Syria backs down; will leave Lebanon

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Can an anti-Hezbollah party organize in the South, where the writ of the Lebanese army does not run, but that of armed Hezb does?

Anti-Hezbollah? Why would ****es join and anti-Hezbollah party? Do you mean parties other than Hezbollah?

[Ramo]

well first of all, theres no active terror insurgency in Lebanon, and the Syrians have been there for 29 years. This is as if the the US were still in Iraq in 2032, and after the insurgency had died down for over a decade.

And clearly, they're attributing that at least in part to the Syrian occupation.

As for the Lebanese oppositon being fascists, really, thats beneath you.

I'm not saying that the opposition to Syria if fascist, but that the opposition to an equal Shia vote is fascist. Which doesn't include the entire Maronite community, but some of it. Anyways, to a large extent corporatist policies dominate in Lebanon IIUC.

And I really dont see that Hezb has any plan for gradual withdrawl by Syria, equivalent to UIA's position on American forces in Iraq. UIA wants to strengthen Iraqs armed forces so US can leave/ Hezb wants to keep the Leb army OUT of south lebanon, and remain the principle force there. I really dont think Hezb is much like UIA at all - its more like the Sadrists.

It's a question of control in the gov't. As I said, the Shia are shut out despite their plurality. They don't trust the central gov't. The militia remains, and they're backing Syria, because they see them as bargaining chips over the other sectarian factions. There's no timetable for Syrian withdrawal because there's no timetable for Shia political inclusion.

first of all, not all Maronites were Phalangists.

No, but most of them were. The Phalangists dominated Maronite politics from just prior to the civil war up till '92.

IIUC its incorrect to say that no one else had influence.

Not saying otherwise.

Of course to the extent that Hezbollah represents a group that wants to impose Islamism on the state, and uses terrorist methods, and wants to subordinate Lebanon to Syria to get its way, they would seem to retroactively justify the fears of generations of Maronite politicians.

Incidentally, Hezbollah's terrorism has declined to a great extent these past years. As you said, this isn't 1983.

Can an anti-Hezbollah party organize in the South, where the writ of the Lebanese army does not run, but that of armed Hezb does?

Amal still exists, don't it?

second - why do you say predominantly Maronite

By all accounts, most of the anti-Syrian demonstrators are Maronite. Yes, there are Sunnis and Druze, but it's mostly Maronite.

- Hariri was a Sunni Muslim, and his community has largely joined the opposition -

And, interestingly enough, Tripoli (a Sunni city) had a pro-Syrian demonstration. Karimi is also a Sunni. And again, note the Zogby poll: more Sunnis believe that Israel/US had somethign to do with the Hariri assassination than Syria.

while some Maronite pols (not just Lahoud) have supported Syria.

Lahoud is pretty irrelevent. There's Franjieh (interestingly enough, he supports also Syria as a power-broker in fear of Muslim violence), and that's about it. Wasn't I arguing your point earlier?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DanS
It looks to me like Syria is playing its hand OK with the few resources it has available. I don't know what else we can do but pressure them for a fair election in Lebanon. We'll have to polish up our stick.

As Ramo said, Lebanon already has fair election in ME terms.

[Ramo]

You have Christians as being 22% where as what I read put them slightly higher at 25%.

I've read 20-25%. I put it at 22%, because that's the number that (combined with all else) makes 100%. In any case, that's just an approximation based on data with no doubt enormous uncertainties.

Common on Ramo. We both know there were hundreds if not thousands of buses. We both know you can’t get 150,000 people into a city without buses and mass transit.

Not just any buses, but buses going through the Syrian border. And Beirut itself has well over 150,000 people (IIRC, it's around half the population of the entire country).

[Dinner]

Originally posted by GePap
So unless you or LoTM can dig up a relatively unbiased source supporitn ghe allegations, they are baseless rumors and do nothing for the debate but create a smokescreen.

Get off your high horse. No one has claimed the majority were from Syria instead people have claimed a significant minority were from Syria or were motivated out of desire for money or social services the Syrians provide (either directly or through their puppet Hezbollah). Nice way to contruct a straw man. Sure, Hezbollah continues to have wide spread support in Lebanonese ****e areas but not a small part of tat support is derived from social services & military employment directly paid by the Syrian and Iranian governments.

If Syria truly withdraws and stops interfering with Lebanon then it is likely the hard line terrorists in Hezbollah will lose out to the moderates once the terrorist funds from Syria & Iran dry up. The goal should be to eliminate those funds as much as possible and to try to encourage moderates in Hezbollah to join an IRA style peace deal.

[Ted Striker]

I think the UN and the international community needs to step it up and provide a mountain of assistance to Lebanon to make sure they get off to a good start.

I don't think it's enough for the world to say, "okay, Syria get out of Lebanon, now Lebanon, go ahead and fix yourself."

