"All the parties have started again to be armed, as if we had gone back more than 20 years and learned nothing."[1]

Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir
Patriarch of Lebanon's Maronite Christian community

The withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon in 2005 marked one of the most significant American diplomatic achievements in the Middle East in years. Washington played a decisive role in mobilizing international pressure on Damascus, encouraging defections among Lebanon's governing elite, and inspiring mass demonstrations in Beirut, leaving Syrian President Bashar Assad little choice but to abandon the world's only remaining satellite state. Much like the Bush administration's spectacular liberation of Iraq, however, the emancipation of Lebanon has been overshadowed by chronic instability, sectarian polarization, and the looming threat of civil war.

While American officials have put a brave face on Lebanon's unfortunate trajectory, it has been a strategic disaster for Washington, catalyzing the collapse of Syrian diplomatic isolation, renewed Arab engagement with Iran, and the proliferation of Al-Qaeda affiliates in the heart of the Arab Levant. That other regional and international governments (both friendly and unfriendly) have played starring roles in this tragic saga hardly diminishes the administration's resounding failure to project American influence in Lebanon.

The central dynamic underlying this failure is the administration's steadily multiplying investment of "symbolic capital" in an uphill drive for political hegemony by incumbent elite factions that has been losing steam since the day Syrian troops departed. While Lebanon's intricately gerrymandered electoral system and skewed sectarian distribution of parliamentary seats enabled the March 14 coalition to win a slim parliamentary majority (with a fraction of the popular vote), its lack of a strong democratic mandate, failure to redress lingering socio-economic and political distortions of the occupation (e.g. rampant institutional corruption, Shiite economic deprivation, Christian political marginalization), and internal fragility have proven to be debilitating political weaknesses. American efforts to strengthen the coalition have been plagued by jaw-dropping miscalculations, chronic "Chalabi syndrome" (taking information provided by local supplicants at face value) and path dependent public diplomacy.

While acknowledging unpleasant realities is problematic in a country where politicians shift foreign allegiances at the drop of a hat, the Bush administration's public statements on Lebanon are eerily out of step with developments on the ground even by the standards set by its predecessors. The resignations of all Shiite cabinet ministers last November elicited effusive American praise of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's rump government for embodying "the diversity of Lebanon itself,"[2] while the peaceful convergence of a fourth of its population into the streets of Beirut twice last December[3] to demand a national unity government was dismissed as a "coup d'etat" instigated by Iran and Syria.[4]

Few US officials really imagine that two of the least popular regimes on the planet are capable of conjuring two of the largest per capita anti-government demonstrations in world history (or that Lebanon's largest sectarian community has "lost all free will," as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt frequently intones),[5] but these assumptions have become staples in the outgoing conventional wisdom of American think tanks, enormously constraining the administration's freedom of action. While encouraging Lebanon's ruling coalition to form a more representative government and carry out sweeping reforms could stabilize the country and erode Syrian and Iranian influence in the long run, two years of hyperbolic American rhetoric in support of the status quo have ensured that any political compromise in Lebanon will be seen as a symbolic defeat for the administration in the short run, both at home and abroad - a tradeoff that the White House is unwilling to make.

Background

Until recently, Lebanon's proclivity to disintegrate under duress, whether congenital or exogenous (i.e. the surrounding sea of tyrannical predators), was considered too injurious to American interests to be left unattended. After green-lighting a failed Israeli bid to pacify the country and leading an ill-fated multinational peacekeeping mission in the early 1980s, Washington gave the nod to Syria. Every stage of Syria's expansion was tacitly sanctioned by the United States, from the initial entry of its military in 1976[6] to the capture of West Beirut in 1987[7] and the final offensive in 1990 that drove Gen. Michel Aoun into exile and shattered the last fragments of Lebanon's First Republic.[8] De facto American sanction for the occupation[9] critically weakened internal and external resistance to Syrian domination of Lebanon, as the Lebanese people and foreign governments alike came to recognize the futility of offending Damascus so long as it had the sanction of the world's lone superpower.[10]

While the Bush I administration saw the occupation as a temporary necessity to be gradually rolled back,[11] the incoming Clinton administration saw it as a longer term palliative to draw Syria into peace with Israel and a means of preventing Lebanon's 350,000+ Palestinian refugees from obstructing a comprehensive peace settlement that failed to recognize their "right of return." Although US policymakers publicly hinted that the United States would help bring about a "Lebanon free of foreign forces" once a peace treaty was concluded,[12] they sent Damascus unmistakable signals to the contrary (e.g. periodic Israeli public statements pledging to recognize Syrian interests in Lebanon as part of a peace settlement)[13] and rigorously adhered to the polite fiction that Lebanon already had a fully sovereign, democratically elected government.

Few in Washington were consciously amenable to Lebanon's satellitization over the long term. Appeasement was less a willful decision to abandon Lebanon than an article of faith in the "new Middle East." Once a comprehensive peace settlement is reached, the thinking went, economic prosperity will be the name of the game in the region and Syria will have far less leverage over its smaller neighbor (some Western observers talked half-seriously of Lebanon dominating Syria in the long run). While there was some validity to this assumption, American officials failed to recognize its logical corollary - that Assad would be prepared to sign a peace treaty only if the expected intrinsic benefits outweighed the guaranteed political, strategic, and economic returns of the occupation (the latter ranging from Syrian worker remittances to artificially imbalanced trade relations), a condition that simply never obtained.[14] Far from moderating Assad's stance toward Israel, uncontested control of Lebanon reduced his need for the economic "dividends" of peace.

In a similar vein, Western and Arab Gulf states subsidized the occupation by pumping billions of dollars in aid and soft loans into the Lebanese economy. Rather than encouraging the rise of an autonomous private sector, however, external aid facilitated the rise of a parasitic economic order dependent on the looming shadow of Syria. The elite nirvana of flat taxes, cheap foreign labor, and chronic rural underdevelopment[15] built by the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in the 1990s produced only meager economic growth, widening income inequalities, and crushing foreign debt, while "leaking" an estimated $1.5 billion annually in graft (nearly 10% of the country's GDP).[16] In return for helping high-ranking Syrian officials in charge of Lebanon grow fabulously rich (most notably Maj. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, the commander of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon; Vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam; and Army Chief of Staff Hikmat Shihabi), Hariri gained enormous influence within the Syrian regime itself (which is largely why Assad found it necessary to remove him from office for two years while paving the way for his son's ascension). However, he never aspired to lead Lebanon out of Syria's orbit so much as to gain influence within it, even after being forced to share power with his archrival, President Emile Lahoud.

Moreover, Lebanon's postwar economic and political order depended on the radical Islamist Hezbollah movement to restrain the Shiite underclass from challenging the state and provide Iranian-funded social welfare services to compensate for the government's neglect of the poor. The only thing that dissuaded Hezbollah from mobilizing the Shiite street against economic and political injustices (Lebanon's power-sharing formula allots Shiites only 21% of parliamentary seats and bars them from the presidency and premiership, respectively reserved for Christians and Sunnis) was Damascus. The Syrians awarded the "privilege" of maintaining a powerful militia to fight Israeli troops in south Lebanon exclusively to Hezbollah and, by extension, the Shiite community,[17] which had long been left to fend for itself against powerful enemies (first the Palestinians, then the Israelis). Most Shiites came to see the "resistance" as both a necessary instrument of defense and a form of temporary compensation for decades of state neglect.

