Lebanon’s New Realities

by Thanassis Cambanis, former Middle East correspondent for The Boston Globe and The New York Times. Original Commentary for Middle East Bulletin.

The incoming Obama administration has inherited a “New Middle East” conspicuously like the old one that predated President George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror. In Lebanon in particular, the United States faces a cold reality that starkly contradicts the triumphalism of the 2005 Cedar Revolution: Syria and Iran have expanded their strategic foothold in Lebanon, and Hezbollah has grown into the single most influential party in national politics.

These changes have broad repercussions for civil order in Lebanon, for the balance of power between Israel and the surrounding polity, for the growth of political Islam in the region, and for the great power struggle among the regional powers in the Middle East, in particular Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The United States will have to find a modus vivendi in Lebanon that acknowledges Hezbollah’s central role in the country’s political life, even if Washington is unable or unwilling to engage in direct dialogue with the Shi’ite Islamist group. In Lebanon it can forge a new approach that seeks to advance US interests without ignoring the local reality. U.S. policy under President Bush has failed to take into account five key developments on the ground in Lebanon:

1. Hezbollah has consolidated its influence over the Shi’ite community in Lebanon, which is now the single largest sectarian group. Most of the Arab and Muslim world believes Hezbollah won a decisive military victory over Israel in the summer 2006 war. Emboldened, riding a popular crest of support and flush with money and military assistance from Iran and Syria, Hezbollah played and won a game of political brinksmanship against the US- and Saudi-aligned government. With the May 2008 power-sharing deal brokered by Qatar, Hezbollah now wields veto power in the government, has secured control of crucial ministries, maintains its weapons, and carries momentum into the coming parliamentary elections.

2. Those next elections, due no later than June 2009, are likely to continue the rollback of American expectations about democracy marching through the Middle East. More governments are taking shape with popular mandates, but several are likely to be less amicable to US interests in the coming years. Just as Shi’ite Islamists closely aligned with Iran took power after the 2005 Iraqi elections and Hamas won the Palestinian elections of 2006, a coalition led by Hezbollah is likely to win the next elections in Lebanon.

3. Syria and Iran have parlayed the disorder and inattention of the Bush administration into dramatically expanded regional influence, most overtly in Lebanon and Iraq. Street protests in 2005 forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Now, Damascus has reasserted its influence over Lebanon’s political order, intelligence services, and military, most notably by securing its choice of president in May of this year. Iran, meanwhile, has solidified its strategic partnership with Hezbollah, exemplified by Lebanese President Michael Suleiman’s visit to Tehran last week.

4. The military balance of power along Israel’s northern border has changed. Hezbollah has used the eight years since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 to build both guerilla and traditional military capacity. In 2006, Hezbollah was able to sustain its rocket fire undiminished into northern Israel during more than a month of war, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes. Hezbollah reportedly has expanded its anti-aircraft capabilities since that war. Militarily stronger and politically more secure, Hezbollah wields more tactical and strategic power than at any point in its history – a reality that Israel and the United States will have to take into account.

5. In Lebanon, the coalition backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia has maintained a collision course with Hezbollah and its allies. Over the last three years, that coalition has grown weaker, more marginalized, and less legitimate among its own constituents, leaving Washington without a credible ally in Lebanon, the most pluralistic and open society in the Muslim Middle East. Sa’ad Hariri, who inherited leadership of the current governing majority after the assassination of his father in 2005, has yet to establish any serious popular profile, and suffered a humiliating defeat in May when armed Shi’ite Muslims, coordinated by Hezbollah, overran Sunni Muslim Beirut in just a few days.

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.

But the sooner the United States begins to deal with the realities of the Middle East rather than continue a show dialogue with the weak but friendly voices who speak only for an imaginary new power structure in the region, the more likely Washington will be to cultivate its interests in stable, less belligerent, more prosperous and open societies. And with a pointed focus on the sometimes unpleasant realities, U.S. policy makers could find that conversation bearing its first fruit in Lebanon.

Thanassis Cambanis covered the Middle East for The Boston Globe and The New York Times. He is currently writing a book about Hezbollah due to be published by Free Press in 2010.