Lebanon's Auon in a Syrian gambit
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - When I lived in Lebanon in the 1990s, the streets of what was
once-called East Beirut were covered with graffiti saying "Aoun is coming
back!"
This referred to former army commander and prime minister Michel Aoun, who was
ousted from Baabda Palace, the official residence of the president, by the
Syrian army in 1990. Last year, the same streets were filled with colorful
orange posters saying "Aoun for president".
Aoun returned to Lebanon after 15 years in exile on May 7, 2005. The Syrian
army had left a month before and Aoun had marketed himself as the man who led
the ejection of Syria through United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which demanded an end to its
decades-long occupation of Lebanon.
He ran for parliament in 2005, won with a landslide victory, and ran for
president in 2007, but was defeated by current President Michel Suleiman in a
parliament vote in May this year.
Aoun had returned to Lebanon on the offensive, hateful of everyone and
everything that kept him in exile for so long, and promising destruction of the
existing order and sweet revenge. The Beirut he returned to in 2005 was very
different from the war-torn city he had left behind.
It did not bear the hallmarks of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime
minister assassinated in 2005, yet, all the actors of Beirut 1990 are still
there and most of them have been more than troubled by his comeback.
They were even more alarmed by the 73-year-old's groundbreaking five-day visit
to Damascus, which started on December 3. It is purportedly to signal that "the
general", as his supporters call him, has finally turned a new page with his
former enemies in Damascus.
At Beirut airport on his return on May 2005, Aoun told the masses, most of whom
were too young to remember the civil war, that Lebanon would never be governed
again by "political feudalism" and a "religious system that dates back to the
19th century". This, his first encounter with the press and well-wishers, was
less than diplomatic, when annoyed with all the commotion the ex-general barked
at those welcoming him, claiming they were noisy.
He then called for an end to the "old fashioned prototypes which represent the
old bourgeoisie which persists without any questioning", effectively a promise
to strike back at Lebanon's entire political establishment.
His appearance at Damascus Airport this week was very different, there he was
seen smiling to the TV cameras, aware of the shock waves he was sending through
the pro-West March 14 Coalition which was no doubt watching from Beirut.
Aoun’s Syria trip is scheduled to include a visit to the "Street called
Straight", the Roman street that runs from east to west in the heart of old
Damascus; churches throughout the Syrian capital's Bab Touma neighborhood; and
the Grand Umayyad Mosque that was visited by Pope John Paul II in 2001.
He is also slated to speak to students at universities, and tour Christian
villages in the countryside, where a grassroots welcome is awaiting him.
Although officially only a party leader (the Free Patriotic Movement) and
member of parliament, who commands the largest Christian bloc, he was welcomed
at Damascus International Airport by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad, and
had a high profile audience with President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday.
"We spoke with our hearts and minds ... so there remains no trace of a past in
which there are many painful things," said Aoun after meeting Assad, in
reference to his former "war of liberation" against Syria. "I left behind the
past when I came to Syria," he noted. "We want to build the future, not dwell
on the past."
Aoun added, "What was once forbidden has now become halal - very halal,"
claiming that his visit turns a new page in Syrian-Lebanese relations.
Before returning to Lebanon in 2005, Aoun had promised a "tsunami" in Lebanese
politics. His appearance in Damascus on Wednesday goes some way to achieving
that. The average age of his supporters when he returned was 20, young men and
women who were easily enchanted by the fiery speeches Auon gave from exile in
France.
A generation hungry for reform and hope, they supported Aoun as an exiled
leader. They rooted for him again in 2007 when he was running for president - a
job he has coveted since 1988. But Aoun understood early on since his return
that Christian support alone is no longer enough to govern Lebanon. The nation
changed dramatically both during and after the civil war, and no president
could be voted into power if he were not supported by the Shi'ite majority,
which is loyal to Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Aoun last year made a pact with Nasrallah, pledging to support Hezbollah and
its war against Israel, and to run as running mates for the elections in 2009.
A long road for Aoun
Aoun was born in 1935 to a poor family in Haret Hraik, a Shi'ite neighborhood
that is currently a stronghold for Hezbollah. Aoun attended Catholic schools,
lived with a religious family, but declared years later that he "never
differentiated between Ali and Peter, or between Hasan and Michel".
One of the first questions fired at him by a journalist on his return to
Lebanon was whether he intended to visit his native neighborhood, which is
swarming with Shi'ite warriors today, and meet with Nasrallah. He replied
affirmatively, but this was long before he made his now famous pact with
Hezbollah.
Aoun finished high school in 1955, enrolled at the Military Academy and
graduated in 1958, while a popular uprising was raging in Lebanon against
then-president Camille Chamoun. Aoun watched attentively as the Lebanese army,
which he was entering, remained loyal to its president.
When Aoun was 40, his country descended into civil war, as the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat fought with the Muslims of
Lebanon against the Maronite forces of Pierre Gemayel, who were backed by
Syria. By the late 1970s, the Lebanese army had fractured along sectarian
lines, yet Aoun, having learned from the 1958 experience, remained loyal to the
central government. In the early 1980s, he became head of the "defense brigade"
of the Lebanese army, a unit separating East and West Beirut. In 1982, he was
involved in fighting against the Israeli army that occupied Beirut.