By cultivating these interdependencies, Damascus created a system manifestly unable to function on its own (let alone restrain Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Lebanon) in the event of a precipitous Syrian withdrawal. Even Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), which spearheaded mass demonstrations against the occupation, unwittingly played a role in preserving this delicate ecosystem - governing elites were kept in check by the knowledge that a Syrian withdrawal would soon be followed by the return from exile of a towering nationalist figure who repeatedly vowed that they will be tried on charges of treason. Consequently, tacit American support for the occupation continued despite the collapse of the Israeli-Syrian track of the peace process.[18]

Liberating Lebanon

Syria's obstruction of Operation Iraqi Freedom - a far greater and more immediate threat to American interests than the prospect of Lebanon's disintegration - changed everything. In March 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell's fired a warning shot by reviving the term "occupation" (absent from American lexicon on Lebanon for nearly two decades) in a congressional subcommittee hearing,[19] clearly with the intention of exchanging continued American forbearance in Lebanon for Syrian cooperation in Iraq. However, while Assad grudgingly retreated from logistical support for Sunni jihadist infiltration into Iraq to logistical noninterference (essentially the policy of Saudi Arabia), he refused to offer the kind of robust cooperation Washington demanded (lest the jihadis turn on him and mobilize Syrian Sunnis against Alawite "heretics" at home).

After signing largely symbolic sanctions legislation in late 2003, the only way to further squeeze Syria in Lebanon was by mobilizing broader international and domestic Lebanese pressure on the Syrians. The French (and, discretely, the Saudis) were eager to support an American campaign to subvert Syrian control of Lebanon, but not if the administration intended to back off in exchange for Syrian cooperation in Iraq (a secondary concern to both). Both were interested less in a Syrian withdrawal than in bolstering the political power of Prime Minister Hariri, a close personal friend of both French President Jacques Chirac and the royal family of Saudi Arabia (Hariri made his fortune in the kingdom and even assumed Saudi citizenship before returning to Lebanon as premier in 1992).

Although Bush and Chirac publicly called for Syrian non-interference in the Lebanese parliament's election of a president, what they wanted was Syrian interference in support of candidate close to Hariri - non-interference would have left parliament deadlocked, as Hariri controlled only a third of the 128-member parliament and none of the other political blocs had the slightest interest in seeing the presidency fall under his sway (Jumblatt, who controlled a 14-seat bloc in parliament, had spent much of 2004 publicly sniping at Hariri and making blood-curdling threats against the United States in hopes of winning Syrian favor).[20] It was only after Damascus instructed parliamentarians to extend Lahoud's term (days before the actual vote) that the Security Council passed Resolution 1559, calling for the withdrawal of "foreign forces" from Lebanon.

The Security Council's formal commitment to securing a Syrian withdrawal fundamentally shifted the political playing field in Lebanon against Damascus - illustrated by defection of Jumblatt, who instructed his parliamentary bloc to vote against Lahoud's extension, pulled his representatives out of the cabinet, and cemented an alliance with the mainstream Christian opposition Qornet Shehwan Gathering. While Hariri carefully avoided outward signs of opposition to Syria, he quietly planned to join forces with Jumblatt and Qornet Shehwan in Lebanon's Spring 2005 parliamentary elections.

The assassination of Hariri in February 2005 was presumably intended to halt this wave of elite defections and might well have succeeded had the Bush administration not demanded an immediate Syrian withdrawal and - more importantly - prodded the Saudis to do likewise. After a few weeks of hesitation, Hariri's political bloc (now led by his son, Saad) began mobilizing the Sunni masses against the occupation, and for a brief moment Lebanon's most powerful elite factions stood side by side with the FPM to demand Lebanon's independence. It was not to last.

A Risky Gambit

Aoun was eager to form a united opposition slate with Saad Hariri and Jumblatt upon his return from exile days after the Syrian withdrawal, but he was in for a rude surprise. Jumblatt was adamant that no more than three seats be reserved for FPM candidates in the opposition's electoral slates. In effect, the Druze leader was forcing Aoun out of the coalition, as he knew all too well that the FPM could win far more than three seats running on its own. Aoun had tested the party's electoral strength in a parliamentary by-election less than two years earlier (after boycotting all previous national elections), when a virtually unknown FPM candidate captured 73% of the Christian vote running against the scion of a prominent Christian family backed by the entire governing elite (e.g. Hariri, Lahoud, and Jumblatt) and most of Qornet Shehwan.[21] The reasoning behind Aoun's expulsion was vintage Jumblatt - he feared (correctly) that he would lose influence within the American-backed coalition if it included a powerful Christian leader (all of the other Christians in the coalition were dependent on the political machines of Jumblatt or the Hariri family to win election).

With Aoun's departure from the coalition, Jumblatt and Hariri could hope to win a majority only by making two controversial decisions that would have far-reaching implications. First, they insisted on preserving Lebanon's occupation-era electoral law, which effectively disenfranchised Christian voters by embedding most of them in majority Muslim electoral districts. When this sparked an angry outcry by Christians,[22] the Bush administration helped put the issue to rest by publicly demanding that there be no postponement of the elections to allow for redistricting. In so doing, it blundered by publicly accusing Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir of "adding fuel" to sectarian tensions (violating a taboo that even the Syrians respected most of the time) and declining to publicly retract the statement.[23] Success in ensuring that Christian votes wouldn't decisively affect the outcome of the election came at the expense of fatally undermining its perceived integrity.

A second vital component of the Hariri-Jumblatt coalition's strategy was its acquisition of endorsements from radical Sunni Islamist clerics (critical in mixed Sunni-Christian districts of north Lebanon)[24] and Hezbollah (critical in mixed Druze-Christian districts of Mount Lebanon).[25] While the former were bought with pledges (subsequently honored) to amnesty suspected Al-Qaeda operatives languishing in Lebanese prisons,[26] Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's price for support was continued government sanction of the movement's "resistance" to Israel - formalizing the quid pro quo that evolved under the Syrian occupation.

Having been assured by March 14 leaders that they would easily win a two-thirds "supermajority" of seats needed to oust Lahoud (and having approved of the dubious methods largely on this basis), American officials were stunned when the coalition was trounced by the nationalists in the Christian heartland and ended up capturing only 56% of the seats overall. This left it with a stark choice - acquiesce to Aoun's ascension as president (for it would need the votes of FPM deputies to win an impeachment) or allow Lahoud to remain in office until the expiration of his extended term in 2007.

