A Time for Skepticism
Q: So what happens now? Will the be an election, or is there another alternative? (hat tip ghyrtred for the alert question)
A: Funny you should ask. When the Prime Minister of Lebanon resigns, his government - which includes his gaggle of ministers, sort of like the President Bush's cabinet in the United States - effectively dissolves. The President (in this case Emile Lahoud) will call all of his deputies and arrange for meetings with each and every one, and each deputy will recommend a replacement. This takes quite a lot of time, and there is talk of scrapping this procedure altogether under these heightened circumstances. Anyway, after the deputies manage to agree on a replacement, then the President will actually make his appointment. Immediately afterward, the new Prime-Minister-appointee will nominate individual ministers to their posts (mostly friends of his or guys he owes favors to), and voila! There will be a new government in Lebanon. As you can see, it's a rather fluid arrangement with oodles of inherent weaknesses.
Of course, Syria has for decades been an integral part of this process. Usually their involvement becomes evident in the number of trips to Damascus made by new appointees. I am not aware of the particulars of any further involvement, of course, but rest assured that it exists. Anyway, under the current circumstances, one may easily argue that Syria has relinquished very little at all, since President Emile Lahoud is firmly in the Syrian camp and ultimately he is the one responsible for nominating the next Prime Minister.
In the meantime, there are reports of violence in Tripoli (Karami's primary base of support) and some other areas in northern Lebanon - the strong points of Syrian support. Many people in Tripoli are very upset that their man was forced to resign - they are walking around in hordes, burning tires, burning cars, and the footage on television (LBC right now) shows quite a chaotic scene. With all the pressure that has been on Syria in the past two weeks, it would make perfect sense that the Syrians may want to create a diversion, and it seems that they may have done just that. What has happened here in just two hours was (1) A second news story has been created, demanding local news time, thereby taking some of the cameras off the protests in the downtown area; and (2) Counterdemonstrations - the thing that the opposition feared most.
And if this were not enough - al-Nahar reports that the security convoy of U.S. envoy David Satterfield (former Ambassador to Lebanon) was forced to change the venue in which Satterfield was supposed to meet with Lebanon's top Sunni muslim cleric, Mohammad Rashid Kabbani, when up to 20 unidentified armed men wearing civilian clothes appeared in the area. Al-Jazeera went as far as saying that this was an assassination attempt, and mainstream media may be downplaying the significance of this event.
So, to answer the question posed above - look for Syria to sow chaos, then make the standard claim that only they can keep Lebanon peaceful by means of their unique brand of realpolitik blood-sport. In the meantime, they may attempt some sleight-of-hand in the Lebanese government by shifting some people around, but in the end they will come up with a mix of ministers that is still loyal to them. There are still plenty of reasons to be skeptical. This is not Kiev, Tbilisi, or Belgrade just yet.
posted by Unfrozen Caveman Linguist @ 4:18 PM
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8 Comments:
I have a question for the Lebanese people who are out there on the streets.
I'd really like to hear from them *why* they are doing this.
There are going to be a lot of people saying this is all part of the "domino effect" thanks to the invasion of Iraq. Is that why? Are the Lebanese giving credit to the US on this one... cuz I'm sure plenty of US officials are whether they're justified or not.
Chris.
http://www.murkyview.com
Thank you for writing this blog. I wonder if the democratic revolution that has taken place in other areas has helped the Lebanese people rise against your Syrian oppressors. If so, lets hope for the best.
Bill Smith
Well, to answer the question, "why they are doing this," I guess I would have to ask "Doing what?" If you go the CIA Factbook or other source and look up "Lebanon," you will see that Lebanon already contains a parliamentary democracy and elections here are held on a regular basis; voters are protected by a full suite of laws, and political parties are very active in public life. Also, there is a very vibrant civil society here. None of this will you see in other countries in the Middle East. What Lebanese seem to be protesting FOR far less than "democracy" itself (since technically they already have it) is for Syria to remove the sources of its pernicious influence here - its military and intelligence services. Unlike Lebanon, Syria has no civil society and political parties other than the ideologically top-heavy and antiquated Baath Party do not exist. In the opinions of many Lebanese, it's an absolute perversion of justice to have a regime like that dominating one that, under normal circumstances, would respect freedom and human rights. At least this is an argument I hear around here quite a lot.
