LEBANON: THE MIDDLE EAST CAULDRON – December 17, 2006

ORIGINS

The French carved what is now Syria and Lebanon from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. They deliberately organized their Mandate in Lebanon to have a Christian majority, one that would look to France for protection. In the unwritten National Pact agreed on after independence in 1943, power was shared along the lines of the 1932 census. The President was always a Maronite Christian. He always chose a Sunni Muslim Prime Minister. The President of the National Assembly was to be a Shia Muslim. For three decades the system worked. Lebanon avoided the wars that wracked the region and served as a center for trade and banking for the Middle East.

Two factors led to the collapse of the order established after independence. The demographic balance shifted to the Muslims, who demanded a greater role in the government. Then the Six Day War of 1967 sent thousands of Palestinian refugees fleeing north over the border into Lebanon. From 1968 the PLO used Lebanon as a base to raid into Israel. The Lebanese government was too weak to stop them. In an Egyptian brokered settlement in 1969 the PLO recognized Lebanese sovereignty, while Lebanon recognized PLO control over the Palestinian refugee camps, and allowed the PLO to strike Israel at will. The PLO became a state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon, while raid and counter-raid along the Israeli border became the norm.

By 1975, there were some 300,000 Palestinian refugees in the country. In April of that year civil war broke out between Christians and Muslims. The Syrians soon established themselves as Lebanon collapsed into chaos. All the while the Palestinians continued to raid the Israelis whenever they could. In the summer of 1982 Israeli forces routed the PLO in a massive invasion of Lebanon that swept to the outskirts of Beirut. The remnants of the PLO were evacuated to Tunis under a US brokered settlement. The civil war went on. Ethnic and sectarian militias became the law of the land. In the chaos the Iranian backed Hezbollah became the dominant Shia faction.

A peace settlement at Taif in Saudi Arabia in November of 1989 finally ended the fighting, and effectively redrew the National Pact of 1943. The President was to remain a Maronite Christian, but the Prime Minister was now to be responsible to the Parliament. In the new Parliament Christian groups got 64 of 128 seats. Shia and Sunni got 27 seats each, and the Druze and Alawite sects got 8 and 2.

THE CEDAR REVOLUTION

At first it seemed the peace would hold. An amnesty agreement was reached, and most of the militias were disarmed. Elections were held in 1992. In May of 2000 the Israelis pulled out of southern Lebanon. But the Lebanese government was still weak, with a public debt equal to 170% of the country’s GDP. 14,000 Syrian troops remained, in a country smaller than Connecticut. Nor would the Shia Hezbollah militia, allied with the Syrians, disarm. Syrian pressure forced the Assembly to amend the Constitution in 2004, extending the term of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. On Feb. 14, 2005 former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who had worked to stabilize the government’s finances and fund the public debt with Eurobonds, and opponent of continued Syrian occupation, was assassinated in a massive car bombing in Beirut.

The result was a striking outbreak of mass popular protests. Nearly one million Lebanese, Christians and Muslims alike, in a country of 3.87 million, joined the protests, in what became known as the ‘Cedar Revolution’. In April, 2005 the last Syrian troops were withdraw, while in June an anti-Syrian coalition, Rafik Hariri Martyr’s List, won the elections.

THE 2006 WAR AND ITS IMPACT

It seemed that democracy had triumphed. But the Hezbollah remained a force in southern Lebanon. With nearly 5,000 fighters, and a reserve double that, the Hezbollah had access to arms via the Syrians and Iran. On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah forces, in a coordinated attack, ambushed an Israeli patrol, killing three and taking two Israeli soldiers hostage. The Israelis saw this as a repeat of the situation before the 1975 civil war: a militant, guerilla-state using the Lebanese border as a shield to harass Israel at will. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opted for a show of force. The Israelis launched a massive air campaign, attacking targets the length and breadth of the country, while the Hezbollah fired rockets into villages and towns in northern Israel. Israeli ground forces attacked Hezbollah strong points in southern Lebanon. By the time a cease fire was signed August 14, the Israelis had killed over 500 Hezbollah fighters, wounding many more. The cost was high. Over 1,100 Lebanese, mostly civilians, had died in the bombings and raids. 915,000 Lebanese had been forced to flee. The Israelis themselves lost 116 soldiers and 43 civilians, while the economy of northern Israel had been paralyzed. The total cost of the war for the Israelis: $4.8 billion.