For all of their anti-Syrian rhetoric, Hariri and Jumblatt preferred to leave Assad's man in the presidency rather than bow to the wishes of nearly three quarters of the Christian electorate and accept Aoun's ascension. Without controlling the presidency, they would be unable to unilaterally replace Syrian-vetted military officers, judges, and diplomats. Furthermore, they refused to offer the FPM a major ministry to join the government after the elections (Aoun would have accepted interior or justice), turning instead to Hezbollah (which had hitherto declined cabinet representation), the Amal party of Speaker Nabih Berri (united under a single Shiite banner with Hezbollah), and pro-Lahoud Christians as coalition partners. The result was a cabinet composed mostly of former high-ranking officials of Syria's 1990-2003 satellite state or their political subordinates (Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was the longest-serving finance minister of Syrian-occupied Lebanon).

None for All

The March 14 coalition began its stewardship of Lebanon with a perilously weak democratic mandate. Christians and Shiites (roughly two-thirds of Lebanon's population) had voted overwhelmingly for the FPM and Hezbollah, respectively, while the coalition could claim majority support only among Sunnis and Druze (roughly a third of the population). This translated into a slim parliamentary majority only because of inegalitarian constitutional and electoral statutes promulgated under Syrian occupation. Unable to stack the Constitutional Court with loyalist judges, the coalition was forced to dissolve Lebanon's highest judicial body indefinitely (in violation of Article 19 of the Lebanese constitution) in order to fend off Aoun's challenge to the election results (which gained strength after the publication of a critical report by the European Union's observer mission).[27]

The coalition's tenuous democratic mandate left it little choice but to honor its campaign pledge to Hezbollah - declining to interfere with its arms shipments from Iran[28] and refusing to obstruct (or even publicly criticize) its periodic cross-border raids. Until the coalition acquired a measure of broad-based appeal among Shiites, no credible Shiite politician would be willing to serve in the government if Nasrallah called for a boycott. Moreover, the coalition's weak popular appeal among Shiites and Christians meant that it could not risk alienating its core Sunni constituency by cracking down on the proliferation of armed Sunni Islamist groups in the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon. In short, the reconstitution of a sovereign Lebanese state was virtually impossible in the absence of major economic and political reform.

While the Siniora government promised sweeping change, the coalition's lack of a unifying political vision, entrenched economic interests, and inability to withstand defections (owing to its slim legislative majority) produced an acute collective action dilemma that it has never managed to overcome. Although reform would hypothetically have served the collective interest of the coalition by strengthening the state and defusing Shiite and Christian alienation, in practice individuals and factions were willing to go to virtually any lengths to defend their own parochial interests. Jumblatt, for example, conspicuously sent a delegation into talks with the FPM at the first sign of tensions with Hariri.

Like all classic free rider problems, the solution lies in an outside mechanism to restrain the predatory impulses of individual actors and guide them to a course of action that advances their collective interest. Rhetoric aside, however, the Bush administration has subscribed to the same "Lebanon will be Lebanon" pessimism about prospects for change as its predecessors, focusing instead on cultivating an alliance with Jumblatt on par with Saudi patronage of Hariri's Future Movement. This would prove to be very useful in obstructing Saudi influence over the coalition as needed, but it only exacerbated the coalition's inability to make tough choices.

Consequently, there has been little systemic reform of any kind in Lebanon since the Syrian withdrawal. A glaring illustration is the proliferation of unregulated rock and sand quarries, a sector that should have generated an estimated $2.5 billion during the Syrian occupation had the state simply been willing to collect fees and taxes. Although transparent regulation and licensing would today draw an estimated $130 million annually into the state treasury, the right to strip away mountainsides with minimal interference from the state continues to handed out by politicians in return for kickbacks (with serious environmental consequences).[29]

Particularly irksome to Christians (alongside the coalition's failure to promulgate a new electoral law, which Hariri had promised would be the new government's first order of business) is the lack of reform at the Ministry of the Displaced. Although the ministry was established to provide for the return of mostly Christian refugees expelled from their homes in Mount Lebanon during the 1975-1990 war, it has long been under the control of Jumblatt and most of its budget has gone to compensate Druze squatters who moved into cleansed Christian neighborhoods.[30] The IMF recommended cutting expenditures to the ministry last year,[31] not because it doesn't care about the 83% of the displaced who have yet to be resettled, but because it recognizes that the ministry is merely an institutional façade for Jumblatt's patronage machine.

While the Siniora government's transformation of the internal security forces (ISF) along sectarian lines (Shiites constitute well under 10% of new recruits)[32] is often attributed to the desire to create a "Sunni militia" to counterbalance Hezbollah, a more prosaic impetus is also at work - excluding Shiites serves the parochial interests of politicians who treat employment in the ISF as a form of patronage.

Although Western governments have frequently praised Siniora for his ostensible commitment to economic reform, in reality most of his "reforms" are designed to consolidate entrenched interests. In the absence of a transparent regulatory environment, privatization is not a reform. Siniora's economic plan calls for greater gasoline and value-added taxes that would disproportionately burden the Shiite underclass, while leaving one of the world's most regressive income tax scales in place - not so much because anyone believes it is a workable solution to Lebanon's socio-economic problems, but because it is the only method of raising taxes that disparate elements of the coalition will freely commit to.

Ironically, one place that did witness substantial reform after the Syrian pullout is the Ministry of Energy and Water, under Hezbollah cabinet minister Muhammad Fneish.[33] Fneish was no more altruistic than other ministers; he simply had nothing to lose by cracking down on entrenched oil and gas cartels (he was decidedly less enthusiastic about tackling rampant theft of electricity in the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut). This is a critical distinction. FPM control of a major ministry is a red line for the coalition mainly because Aoun, like Fneish, would have absolutely nothing to lose by acting on his pledges to clean up government, even if his motives are completely self-serving. Lebanon's senior Shiite cleric, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, spoke for many when he lambasted the "thieves who made a fortune out of running the country" and called for a government of people "with a clean history."[34]

In February 2006, the FPM and Hezbollah signed a memorandum of understanding outlining their vision for reform, which was greeted with virtually unanimous assent in the Shiite community and 77% approval in the Christian community.[35] The Bush administration was infuriated by the accord, fearing that it would make the March 14 coalition even more willing to kowtow to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. That was true, of course, but only because the coalition was so manifestly unable to win Shiite support through other means - which is precisely what Aoun claims to be attempting. The FPM insists that the majority of Shiites (if not Hezbollah itself) will eventually countenance disarmament once they feel their future in Lebanon is secure.

The idea that Shiite alienation is a "fixable" obstacle to Hezbollah's disarmament seems to have escaped American policymakers. The administration was convinced by its new Lebanese allies that the solution to the Siniora government's lack of "backbone" was the removal of Lahoud, which would enable it to establish firmer control over the Lebanese military. The only way to achieve this (short of accepting Aoun as president) was by ratcheting up pressure on Assad to the point that he would be willing to sacrifice his remaining institutional foothold in Lebanese government. It was also hoped that isolating Syria might help persuade Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the leader of the pro-Syrian Amal party (which formed unified Shiite alliance with Hezbollah after the Syrian withdrawal) to break with Nasrallah and support Lahoud's impeachment. The Bush administration was already committed to squeezing Syria for broader strategic purposes, but the erroneous belief that Damascus held the key to solving Lebanon's domestic problems (as March 14 leaders invariably maintained) validated its unwillingness to press for political and economic reform.