As for whomever claims credit, most Lebanese consider that to be an issue central to American politics and not to Lebanese. In other words, they don't care, at least not yet. However, many Lebanese seem to be excited about the prospect of American of French involvement here, and they have been for some time - whatever gets Syria out, I guess.
This is something that has been building for a very long time - since the civil war's end, really, and accellerated when the Israelis withdrew in May, 2000. There have been a couple big flareups since then, and every time the outrage has risen to a higher level and not subsided all the way, either. (The biggest of which was the Gabriel Murr/MTV/metn by-election affair, google "Gabriel Murr" mtv for details).
I think that the US/the bush admin deserve credit to the degree that their aggressiveness has constrained the Syrians (or to the degree that the people in Lebanon believe that Syria will be constrained), and also perhaps to the degree that the pressure on Asad (or whoever is pulling his strings) made him do stupid stuff like extending Lahoud's term and killing Hariri (if he did). I think the elections-in-Iraq thing is not particularly relevant to what's happened in Lebanon.
Tom Scudder
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomscud/
Isn't it obvious that the Lebanese are taking their que from the Iraqis, Palestinians and Afhgnis? The notion that the ME countries that are run by these tinhorn dictators for their own gains -- the people are not capable of governing themselves crowd, has been totally ripped to shreds by the free Iraq elections and the new soverign government that is forming in Iraq.
I think that the US President has just encougared the people to 'do it'. There is no way any dictatorship can stand the onslaught of the masses, if the people get the courage to stand up for themselves.
America wants nothing more than for people to be free and determine their own peaceful destiny. Kings, Queens, dictators are so yesterday.
Why not us, why can't we be free.
I tend to agree with Mr. Scudder on the independence of the sources of Lebanon-Syria tension from the invasion of Iraq. This stuff we're seeing now may have taken an extra couple of years to happen, but it was inevitable. Most Lebanese just find the status quo under the Syrians intolerable, simple as that. There are analysts who put greater emphasis on Bush's regional full-court-press (to continue my compulsion to use sports analogies) and whether or not it forced Bashar's hand on enough occasions to demonstrate his weaknesses, though. Not sure I'm completely in that camp yet, but it does seem quite remarkable at how the pace of events here have quickened after Karami's doomed government took office. Was the Karami government the result of Syria running out of options with Lebanese politicians who would do their bidding? I had been hearing this for months - and the idea just might hold water now. Whatever confluence of forces that created this - the bottom line was that enough people here were just sick and tired of corrupt, abusive, and - worst of all - weak leadership.
I think it i important to note that the Lebanese people at the protests are not referencing the Iraqis or saying anything good about American pressure.
Contrarily, there is must cheering for Chirac and France.
I say this not to dismay the neo-cons and conservatives out there into believing that Bush has done nothing. But I would be wary of giving him the credit in this case.
For example, the Ukranians are a much better model for what is happening here than Iraq. The Ukraine received public support from Bush and Colin Powell, but Iraq was not the precedent for their actions. And as Rich mentions, Belgrade and Tblisi did not fall because people thought about Bush liberating Iraq.
What is noticeable, though, is the way the event in Lebanon is coupling well with Bush's rhetoric. Bush pressured Saudi and Egypt in January. Some critics spoke up, but were immediately slapped down. Then Hariri was killed; Beirut broke into protest; and Mubarak backed down. Effects are reaching as far as Tunisia. The coupling effect is much more potent than the Iraq effect. The Lebanese people might be able to take just as much credit for regional reform as Bush in a few years.
One prominent Palestinian professor said today that what happens in Lebanon "spreads like influenza" to the rest of the region: pan-Arabism, Palestinianism, Hezbollahism, Russian prostitutes, and now anti-dictatorship movements.
Mountain Man
If you really want to know "why" check out the university campus papers.
The next issue of the American University of Beirut student newspaper Outlook is about the protests and delves into the campus dynamic between opposition and loyalist students.
http://wwwlb.aub.edu.lb/~weboutl/
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