[LCM Articles] From The Economist

[Fadi P. Kanaan]

Lebanon and America 

That let-down feeling

Nov 30th 2006 | CAIRO 
>From The Economist print edition



How gratitude turned to suspicion



GEORGE BUSH has a gift for simplification. "There's a young democracy in
Lebanon, run by Prime Minister Siniora," he said. "And that government is
being undermined, in my opinion, by extremist forces encouraged out of Syria
and Iran." Many Lebanese agree, and some would thank America for having
helped bring Fouad Siniora and his pro-Western coalition to power last year,
by forcefully backing the popular uprising that ended years of Syrian
tutelage. 

But plenty of Lebanese see things differently. They think Mr Siniora's
government greased its way into office with money, and is being used as a
spearhead for Western influence. The resentment of American support for
Israel that the Lebanese share with other Arabs was compounded by last
summer's brutal war. Even for those allied to Mr Siniora, faith in the
superpower took a rough shaking as his erstwhile American friends dawdled
diplomatically while Israeli bombs systematically demolished the country's
infrastructure. Moreover, deadly cluster bomblets, supplied to Israel by
America, still clutter south Lebanon.

The Cedar revolution that erupted after the February 2005 assassination of
Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister who had turned hostile to Syria, had
seemed to boost American influence. With the ignominious withdrawal of
Syrian troops, the Bush administration held up the apparent triumph of
Lebanese people-power as the shiniest model for its initiative to defeat
extremism in the region by spreading democracy.

But on the ground in Lebanon that triumph soon began to sour. Last summer's
war completed a growing polarisation between two factions of roughly equal
number, Shias and their Christian allies, and Mr Siniora's grouping of Sunni
Muslims, Druze and anti-Syrian Christians. Government supporters blamed
Hizbullah for igniting the conflict with Israel and so exposing the fragile
country to ruin. But the suffering of Lebanon's Shias, combined with
Hizbullah's effectiveness at both fighting and rebuilding, hugely
strengthened the party's claim to leadership of a country that, in its
vision, aspired to be a bastion of resistance to the West rather than a
cosmopolitan entrepot. 

With both sides tarring their opponents as traitors and agents of foreign
powers, the semblance of unity in Mr Siniora's government unravelled. And
though it may be doctrinal hostility to America, and allegiance to Iran and
Syria, that are propelling the current push to unseat the government,
Hizbullah has capitalised on suspicion of America to broaden its appeal
beyond its core Shia constituency. 

The threat of unrest has raised fears that Sunnis will be pitted against
Shias, and pro- and anti-Syrian Christian factions against each other. Not
since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, has war seemed so imminent. The
memory of that war is bitter for all Lebanese, but perhaps most for those
who pinned hopes, in the wake of Israel's 1982 invasion, on American
intervention-only to see America scuttle the place in 1984 after
suicide-bombers killed 241 Marines in Beirut. Syria then took over. To the
glee of Hizbullah, Syria and Iran, and to the chagrin of Mr Bush, a similar
scenario could be about to unfold.

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