Targeting Damascus

At the time of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, Assad was struggling with strong domestic challenges and unprecedented international isolation owing to widespread suspicions of his regime's involvement in the assassination of Hariri. In Washington, there was an almost universal consensus that now was the time to push forcefully for across the board capitulation by Assad in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Lebanon, once a carrot in the toolbox of American diplomacy with Syria, was now a stick.

The most powerful weapon at the administration's disposal was the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) established to investigate the killing of Hariri. With little doubt as to the involvement of some node of Syria's intricate, multipolar web of official and unofficial operatives in the assassination (all other explanations are wildly implausible) and a cooperative Lebanese government now in place, American officials were convinced that the UN investigation would eventually find a smoking gun.

However, while the commission quickly uncovered significant (if hardly conclusive) circumstantial evidence of collusion and evidence tampering by Lebanese security officials close to Lahoud, no direct evidence of Syrian involvement ever came to light, save for the testimony of secret witnesses later revealed to be highly questionable[36] and likely planted by the March 14 coalition (or possibly, as Jumblatt has suggested, planted by the Syrians to taint the investigation).[37] Four senior Lebanese security officials have been detained at the behest of the IIIC for eighteen months in hopes that they will implicate Syria, but to no avail. The commission has since backed away from claims of Syrian involvement.

Unable to produce conclusive evidence of Syrian complicity in the Hariri killing, the Security Council expanded the mandate of the IIIC to include subsequent assassinations of (mostly marginal) Christian public figures, but none of these investigations appears to have borne fruit. Indeed, in an environment where fear of Syria has been effectively channeled into support for the ruling coalition, the presumption of Syrian involvement in most of the killings is rather dubious - particularly in view of past "false flag" killings by the Lebanese Forces.[38]

More importantly, Washington insisted on bylaws for an international tribunal that minimize the burden of proof necessary to issue indictments[39] and maximize American influence over the appointment of judges.[40] Once indictments are issued, the thinking goes, it won't matter whether there is enough evidence to convict because no one expects Assad to hand over Syrian defendants for trial - the plan is to use his refusal as a justification for UN sanctions. For this reason, the administration has insisted that the tribunal be established before the IIIC issues its final report on the killing (which has been repeatedly postponed).

While most Lebanese support the formation of an international tribunal, these issues have proven to be politically divisive. Above and beyond their understandable desire to see the Syrians brought to justice for the killing of Hariri, March 14 leaders know that failing to axiomatically support the expanded mandate of the IIIC and robust tribunal bylaws would undercut the basis of unflinching American support that is their political lifeblood (they have little else to offer Washington in return). For the same reason, Hezbollah has refused to accept these terms without gaining something in return. Thus, it consented to the December 2005 expansion of the IIIC mandate only in exchange for a statement by Siniora implying that Hezbollah is not a militia subject to disarmament under Resolution 1559 (Hariri had been willing to accept a more clear cut statement, but Jumblatt scuttled the deal). Its refusal to endorse the Security Council's recommended bylaws without commensurate political concessions contributed to the onset of the current political crisis (see below).

For all of the political capital the coalition has invested in the tribunal, it has not yet seen a domestic return. In January 2006, the Bush administration launched a major diplomatic initiative through Egyptian and Saudi intermediaries to persuade Syria to secure Lahoud's resignation.[41] Although its not entirely clear what Syria was offered in return, Hariri and Jumblatt were so confident Assad would accept that they publicly vowed to organize mass rallies if Lahoud didn't leave office within a month (so as to claim credit for his departure). However, Lahoud's expected resignation never materialized and March 14 leaders quietly dropped their threats to organize demonstrations.

Assad may well have been willing to sacrifice Lahoud in exchange for a reprieve from the West, but there is little reason to believe that the Lebanese president would have resigned at his request (primarily concerned with rehabilitating his battered public image among Christians, Lahoud had nothing to gain by handing control of the presidency to the March 14 coalition). Hopes that Berri would defect fizzled for much the same reason - prevailing public opinion would have made it political suicide.

The Great Israeli Hope

For nearly a year after the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, the Bush administration discouraged Israel from retaliating forcefully for Hezbollah's periodic cross-border raids on the grounds that it would disrupt Lebanon's delicate political transition. However, as the prospects of Syrian intervention to oust Lahoud receded and the Western confrontation with Iran intensified, the administration came to see the matter in a very different light. When Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 raid, the Jewish state received enthusiastic support for a major war in Lebanon not only from Washington, but also from France and Saudi Arabia.

The 34-day Israeli military campaign that followed was intended less to achieve concrete military objectives than to "energize a political outcome" in Lebanon, as one American official put it, conducive to the dissolution of Hezbollah's "state within a state."[42] In short, this meant inflicting a level of punishment on Lebanon sufficient to turn public opinion against Hezbollah.

However, while the Israeli campaign was sufficiently destructive to render future cross-border raids politically unthinkable for Hezbollah and provide a pretext for the deployment of 13,000 UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon, it nevertheless bolstered public support for Hezbollah among Shiites (and, to some extent, non-Shiites). Moreover, the war undermined public confidence in the March 14 coalition. For the 48% of the Lebanese public that believes some or all of its leaders had advance knowledge of the attack,[43] the war branded the coalition as traitorous; for the other half, it branded the coalition as an out of the loop, tertiary American ally.[44]

Because of the Bush administration's staunch public support for the Israeli campaign, the war led to an upsurge in public hostility to the United States. Although the Saudis and the French secretly encouraged the Israeli campaign,[45] they made sure to denounce it publicly,[46] leaving Washington alone to bear the reputational expenses. While 69% of the Lebanese public viewed the United States as an "enemy" after the war ended, according to an August 2006 poll, less than 30% felt this way about France or Saudi Arabia (Syria and Iran scored 22% and 19% respectively).[47] Four months after the end of the war, a Gallup poll showed 59% of Lebanese still had a "negative" or "very negative" opinion of the United States (up from 42% in 2005).[48]

The combined impact of these results was politically devastating for the March 14 coaltion. By sealing off Hezbollah's access to the battlefield, the war removed its primary incentive for continued political quietism. At the height of its regional and domestic popularity, Hezbollah would now have to fight injustices closer to home.

The Political Fallout

Once the dust settled, Hezbollah wasted little time in declaring a sweeping reorientation of its focus to the establishment of a "just and strong" state. In October, Aoun and Nasrallah jointly called for the establishment of a national unity government in which the Hezbollah-Amal coalition and the FPM would be granted a "one-third plus one" share, or "blocking third" of the cabinet, which would enable opposition ministers to collectively veto major government decisions simply by not showing up to vote (the constitution requires a cabinet quorum of two-thirds). Although coalition governments of this kind have usually been the norm in Lebanon and a blocking third of the cabinet was far less than the opposition's 44% stake in parliament, the March 14 coalition flatly rejected the demand.

