Front Page Feature By Michael S. Arnold, Jerusalem Post, 11.6.00
Special to the 'Chicago Sun-Times' BEIRUT (June 11) - The ascension to
power of Bashar Assad is unlikely to affect Syria's control of Lebanon in the
short term, at least until he consolidates his control over centers of power in
Syria, a top political analyst in Lebanon said last week.
In an interview here, Michael Young spoke mostly about Syria's hold on
his country, which remains of strategic value to Damascus, perhaps even more so
after Israel's recent withdrawal.
"The Syrians are worried that if the south is neutralized under
international auspices it will be virtually impossible for them to use Lebanon
to pressure Israel," Young said.
"Syria will now try to consolidate its presence in Lebanon, because
in the end Lebanon is what gives Syria relevance."
Syria, which was "invited" to send its army to Lebanon in
1986, now has Lebanon under its heavy thumb, and has managed to remove or
cripple any Lebanese leader with an independent support base and national
pretensions.
Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss is not one to pose a threat to Syria.
A Sunni Moslem who is now in his third, non-consecutive term in office, Hoss's
performance is described by informed Lebanese as weak.
Of course, that may be precisely why he was appointed by President Emile
Lahoud, a Maronite who formerly headed Lebanon's armed forces, and it is what
may make Hoss's reappointment after the August elections for Lebanon's
parliament possible.
The real challenge for the president, according to Young, is to appoint
anyone other than former prime minister Rafik Hariri, known for the extravagant
reconstruction of Beirut that begain in the mid-1990s and a leading politician
in the country, perhaps too powerful for the Syrians' taste.
Since Israel's hasty withdrawal last month, pressure has been mounting
in the Lebanese street to end the Syrian presence as well. A daring editorial
this spring in the Christian newspaper An-Nahar broke the taboo on the subject,
and calls for a Syrian withdrawal have become increasingly frequent.
"Syria must not stay in Lebanon now," said Hassan Zreib, 21, a
political science student at the American University of Beirut and one of the few
Lebanese who did not ask that his name be withheld for comments about Syria.
"There is no other way."
Yet the reality is not so simple, Young said.
Alongside those who demand an immediate Syrian withdrawal are
politicians whose power and perks of office are closely tied to Syrian support.
Hoss rejected the idea that the Israeli withdrawal myst be matched by a Syrian
one, calling such views "stark and unfounded."
"We don't believe this is the right time to deal with this
question," Hoss said, in an interview at his home last week. "We
never linked the Syrian withdrawal to the Israeli withdrawal."
Pragmatists believe that a Syrian withdrawal can only come about in the
context of a peace agreement between Syrian and Israel - which will almost
certainly carry in its wake a Lebanese-Israeli agreement - and even then the
two countries are likely to retain strong economic and political ties.
"I'm sure the Syrians will have to leave Lebanon at some stage
because their presence has created a very unhealthy siuation, but there's no
point in their leaving in the context of a crisis," Young said. "We
should have a friendly separation, not a divorce."
The departure of the IDF was a strategic blow to Syria, which has not
hesitated, in one analyst's words, "to fight to the last Lebanese" in
their proxy battlefield of south Lebanon - part of the Syrian campaign to
pressure Israel into returning the Golan Heights.
The biggest question, in Lebanon as in Israel, is whether the current
quiet along the border is the beginning of real peace, or just the calm before
the storm.
Hoss hedged as to when, or even if, Lebanon will send its army to take
control of the south from the Hizbullah fighters who led the anti-Israel
resistance and have established de facto control in the liberated zone.
Young said he believes that Hoss, who was prime minister in 1978, when
UN Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 were passed, wants to send the army
to the south to keep the peace but doesn't want to weaken the Syrians' negotiating
stance. His reluctance to move is believed to have cost him dearly in terms of
credibility.
Hoss said only that once UN forces have succeeded in maintaining the
peace "will we consider deploying the Lebanese army, as the situation
requires."
His hesitation stems, at least in part, from Syria's own uncertainly
over how to proceed.
With Syrian backing, Hizbullah has demanded that Israel withdraw from
the Golan's Shaba farms area - captured from Syrian in the SixDay War but
lately claimed by Lebanon - a demand even most Lebanese say is a transparent
pretext for continued fighting against Israel.
Syria has also been reportedly readying Palestinian groups to serve as
proxy fighters against Israel, fearing that extended quiet in south Lebanon
eviscerates Syria's diplomatic strategy.
