Two Dilemmas

Stratfor reveals that right now it may be too risky to predict a Syria-free Lebanon. The problem in their view is this:

The Lebanese opposition movement now faces a tough dilemma. Hezbollah drew more than 500,000 people to Beirut's streets March 8 in a mass demonstration designed in part to show gratitude to Syria as Damascus faces vocal demands to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. More importantly, the Hezbollah demonstration was designed as an anti-U.S. protest -- as witnessed by Hezbollah chief Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's call for his followers to unite and reject foreign intervention, saying that no one in Lebanon feared the United States. Referring to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed over 200 Marines, he said, "We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again."

Ah, so that's it - that Hizbullah is not afraid of the United States. But why would Hizbullah want to put itself at risk like this, by all appearances merely to protect Syrian interests in Lebanon? The answer, Stratfor says is that the opposition has put itself in a bind by making demands consistent with the ones advanced by the international community, and Hizbullah thinks that it can ultimately benefit:

Hezbollah's actions represent part of a campaign to redefine itself as a nationalist political force. The group's call for dialogue with opposition leaders to form a "government of national unity" with it puts the opposition movement in an awkward position. Basically, the opposition needs Hezbollah, but Hezbollah does not need the opposition as desperately. Leading opposition figure Walid Jumblatt said March 8 that Hezbollah "is part of Lebanon … I do thank them because they have raised the Lebanese flag."

The opposition has a strong interest in distinguishing its demands against Syria from those of the West so as to win broad support from the public, which strongly resists the thought of foreign interference in Lebanese affairs. However, if the opposition joins with Hezbollah, it will be at the mercy of Damascus once again, and will sacrifice a great degree of international support for the "Cedar Revolution."

On the other hand, rejecting Hezbollah's calls for national unity puts the opposition at risk of being labeled a tool of the West, and could lead to a significant drop in public support. Anti-U.S. sentiment runs high in the region, and has been a useful vote-garnering tool for candidates in the past. Even Jumblatt, the most vocal opposition leader, is well-known for his vehement anti-American statements. In a Feb.12 interview with Arabic-language, London-based Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Jumblatt said, "We are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed [in Iraq] week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory."

Hezbollah, on the other hand, appears safe after its March 8 demonstration of strength to the world, regardless of which option the opposition selects from its current dilemma. Hezbollah also has successfully warded off the threat posed to it by the potential implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the complete withdrawal of Syrian forces and the disarmament of all Lebanese militias. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appears to have taken a hands-off approach in dealing with the resistance movement March 8 when he called Hezbollah a force in Lebanese society to be reckoned with and whose protest against foreign intervention "is not entirely at odds with the Security Council resolution."

Whether the opposition movement approves, Karami's re-designation as prime minister and Hezbollah's political and military strength suggest that Syria will continue to have significant influence in Lebanese politics, even when its troops have withdrawn from the region.

But is Stratfor's geopolitics-first view the only way to see this problem? I am not sure that I buy into this analysis - that Hizbullah can amass a huge rally, the opposition deflates, Lebanon's invisible president renominates the government, and the clock goes right back to February 13. In fact, this analysis seems to imply that Hizbullah's show of strength on March 8 means that it is well on its way to calling the shots in Lebanon, including whether or not Syria gets to stay (such as in Michael Young's "preatorian guard" analogy). The situation so far is thus: the opposition has echoed U.S. demands for independence and self-determination in Lebanese affairs; and Hizbullah has spoken in favor of national unity against foreign intervention, even while maintaining the paradoxical position that Syria's influence may be necessary in the short term.

However, there is evidence that, even if Hizbullah's firm stand against foreign intervention can successfully divide the opposition, the situation is far from acceptable by any standard. Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt announced that Karami's nomination was not acceptable, going as far as saying that the re-nomination of deposed Prime Minister Omar Karami "will extend the crisis in Lebanon indefinitely, much to our chagrin." Meanwhile, Karami's attempt to find a common denominator between opposition and loyalist deputies and parliament members by forming a national salvation government and addressing opposition demands in a piecemeal fashion may well be too little, too late. With few significant developments in the Hariri assassination investigation, with Syria's troop pullout not fully complying with international demands, and with loyalist agitation increasingly taking the form of intimidation, there still appears to be a significant crisis in the works, and one cannot avoid the popular concensus that Syria's influence here, regardless of what it accomplishes in a geopolitical sense, is still seen as a very negative feature of Lebanese political life. In the end, if Hizbullah is indeed as popular as many people now believe that it is, it will eventually have to account fully for its relationship with Syria - and this risks discrediting the movement substantially in the long run if it cannot manage this particular part of its public image.