That same year, Aoun created the 8th Brigade, which fought the Syrian army in
the Souk al-Gharb pass overlooking Beirut. In June 1984, a reconciliation
conference was held for all warring parties in Switzerland - brokered by Hariri
- and army commander Ibrahim Tannous was fired and replaced by Aoun.
Aoun complied, but took no part in politics, giving no press interviews between
1984 and 1988. In September 1988, 15 minutes before the end of his term,
president Amin Gemayel appointed Aoun prime minister, breaching the National
Pact of 1943, which said that a prime minister had to be a Muslim Sunni, and
the president's office could be occupied exclusively by a Maronite Christian.
Lebanon's Muslim prime minister, Salim al-Hoss, who had taken over after the
assassination of prime minister Rashid Karameh, refused to step down, resulting
in two Lebanese governments. Aoun's team reigned from Baabda Palace.
When he came to power, Aoun only controlled limited areas of East Beirut. To
establish himself as a cross-confessional leader, Aoun began his war on the
Lebanese Forces (LF), a Maronite militia headed by Samir Gagegea, who is
currently his main rival in the Lebanese Christian community.
Aoun ordered 15,000 of his troops into action and wrestled the port of Beirut
from the LF. He shelled entire neighborhoods of East Beirut and infuriated the
Christians of Lebanon, who to date had kept East Beirut quiet and safe. On
March 14, 1989, Aoun declared his "war of liberation" against Syria.
He even opened channels with Syria's arch enemies, such as Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein and Arafat, who described him as a "sword of nationalism" in
Lebanon. Aoun finally agreed to the ceasefire proposed by the Arab League in
September 1989, but refused to endorse the Taif Accord of Saudi Arabia of
October 1989, claiming it did not call for the withdrawal of the Syrian army
from Lebanon.
Aoun's "rebellion" ended rapidly when in August 1990, his friend Saddam invaded
Kuwait. The United States, eager to defeat the Iraqi dictator, wanted Arab
support in Operation Desert Storm.
It found no better way to achieve that than through an alliance with Syria for
the liberation of Kuwait. Syria's late president Hafez al-Assad sent his army
to the Arabian desert, and in reward the US gave him a green light to bring the
Aoun saga to an end. On the morning of October 13, 1990, the Syrian army
launched a massive operation on Baabda Palace and areas of East Beirut
controlled by Aoun. The defeated general fled to the French Embassy in Beirut
then moved to Paris, where president Francois Mitterrand gave him political
asylum.
Aoun remained in exile during the 1990s, when Hariri ruled Beirut, along with
the Syrian-backed president Elias Hrawi and Nabih Berri, the speaker of
parliament. It was these Lebanese leaders who prevented his return to Lebanon
because they feared his wrath for having obediently worked with Syria for so
long. Hariri was killed on February 14, 2005, and after Aoun’s return three
months later, he refused to attribute his comeback to the murder of Hariri, but
rather to his 14-year crusade from Paris.
The new Aoun was older, wiser and angrier than ever before. He wanted to take
revenge on all who had wronged him since 1990. There was no sense in taking
revenge on the Syrians, he argued, since they had left Lebanon. He instead
focused his anger on March 14 leaders like Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora, and
Walid Jumblatt, the current leader of the Druze community.
He failed to become president in 2007, but the March 14 coalition said it would
never accept him - for different reasons. Muslim politicians like Hariri and
Siniora feared a strong Christian president like Aoun would overshadow their
Sunni prime minister. The same applied to Jumblatt, and Gagegea, who saw
himself - being the other Christian heavyweight - as the best candidate for the
Lebanese presidency.
To understand Aoun one must understand how faithful his supporters have been in
backing him. When he wanted to fight the Syrians, they were anti-Syrian to the
bone. When he wanted to ally himself with Hezbollah, they became strong
supporters of what the general was telling them to do. They support anything he
tells them. It's that simple. Such strict adherence to a political leader who
is not leading a confessional group and one who is switching sides so very
dramatically is rare even in a country like Lebanon.
Aoun has no states supporting him or furnishing him with money, like Saad
al-Hariri, the politician son of the assassinated premier, and Saudi Arabia, or
Hasan Nasrallah and Iran. He does not hail from a traditional political family,
like Maronite politician Suleiman Franjiyeh, Druze leader Jumblatt, or former
Sunni prime minister Omar Karameh. With no state behind him, and no political
family on his shoulders, it is remarkable that the general has survived so long
in the patron-client system of the Middle East.
He is now bracing himself for the upcoming parliamentary elections of 2009,
which he plans on tackling with Hezbollah. Aoun realizes that he cannot rule
Lebanon without them. For their part, Hezbollah leaders realize that they need
someone like Aoun to legitimize the "arms of the resistance" among Lebanese
Christians. Nasrallah is popular with Christians of south Lebanon but until
Aoun came along in 2005, there were Christians in Mount Lebanon who frowned on
his military tactics - especially after the liberation of South Lebanon in 2000
- claiming that Lebanon was being made to pay the price for Hezbollah’s war
with Israel.
Depending on who you talk to in Lebanon, Christians are either still enchanted
with "the general" or have began to hate him, because of his alliance with
Hezbollah and his latest cozying up with Iran and Syria. Shortly before his
Damascus visit, Aoun landed in Tehran to meet with Iranian leaders - sending a
strong message to Saudi Arabia, which supports March 14. A pragmatic man, he
knows that all is fair in love and war; and all is justified in his quest to
become president of Lebanon.
Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.
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