[LCM Articles] From The Economist

[Fadi P. Kanaan]

Lebanon 

Pulled every which way

Nov 16th 2006 | BEIRUT 
>From The Economist print edition



Shias and Sunnis, plus their respective patrons, tug at a tired country



ALL it takes to see that Lebanon is a starkly polarised place is to drive
into Beirut from its airport. Portraits of Rafik Hariri, the five-time Sunni
Muslim prime minister slain by a truck bomb in February last year, adorn
advertising hoardings along the highway, captioned "We Shall Never Forget".
A rival, guerrilla advertising campaign is also under way. "America is the
root of all disasters," says a sign hanging from an overpass. 

Actually, there is no need to go to Lebanon at all to understand that this
small country has become a zone of contest between pro-Western forces,
ranked behind the political heirs to Mr Hariri, and the Syrian-Iranian
"resistance" axis that backs Hizbullah. Last week American officials gave
warning of an impending Iranian-inspired putsch against Lebanon's elected
government, which is controlled by a coalition of Hariri-aligned politicians
known as the March 14th group. This week Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's
supreme leader, gave warning of an Israeli-American plot to steal the fruits
of what he called "the great victory" won by Hizbullah in last summer's war
with Israel.

Both charges are true, in a way. Hizbullah emerged bruised but politically
strong from what it portrays as an American-orchestrated war. As a result,
its demands for a bigger share of power have grown more strident. For a
start it is threatening to foment street demonstrations unless March 14th
grants the party and its allies a veto over cabinet decisions. The ruling
coalition, made up of Sunni Muslim, Druze and some Christian parties,
offered to give Hizbullah supporters more cabinet seats. But they balked at
ceding the power to push through key projects, rejecting what the prime
minister, Fouad Siniora, calls the tyranny of a minority. 

Specifically, the government accuses Hizbullah of trying to block approval
of an international tribunal to try suspects fingered by a UN investigation
into a series of assassination attempts against March 14th figureheads,
including Mr Hariri. The reason for this, say Hizbullah's critics, is that
any trial is likely to implicate the party's main conduit for weaponry,
Syria, or at any rate some of Syria's former proxies inside Lebanon, which
was under the sway of Syrian forces until the killing of Mr Hariri provoked
mass demonstrations that prompted their ignominious withdrawal.

Even as it denied these charges, Hizbullah and its allies pulled six
ministers out of the cabinet, a move that handicaps Mr Siniora's government
by stripping it of Shia representation, and so opening it to charges of
failing the constitutional duty to represent all 18 of Lebanon's recognised
sects. Mr Siniora could, in theory, appoint non-Hizbullah Shias to fill the
seats, but the party's hold over the sect, which makes up 30% of Lebanon's
population, is so strong that they would lack credibility. 

Nevertheless, Mr Siniora's rump cabinet called the bluff by swiftly
approving the UN's terms for setting up the tribunal. Amid debate over the
legality of this approval, Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah chief, promised
his supporters that the government, which he accused of having backed Israel
during the war, would soon fall. Mr Siniora faced further pressure from the
country's titular president, Emile Lahoud, whose tenure is a legacy of
Syrian influence. He is understandably keen to denounce the tribunal as many
of his associates have been implicated in the assassinations. In a letter to
the UN, Mr Lahoud described cabinet approval of the tribunal as legally null
and void. 

Hizbullah still says its supporters may take to the streets, while March
14th leaders warn they would stage counter-demonstrations. Worse yet, many
Lebanese fear that some small incident could spark clashes between Shias and
pro-government Sunnis, who make up another 30% of the population. 

At the same time, the country is struggling to recover from the war. Despite
a saturation of foreign aid, thousands remain homeless. Far more have
suffered loss of their livelihoods, with farmlands clogged by Israeli
cluster bomblets and businesses bankrupted by the collapse of tourism. A
recent survey found that nearly half of all Lebanese hope to emigrate. 

Yet it may be that, almost as a perverse result of all these pressures, Mr
Siniora's government will survive. The Lebanese have experienced disaster
before, and few wish to go through it again. The endurance, so far, of the
ceasefire with Israel, despite Shia dislike of the presence of thousands of
UN peacekeepers, and despite Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace, is one
sign of a slackened will for confrontation. 

 

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