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Get off your high horse. No one has claimed the majority were from Syria instead people have claimed a significant minority were from Syria or were motivated out of desire for money or social services the Syrians provide (either directly or through their puppet Hezbollah). Nice way to contruct a straw man. Sure, Hezbollah continues to have wide spread support in Lebanonese ****e areas but not a small part of tat support is derived from social services & military employment directly paid by the Syrian and Iranian governments.

Oh, this puppet crap again- Hezbollah is NOT a Syrian puppet org..it amazes me Oerdion, you think that everyone and everything must be a puppet...how obnoxious. As for the social services part, yes, Hezbollah does provide social services- cause the central government never did.

If Syria truly withdraws and stops interfering with Lebanon then it is likely the hard line terrorists in Hezbollah will lose out to the moderates once the terrorist funds from Syria & Iran dry up. The goal should be to eliminate those funds as much as possible and to try to encourage moderates in Hezbollah to join an IRA style peace deal.

Given that only two states consider Hezbollah a terrorist org, an end to funding ain't going to happen unless Iran and Syria decide its not in their interests anymore.

As for a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel, I doubt that would happen prior to either a more comprehensive peace between Palestinians and Israelis, or a full agreement between Syria and Israel.

[GePap]

MOre form the Daily Star

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=13240

Frightened Syrian workers take refuge in Sidon municipality after latest hate crime

By Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff
Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Frightened Syrian workers take refuge in Sidon municipality after latest hate crime

SIDON: More than 45 Syrian laborers took refuge at the municipality in Sidon on Monday after four of their countrymen were severely beaten. The southern port city's mayor, Abdel-Rahman Bizri, spoke personally with the frightened group, saying that they need not be afraid and pledging to catch the perpetrators.

Bizri denounced the incident of violence, saying Sidon is known for its diversity and open-mindedness.

He said: "What happened does not represent the city, but rather a group that is getting paid. We will not allow such incident to happen again."

According to the victims, the unknown assailants first cut off the power and then stormed the apartment where the four Syrians, employees of the Talal Zaatari company for agricultural equipment, were sleeping. They beat them with wooden boards and sharp metal objects, all the while shouting insults and demanding that they leave the city.

Three of the Syrians were seriously wounded in the attack.

One of the victims, Nabil Zouqani, whose face showed traces of the beating, said that he and his companions Sayyed, Salah and Jamil Hariri "have been working here for nine years and we have never been harmed."

Internal Security Forces have opened investigations into the incident.

The attack is the fifth in a series of incidents of violence aimed at Syrians here since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri's sister, Sidon MP Bahia Hariri, issued a statement Monday condemning the latest attack against Syrian laborers, saying: "Attacking our brothers the Syrian workers is part of the same plot that assassinated Rafik Hariri."

She described the act as "contradictory with our morals and Arab identity," and said it "dragged the people into strife."

Also Monday, the Human Rights Association in Syria issued a statement calling for officials in Lebanon and Syria "to protect human rights and the rights of workers."

It said: "Authorities and non-governmental organizations in both countries should take their responsibilities toward this matter and not abandon their duties of protecting workers trying to make a living."

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian nationals, mainly farmers and construction workers, have come to Lebanon because of the promise of higher pay. But their numbers have noticeably dwindled since some have become targets after Hariri's death.

A day after the assassination, dozens of demonstrators clashed with Syrian laborers in Hariri's hometown of Sidon, lightly wounding five Syrians. In the northern town of Minyeh, 23 tents housing dozens of Syrian laborers were burned, although the cause was unclear.

Due to the continued threat of violence against them, many Syrian laborers have quit their jobs in Lebanon and returned home. - With agencies

Thye one bit I find funny thought is about Human rights orgs. in Syria....

[Ramo]

Incidentally, lotm, Amal also supports the Syrian occupation. Why do you suppose that's so, if sectarian concerns are irrelevent?

[Az]

I think the UN and the international community needs to step it up and provide a mountain of assistance to Lebanon to make sure they get off to a good start.

Lebanon is hardly the proper place.

They are one society that can do it by itself. They just need stability.

[GePap]

Here is perhaps the best article from the Daily Star, an annalysis of the situation:

Lebanon shifts from emotions into politics

By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Three weeks after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the fog of emotion and anger is clearing and is being replaced by the more legible confusion of political battles old and new. The easy victories have been achieved, the spontaneous mass public sentiments have been expressed, and the more significant political battles are just beginning. All the principal parties have now logged on to the virtual ideological chat room that Lebanon has become.

We will know in the coming weeks if Lebanon will make political history by being the first Arab country in which mass popular mobilization changed a government and changed the policy of a powerful neighbor (Syria in this case). Conversely, this may turn out to be a fleeting moment of romantic idealism, in which the spirit of sovereignty and freedom from Syrian domination that genuinely drives so many Lebanese will fall victim to more powerful forces of entrenched Arab interests and Western diplomatic expediency and short attention spans.