While the coalition justified its refusal to compromise on the grounds that a national unity government would enable Syria and Iran to veto Lebanese government decisions, this was largely for Western consumption (only the FPM would gain cabinet seats under the opposition's proposal and few Lebanese dispute that Aoun is a safe bet to hold the line against outsiders). The primary (though conspicuously unspoken) concern of March 14 leaders was that a national unity government would effectively end their chances of winning a majority in the next election cycle (already slim, as they had been reliant on Hezbollah's support to defeat the FPM in 2005). With a blocking third of the cabinet, Aoun and Nasrallah could pressure the coalition to promulgate any number of reforms (a fair electoral law, campaign finance limits, etc.) that would level the political playing field.

As bleak as the political implications of a national unity government may have been for the coalition, rejecting this demand (as well as opposition calls for early elections) was a grim alternative. With public opinion polls showing over two-thirds of the Lebanese public favoring a national unity government,[49] the coalition's refusal to share power eroded the Siniora government's thin veneer of legitimacy in the eyes of most Lebanese, leaving it precariously dependent on Western backing. Since there was no longer any point in trying to steer a path between Western demands and lowest common denominator sectarian consensus, in-mid November Siniora called a cabinet vote on the proposed tribunal charter, prompting the resignations of all five Shiite ministers (and the only Lahoudist minister still loyal to the president).[50] Two weeks later, Hezbollah and the FPM organized the first of two mass anti-government demonstrations drawing over one million protestors and began a continuous sit-in by a few thousand protestors that contintues to this day.

Amidst the flurry of Arab mediation efforts that followed, the Bush administration's overriding imperative was to scuttle any negotiated political compromise that would restrict the coalition's ability to unilaterally dictate policy - an outlook that corresponded perfectly with the preferences of Jumblatt and LF leader Samir Geagea, who would have the most to lose from the establishment of a broad-cased government. While Saad Hariri was somewhat more amenable to the establishment of a national unity government (provided that the opposition accepts a "robust" tribunal statute and other binding commitments to a third party), he was unwilling to break with his allies.

While Washington succeeded in blocking the establishment of a national unity government, it never developed an effective strategy for achieving an acceptable resolution to the crisis. American officials tried persuading Aoun to break with Hezbollah and join the government, but these efforts were ad hoc and fatally compromised by the coalition's collective action curse. Discussions about which cabinet portfolios to offer the FPM in return for joining the government invariably became deadlocked (Lebanese politicians never had to resolve these kinds of issues when the Syrians controlled Lebanon), so Aoun was offered only symbolic cabinet seats (ministers of state). In the end, the administration resorted to threatening Aoun, both privately and publicly, a tactic virtually guaranteed to encourage his continued defiance.[51]

The administration's efforts to bolster public support for the Siniora government have been unimaginative. Its exaggerated (but necessarily vague) praise for the Siniora government's reformist credentials and denunciation of protestors as lackeys of Syria and Iran have been effective only in signaling American determination to preserve the status quo, as were its warnings (however delicately worded) that a change in government would jeopardize billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.[52] However, with anti-American sentiment at an all time high and a large majority of the population clamoring for change, such rhetoric has won over few hearts and minds.

Constructive Instability

Lacking a remotely viable strategy for bringing Lebanon's crisis to a satisfactory resolution, the Bush administration has largely resigned itself to Lebanon's political fragmentation. After the December demonstrations, it authorized covert CIA assistance to pro-government groups[53] and turned a blind eye to the training of combatants by Jumblatt and Geagea, mostly under the guise of registered (and perfectly legal) "security companies." Although March 14 leaders have been careful to speak of taking up arms only in hypothetical terms to counter an attempt by Hezbollah to overthrow the government by force, they are well aware that Hezbollah has never attacked state security forces or engaged in sectarian bloodletting (in sharp contrast to the wartime militias commanded by Geagea and Jumblatt).[54]

While the overall deterioration in Lebanon's security climate is cause enough for political leaders to covet paramilitary forces, there is good reason to believe that they will not be put to solely defensive uses. In November, the Lebanese army arrested nine members of the LF who were conducting a live fire exercise (shooting at targets from moving vehicles) that appeared to indicate training for targeted assassinations (they were released after their credentials as "bodyguards" for the manager of a Christian television station checked out). When opposition activists blocked highways with burning tires during a nationwide strike in January, three protestors were gunned down and several others wounded by masked snipers.

Adding to the potential for sectarian violence is the proliferation of armed Sunni Islamist groups (generously funded by private donors in the Arab Gulf states)[55]), which have been allowed to operate with a surprising degree of freedom since the Syrian withdrawal. In February 2007, a report by investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh claimed that the Bush administration and the Siniora government were directly aiding Sunni Islamist terrorist groups in Lebanon, including Fatah al-Islam, to create a sectarian counterweight to Hezbollah [56] Although Hersh's claims, based on interviews with unnamed American, European, and Arab officials, have not been independently verified, Siniora's office responded with a classic "non-denial denial" suggesting that there is some truth to the allegation.[57]

The Bush administration's tolerance of this state of affairs appears to derive in part from the belief prevailing among pro-March 14 Lebanese and American analysts that Assad cannot risk the eruption of full-blown Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict in Lebanon, which could inspire Syria's majority Sunni population to rise up against his predominantly Alawite-led regime. From this it follows that Syria (and Iran) will be more inclined to "rein in" Hezbollah if conditions in Lebanon are conducive to a violent sectarian backlash against Shiite political empowerment.

Whatever the precise reasons, the sectarian violence that erupted during the national strike in January clearly dampened the opposition's taste for demonstrations and strikes. Aoun and Nasrallah are content to wait until the expiration of President Lahoud's term in September. They have warned that opposition MPs will not attend a parliamentary session to elect Lahoud's successor unless a consensus candidate is agreed upon beforehand, preventing the two-thirds quorum required under the constitution. Although March 14 leaders have condemned the use of this tactic, their objections are compromised by the fact that it was previously employed for more pernicious ends by Rafiq Hariri in 1994 (to prevent parliament from amending his restrictions on the media)[58] and by Geagea in 1988 (when the LF prevented Christians deputies from attending a session to elect a successor to President Amine Gemayel).

Lahoud has warned that if the Lebanese parliament fails to elect a successor, he will dissolve parliament and appoint an interim cabinet to govern the country until such time as a legitimate president can be elected. Although the legality of such a move is dubious, so too is the March 14 coalition's threat to elect a new president without the necessary quorum. The Bush administration has tried to persuade Sfeir to take sides in the dispute by declaring that a quorum of two-thirds is not needed to elect a legitimate successor to Lahoud, but to no avail - in fact, Sfeir has publicly affirmed that a two-thirds quorum is needed (while urging the opposition not to boycott).

A Shifting Equilibrium

While the Bush administration's stance on Lebanon has calcified since the December demonstrations, European and Arab governments have grown steadily more concerned about the political crisis on their doorstep.

After nearly two years of stifling Syrian diplomatic isolation, in late 2006 senior European officials began paying visits to Damascus in hopes of winning a reprieve for the March 14 coalition,[59] offering Assad normalization of relations with the EU in return for his "cooperation" in ending the Lebanon crisis.[60] When EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana visited the Syrian leader in March, the subject of internal reforms and human rights in Syria didn't come up.[61] European overtures to Iran were more discrete, but it received an even bigger prize with Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan's visit to Tehran in January for the first of three meetings with Iranian security officials, culminating in a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Riyadh in March.

