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The United States' new strategy in Lebanon
The secret war against Hizbollah
By Alberto Cruz
06/12/07 "ICH
" -- --- - A time-worn adage in journalism says
that redundancy enables a better understanding of language, so
here we go again : the tree of Iraq stops us seeing the Middle
East wood. Absorbed in our navel-gazing, we behave like children
covering our ears to stave off a reality we find distasteful.
That happens in Iraq when we refuse to acknowledge that there
are more variables than are apparent when trying to pin down
what is happening in that country and it also happens in Lebanon
when reality smacks us in the face. Reality turns up to find us,
not asleep, but otherwise engaged.
In less than a year we have witnessed two predictable events
whose occurrence nonetheless took many people unawares. The
first was the war last summer and now it is happening again with
confrontations between the Lebanese army and an apparently
Palestinian organization linked to the most orthodox Islam. In
an article published on June 13th last year at the very start of
the war, I wrote, "In Lebanon there is not an Iraqi-style
sectarian confrontation, but Sunni radicalism is on the increase
in places like Tripoli and Akkar where it seems Al Qaeda is
growing strong." (1)
Like it or not, Al Qaeda's progress in the Middle East is very
fast and the terrain is made fertile by the war in Iraq. De
facto, Al Qaeda is like the alien in Ridley Scott's film - a
creature that grows inside the body feeding on it and when
sufficiently strong it attacks its host. Scott could have added
a line to the film's credits - "based on real life events".
Events that took place in Afghanistan during the Soviet
occupation. The aliens in those days were Islamists from all
over the world who arrived in that land with the generous
support of the United States and Saudi Arabia and who, after the
Soviet withdrawal, evolved into the Al Qaeda phenomenon.
The Al Qaeda alien is now autonomous in Iraq and active on
several fronts (against the occupiers, the Sunnis and the Shia
whom it fights considering them apostates) but it can still not
manage to fend for itself in Lebanon and needs a body on which
to feed.. That body may well be Fatah al Islam, an organization
that does not openly identify itself as part of Al Qaeda but
does say it is "understanding of the brothers" (referring to Al
Qaeda) and shares with them their religious and political
tenets. Fatah al Islam identifies itself as "followers of the
salafiyyah tradition of the Islamic nation", says it has a
presence "in the land of Al Sham" (2) and in one of the few
known documents of this group, dated in February, calls on
muslims the world over to fight against "the enemies of Allah",
criticises "apostate leaders" and especially Hamas for having
signed the deal with Fatah to secure a government of national
unity and accuses Hamas of having made "concessions in the
rights of the Palestinians".
What are the reasons for this confrontation with a group
inserted into a Palestinian refugee camp, not comprised simply
of Arabs of that nationality who in fact are a minority, and an
army that stayed on the sidelines during the war with Israel?
Here are a few of them.
The Second Report of Ban Ki-moon
On May 7th this year the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon,
published his second report on Lebanon (the fifth in all since
the end of last summer's hostilities). In it he maintained the
previous line and drew even further away from the attempted
even-handedness of his predecessor Kofi Annan in the report
Annan published prior to his retirement in December 2006, the
third overall. Nothing is squandered in Ban Ki-moon's report (3)
and the accusations against Hizbollah for not disarming and
against Syria and Iran are constant throughout the document's 14
pages and 66 points.
Ki-moon repeats to exhaustion that the Lebanese government is
"legitimate" (ignoring the fact that the resignation of Shi'ite
ministers and one Christian minister render it unconstitutional)
thus dismissing protests that have been made since last November
calling for a more representative government of national unity;
it insists that arms trafficking continues from Syria to
Hizbollah (accepting Israeli cliams on that issue and thus
giving the all clear to Israel's constant violations of
Resolution 1701 through its air force and spy plane flights);
and despite having said in the previous report of March 14th
this year that the maps defining the Shebaa Farms as either
Syrian or Lebanese would be ready in June this year, now he says
the map-makers "continue their work" and asks both countries to
agree their territorial limits and frontiers. This request is
not simply a formula to draw a new line on the map, it is vital
to get the UN Security Council to extend the UNIFIL mission on
the Syrian frontier so as to control the traffic in arms that,
according to Israeli arguments, occurs along the whole length of
the border.
Ban Ki-moon's report appeared after a failed attempt by the
United States, France and Britain to get a new Security Council
resolution on Lebanon in support of the Siniora government and
accusing Syria and Iran of continuing to help Hizbollah with
arms and money. The attempt to get the resolution passed was
stopped by China and Russia and other member countries of the UN
Security Council like Ghana and South Africa. In the failed
draft resolution, the UN Security Council was asked to form an
"independent mission" made up of "a committee of UN experts" to
control the border. (4) A mission that was to be made up of
European countries and into which were invited Egyptians and
Jordanians, the two countries in the area that maintain
diplomatic relations with Israel.
