Post-Cedar Lebanon
Thanassis Cambanis, who’s covered the Middle East for The Boston Globe and The New York Times, has an original commentary out for Middle East Progress on how to deal with the new Lebanese realities rather than the fantasies of the Cedar Revolution:
In short, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran are stronger in Lebanon that any point in the last decade. In order to foster better ties with a Lebanese government that includes Hezbollah as well as the pro-Western coalition, U.S. policy makers should consider building stronger relations with ambiguous Lebanese politicians who must deal with Hezbollah as a practical matter. And Washington might have to make a thorny choice: find a way to deal with a government dominated by Hezbollah, or else cut off all ties and relations with one of the few states in the Middle East where a real battle of ideas has been joined. The dialogue in Lebanon is no less critical because of the struggle between Hezbollah, which maintains its own independent military, and those who want the state at last to exercise a real monopoly on security.
It will no doubt be awkward to find a way to forge relations with a state that has at its center a group defined as terrorist by Washington and several European countries including Britain, and which remains in a state of war with Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally. But more complex political quandaries have been resolved, and in this case the formula will probably involve Americans talking directly to independents that have close ties to Hezbollah, rather than party officials themselves.
To add an obvious addendum to this, clearly policy toward Lebanon will be impacted by whether or not the United States chooses to aggressively pursue the seemingly promising possibility of Israel-Syria peace talks. But it seems to me that this kind of approach to Lebanon would be a useful complement to an approach to Syria.
20 Responses to “Post-Cedar Lebanon”
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December 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 am
For starters, the US needs to get over the idea that Hezbollah is some kind of Iranian implant in Lebanon. Though certainly tied to Iran, Hezbollah serves as the political vehicle for about 40 percent of Lebanese — no wonder it thinks it shouldn’t be ignored or erased by politicians from other communities more congenial to the US.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:35 am
The only way to resolve the issues of Hizballah is to resolve the issues of Israel and Palestine.
Which isn’t going to be happening any time soon.
So Lebanon is going to end up being run by Hizballah, Syria and Iran – and Israel is going to attack Lebanon again – and get their asses kicked again like in 2006, except at the cost of even more Lebanese civilians.
Lebanon is not an issue. Lebanon is Lebanon. Hizballah is only an issue for the US because ISRAEL is an issue for the US – one which the US establishment doesn’t want to deal with because AIPAC runs the US Congress and both political parties.
Hizballah is not a “terrorist” group in the sense of Al Qaeda. They are a nationalist resistance group that does have the ability to operate overseas – and has. Pissing them off is not a good idea, because compared to Al Qaeda, Hizballah is the “A Team” of insurgencies. If the US tries to destroy Hizballah, we probably WILL see a “nuclear terrorism incident” in the US. Hizballah is a group that probably COULD steal an Israel nuke and use it against either Israel or the US.
You want to defang Hizballah, defang Israel first. After that, who cares who runs Lebanon? Who do you know there?
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The British government has said neither the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) nor the Bajrang Dal are terrorist organisations and their members are not banned from entering Britain.
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