Although Bush administration officials opposed the Saudi and European mediation efforts, they basically agreed with the assumption that Tehran and/or Damascus have the power to pressure Hezbollah into abandoning its demand for a national unity government. For all of the criticism meted out to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during and after her trip to Damascus in April, the administration shares her belief that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus"[62] (and, not surprisingly, followed up by dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to meet her Syrian counterpart for the first time). There is heated disagreement only over the question of what tools can best persuade Assad to play ball (i.e. carrots or sticks) and whether he is "ripe" for such a deal.[63]

In fact, there is little indication that either Iran or Syria can force Hezbollah to break with the FPM (the holy grail of non-Shiite Lebanese allies). While Nasrallah has welcomed Arab and European diplomatic engagement with Tehran and Damascus, he has publicly warned that agreements negotiated by outside governments are "not binding to the Lebanese."[64] Corrupt Iranian clerics and Syrian Baathists who are loathed by the majority of their own constituents simply cannot tell the most adored public figure in the Muslim world what to do.

Recognizing this, both the Saudis and the French have begun trying to broker a compromise leading to the formation of a unity government. Saudi irritation with Geagea's obstructionism was quite evident from the astonishingly hostile questioning he encountered in a recent interview with the Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat (e.g. "Why did you not respect the people's view in the elections, which gave General Aoun the biggest Christian bloc and a victory based on the votes of 70% of the Christian electorate?"),[65] a newspaper that closely reflects thinking in official Saudi circles. American encouragement of Geagea and Jumblatt is one of the factors contributing to strains in Saudi-American relations, illustrated by King Abdullah's condemnation of the American occupation of Iraq as "illegitimate" at the Arab summit in late March and cancellation of a White House dinner in April.

The French have made an even more sweeping policy shift since Chirac's departure from office in May, as is evident from Aoun's meeting with the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris and French plans to host a dialogue conference with representatives of all major political factions.

In view of the evolving Arab and European stance, the United States cannot indefinitely obstruct a political compromise based on lowest common demonitator sectarian consensus (a principle deeply enshrined in Lebanon's political tradition). Although Geagea may hold out as long as Washington wishes, Jumblatt is bound to recalibrate his position (with little warning) once he feels that the domestic and regional tide has shifted - a trademark of his politics that many in Washington do not seem to appreciate. Continuing American obstructionism carries the risk that the main contours of a negotiated solution to the Lebanese crisis will be decided through back channels and presented to Washington after the fact.