Once that effort failed it was necessary to show unwilling
countries and the world in general that the objectives in view
were praiseworthy. No sooner did the fighting in Nahr al Bared
begin than accusations against Syria have appeared in
practically all the news media. Of Fatah al Islam little is
known beyond that it is a splinter organization from Fatah
Intifada and from that Syrian patronage is inferred. The
Lebanese government and its Western mentors have rushed to
accuse Syria of being behind this group with the purpose, they
allege, of obstructing the international tribunal investigating
the death of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. For almost two years
the case of Hariri (a Sunni multi-millionaire closely linked to
the Saudi regime and particularly Prince Bandar bin Sultan, now
Saudia Arabia's Security Minister) is the only pretext offered
by a corrupt neo-liberal government to explain what is happening
in Lebanon and is nothing more than a sign of its own corruption
and its submission to neo-liberal politics designed by the IMF
and the World Bank.
Syria may be involved or it may not. What is clear is that Fatah
al-Islam became known in 2006 at the same time as the
proclamation of the Islamic State in Iraq by Al Qaeda. And for
anyone familiar with the situation in the Palestinian refugee
camps it is obvious that the group has nothing to do with Syria.
In the course of a visit to some of the Palestinian refugee
camps in Lebanon (Nahr Al Bared, Ein el Helwe, Chatila y Burj el
Barajne) in December 2006 during an impressive popular
mobilization for a representative national government in Lebanon
(5), leading members of the Popular Council that governs Nahr al
Bared spoke with me about the existence among them of Fatah al
Islam whom they did not describe as a Palestinian organization
since it was made up mostly of Saudis, Morrocans, Algerians,
Jordanians, Yemenis and Egyptians , "many of them jihadists in
Iraq". Other representatives of Ein el Helwe mentioned that
after the confrontations between militias of another Islamist
organization, Jund al Sham and other Palestinian organizations
like Asbat al Ansar, also radically Islamist, which caused two
deaths, some members of Jund al Sham moved "to the north" and
have joined Fatah al Islam. Compounding the suspicious
appearance of this group in Lebanon, even then it was noted that
the funding for its growth came from the Saudis and Hariri's own
son Saad with the double aim of limiting the prestige of Hamas
among Palestinians and also, above all, that of Hizbollah.
The United States' secret war against Hizbollah
Time, an implacable judge, has ended up vindicating people who
have been right all along despite the campaigns of the Western
mass media. No one can dispute that Hizbollah's victory over
Israel is perhaps the most striking event so far in the 21st
century, given that it put an end to one of the myths of the
20th Centruy, the invincibility of Israel. It is what Middle
East experts are beginning to call the "Hizbollah effect" and it
has overturned neocolonial designs in this part of the world.
That is why from almost the very moment it acknowledged Israel's
defeat the United States has set in motion a secret war against
the Lebanese political-military movement.
Various newspapers (the UK Guardian, the Lebanese Daily Star and
the US New Yorker for example) have published since January this
year news or reports on that issue. In March the journalist
Seymour Hersh said that the US Vice-President Dick Cheney,
National Security Council adviser Elliot Abrams and Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, himself his country's Security Minister, had
agreed to fund Fatah al Islam "as a counterweight to Hizbollah".
On April 12th, the Daily Star noted that the United States had
earmarked US$60m to reinforce Interior Ministry forces and Sunni
organizations identified by the paper as "jihadists", without
specifically mentioning any of them. Some days later Asia Times
gave ample coverage along the same lines, "Iraq has arrived in
Lebanon. Hundred of jihadists spread among more than 400,000
Palestinians who live in the refugee camps are joining Ansar al
Islam or Fatah al Islam clearly following plans of Al Qaeda and
with combat experience acquired on the Iraqi battlefield
fighting the US occupation."(6) And Hizbollah itself, via its Al
Manar television station confirms the thesis, alleging that the
presence of jihadists in Lebanon is part of a US, Israeli and
Saudi strategy seeking a regional war between Sunni and Shia
which would see the partition of Iraq followed by the partition
of Syria and Lebanon. (7)
The US plan is being implemented by Fouad Siniora's government
which has not hesitated for a moment to accuse Syria of
protecting and arming Fatah al Islam. With this episode, on the
one hand strong tensions are built up with the aim of softening
the positions of countries critical of US, French and British
efforts to secure a new UN Sceurity Council resolution to extend
UNIFIL's mission, to control the Syrian frontier under the
pretext of arms smuggling and to justify a kind of international
tutelage of Lebanon. The new French President Nicolas Sarkozy
will have his first test to see if he maintains the policy of
his predecessor Jacques Chirac who has received favours and
money from Saad Hariri and who in return supported him
unconditionally following his father's assassination.