Militarily the Hezbollah had gotten the worst of it, losing some 10% of their core strength. But the Israelis had not been able to rout the Hezbollah as they had the PLO in 1982. The Hezbollah had an elaborate system of tunnels and bunkers, which the Israelis were not prepared for. The Hezbollah had effective military hardware: Russian Metis-M and European MILAN anti-tank missiles, Iranian Mohajer-4 pilotless UAVs, Chinese Yingji-82 (C-802) radar guided anti-ship missiles, and Iranian Fajr-5 ballistic missiles, with a range of 75 kilometers. If we were weigh Israel’s casualties and economic losses in proportion to her population and GDP it would be the same as the United States losing 5,480 troops, 2,031 civilian dead, and $526 billion in just over a month.

Thus the Hezbollah emerged from the fighting with a propaganda victory. Moreover the Israeli attacks struck a crippling blow to Lebanon’s economy. The destruction of the Jiyeh power plant alone was an economic and environmental disaster. The Israelis argued, with justice, that Lebanon’s government had failed to crack down on the Hezbollah and that the Israelis therefore had the right to strike into Lebanese territory. But the widespread devastation wrought by the Israeli raids has fueled sympathy for the Hezbollah, while weakening the Lebanese government still further. Justified or not, the Israelis may have done what the French did when they occupied the Ruhr in 1923 to force Germany to pay reparations after World War I. The occupation crippled the German economy and undermined the Weimar Republic. The Israelis may have unwittingly created a weakened ‘Weimar Lebanon’, where the most violent extremists can bill themselves as defenders of the country. If the original raid into Israel was a ploy by Syria and the Hezbollah to get the Israelis to over-react, it succeeded.

CHANGING STRATEGIC REALITIES

Operation DESERT STORM, the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now the Israeli strikes into Lebanon, demonstrate the devastating effect of air power. Modern air forces can rain apocalyptic levels of firepower on an opponent. In Iraq, the US military swiftly smashed Saddam Hussein’s forces, once they were weakened by air attacks. In contrast, ground combat, particularly urban fighting, is still carried on much as it was in World War II. The infantry still slugs it out as at Iwo Jima or Stalingrad.

Another set of technological innovations has changed warfare as effectively as machine guns and barbed wire did in the early 20th century. These are camcorders, cell phones, and blogs. As the world grows ever more crowded and interconnected, the carnage and devastation of a bombing raid can be seen and commented on in practically in real time on CNN and Al-Jazeera, not to mention You Tube and innumerable blogs. War has always been heinous and inhuman. Now we see its face ever more clearly.

High speed communications, 24-7 media coverage, and international pressure make the kind of savage house-to-house warfare needed to dig a determined opponent out of heavily populated areas very difficult to sustain. Casualties that were common in the American Civil War or World War I are simply no longer tolerated. What this leads to is a situation where a well armed, determined force, on its home ground and enjoying the support, or at least the toleration of the populace around it, are like medieval barons holding a castle. In the Middle Ages laying siege to a castle was so time-consuming and expensive that in practice most medieval kings simply cut a deal and recognized the local warlord as a count or a duke. A kingdom like France was once simply a geographical expression. The real power lay with local lords behind castle walls. Think of Somalia or Afghanistan today. Just as the dukes of Normandy or Aquitaine were once a law unto themselves, now the Hezbollah, or Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, control their own micro-states.

THE POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES

The United States has a stake in seeing a stable, democratic Lebanon succeed. The ‘Cedar Revolution’ was impressive, and a welcome change in the Arab world. But currently the U.S. is in a very weak position. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, President Bush and his advisors were counting on a short war. They therefore made a number of decisions to make the war in Iraq more politically palatable in the short run:

1: Calling out the National Guard instead of re-instituting the draft to sustain troop levels.

