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After Hariri
Barry Rubin
February 22, 2005
While we don't yet know for certain who killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri, the political impact is that Syria is being blamed. This event reinforces a new era--perhaps I should say "mini-era"--in the region.
There are now three hopeful signs in this direction, all of which are strengthening moderate forces and suggesting the possibility of change. Of course, this being the Middle East, each of them also contains significant risks and negative factors as well.
--Arab-Israeli conflict: A new Palestinian leader and policy, at least toward obtaining a cease-fire, is reducing violence and raising the possibility of progress. This situation, in turn, is only made possible by a determined Israeli government effort, made at great political risk, to advance in the direction of peace. Egypt and Jordan are helping in this effort.
--Iraq: Not only the election itself was a success but the final results of the balloting are encouraging. The main Shia, Islamic-oriented coalition has about half the seats, enough to satisfy that community but not so much that it can write a constitution without compromising with other forces.
--Lebanon/Syria: Hariri's assassination is encouraging the highest level of domestic and international pressure on getting Syria out of Lebanon in many years. This situation is only increasingly isolating the sole remaining Arab radical state.
Syria is in trouble for many reasons right now, though this does not mean anything is going to change. None of these factors is fatal. On the domestic scene, there is an unprecedented democratic movement, though it is weak and kept down by repression. The economy is in bad shape, though not as much as in some past years. President Bashar al-Asad lacks his father's strength and political craftiness, though he seems firmly in control.
Internationally, Syria is relatively isolated. It cannot depend on any Arab state to help it, though this has been true since the 1980s. The United States is extremely angry about Syria's behavior toward Iraq. After all, the Syrians have given safe haven to high-ranking officials of the former Saddam Hussein government who are using vast amounts of stolen money to finance an anti-American terrorism campaign. They are allowing the insurgents to arm, recruit, train, and cross the border from their territory. To put it bluntly, Syria is waging war on the United States and getting away with it, except for minor economic sanctions.
At the same time, though, Syria has three non-Arab foreign allies. Iran, also trying to subvert Iraq, has worked closely with Damascus since the 1980s. Russia chose this moment to announce a major arms deal with Syria, the first in decades. Europe, too, though somewhat disquieted by events in Lebanon, has been good to Syria. Only last December, the European Union reached an association agreement with Syria that required no concessions on the part of Damascus. With so many holes in the net around Syria, international pressure is not likely to moderate that regime or have any effect in pushing it out of Lebanon.
The story of Syria's occupation of Lebanon remains largely untold. The Syrian army entered the country 29 years ago and since then, for all practical purposes, Damascus has governed in Beirut. Lebanon's politics have been manipulated, its economy looted, and one million Syrian settlers have gone to live there. Any Lebanese politician who dared raise his voice against this--including then-President Bashir Gemayel and Druze leader Kemal Junblatt--were assassinated by Syrian agents.
Hariri had become increasingly active in challenging Syrian domination. Up until recently, such activities were largely restricted to a relatively small sector of Christian Lebanese. Yet the length and blatant interference of Syria's control, alongside regional currents toward democracy, have been stirring up a broader coalition. Hariri, one of the richest men in the region and a leader of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims was playing a key role in this process. His elimination seemed a warning to others to stop making trouble, in a country where assassination has been a regular part of the political process.
Such is the changed atmosphere in the region that few outside of Syria and its agents even bothered to try blaming Israel for the killing. Blaming Israel and the United States for all problems does not work as well as it used to as a way of deflecting criticism. Increasingly--though perhaps only temporarily?--people are cutting through the thick walls of rhetoric blasted out by the dictatorial regimes and radical Islamist oppositions.
Yet will Hariri's killing spark the kind of mass movement seen in such European countries as Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine (the only Middle Eastern example that comes to mind, ironically, is Iran's 1978 revolution) where people have gone into the streets in huge numbers to overthrow a regime? It should also be remembered that aside from direct repression, Syria also has significant political assets within Lebanon. This seems to include the Shia Muslims, the country's largest single community.
Clearly, only significant international effort plus a domestic upsurge is going to have any chance of freeing Lebanon. Without major European--and especially French--support for such an effort, Syria is likely to remain in control. Yet perhaps this issue will also become one more element in challenging the stagnant order which has for so long plagued the Middle East and ensured instability here.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
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