Can The Lebanese Government Be Trusted?

As the armed conflict continues in the Middle East, many are finally starting to acknowledge that the connections between the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian patrons represent a significant strategic threat not only to Israel, but also to the United States, as my colleague Professor Michael I. Krauss and I warned in an article published a week before the current outbreak. Unfortunately, many policymakers and analysts have been either unable or unwilling to draw the connection between the perpetrators of the act of war that provoked today's crisis and the government of Lebanon whose very constitution and subsequent actions render it not only responsible for Hezbollah's actions, but also an unsuitable interlocutor in the community of civilized nations that eschew terrorism.

Of course, one wouldn't get that sense from the responses of world leaders. President George W. Bush, for example, while generally supportive of Israeli actions, has expressed concern that “whatever Israel does…should not weaken the Sinioura government in Lebanon.” At the opposite end of the spectrum on Middle East issues, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the lame duck Vatican Secretary of State, issued a statement that omitted any mention of Israel, but “deplored the attack now on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation” and assured its people “who have already suffered so much in defense of their independence.” Somewhere in between, French President Jacques Chirac declared that “all forces which threaten and endanger the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon must be stopped.”

In short, the picture that emerges is that of the Lebanese government as a victim who must be protected, rather than a party complicit in and responsible for the current crisis—a portrait that does not simply does not conform to the facts of the case.

A little over a year ago, the Lebanese masses took to the streets in the so-called “Cedar Revolution,” demanding democracy and the removal of the Syrian domination of the Lebanese politics and society. While they demonstrators succeeded in forcing the at least public withdrawal of Syrian forces from their country and the holding of elections, the revolution was stillborn as the country's politicians proved themselves more interested in carving themselves larger slices of the piece than carrying out the hoped for transition to normalcy.

As Professor Krauss and I noted in January, it was bad enough that Hezbollah was allowed to compete the in the Lebanese elections without disarming like the rest of the country's factions. Worse, the terrorist group's vise-like grip on the southern part of the country gave it fourteen seats in parliament which, together with the seats of its partner Amal, another armed Shi'ite group, and those of other fellow travelers, gave it indirect control of thirty-five parliamentary seats, making it the second-largest grouping in the Lebanese parliament. From this position of strength, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah—the same “spiritual leader” who is currently threatening further escalation of the conflict—demanded at least two cabinet posts, including that of foreign minister, from Prime Minister Fouad Sinioura. Nasrallah got what he wanted: Hezbollah parliamentarian Mohammed Fneish received the energy ministry, while Hezbollah-backed “independent” Shi'ite Fawzi Saloukh was given the foreign ministry, and another Shi'ite from the Hezbollah-Amal group, Tarad Hamadeh, was appointed labor minister. Fneish is a veteran of Hezbollah's terrorist campaign who won notoriety in 1997 for holding hostage the remains of Israeli commandos killed in action, parceling their body parts out to Amal and the Lebanese military for “safekeeping” until Israel to agreed to release a number of imprisoned terrorists. Nor has Fneish's subsequent entrance into electoral politics moderated his views: in a March 2004 interview, for example, he continued to describe the very existence of Israel as “immoral and illegitimate.” In short, Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese government and as long as that government continues to legitimize the extremists by keeping them on board, the Lebanese government itself must bear responsibility for the consequences of the actions of the radicals.

While the proximate cause for the current hostilities was the attack on sovereign Israeli territory and the abduction of two Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers by Hezbollah last week, a crisis had been brewing for some time because of the Lebanese government's refusal to live up to its obligation under United Nations Security Council 1559 to disarm the terrorist group and secure its borders with the Jewish state. As Professor Krauss and I argued in an essay published last week: “The Lebanese government has allowed Hezbollah to control Lebanon's border with Israel, and to act as a government in the largely Shi'ite southern part of the country…pleas of helplessness are unacceptable; the Lebanese government has never invoked its inability to control its territory or asked for foreign assistance in fulfilling its obligations. No, Hezbollah controls its territory as part and parcel of Lebanese sovereignty. That case is closed.”

On Saturday, Prime Minister Sinioura claimed that his government would reassert authority over all Lebanese territory, apparently alluding to the Hezbollah fiefdom in the south. While Sinioura's comments were clearly aimed at the international community, especially the G8 summiteers in St. Petersburg, and meant to belatedly distance his government from the activities of Hezbollah (and its Iranian and Syrian sponsors), their actual real-world relevance is questionable.

Whether the Sinioura government, dependent as it is on Hezbollah-the-party's parliamentary backing, can summon the political will to confront Hezbollah-the-armed-faction is rather doubtful. And even if a Lebanese political consensus to finally assume control of the southern areas could be forged, there is the question of whether the army could pull it off operationally. While there are many fine senior officers in the Lebanese army, some of whom I have had as students, the politicians who pull the military's strings under the republican system and the soldiers the officers command represent different, often conflicting, interests. For example, there are reliable intelligence reports that the Hezbollah attack last Friday on the Israeli naval ship Hanit (whose officers and crew graciously hosted Professor Krauss and I and our colleagues from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies during our visit to Haifa last year), in which four Israeli seamen were killed, was assisted by low- and mid-rank Lebanese military personnel.

À propos U.S. policy, President Bush has stated: “We're concerned about the fragile democracy in Lebanon. We've been working very hard through the United Nations and with partners to strengthen the democracy in Lebanon.” While this strategy conforms to both American ideals and our national interests, the tactic steps—taken to advance it to date if that's what they can be called—accord with neither. During her June 22, 2005, visit to Beirut, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice declared that while “our views of Hezbollah have not changed and our policy towards Hezbollah has not changed,” the presence of the terrorist group's representatives in the government would not constitute an obstacle to the administrations “very good cooperation” with the Sinioura government. This message—unlike the State Department's other clumsy efforts at “public diplomacy”—apparently registered across the Middle East, including among the Palestinians who, no doubt, thought that they could expect “very good cooperation” to continue after they voted Hamas into power.

If the events of the last year have taught us anything, they should be a reminder of what our policy should have been from the beginning and what it needs to be now in Lebanon, in the Palestinian Authority areas, and throughout the world:

First, it is unacceptable that armed terrorist groups participate in “democratic” political processes without first disarming and acquiescing to certain minimal norms.

Second, if you permit terrorist groups to participate in your elections and then incorporate them into your government, you place yourself beyond the pale and should expect neither comfort nor assistance from the United States. In other words, you're free to vote as you wish according to what you believe are your interests, but we're free to likewise to react to your vote in what we believe to be our interests.

Third, if you legitimize or otherwise abet terrorists, whether explicitly or implicitly, you are responsible for their actions and the consequences which those actions may bring upon you and yours.

Last year, the Lebanese people rallied in hope of a better future, a hope that was dashed by the machinations of the politicians who control the reins of government and allowed an entire nation to be taken hostage by a terrorist group and its foreign sponsors. The international community should at least have the long-term self-interest, if it cannot summon the decency, to not become complicit in this betrayal by shilling for such a duplicitous regime without demanding substantial transformation.

J. Peter Pham, Ph.D., is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University, and an academic fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He has written for a variety of publications, and has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies.