Little in store for Hariri in Washington

This article first appeared in NOW Lebanon

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, May 23, 2010

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s visit to the United States, where, on Monday, he will meet President Barak Obama, will in all probability turn out to be a non-event. Apart from the photo op, the two men will probably issue redundant statements: Obama on Washington’s support of Lebanon, Hariri on peace for Palestinians and Lebanon’s right of self-defense against Israel.

The Hariri camp will highlight the fact that this is the first time Hariri goes to Washington, where he will meet with Obama in the Oval Office. He will also preside over the Security Council in New York, a ceremonial honor conferred upon only a very few of Lebanon’s statesmen.

His opponents – mainly pro-Iran and Syria politicians and pundits – will reiterate their demands that Hariri, like President Michel Sleiman when he visited Washington last year, stay away from the United States. If anyone is to engage Washington, they say, it should be Tehran. If any other country is to befriend America, it should be Syria.

Lebanon has no nuclear issues to resolve with the US, Lebanon has no role in Arab peace talks with Israel (Syria handles these on Lebanon’s behalf) and even when it sits on the Security Council, Lebanon is expected to abide by Syrian and Iranian diktats as part of the Syrian-Saudi reconciliation. So if Iran talks to America, and Syria negotiates with Israel, what is Lebanon good for? The answer, according to Tehran, Damascus and their Lebanese protégés, is war.

And since Hariri is prohibited from talking peace like the Iranians or the Syrians, and since he is – like his father before him – a man opposed to war, then his visit will count for little.

The historic value of Hariri’s meeting with Barak Obama is proportional to the sovereignty that Hariri can practice in Beirut. The more Hariri can govern, the more his meeting with the world’s most-influential president wins significance. But can Hariri really lead Lebanon? The answer is no. Even though his coalition won parliamentary elections in 2009, he was unable to form a cabinet until he conceded to the Hezbollah-led March 8 opposition bloc.

Since then, Hezbollah’s iron grip on Lebanon has not allowed Hariri to practice any significant form of governance. Whether it is passing the budget or fixing the endless potholes in Lebanese roads, Hariri has been obstructed.

In fact, so weakened has he become that he can hardly do anything without being constantly attacked by the supporters of Syria in Lebanon, an offensive that started when his father first came to power in the early 1990s.

A weakened Hariri was forced to compromise. So much so that he had to visit half a dozen Middle Eastern capitals before making his trip to Washington.

The inconsequentiality of the Hariri trip to Washington is not the work of the United States. It is rather the making of the relentless offensive by his Syrian and Iranian-backed opponents in Lebanon.

Since May 2008, Hariri and his allies, formerly known as March 14, have used a policy of concessions, hoping that by doing so Damascus and Tehran would save them a shred of self-autonomy in Lebanon. What March 14 didn’t realize was that their rivals have never been interested in a compromise. Iran and Syria’s allies in Lebanon want total control of the country, and they feel they can get what they want.

In Washington, it is no secret that Obama has never been genuinely interested in Lebanon or its affairs. American support for Lebanese democracy and full sovereignty is one thing; going the extra yard to see it happen is another.

But while Obama – now emerging as a president who is restoring his country’s superpower reputation – is not interested in Lebanon, he certainly values its friendship and does not mind offering Lebanon support, provided there is someone in Beirut to receive such backing.

But in Beirut, there is Hezbollah, which has found a profitable business in keeping Lebanon on the edge, often in the interest of its regional patrons. The party also forced Hariri and his allies, at gunpoint, to relinquish their right to govern.

The vision that Tehran and Damascus have for the role Hariri plays has been outlined by Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah: Iran, Syria and Hezbollah handle matters of foreign policy and defense, while Hariri, like his father, sticks to construction. Even authority over construction will not be granted to Hariri unless he openly denounces the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and UN Resolution 1559, a blueprint that even former March 14 leader Walid Jumblatt has cheerfully endorsed.

This means that when Hariri meets Obama, there might be nothing extraordinary for journalists to report. The visit, like that of Sleiman before him, will prove to be nothing more than a ceremonial function, something that is increasingly becoming a staple of the Lebanese state.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a visiting fellow at Chatham House and a correspondent for Al-Rai newspaper.

As non-violence takes root, so may a Palestinian state

This article first appeared in The National

Hussain Abdul Hussain

• Last Updated: May 18. 2010 8:34PM UAE / May 18. 2010 4:34PM GMT

Palestinians, hard-headed realists that they are, have never much bought the idea of non-violence. The state of Israel was partly born out of violence and has been sustained mainly through violence. Turning the other cheek to people whose anatomical focus was your knees – and keeping you on them – never seemed especially wise, let alone effective.

This might now be changing. The “growing non-violent movement among Palestinians is simultaneously emerging spontaneously from the grassroots and being encouraged by the leadership,” Ziad Asali, the president of the American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP), wrote recently in the Guardian newspaper in the UK.

The question is why after so much suffering and the spilling of so much blood, non-violence seems to be catching on. One answer is simply that it has taken Palestinians this long to recognise the futility of using violence against a population determined after the Holocaust to never be so victimised by violence again.

“Armed struggle was the worst tactic that Palestinians could have used against a whole society marked by trauma and paranoia,” the Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird writes in his newly published autobiography, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate.

From the crucible of post-1948 Palestine, there also never arose a high-profile, politically viable counterpart to Mahatma Gandhi in India or Martin Luther King Jr in America, Mr Bird wites. The result is that “over the decades, it is the Palestinians who have become drenched in victimhood,” he says.

Despite the recent increase in non-violent protest and civil disobedience in the Palestinian Territories, there are still large numbers of Arab and Palestinians who are sceptical about the Gandhian approach. Mustering populist rhetoric and citing ideals that ceased being fresh a half-century ago, these proponents of an endless armed struggle against Israel often quote the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser: “What was taken by force, can be only restored by force.”

The problem is that Arab demagogues rarely offer viable options for relief within a measurable time-frame for Palestinians living in dire conditions in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Instead, their rhetoric is based on the “three nays” – no peace, no negotiation, no recognition of Israel – that emerged from the Arab summit held in Khartoum after Israel’s emotionally devastating defeat of Arab armies in the June 1967 war.

People like Mr Asali and the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, are not unfamiliar with Nasser’s populism or the “three nays.” At one time, they probably cheered for Nasser and the destruction of Israel, too. But people learn from experience.

“In the past, Palestinians relied first exclusively on armed struggle, then on armed struggle mixed with diplomacy, and then strictly on diplomacy disrupted by two uprisings in the occupied territories,” Mr Asali recounts.

Since most other tactics aimed at creating a Palestinian state have failed, Mr Asali and the Palestinian prime minister seem determined to give non-violence a try. Any chance of success depends upon consistency.

Throughout its history, the Palestinian national liberation movement has been stained by its inability – and perhaps unwillingness – to deliver on its promises. Israel has exploited this failure to advance its own interests, which Palestinians in turn brand as deal-breakers. The cycle serves to sabotage the peace process, much to the delight of the supporters of “endless armed struggle” on both sides.

By endorsing non-violence, the Palestinians would undermine Israeli claims that Palestinians are inherently violent. It would also put to rest accusations that their leadership cannot deliver on its promises of security and therefore Palestinians are not ready for independent government.

The affirmation of non-violence is potentially its own form of disarmament. While Israel can send its forces after armed Palestinian militants and justify its occupation of the West Bank, its pretext weakens when confronted by peaceful Palestinian civilians demanding that they be granted rights of self-governance and independence and making themselves heard worldwide.

Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force for Palestine, believes peaceful tactics and the peaceful solutions that are their offspring may not be fair to some Palestinians. For instance, some Palestinian refugees will have to abandon the right to return to their Pre-1948 homes and have to settle instead for living in a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip, says Mr Ibish, the author of What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? After all, a compromise is about compromising, he says.

The Palestinian non-violence experiment is hardly perfect. But if recent improvement in governance in the West Bank is any indication, it is one of the best things to have happened to Palestinians in a long time. With it, everything becomes possible – even an independent state of Palestine.

Hussain Abdul Hussain is a visiting fellow at Chatham House in London

What the Scud crisis revealed

This article first appeared in NOW Lebanon

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, May 6, 2010

The question as to whether Hezbollah has received Scud missiles from Syria remains unanswered. What is clear is that the crisis reinforced the fact that Hezbollah remains the sovereign power in Lebanon, a situation that Syria is keen to exploit, while the Lebanese state has gone on a walkabout.

It has long been known that Hezbollah was replenishing most of its depleted weapons stock after the 2006 July War. One UN report after another has highlighted the Syrian-Hezbollah breach of Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701.

In September 2009, the intelligence community in Washington was circulating substantiated reports about Syrian training of Hezbollah fighters on launching anti-aircraft missiles. In mid-January 2010, I published a story about this activity and reported that intelligence had proof that trucks of missiles were stationed on the Syrian side of the Lebanese border, with Damascus reluctant to order the trucks in after receiving indirect threats from Tel Aviv that such a step would put Syria at risk of Israeli retribution. The story received little reaction but also no denial at the time.

By mid-February 2010, the missiles had literally disappeared off the radar, which meant that they had either found their way to Hezbollah, or had been sent back to Syrian army depots. The State Department officially warned the Syrians against potentially shipping the missiles to Hezbollah on February 26.

On April 10, I reported the US warning to Syria, and retold the training story as the background. I also wrote that the prevailing thinking was that the missiles were Scud-D, and had most probably been shipped into Lebanon.

This time, all hell broke loose.

Newer reports have now surfaced that the missiles are actually M-600s, the Syrian version of the Iranian Fateh-110, rather than Scud-Ds. Whether the rockets actually made it into the hands of Hezbollah’s fighters could not be verified.

Be that as it may, the crisis has highlighted several issues: first, Syria lies. Its ambassador to the US, Imad Mustafa, denied that the State Department had summoned him to warn against Syrian shipments of arms to Hezbollah, prompting US officials to come out against Mustafa’s theatrics and show that Syrian diplomats were sent, on four occasions, starting February 26.

Second, Syria’s duplicity cannot be ignored anymore. While Hezbollah boasts a growing rocket arsenal, Syria prefers to stir problems in private, and volunteers to solve them in public. Hezbollah was not bothered by the Scud leak. Syria, however, went ballistic on journalists, accusing them of fabricating the story in Israel’s interest.

And herein lays a Syrian dilemma. Syria supports war with Israel as long as it can exploit such populist rhetoric domestically. When it comes to actual confrontation, whether with Israel or the West, Syria – unlike Hezbollah – will duck and avoid getting involved.

If Syria supports what it always describes as legitimate Resistance movements, then it should admit that it arms Hezbollah. However, if Syria believes that news reports on its arming Hezbollah were fabricated by pro-Israeli journalists, then Syria should tell the Arab street that it is not supporting the Resistance.

Third, Arab diplomacy is always a case of too little too late. A number of Arab officials argued that Scuds could not have been shipped to Hezbollah and remained unnoticed. The argument is irrelevant. Either Arab capitals are opposed to Iran’s arming of Hezbollah through Syria, which increases the risk of an Israeli war on Lebanon, or the Arabs support a Lebanese-Israeli confrontation, which – like all previous rounds – they will watch from the comfort of their air-conditioned living rooms. The kind of the missiles, their range, their warhead capacities and their accuracy rates were not the issue. The issue was Hezbollah’s armament in defiance of resolutions 1559 and 1701. Arab capitals should have given an honest opinion whether they approve of arming Hezbollah or not.

Fourth, Lebanese officials watched the missile crisis unfold before their eyes, and did nothing. This inability to act by every elected Lebanese official is their own doing. Lebanese politicians are always consumed by their endless bickering, and never willing to act as independent and sovereign officials. Pressure applied by Syria and/or Hezbollah is no excuse. Unfavorable regional or international circumstances are no justification either. If the Lebanese state is ever to become sovereign, its officials should step up to the plate and take some responsibility.
Opportunism has become the staple of every Lebanese politician, and aspiring politicians. None of the Lebanese officials, whether in the legislative or executive branches, are willing to take any stance that might jeopardize their fortunes of staying in office.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, nearly two years after his election, remains as ineffective as ever. The rest of the Lebanese bureaucracy, especially Lebanon’s diplomats in the world’s major capitals, are all reaping the benefits of their jobs, but are never willing to take risks. Instead of showing resolve, Sleiman, ministers and ambassadors, among others, all treat public office as a retirement plan.

The Scud missile crisis might have shown Israel’s short fuse and hot temper. Israel believes that it has to remain a bully or risk being annihilated. But whatever Israel does will never justify Arab and Lebanese unwillingness to take their destiny into their own hands by standing up to Hezbollah and Syria and stopping their reckless and selfish behavior.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a visiting fellow at Chatham House and a correspondent for Al-Rai newspaper.