NEWS & LETTERS, June - July 2008
World in View
Lebanon in crisis
The recent Doha Accord has not ended the period of crisis in Lebanon. It was a tremendous concession made to Hezbollah by the Lebanese government. While Hezbollah has called off the open war it launched in May, violent incidents continue in various parts of the country. There have been reports of death squads in Beirut targeting opponents of Hezbollah. Fighting has broken out in Tripoli between Alawi militiamen and Sunni groups.
The effort to form a new cabinet has also been dragged out as Hezbollah, which gained most ground at Doha, including its long-sought one-third veto power in the cabinet, tries to maximize its influence in alliance with Christian Michel Aoun.
The situation now leaves all parties at the crossroads. For most Lebanese it would be unthinkable to return to the days of civil war and mutual slaughter. The effort to bring Hezbollah into the government was probably the only deal that could be struck in that regard. By attacking the Sunni and Druze communities with its weapons of "resistance," Hezbollah discredited itself badly among most Lebanese.
While Hezbollah is now the strongest military force in Lebanon, it still can't occupy and control the whole country. Its fighters were badly bloodied in attacking the Druze villages of the Chouf. What Hezbollah's weapons can accomplish is a rearming of Lebanese politics, if other sects and communities are inspired to compete on that level. Down that road can lie another civil war, perhaps another Syrian occupation.
Destructive war with Israel is another possibility, for which all Lebanese people would pay a terrible price. Again, this would be a war that Hezbollah could spark but never finish. But when its Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem recently described "Resistance" as "a vision and a methodology to follow" he was describing just this vision of eternal and futile war. For Hezbollah, its weapons have become an end in themselves, apart from the real historic struggle of Lebanese Shia for dignity and justice.
How this appears to many Lebanese was perhaps summed up by one who said, "For Hezbollah to live, Lebanon must die a thousand deaths."
--Gerry Emmett
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