At the same time, Syria already has withdrawn some of its estimated
35,000 troops from Lebanon, American University political scientist Nizar
Hamzeh noted, fearing they could become targets for Israeli raids or PLO
factions loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
Yet he said the Syrian presence is necessary to maintain stability in
Lebanon and prevent the country's ethnic factions from spiraling once again
into civil war, one of the wild cards of Lebanese politics.
All Lebanese admit that the sectarian schisms that erupted into civil
war in 1975 are as heated as ever. What's not clear is whether the groups have
been sufficiently chastened by that 15-year bloodletting to now channel their
differences solely through the political system.
The country's sectarianism "is not finished, but the sentiment has
waned," Hoss said.
"People have learned a lesson from the strife and have come to
believe they can settle their differences through democratic means. Christians
and Moslems here are brothers, compatriots."
But just in case, he noted, Lebanon's army is stronger now than it was
during the civil war, and can enforce domestic peace.
Still, the weakness of Lebanon's central government makes the country's
melting pot supremely turbulent, said Jamil Mroue, publisher of Beirut's
English-language Daily Star newspaper, who at the same time noted that the
situation is unlikely to deteriorate into renewed fighting.
"The [factional] struggles continue to exist, but they're not about
to be translated into civil war," Mroue said. "Civil war is not a
question of spontaneous combustion, it needs instigation. Today there are too
many vested interests to go back to fighting."
Among those interests is the reconstruction of Beirut, a multibillion
dollar undertaking that has restored a modicum of hope to residents of the
city. The economic pages of Lebanese newspapers contain daily pleas to Arab
governments and Lebanese emigres to invest in the country. Renewed fighting, or
an extended power vacuum in the south, is likely to scare investors away.
Economics may also be a consideration for Syria. Remittances from the
estimated one million Syrians - most of whom work in menial jobs in
construction around Lebanon - provide a crucial source of income for the
moribund Syrian economy.
Another wild card is the fate of Hizbullah.
Hamzeh, who is writing a book on the group, doubts that Syria will allow
Hizbullah to be disarmed before it signs a peace agreement with Israel, keeping
the military option open as a warning.
But fears that Hizbullah would press the fight into Israel proper after
the withdrawal have so far proven unfounded. Indeed, any provocation on the
part of Hizbullah that would bring Israeli retaliation could lead to repeats of
1993 scenes in which old women chased Hizbullah fighters around south Lebanese
villages for bringing Operation Accountability down on their heads.
Until now, at least, the group has exercised an admirable degree of
restraint and responsibility in the south, winning praise from virtually all
sectors of Lebanese society, even those that don't share the party's religious
beliefs.
"These are serious people, people who match slogans with details.
That's a new thing in this country," Mroue said. "They've introduced
seriousness and professionalism into Lebanese life, and I imagine they're going
to do the same thing in domestic politics."
Hizbullah's challenge, indeed, is to translate the wave of popularity it
has won from the armed resistance into a sustainable platform as a political
party.
By and large, Hizbullah has refrained from trying to press a
fundamentalist Islamic agenda on Lebanon's multicultural and fairly westernized
society.
Instead, they have worked to shore up support through social services,
including an Islamic Health Committee that to date has treated more than 15,000
people, according to Hamzeh.
Analysts expect Hizbullah to add three to five more parliamentary seats
to its current nine in this August's elections. Under the convoluted rules of
Lebanese government that guarantee a certain bloc of seats to each religious
community, only 28 of the 128 parliament seats are available to Shi'ites,
though they now constitute the largest single ethnic group in Lebanon.
Young estimated that up to 70 percent of the population today is Moslem,
the majority of them Shi'ites. Exact figures are hard to come by; the country's
last census was conducted in 1932, and allowing a new one today would surely
lead to demands for a realignment of power.
But while Hizbullah may be able to demand a cabinet seat in the next
government, its long-term prospects are mixed.
Despite the benefit of Syrian (and Iranian) support, it's unclear how
popular a party can be in Lebanon whose basic ideology is, after all,
Khomeinism.
Once the glow of its military bravado fades, the group may face internal
dissent, and will have to find a new cause to replace the armed struggle
against the Israeli occupation.
"Hizbullah is going to face more challenges during peacetime than
during wartime," Hamzeh noted. "Christians especially are very
suspicious of Hizbullah's hidden agenda."
One issue that might allow the party to transcend its natural base of
Shi'ite support could be opposition to normalization with Israel after a peace
treaty, he said.
That, in any case, is not likely to happen any time soon, as few
Lebanese politicians appear willing to consider decoupling their fate from
Syria's.
(Third in a five-part series. Wednesday - "Beirut: Can the phoenix
rise from its ashes?")