Lebanese Christians mull conversion
By Simon Roughneen
BEIRUT - Renewed fighting last weekend in Tripoli, in the northern
Sunni-dominated region, demonstrates Lebanon's precarious peace, and a
potential rise of Salafist-jihadi influence, in response to the seemingly
irresistible will to power emanating from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's
southern Beirut lair.
Ahmad Moussali is professor of political science and Islamic studies at the
American University of Beirut. He told Asia Times Online, "A lot of Saudi money
has been put into the north to cultivate Wahhabi/Salafist ideology, to counter
Hezbollah," reflecting wider Sunni-Shi'ite regional rivalries.
"These radicals see the Lebanese army as weak, and [ruling coalition] March 14
Sunnis cannot stop them confronting Shi'ites
or Alawites [a sect of Shi'ites]."
One north Lebanese jihadi group called Fatah-al-Islam is regarded as a Syrian
creation, and Alawites comprise the ruling vanguard in Syria, raising
suspicions that the Tripoli fighting is being orchestrated by Damascus,
irrespective of Saudi bankrolling.
A deal reached in Doha, Qatar, in May gave Hezbollah its sought-after blocking
vote in government, after it overran west Beirut in a show of force that the
US-funded Lebanese army declined to confront.
Syria-affiliated Hezbollah may now be able to curtail government discussion of
its arsenal, deemed necessary for "resistance" to Israel, in contravention of
recent United Nations Security Council resolutions on Lebanon.
In Tripoli, one could see dozens of bullet-marked, shelled-out buildings on
either side of the Sunni-Alawite divide between the warring neighborhoods.
Jamal al-Rai owned a garage right on the interface. He believes the now-charred
remnants were targeted because "I had a banner of Saad Hariri [Sunni head of
the March 14-aligned Future Movement] outside".
Saad is Rafik Hariri's son. His father's assassination on March 14, 2005,
sparked Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, when almost one-third of the population
took to Beirut's streets in protest at what they regarded as a Syrian hit on
Lebanon's pro-West prime minister.
The pro-West March 14 coalition in government takes its name from the Hariri
assassination date, and comprises mostly Sunni, Christian and Druze parties.
A UN tribunal established to investigate the Hariri killing may now be
jeopardized by the Hezbollah veto, as well as Israel-Syria peace negotiations.
Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy feted Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad at the recent Paris Euro-Med summit.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem visited Beirut last week, after pledging
to recognize the neighbor it occupied from 1975-2005, and hitherto regarded as
a part of Syria illegally detached by the French between the two world wars.
Sunni politician Bassam Khodar Agha is president of the Free Lebanese Movement,
which supports March 14, but is not a formal member. He said in Tripoli that
"we hope the international community will not allow Syria back here. Syria is
causing unrest to facilitate Hezbollah. But we trust that the US will support a
democratic and free Lebanon".
Fears abound, however, that Lebanon's pro-Western government majority will be
sacrificed for gains elsewhere: for Israel with Syria, and for the US and
Europe with regard to Iran.
Regional diplomacy and macro-level geopolitics loom large over little Lebanon's
multi-confessional political tapestry. Moussali explained, "We are awaiting the
Iranian response to the American and European incentives on the nuclear issue,
if Iran plays along, hotspots may cool off."
Hezbollah's rise was seen again in the effusive homecoming given to prisoners
released from Israeli jails, a swap for two dead Israeli soldiers, whose
capture during a Hezbollah attack in northern Israel in 2006 sparked an Israeli
counter-attack that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,200 Lebanese.
Driving through Beirut's southern suburbs, known as the dahiyeh, once
can see dozens of large-scale building projects, likely funded by an Iran flush
with revenue from high energy prices, replacing the craters left by Israel's
two-year-old aerial bombardment.
Almost all of Lebanon's main parties were represented at the prisoner exchange
ceremony, including March 14 members. Toni Nissi, head of the Lebanese
Committee for UNSCR 1559, which lobbies the Lebanese government to implement UN
resolutions on Lebanon, said that "March 14 has compromised with terror",
referring to Samir Kuntar, a Druze jailed in Israel for his part in a 1978
attack in northern Israel that culminated in him crushing a four-year-old
girl's head against a rock with his rifle butt.
Nasrallah previously described Nissi's non-governmental organization as "the
Beirut branch of the Mossad", referring to Israeli intelligence.
But the Druze political machine led by Walid Jumblatt is a core constituent of
the March 14 coalition. With elections looming, the prospect of Kuntar being
proposed as a pro-Hezbollah Druze candidate poses a dilemma for the pro-West
alliance.
On this occasion, they chose to play political tag-along with ascendant
Hezbollah, tracking the political footsteps being left in the wake of Kuntar's
momentous homecoming.
Such are the moral compromises that politics entail, but the danger for March
14 is that the Kuntar welcome home is seen in the West as evidence that the
Cedar Revolution has failed, with March 14's moral stature plummeting at a rate
only exceeded by its squandering of political capital.
The Israeli reaction to Kuntar's homecoming was predictably vitriolic, but the
validity of such righteousness is undercut by the regional strategic
maneuverings that are squeezing March 14, not least Israel's rapprochement with
Syria, in tandem with Sarkozy's public rehabilitation given to Bashar al-Assad
in Paris last month.
Elections slated for Spring 2009 could hang on the Christian swing vote,
currently divided between March 14 groups and the pro-Hezbollah Free Patriotic
Movement (FPM) led by General Michel Aoun.
It is thought that Sunni, Shi'ite and Druze votes will go along predictable
lines.
David Schenker at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told Asia Times
Online that former president Michel Aoun was "regarded as politically dead, but
has been revived by his alliance with Hezbollah".
Aoun claims the support of 70% of Lebanon's Christians, and Hezbollah is
seeking to bolster the FPM in advance of 2009 elections, in the hope that Aoun
can bring a majority of Christian votes with him, and thereby secure a
pro-Hezbollah majority.
Alain Aoun, the FPM's political affairs officer, told Asia Times Online that
"Westerners misunderstand our MOU [understanding] with Hezbollah. The Shi'ites
are a pillar of Lebanon, and they have chosen Hezbollah as their main
representative. And we are working with Hezbollah on the basis that the reasons
for Hezbollah bearing arms must be addressed, as part of a national dialogue,
before any progress can be made on this issue."
Christian politicians across the divide have a problem: how to halt the
seemingly inevitable drift to Hezbollah, and the possible material carrots this
may bring to Christians who lost their homes or saw family members imprisoned
by Syria during the 1975-1990 civil war.
With Hezbollah help, from Tehran via Damascus, the FPM may be able deliver on
these, a potential game-breaker come election time, scuttling the UN
investigation into Rafik Hariri's death, and sending the Cedar Revolution
full-circle.
But the hurdles now faced by March 14 go beyond attracting the Christian vote.
"March 14 has made many mistakes, most notably failing to pursue a forceful
implementation of UN Security Council resolutions," according to Bassam, who
split from Aoun after the FPM revised its anti-Syrian stance. "This has aided
Hezbollah's rise."
But Hezbollah's rise is not inevitable, or without compromise. By attacking
west Beirut, Saad Hariri's Future TV and the Druze-dominated Chouf in May, the
"resistance" ditched its promise never to train a bead on fellow Lebanese.
The anti-Israeli halo now tainted, Hezbollah may find itself a
much-less-electable option come next spring, irrespective of its Christian
allies, and its aggression toward fellow Lebanese may stir the country's
freewheeling, party-going urbanites from their political slumber, fearing the
prospect of an Iranian-style theocracy in their Levantine Riviera.
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