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By BRET STEPHENS
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<h1 class="articleTitle" style="margin: 0px;">Syria Occupies Lebanon. Again.<br><span class="aTime">July 24, 2007; Page A14</span></h1>
<p class="times">As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square
miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first
time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.</p>
<p class="times">The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the
Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese
Committee for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO
that has consultative status with the U.N. Because of the sensitivity
of the subject, the authors have requested anonymity and have
circulated the report only among select government officials and
journalists. But its findings cannot be ignored.</p>
<img src="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/ED-AG151A_glovi_20070723180833.gif" class="imglftbdy" alt="[Map]" align="left" border="0" height="220" hspace="0" vspace="0" width="276">
<p class="times">In meticulous detail -- supplemented by photographs,
satellite images, archival material and Lebanese military maps
predating Syria's 1976 invasion (used as a basis of comparison with
Syria's current positions) -- the authors describe precisely where and
how Lebanon has been infiltrated. In the area of the village of
Maarboun, for instance, the authors observed Syrian military
checkpoints a mile inside Lebanon. In the Birak al-Rassass Valley, they
photographed Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. On the outskirts of the
village of Kossaya they found a heavily fortified camp belonging to the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in violation of U.N.
resolutions and Lebanese demands.</p>
<p class="times">This is a story to which I can contribute my own
testimony. In May 2005 I paid a visit to Lebanon, just a month after
Syria had announced that it had fully withdrawn its 14,000 troops from
Lebanon in compliance with Resolution 1559. The rumor in Beirut was
that a company of 200 or so elite Syrian soldiers remained encamped
within Lebanon near the Druze village of Deir al-Ashaer. I decided to
have a look. After a long drive over rutted roads, I found it.</p>
<p class="times">Or rather, what I found was a hillside outpost that I
was able to enter without crossing any apparent international border.
The man in charge was a Syrian intelligence officer who "invited" me
into a sweltering tent while he phoned his commanders for instruction.
After a few tense minutes of silence with the soldiers inside, the
officer reappeared, explained that the camp was 50 yards inside Syrian
territory, and ordered me to go. From there I went to the village,
where the mayor insisted the camp was several hundred yards inside
Lebanon.</p>
<p class="times">Who was
right? Inclined as I was to believe the mayor, it was hard to sort out
contending claims over remote parcels of land. A week later, then
Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the U.N. had "verified all
[Syrian military units] had withdrawn, including [from] the border
area." It seemed that was the end of the story.</p>
<p class="times">I should have known then that anything "verified" by
the U.N. must be checked at least twice. I should have known, too, that
anything to which Mr. Annan devoted his personal attention would
inevitably become worse. Last September, Mr. Annan paid a visit to
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad after the latter had declared he would
treat any attempt by the U.N. to deploy peacekeepers along the
Lebanese-Syrian border as a "hostile act." To defuse the impasse, Mr.
Annan simply accepted Mr. Assad's assurances that Syria would police
its border and prevent arms smuggling. "I think it can happen," said
the diplomat at a press conference. "It may not be 100%, but it will
make quite a lot of difference if the government puts in place the
measures the government has discussed with me."</p>
<p class="times">What happened, predictably, was the opposite. In May,
Fatah al-Islam, a terrorist group whose leadership was imported from
Damascus, attacked Lebanese army outposts outside the Palestinian
refugee camps of Nahr El-Bared and Biddawi, causing a bloody standoff
that continues till this day. In June, current Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon issued a report citing numerous instances of arms smuggling
from Syria to Hezbollah and the PFLP. Yesterday, Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah boasted that he once again has missiles that can reach
Tel Aviv -- missiles he could only have obtained via Syria. Israel
confirms his claims.</p>
<p class="times">Mr. Ban's report is notable for its clarity and
seriousness. Taken together with the border report, it paints an
alarming picture. Though the land grabs are small affairs individually,
they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese
soil -- in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of
particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the
Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. The farms, which Israel seized from
Syria in 1967 and which amount to an area of about 12 square miles, are
claimed by Hezbollah as belonging to Lebanon -- a useful pretext for it
to continue its "resistance" against an Israeli occupation that ended
seven years ago.</p>
<p class="times">Needless to say, Hezbollah -- which purports to fight
for Lebanese sovereignty -- makes no similar claims against Syria. For
his part, Mr. Assad refuses to agree to a demarcation of his border
with Lebanon, just as he refuses to open an embassy in Beirut. The
ambiguity serves him well: He can seize Lebanese territory without
anyone appearing to take notice, supply terrorist camps without quite
harboring the terrorists, and funnel arms to Hezbollah at will -- all
without abandoning the fantasy of "Greater Syria" encompassing Lebanon,
the Golan Heights and Israel itself.</p>
<p class="times">It would, of course, be nice to see the Arab world
protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the
subject. It would also be nice to see the media report this story as
sedulously as it has the controversy of the Shebaa Farms. Don't hold
your breath on either score. In the meantime, the only countries in a
position to help Lebanon are France and the U.S. They could strike a
useful blow by closing their embassies in Damascus until such time as
Damascus opens an embassy -- with all that it implies -- in Beirut.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Michel Rbeiz<br>============================<br>Mail: PO Box 20141, DHCC, New York, NY 10017<br>
Phone: 617.230.8116(c), (212) 446-7246 (o)<br>Email: <a href="mailto:mrbeiz@alum.mit.edu">mrbeiz@alum.mit.edu</a>