On the other hand, the Lebanese army is being tried out in a
role it has not been involved in since the Taif peace agreement,
until now : internal repression. What is being seen is the
possibility of a future confrontation between the Lebanese army
and Hizbollah, which explains why the political military
movement has from the outset supported the army. In a somewhat
complex statement, Hizbollah has condemned the attacks of Fatah
al Islam against the Lebanese army at the same time as it has
criticised the government ("we feel there is someone who wants
to drag the army into confrontation and bloody fighting to serve
well-known projects and objectives") and asked for a political
solution to the crisis to avoid more suffering for the already
hard-hit Palestinian population of the camps. (8) Hassan
Nasrallah, Hizbollah's Secretary General has been more explicit,
saying " the problem in the north can be solved politically and
judicially in a way that protects the Lebanese army, our
Palestinian brothers, a state of stability and peace wihtout
turning Lebanon into a battlefield on which we fight Al Qaeda on
the Americans' behalf". Nasrallah went even further and
categorically said that what imperialism wants is a conflict
between Al Qaeda and Hizbollah and "is bringing Al Qaeda
fighters from all over the world to Lebanon" to that end. (9)
Nasrallah also said, in a warning to the Siniora government and
the forces that support it that "the Lebanese army is the
guardian of national security, stability and unity", for which
it is respected as the "only institution" able to preserve those
things and that an attack on the army is the "red line" whose
transgression that Hizbollah will not tolerate by anyone.
Furthermore he put his finger on the sore point by affirming
that military aid provided by the United States is dangerous and
asks the Siniora government "where were these arms when Israel
bombed your vehicles and your positions? It is something one has
to ask the Lebanese, Palestinian and Arab peoples." Nasrallah
has repeatedly accused the Bush administration of unleashing a "fitna"
or "fragmentation within Islam" referring to tensions and
confrontations between Sunnis and Shia.
But there is more. NATO has in mind building a military base in
Qleiat very close to Tripoli - where the Nahr el Bared camp is
sited - and to the northern frontier with Syria. It will
accommodate a helicopter squadron, special forces units and will
train the Lebanese Army and police. (10) The area will already
have been visited in mid-April by a team of US, German and
Turkish military looking for the ideal location.
The US and its European and Arab allies are doing all they can
to avoid the collapse of the Siniora government because that
would be seen by the Arab peoples as an unequivocal sign of US
decline in the Middle East. For that reason every change in the
current correlation of forces in Lebanon (where the Shia
population is under-represented in the government despite
forming 40% of the coutnry's population) needs to be blocked,
which in turn explains Siniora's resistance to the opposition
forces' democratic proposals : either a government of national
unity or a bringing forward of elections.
The fiasco of the Paris 3 aid commitments
Into this scenario one has to add that the aid (almost US$8bn)
promised to the Siniora government by the Western powers and
many Arab countries during January's Paris summit not only never
came but is in fact generating debt. Treasury minister Jihad
Azour has had to recognize that the bogged-down political
situation is going to cost Lebanon a billion dollars since the
neo-liberal economic measures promised in order to get that aid
cannot be implemented. Parliamentary assent is required for that
to happen and the opposition is clear that there will be no
parliamentary quorum so long as elections are not called or else
until a national unity government is installed. One must not
forget that Saudi Arabia has big financial interests in Lebanon
that cannot proceed so long as the current parliamentary boycott
persists.
On May 10th, the Siniora government signed an agreement to
oversee Lebanon's State sector spending with the IMF, heavily
criticised by Hizbollah, Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement
(the biggest Christian organization composed mainly of that
religion's middle and lower-middle classes). The instability
helps prop up Siniora, hands arguments to those forces pulling
the strings from the outside and to some extent confounds the
opposition albeit indirectly since in supporting the Lebanese
army they are obliged to align themselves to a degree with the
government. That is something Siniora's pro-Western, neoliberal
administration actively sought since several criticisms have
been heard internally of what is considered "complicity with the
opposition" by a section of the army, which is mostly made up of
Shia.
And with that panorama, a question : if it is of such interest
for the UN to enforce resolutions on Lebanon - how long before
194, the right of return of the Palestinian refugees? The Arab
League plan dusted off after Hizbollah's victory included this
right, but in the negotiations between the Saudis, Egyptians,
Jordanians and US and Israeli emissaries, they are already
talking of accepting just a symbolic return. The Palestinians,
once more history's great pariahs, are turned into exchange
currency and cannon fodder.
Notes
(1) Alberto Cruz, "La lección de Hizbulá" http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=34516
(2) Salafiyyah Islam is the tradition of following the first
believers of Mahomet's generation. The reference to Al Sham is
historical and refers to the area currently comprising
Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.
(3) Fifth semester report of teh Secretary General on the
application of Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004)
S/2007/262 of May 7th 2007.
(4) The Daily Star, 20 de abril de 2007.
(5) Alberto Cruz, "Hizbulá lee a Gramsci" http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=43303
(6) The Asia Times, 20 de abril de 2007.
(7) Al Manar, 23 de abril de 2007.
(8) Al Manar, 20 de mayo de 2007.
(9) Al Manar, 25 de mayo de 2007.
(10) Al Diyar, 15 de abril de 2007.
Alberto Cruz is a journalist, political scientist and writer
specializing in international relations.
Translation copyleft by tortilla con sal.
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