Notes

  [1] L'Orient-Le Jour (Beirut), 26 February 2006. Sfeir's press spokesman subsequently confirmed the quotation [see Lebanese Catholic patriarch warns rival factions against arms buildup, Catholic News Service, 27 February 2007.
  [2] Interview with R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, LBC, 1 December 2006 (transcript released by the State Department).
  [3] The police estimated the size of the December 1 demonstration to be 800,000, while the opposition claimed 1.5 million. ["Hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah supporters protest in Beirut to bring down government," The Associated Press, 1 December 2006.] The authorities declined to give an official estimate of the size of the December 10 demonstration, but most journalists gave estimates of at least one million. ["Million supporters come out for Hezbollah," United Press International, 10 December 2006; ABC World News Sunday transcript, 10 December 2006]
  [4] Media Stakeout with Ambassador John Bolton, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Federal News Service, 1 December 2006.
  [5] "'Syrian, Iranian threats paralyze Berri' - Jumblatt," The Daily Star (Beirut), 8 January 2007.
  [6] Syrian forces entered in 1976 to shore up Christian militias facing defeat at the hands of Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim forces, after negotiating the so-called "red-line agreement" with Washington (barring Syrian troops from the south and Beirut).
  [7] While there is little direct evidence of explicit American approval, a few weeks before the Syrian entry into West Beirut (ostensibly to put a stop to militia fighting), US Secretary of State George Shultz called the Lebanese capital a "plague-infested place from the Middle Ages" that needed to be "quarantined." [Edward Mortimer, Nora Boustany, "The West Should Look To Syria, Lebanon," The Financial Times, 7 February 1987.]
  [8] An advisor to Elias Hrawi, the president of Syria's rival satellite regime in West Beirut, later paraphrased the American message as follows: "If the battle is prolonged, we will have to express our regret over the continued violence in Lebanon. If you fail, we will not condemn the action but call on the Lebanese to resort to dialogue to sort out their differences . . . Israel will not interfere as long as Syria does not approach south Lebanon or threaten [Israel's] security interests." ["US Agreed Not to Block Move By Syria on Aoun, Lebanon Says," The Washington Post, 16 October 1990.] After the fall of east Beirut, the State Department released a statement saying, "We hope that this ends a sad chapter of Lebanon's history." ["U.S. Urges Support for Lebanon's President," The Associated Press, 13 October 1990] Washington also signaled its approval by reopening the US embassy in Lebanon weeks later.
  [9] US Assistant Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the height of Aoun's 1989 revolt that "things would be worse rather than better" if Syrian troops left Lebanon. Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 15 March 1989. For Aoun's reaction, see Al-Nahar (Beirut), 18 March 1989.
  [10] Most governments in Europe and the Arab world expressed some form of public objection to Syrian domination of Lebanon in the late 1980s. The European Community (EC) reacted to Aoun's "war of liberation" (and the mass Lebanese demonstrations in support of it) by calling for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, while an Arab League tripartite committee issued a report asking Syria to set a timetable for redeployment of its forces from Lebanon (a scathing rebuke by the standards of Arab diplomatic protocol at the time). See William Harris, Faces of Lebanon: Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997), p. 258. "Lebanon: Arabs, split over Syria, searching for peace formula," Inter Press Service, 15 August 1989.
  [11] The conventional wisdom in Washington was that Syria would need American goodwill in order to secure an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and cope with the collapse of his Soviet patron. However, when Secretary of State James Baker flew to Damascus in the summer of 1992 to persuade the Syrians to undertake a limited redeployment of forces stipulated by the Taif Accord in advance of Lebanon's parliamentary elections, Assad flatly refused. For a detailed account of the meeting, see Carole H. Dagher, Bring Down the Walls: Lebanon's Postwar Challenge (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 180-181.
  [12] Typical statements implying this include: "We look forward to the day this country is free of all foreign forces and from the threat of terror and violence. To that end I have come to the region to explore the possibilities for resuming progress toward a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours, including Lebanon." [Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, live news conference, Radio Lebanon, 5 September 1999, transcript by BBC Summary of World Broadcasts]; "We think the surest way to accomplish the withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon is to facilitate a just and lasting, comprehensive Middle East peace" [State Department Regular Briefing, Spokesman Philip Reeker, 24 April 2001]; "In the final analysis, peace will be the best answer to achieve a withdrawal of all Syrian forces from Lebanon . . . our ultimate aim is to have peace treaties between Syria and Israel, and Lebanon and Israel, which would solve this problem" [Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Edward Walker, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, House Committee on International Relations, 29 March 2001]
  [13] Most notably at the beginning of the January 1996 Wye Plantation talks between Israel and Syria. See "Lebanon is trade-off for peace; Country's freedom becomes non-issue in Israeli-Syrian talks," The Baltimore Sun, 4 January 1996. Such reliance upon Israeli statements to reassure the Syrians about American offers that cannot be made public was also evident when Israeli officials suddenly announced to the world in late 1999 that they would not object to Syria receiving American military aid after a peace settlement. See "Israel not opposed to US military aid to Syria," Agence France Presse, 5 January 2000.
  [14] Gary C. Gambill, Syria after Lebanon: Hooked on Lebanon, Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 12 No. 4, Fall 2005.
  [15] See Gary C. Gambill, Lebanese Farmers and the Syrian Occupation, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, October 2003.
  [16] See "Lebanon loses 1.5 billion dollars annually to corruption: UN," Agence France Presse, 23 January 2001; The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 January 2001. The estimate is from a report researched by Information International and commissioned by the United Nations Center for International Crime Prevention.
  [17] Other Lebanese and Palestinian militants were allowed only marginal participation under Hezbollah's supervision.
  [18] Asked during a March 2001 congressional committee hearing if the US was taking steps to facilitate a Syrian withdrawal, newly appointed Secretary of State Colin Powell replied, "We believe that it would be for the benefit of all parties if eventually at some point - I'd like to see it tomorrow, but it isn't going to happen tomorrow - for the Syrian army to leave Lebanon." Hearing before the House Committee on International Relations, 7 March 2001. Bush and Powell both refused to meet with Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir during his visit to the United States in 2001.
  [19] "US pessimistic about full Syrian troop pullback from Lebanon," Agence France Presse, 13 March 2003.
  [20] In February 2004 he declared that "the killing of US soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory" [Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), 12 February 2004]. Two months later, he told Al-Arabiyya TV that he believed the US government was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks. See Steven Stalinsky, Viva La Lebanese Hatred, FrontPageMagazine.com, 20 December 2004.
  [21] See Gary C. Gambill, FNC Triumphs in Baabda-Aley, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, August-September 2003. ["Free National Current" is a translation of Al-Tayyar Al-Watani Al-Hurr that was once in common use. "Free Patriotic Movement" is the party's preferred translation of the Arabic]
  [22] Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir declared, "It is out of the question to hold elections under such conditions." "Lebanon opposition to set up committee to save polls," Agence France Presse, 12 May 2005.
  [23] "Sfeir brushes off U.S. accusations he is stirring sectarian strife," The Daily Star (Beirut), 13 May 2005.
  [24] Hariri reportedly paid the bail for four Sunni Islamist terrorists who had been arrested in September 2004 for plotting to bomb the Ukrainian and Italian embassies in Lebanon and sent Siniora to personally attend a celebration where they were welcomed after their release. Al-Safir (Beirut), 18 June 2005. The Sunni mufti of Tripoli, Taha Sabonji, and numerous other Sunni clerics in north Lebanon openly called upon their followers to vote for Hariri's list (an unprecedented act for clergy of any Lebanese sect).
  [25] As The New York Times noted, "the endorsement of the Shiite Hezbollah party was critical for the opposition (Jumblatt) slate" in Baabda-Aley, where the number of Shiite voters was substantially larger than the coalition's margin of victory. [See "Returning Lebanese General Stuns Anti-Syria Alliance," The New York Times, 14 June 2005]. Moreover, Hezbollah's endorsement eroded the ability of rival Sunni politicians to mobilize the Arab nationalist current against the Hariri family - which was the critical swing vote in several mixed Sunni-Christian districts of north Lebanon.
  [26] One of the first acts of Lebanon's new parliament was the passage of an amnesty law freeing over two dozen suspected Sunni Islamist terrorists (seven had been detained for plotting to bomb the Ukrainian and Italian embassies in September 2004; twenty-six of the detainees were captured in 1999 during a brief, but bloody, Sunni Islamist uprising that left 40 people dead). For more details, see Lebanon: Managing the Gathering Storm, International Crisis Group, 5 December 2005.
  [27] The report was more critical than most in Washington or Paris anticipated, concluding flatly that the electoral law "does not respect the principle of equality of votes" and highlighting a raft of violations, including a "substantial number of allegations of vote buying." In fact, the report said that EU observers directly witnessed "some instances of vote buying" and "was aware of other similar practices," such as payment of tuition fees for students. European Union Election Observation Mission, Parliamentary Elections: Lebanon 2005, Final Report,
  [28] In April 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned in a report to the Security Council that the Lebanese Army has "not been authorized to prevent further movement of the ammunitions" from Syria to Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. See Third semi-annual report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, 19 April 2006 , "Hezbollah endures in Lebanon; Islamic guerrillas not easily disarmed, Western nations find," The Chicago Tribune, 19 April 2006.
