pro-Western government and its allies. And what was the U.S. up to as Beirut burned? This, according to the New York Times:
"Ms. Rice and other Bush administration officials were on the phone Friday with their counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon. A senior administration official said the United States, which barely talks to Syria, Iran or Hezbollah, which the Bush administration considers a terrorist organization, was trying to use its Arab allies to send a message to Iran and Syria to stop interfering in Lebanon."

Trying to use its Arab allies to send a message to Iran and Syria to stop interfering in Lebanon. Hmm. I'm sure Supreme Leader Khamenei is quaking in his slippers, and President Assad in his bespoke brogues. Hezbollah was indeed created by Iran in the early eighties, and has been supported by her and Syria ever since (and it might be good to remember that one of Sheikh Nasrallah's official titles, perhaps his most important, is "Representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, in Lebanon." That would be Ayatollah Khamenei. And Hezbollah's flag shares a symbol with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, their mentors.) But Hezbollah, which in the minds of at least most of the Muslim World handed Israel it's first real military defeat, this week proved what everyone, except the Bush administration and the Lebanese government, already knew: there will be no peace in Lebanon, nor will there be real peace between Lebanon and Israel, without Hezbollah. And yet our government will not speak to Hezbollah, nor will it speak to its creator, Iran. It can pick up the phone, however, and beg its Arab allies to ask Iran and Syria to stop interfering in Lebanon. Does that message come with a please? Does America still really believe that Iran is afraid of her?

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