The important new development is that the principal players have entered the political fray and made their opening moves. Syrian President Bashar Assad Saturday announced a phased pullback of Syrian troops to the border region, and Monday the Syrian-Lebanese Higher Committee added new layers of imprecision to this. It announced that the initial pullback would be made this month, but further moves would depend on bilateral consultations at a later stage. This is known as thumbing your nose at Washington and Paris.

The Lebanese opposition, and major Western governments, quickly expressed disappointment in this, insisting that a full, immediate withdrawal from Lebanon was required to meet the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1559. This is known as leaning harder on Damascus.

The Lebanese opposition to Syria's presence in Lebanon in turn held a rally in Beirut Monday in which tens of thousands took part, demanding an immediate and full withdrawal of all Syrian military and security personnel. The main pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon, headed by the powerful Hizbullah party, weighed in last weekend with a speech by its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. He thanked the Syrians for protecting Lebanon against disintegration during the civil war, and rejected Resolution 1559, which wants Hizbullah disarmed along with Syria's withdrawal. Hizbullah's massive march in central Beirut Tuesday was its response to the anti-Syrian opposition movement's dominance of the street since the Feb. 14 Hariri assassination.

Three things are happening simultaneously here that need to be watched closely, in order to know which way events will unfold. The first is a process of localization and provincialization of these dynamics into very narrow Lebanese terms - ones that are existentially important for the Lebanese people, but less compelling for the rest of the world.

The second is the transformation of raw human emotions into hardnosed political ideology - as all Lebanese and Syrian actors mobilize and flaunt their power assets and start the process of making compromise deals to achieve reasonable results for all concerned, while preserving the national unity and stability of Lebanon.

The third is the slow disaggregation of local, regional and global political dynamics from each other. The parties are now identifying their core interests - incumbency, honor, security, dignity, hegemonic power, wealth, credibility and survival come to mind as key priorities - and discard marginal issues.

In this respect, the pressure that has been mostly focused on Syria and its handpicked Lebanese leadership in recent weeks will now shift to the Lebanese opposition and Hizbullah. The Lebanese opposition is being tested on several important counts. How long can it persist primarily on the anger and shock of the Hariri murder? Is it really broad based, or primarily a traditional Christian opposition to Syria's dominance in Lebanon these last 30 years? Can it channel the emotional power of its supporters in the street into a credible political force that achieves meaningful demands? After it brought down the brittle Omar Karami government, has it aimed too high in demanding the resignation of seven top Lebanese security directors? Would asking for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud fragment the opposition fatally? And, how will the opposition reconcile 1559's demand to disarm Hizbullah with the party's strong Lebanese national legitimacy and popularity?

Hizbullah itself now faces perhaps the biggest political test of its life since it came into existence in the early 1980s. How will Syria's imminent withdrawal from Lebanon impact on Hizbullah's domestic standing? Will it engage more directly in Lebanese national politics, or remain apart as the "resistance" that safeguards Lebanon's security from Israeli threats, even if those threats seem less active since Israel was chased out of the South 5 years ago? How will Hizbullah reconcile the widespread Lebanese demand (now also blessed by Syria) to implement 1559, without disarming Hizbullah?

Hizbullah's massive demonstration in central Beirut Tuesday sent a powerful multiple message to several constituencies: Hizbullah physically and symbolically laid claim to central Beirut for half a day; dwarfed the anti-Syrian demonstrations with its human waves of marchers in epic proportions; made it clear to Washington, Israel and others that it would not be disarmed easily; clarified to all interested parties that substantial numbers of Lebanese appreciate their relations with Syria; and prepared the ground for it to engage in domestic and national Lebanese politics in the wake of a Syrian withdrawal, especially via the rolling regional mass rallies it has called for throughout major Lebanese cities, starting in Tripoli and Nabatiah as of Sunday.

The Lebanese-Syrian decision Monday to redeploy Syrian troops by the end of this month will elicit stronger American and Western pressure on Syria, which we've already witnessed since Saturday night. This in turn will heighten pressures on Hizbullah and the Lebanese opposition groups to clarify their positions and, more importantly, sort out their assorted contradictions and vulnerabilities.

Only one thing seems certain right now: The Syrians will withdraw all their forces from Lebanon in the coming months, because of the immense local and global pressures to do this, which Syria acknowledges. All other developments will depend on how the parties mobilize and use their political assets in making threats and deals.

Rami G. Khouri is a member of THE DAILY STAR staff.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=13266

[GePap]

OK, this is silly, but another article relevant to the current questions about Hezbollah:

Keeping the spotlight off Hizbullah



Wednesday, March 09, 2005

The most striking aspect of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East William Burns' visit to Lebanon on Feb. 16, which was followed by another by his deputy some 10 days later, is the diplomats' intentional withholding from expressing any public stance regarding Hizbullah, although the United States has not changed its stance on the issue.