  [29] Today, according to the Daily Star, the unregulated quarries sector "continues to be an important financial source for political parties and groups" in government. "Owners of illegal quarries exploit political crisis to resume work," The Daily Star (Beirut), 6 January 2007. See also "Lebanon: Lack of quarry licensing, regulation 'costs Treasury $500,000 a day'," The Daily Star (Beirut), 19 January 2007.  [30] "Decades later, some Lebanese can't go home; Shiites' return after '06 war reminds Christians that they're still waiting," The Los Angeles Times, 2 January 2007.
  [31] "IMF warns of 'crisis' if no Lebanon reform," Agence France Presse, 5 June 2006.
  [32] The ISF is "seen as a sectarian Sunni force," said former United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesman Timur Goksel (now a professor of public administration at the American University in Beirut). "Not just the Shiites say it, but the Christians too: that it's to make up for the lack of a Sunni militia." "Lebanon builds up security forces; The move is seen as a bid to counter Iran and Shiite ally Hezbollah," Los Angeles Times, 1 December 2006. See also "West helps Lebanon build militia to fight Hezbollah," The Globe and Mail (Canada), 1 December 2006.
  [33] "Fneish . . . was in fact doing things about good governance and corruption," notes Reinould Leenders, a Dutch political scientist who has closely studied corruption in Lebanon. "He was very practical. He didn't waste time talking. He just went and started attacking these [oil and gas] cartels." See "Will Fneish's resignation kill reform at the Energy and Water Ministry?" The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 November 2006.
  [34] "Fadlallah warns against non-Lebanese 'solutions'," The Daily Star (Beirut), 25 March 2006.
  [35] Poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, Al-Diyar (Beirut), 11 February 2006.
  [36] The first two reports drew heavily on the claims of a former Syrian agent, Zuheir al-Siddiq, whose credibility was undermined by glaring inconsistencies in his reported testimony before the commission and the Lebanese government's unwillingness to extradite him from France, which released him from custody (Technically, Siniora made the request, but refused to pledge that Siddiq wouldn't face the death penalty, as required under French extradition laws). The first interim report also drew heavily on the testimony of Hussam Taher Hussam, another alleged ex-Syrian agent who told investigators that a meeting to plan the assassination was held in the home of Assad's brother-in-law and military intelligence chief, Assef Shawkat, only to reappear later in Damascus and retract everything (claiming to have been drugged by Lebanese officials). A third witness was found dead in a ditch after an apparent car accident. See "Who Killed Rafik Hariri? Searching for the Truth In the Middle East," The New York Times, 18 December 2005.
  [37] "Death riddle that haunts Lebanon," Sunday Times (London), 12 February 2006.
  [38] Members of the LF were convicted (albeit by a pro-Syrian judiciary) of carrying out a February 1994 church bombing that left 11 people dead, apparently with the intention of reviving Christian demands for an armed militia. Geagea was convicted of ordering the 1987 assassination of Prime Minister Rashid Karami, in which a bomb was placed on an army helicopter to deflect suspicion from the LF.
  [39] Article 3.2 of the tribunal statute stipulates that suspects can be held responsible for crimes "committed by subordinates under his or her effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such subordinates." The United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General on the establishment of a special tribunal for Lebanon, 15 November 2006.
  [40] The Bush administration insisted that judges be appointed by the UN Secretary-General, rather than the Security Council (the former being much more malleable than the latter).
  [41] "Rice's visit confirms U.S. support for Lahoud to go," The Daily Star (Beirut), 25 February 2006.
  [42] David Ignatius, "To Save a Revolution," The Washington Post, 21 July 2006. For a detailed look at official Israeli statements to this effect, see Efraim Inbar, How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War, Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2007.
  [43] Opinion Poll: Lebanese Divided behind their Leaders over Critical Matters, Part I, Information International, September 2006.
  [44] In addition, the war exposed the rampant corruption and incompetence of government relief agencies. The coalition suffered a succession of public relations setbacks, from a widely circulated video showing an ISF officer serving tea to Israelis in south Lebanon to Siniora's tearful speech before the Arab League (which played well in the West but subjected him to ridicule at home). In September, the head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), Fadhl Chalak (a longtime advisor of Hariri), abruptly resigned and accused the government of stalling the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars pledged by Arab states so as to increase suffering in the south and turn the people against Hezbollah. See "Ruined Towns Look to Beirut, Mostly in Vain," The New York Times, 1 October 2006.
  [45] "Report: France Urged Israel to hit Syria," The Jerusalem Post, 18 March 2007; Leslie Susser, "What's Behind Riyadh's Peace Activism?" The Jerusalem Report, 2 April 2007.
  [46] "Israel appears to 'wish to destroy' Lebanon: Chirac," Agence France Presse, 14 July 2006.
  [47] Opinion Poll: Lebanese Divided behind their Leaders over Critical Matters, Part II, Information International, October 2006. According to a Gallup poll, nearly two-thirds of the Lebanese public had a "worse" opinion of the United States after the war, and nearly half had a "much worse" opinion. ["U.S. was big loser in eyes of Lebanese after Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah guerrillas," The Associated Press, 14 November 2006]
  [48] "Poll: 64% of Lebanese say opinion of U.S. worsened after war," The Associated Press, 14 November 2006.
  [49] "U.S. Reports Plot to Topple Beirut Leaders," The New York Times, 2 November 2006.
  [50] The other two Lahoudist ministers, Defense Minister Elias Murr and Justice Minister Charles Rizk, had by this time defected to the March 14 camp.
  [51] In November, US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman met with Aoun in November and warned him of "grave consequences" for his political future if he does not drop out of the opposition coalition. [Al-Safir (Beirut), 3 November 2006] Feltman denied saying this when it was first reported, but American diplomats have since made similar statements publicly. "We don't understand General Aoun's position," US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch told LBCI Television on January 12, adding that Aoun should "very precisely examine the consequences of his partnership with those people." Cited in Welch Criticizes Aoun for his Alliance with Hizbullah, Naharnet.com, 12 January 2007.
  [52] US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns had this to say in a December 1 interview with a Lebanese television station: "I think you will see a tremendously positive response by the international financial community to help rebuild Lebanon, because that is based on the credibility that Prime Minister Siniora and his government have earned in the world . . . [I]f for any reason the government does not continue, I don't think you have a consensus in the international community about assistance to Lebanon." Burns quickly added that he didn't "mean to say that as a threat." [Interview with R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, LBC Television (Beirut), 1 December 2006, translated transcript released by the State Department] "That's not the term I would use," said a French foreign ministry spokesman when asked if the aid was conditional. "There's support which takes into account of the program of reforms that has been presented by the Lebanese authorities. That's more the way we're presenting things. [Remarks by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 12 January 2007, translation by Federal News Service]
  [53] "CIA gets the go-ahead to take on Hizbollah," The Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2007.
  [54] During the civil war, Hezbollah focused mainly on fighting the rival Shiite Amal militia and the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army (a mix of Shiites, Christians, and Druze).
  [55] "Gulf Arabs boost aid to Sunni militants," Reuters, 20 March 2007.
  [56] Seymour M. Hersh, "The Redirection: Does the new policy benefit the real enemy?" The New Yorker, 5 March 2007.
  [57] Siniora's office said in a statement that Hersh's allegations were "totally unfounded," but added obliquely, "Some organizations in the North and South have received aid from parties which have identified themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government or the Internal Security Forces." "Siniora denies arming Sunni extremist groups," The Daily Star (Beirut), 27 February 2007.
  [58] "Lifting of the Media Ban: A Blow to Hariri or an Equalizer by Parliament," Mideast Mirror, 18 July 1994. The tactic only delayed the inevitable, as Berri simply waited until the next session of parliament to call a vote.
  [59] In August 2006, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited Damascus and declared that "Syria should be put back in the international game." ["Military force won't stop illegal weapons entering Lebanon: Assad," Agence France Presse, 1 October 2006.] British Prime Minister Tony Blair's top foreign policy advisor, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, flew to Damascus in late October. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Damascus in early December to ask the Syrians "to exercise a moderating influence" on Hezbollah. ["German FM urges Syria to help stabilise Lebanon," Agence France Presse, 4 December 2006] In March 2007, the EU's chief foreign policy coordinator visited Damascus for the first time in two years.
  [60] On December 5, Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a joint statement calling on Syria to "to stop supporting forces that seek to destabilise Lebanon and the region" and stating, "If Syria changes its conduct, it could hope to resume normal relations with the international community and with the countries of the European Union in particular." "France and Germany send tough message to Syria," Agence France Presse, 5 December 2006.
  [61] Radwan Ziadeh and Nadim Houry, What Solana Forgot to Say in Damascus, Human Rights Watch commentary, 3 April 2007.
  [62] "Pelosi Vows US 'will not bargain over Lebanon," The Daily Star, 4 April 2007.
  [63] Former Secretary of State James Baker has delicately skirted the question by repeatedly stating that an American deal with Assad will "cure Israel's Hezbollah problem" (i.e. by cutting off its arms supplies), leaving open the question of whether it will cure Lebanon's Hezbollah problem. David E. Sanger, "Dueling Worldviews," The New York Times, 8 December 2006.
  [64] "Saudis and Iranians working on Lebanon deal," Reuters, 24 January 2007.
  [65] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), 6 May 2006.