Michael Young -The opposition's new plan: stalemate

The opposition's new plan: stalemate
By Michael Young

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Syria's and Iran's strategy in Lebanon is changing. So too, by extension, is that of their local allies. Having realized that the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora will not be brought down through street protests, the opposition and its regional backers are now implementing a policy of putrefaction: Impede everything and drive Lebanon into grinding disintegration, so the government will scream first.

There are several reasons for the new approach. Michel Aoun is no longer capable of playing boulevard politics, after his followers' appalling performance just over two weeks ago, when the only thing allowing them to obstruct traffic for a respectable amount of time was the army's protection. The general can dispatch his hardcore supporters to the tent city in the Downtown; he can assemble them on a football field; but he's no longer in a position (if he ever was) to do much in the streets. Hizbullah has carefully used non-Shiite front men against the government - Aoun, Suleiman Franjieh, Talal Arslan, Fathi Yakan, Omar Karami - to avoid any impression that it's about Shiites versus Sunnis. Aoun was the best of the lot, so his vulnerabilities mean that Hizbullah now has much less of a margin to block roads and surround public facilities.

Hizbullah must also factor in what happened on January 25, when Sunnis and Shiites clashed near the Arab University. If Aoun's humiliation damaged the party's ability to sustain the illusion of a broad cross-sectarian opposition, the Tariq al-Jdideh rioting exposed the obvious - that the main fault line dividing the opposition and the government is a Sunni-Shiite fault line. The message that day was plain, if alarming: The Sunnis had reached the end of their tether, and if the game ever became one of cutting off roads, then Hizbullah and the Shiite community in and around Beirut were at a decided disadvantage compared to their adversaries.

A third reason, and the main one, why Lebanon is in for more weeks of stalemate, is that Syria continues to refuse any and all compromise proposals that might give life to the Hariri tribunal. Through its talks with the Saudis, Iran has supplanted Syria in negotiating Lebanon's fate, at least for now. But Syria remains an essential partner in Iran's regional confrontation against the United States. From Damascus, President Bashar Assad has bolstered himself by sowing instability in Lebanon, in the Palestinian territories, and in Iraq, while handing Iran important intelligence concessions in Syria. Nothing will induce Iran to cut Syria loose, or vice versa, which is why the Iranians recently adopted the Assad regime's conditions for a settlement in Lebanon. These aim to torpedo the tribunal and earn the opposition veto power over the majority's decisions, chiefly so Hizbullah and its comrades can bring the government down through new resignations. The Iranians may be wary of Syrian moves that might push Hizbullah into a conflict against the Sunnis, but the practical result of this is that Syria and Iran have reached a mutually convenient arrangement: There is no hurry to resolve Lebanon's mess.

More worrisome is what the status quo in Beirut might mean for Hizbullah's future behavior. After the summer war, the party had to accept an international solution that reduced its ability to maneuver militarily in the border area. To compensate, Hizbullah shifted its attentions to Beirut. The point was to turn Shiite anger against the government and away from Hizbullah's errors in initiating a debilitating and unnecessary conflict. Hizbullah was also responding to the mood in Damascus, from where Assad advised that the party use its "divine victory" against Israel to gain power in the government. The opposition's latest conditions for resolving the deadlock are precisely those of Syria, showing the extent to which Hizbullah is in sync with Assad's priorities.

Given the blockage in Beirut, we might soon have to prepare for Hizbullah's revival in the South. The party's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, recently, and pointedly, mentioned the need to liberate the Shebaa Farms. While it may be true that the bombs found earlier this week along the border were planted before the summer war (and were actually found inside Lebanese territory, in a minefield, according to sources on the ground), this provides little reassurance when it comes to Hizbullah's intentions. Nasrallah cannot long tolerate being stifled both in Beirut and the South. And if the strategy in Beirut is to let the situation fester, then it seems probable that Hizbullah will intensify its activities below the Litani, the aim being to destabilize UNIFIL. One incentive is that some UN peacekeepers are interpreting their mandate to find weapons more aggressively than Hizbullah and its friends would like.

A third trope in Syrian and Iranian efforts to degrade Lebanon's political environment is the neutralization of Arab diplomacy. Earlier this week, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa sent an aide, Hisham Youssef, to investigate whether renewed diplomatic efforts might lead anywhere. Youssef saw that the doors remained closed. Damascus has not forgotten how last summer it was the Arab states, and an Arab League foreign ministers' meeting in Beirut in particular, that prevented Syria from positioning itself as indispensable midwife to a cease-fire between Hizbullah and Israel. Now Damascus is turning the tables. Through Hizbullah, but primarily through Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, it seeks to ensure that Moussa will leave Beirut empty-handed if he ever decides to return. This isn't surprising: Siniora and Saudi Arabia still consider the secretary general's plan as the basis for any acceptable agreement.

So, the Lebanese should be patient. Independence 2005 was always going to be a protracted slog, particularly against adversaries willing to break Lebanon into a thousand pieces before they would allow the consolidation of a post-Syrian order. How long such a destructive policy can last before much worse happens is anybody's guess.