U.S. President George W. Bush had raised the issue with his European counterparts during a tour of Europe to demand the inclusion of the resistance group on the continent's list of terrorist organizations.

The initiative falls within the framework of a plan by Washington, in cooperation with the European Union, to dismantle UN Security Council Resolution 1559 to insure the successful implementation of this resolution.

Had Washington insisted on dealing with the resolution's articles as a whole, it would not have won the international and Arab unanimity that it achieved without the possibility of the failure of some articles aiming at the disarmament of Lebanese and non-Lebanese militia, i.e. Hizbullah and the Palestinian refugee camps, especially since the international resolution was the fruit of U.S.-French cooperation in the Security Council.

Diplomatic sources said a bargain was then struck between the U.S. and France: France would support the United States on the Hizbullah issue and in return Washington would support Paris in restoring Lebanon's independence and sovereignty, knowing that Washington is also motivated by other reasons to proceed with the Lebanon file.

These consist of pressuring Syria as a key state to conflicts in Iraq and Palestine.

However, the U.S. deems it easier to play the card of the presence of a foreign military force in Lebanon - especially since not all Arab countries agree on Syria's hegemony in Lebanon. This reality is especially the case after former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination.

The assassination bid deprived Syria of one of its bargaining chips, at least with the U.S., which has always considered Syrian troops in Lebanon as a stabilizing force.

Lebanon would have caused the failure of the implementation of Resolution 1559 had it requested the implementation of the resolution as a whole.

Putting aside calls for disarming Hizbullah has largely contributed in avoiding internal strife or a major conflict.

The Lebanese opposition has had a substantial role in keeping the spotlight off of Hizbullah by giving priority to the Syrian withdrawal, perhaps due to the fact that Hizbullah represents the majority of Lebanon's Shiites, who cannot be turned into enemies as they may rush to offer support for the Syrian presence in Lebanon.

Besides, Hizbullah's disarmament can be carried out by destroying the reasons behind the armament, namely the altered circumstances since the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000.

In a recent news conference, Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said that the party's presence aims at insuring peace in the region, thus going beyond the truce accord between Lebanon and Syria.

He also sought to provide an alternative equation for the Syrian presence that officially and publicly claimed to achieve peace by preserving its war machine as a reserve for the recovery of the Golan Heights.

Nasrallah urged the opposition to specify it as a resistance and not a terrorist group in a bid to elude Resolution 1559 later. Nasrallah is confident that it is the government's responsibility to protect Hizbullah from 1559.

Outgoing Premier Omar Karami has already defended the Syrian military presence in Lebanon under the alibi of depriving Hizbullah and Palestinian camps from their arms, which means Lebanon's commitment to the implementation of all articles of Resolution 1559. This is why Nasrallah offered Hizbullah's protection to the opposition, particularly as with the likely settlement of the Shebaa Farms conflict, Hizbullah's case would be reduced to a domestic issue. This is also why Nasrallah called for a demonstration in central Beirut and not in Beirut's southern suburbs or South Lebanon or the Bekaa. And this is why demonstrators were called to raise the Lebanese flag alone.

This is a new phase for Hizbullah, which is acting based on the experience of others but according to its own plan to avoid others imposing their plan on Hizbullah.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap



The Daily Star has a transcript of Nasarallah's speech. The main point is against UN 1559. As for disarming, It would be great for Hezbollah to disarm, or have its militias become part of the government army.

Open elections will require all "parties" to be on even playing field.

Really? Hmmm...I notice you have a woman who voted in Iraq's elections..yup, one in which all the parties were on an even playing field, speically all the ones with large armed militias....

None of the party militias in Iraq outside Kurdistan exert the kind of control that Hezbollah does in southern Lebanon. As for Kurdistan, thats a different issue - thats a region that aspires to full autonomy, autonomy it in fact exercised from 1991 to 2003. Does Hezbollah look toward a federal solution to Lebanons problems? If so thats the first ive heard of it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Anti-Hezbollah? Why would ****es join and anti-Hezbollah party? Do you mean parties other than Hezbollah?

I am not going to speculate why - im trying to understand the extent of Hezbollah controll over Southern Lebanon.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
As for Kurdistan, thats a different issue - thats a region that aspires to full autonomy, autonomy it in fact exercised from 1991 to 2003. Does Hezbollah look toward a federal solution to Lebanons problems? If so thats the first ive heard of it.

So its OK for a political party to keep a huge armed militia as long as its demands are for large autonomy, but only if that is what they want? Why is that? Casue its all in the name of democracy and legitimacy for the people seeking autonomy to have the option of getting what they want through violence, as lond as all they want is to split the state?