2: Relying on deficit spending, while in fact cutting taxes, rather than raising taxes to finance the war.

3: Shielding the public from unpleasant images of the war. Graphic pictures of American casualties are not seen on the mainstream media. The military will not even allow photographs of flag draped coffins being brought back to the States.

4: Trumpeting the war in Iraq as a major part of the War on Terror.

Politically each of these moves was very astute, and Bush was reelected in 2004. But each was a short term solution that now makes dealing with the situation in Lebanon very difficult. Sending more National Guard units abroad now, while the war in Iraq is still raging, would be politically disastrous, especially as Election 2008 draws nearer. Getting funding for either aid programs or a military intervention is growing more difficult by the day. Bit by bit a sense of the true awfulness of the war is seeping in through, via You Tube, blogs, and now, returning veterans. Finally, talking up the war only made the let down even worse when the situation in Iraq turned into a stalemate.

Whatever good intentions may have gone into it, Iraq has now made further U.S. military interventions anywhere all but impossible. As the new Democratic Congress begins investigating the war in January of 2007, every mistake Bush and Rumsfeld made in Iraq will be highlighted and fed to the media. Republicans will not want another war between now and November of 2008.  And if the ominous downturn in the American housing market turns into a recession, the storms rattling the windows of the Oval Office will become a hurricane. When the American public was disillusioned by the Versailles Treaty after World War I, it turned its back on world affairs for twenty years. We could be looking at the beginning of such a period again. The people who regard America as a hyper power that needs to be checked may soon get their wish.

SOLUTIONS?

Hezbollah could not operate without Syrian arms and support. That Syria finally pulled its troops out of Lebanon is a sign that they are open to an accord. In a direct confrontation with Israel, Syria would lose, perhaps catastrophically. It is reported that the Hezbollah has some Iranian Zelzal-2 solid fueled missiles with a range of 100-200 kilometers. These can hit Tel Aviv. But the Hezbollah has not used them, suggesting that neither they nor the Syrians want a final showdown with the Israelis. If the Hezbollah have their ‘castle’ they know it is not an impregnable one. Moreover, the Syrians understand that they cannot control Lebanon by armed force alone, especially if the Sunnis, Christians, and the Druze community can count on US and Israeli arms and funding.

Here is where the European Union could step in. Currently Lebanon has a total foreign debt of $26 billion. The EU could offer the grand gesture of assuming most of the debt, provided that Lebanon retains a democratic government. In a country with 28% of the people still live in poverty the impact could be profound. It would also give the Lebanese leadership a lifeline other than Syria.

In the long run some kind of settlement with Syria is necessary. Syria can’t control Lebanon, but it can destabilize it. The Syrians want trade, investment, and the restoration of the Golan Heights, which the Israelis overran in 1967. Opening Syria up to Western investment, and supporting their claims in the Golan could get the Syrians to drop the Hezbollah. This last is a very dangerous move. It will show the Arab world that in the end force works. Israel, smaller than New Jersey, is very vulnerable to attack. But Israel’s problems: her low birthrate, the teeming slums of the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip will not go away. With America wary of another war, the Israelis need to come to terms with their neighbors. They did it with Egypt and Jordan. It can be done with Syria. The alternative is a war to smash Syria once and for all, that may well put Israel in the most danger if it succeeds. What would such a war cost, in lives and treasure, and what would replace the Assad regime?

The boundaries of the Middle East were drawn at a time when the power of the West was at an all time high. Like it or not, times have changed. We can improve our tactical capabilities. We can improve our intelligence gathering. But as Gen. George C. Marshall put it: “A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War.” It may no longer be in our power to shape events as we like in the Middle East at a cost we can afford. This is not a pleasant thought. But if it is true, the sooner and more frankly we admit it and work out settlements that reflect the changed situation the better.

Timothy Neeno

---------------------------------------------

The Author of the article holds M.A. degree in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. For the last 2 years he taught history at the University of Phoenix. Prior to that, he lectured in numerous countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and South America. He specializes in American history and

U.S. – Asian relations.

---------------------------------------------