• Whose Lebanon will it now be?  - Joseph Bahout
It will take a lot of domestic political generosity and benevolent international concern to keep Lebanon from a new civil war.

• A symptom of the Lebanese system  - Ferry Biedermann
There is not such a huge difference between Hizballah's arms-assisted stranglehold on the Shi'ite community and the way other groups in Lebanon conduct their affairs.

• Force will not disarm Hizballah  - Rhonda Roumani
Foreign powers have always been able to play off Lebanon's divided factions.

• Hizballah: where to go from here  - Oussama Safa
While the deal to deploy the army is ambiguous, Hizballah has in reality given up a major part of its ability to maneuver.

Whose Lebanon will it now be?
 Joseph Bahout

It might well be true, as many frightened politicians in Lebanon are saying today, that Hizballah has just conducted a coup d'etat. But such an assertion would not be completely accurate unless it embraced the entire sequence of events: the attempt that commenced on July 12, the day the Islamist party abducted two Israeli soldiers along the border, and the plot that was completed with the cessation of hostilities under UN Security Council Resolution 1701. If this is true, i.e., if Hizballah has really put into practice the classical mechanism of "war making-state building", Israel should be entitled to claim the primary credit in its success.

Regardless of who started, regardless of whose fault it was to inflame the Lebanese southern front that had been more or less quiet since May 2000, and regardless of the widely recognized disproportionate nature of Israel's response to the kidnapping operation, 32 days of all-out war on Lebanon's infrastructure resulted in the amplification, at least inside Lebanon, of the perception of a weak, even moribund state, countered by a resilient and tactically efficient Hizballah. The relative diplomatic success the Siniora government can claim to have achieved will not seriously change this perception. The foreseeable gradual erosion of the 1701 mechanism merely confirms that much of Lebanon's immediate future from now on lies in the hands of Hizballah and its strategy of resistance.

Does this mean that Hizballah has completely taken over Lebanon's essential political decision-making capacity and the entire country's fate? Has Hizballah become a state within a state, or a state alongside of and superior to the rachitic and official one?

This is too hasty an assertion; it also completely ignores the track history of the entire 15 years of post-war Lebanon. During these years, two projects competed with and confronted one another on Lebanon's soil and in Lebanese institutions, and both articulated deeply-rooted internal dynamics and regional vested interests.

The first revolved around the figure of entrepreneurial Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri with his strong Saudi and western backing, and openly gambled on a potential peaceful dynamic in the Middle East to revive a wounded merchant and cosmopolitan Lebanon. The second had Hizballah as its backbone, was backed by Iran and its ambitious Islamist project, and considered Lebanon an advanced combat front against Israel and, when necessary, the West.

Both projects were permitted, animated and arbitrated by Syrian tutelage, then accepted by the West, which kept them in balance. With the crafting of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and the complete paradigm shift provoked on the Lebanese political scene by the removal of the Syrian factor, the Hizballah project was put on the defensive. But Hizballah had dynamics of its own that were rooted in Israeli occupation, Shi'ite mobilization and ambition regarding the post-war Lebanese political system, as well as the catalyzing effect of the Iranian build-up and the overall Islamic rise in the region. By sometimes willingly ignoring these factors and considering Hizballah as simply the remnant of a previous era of Syrian domination, the dominant Lebanese political discourse probably helped put the party on the defensive and persuaded it that what was at stake was its very survival and that the time had come for it to fight an existential war.

In such a broad context, it is no exaggeration to state that there exists today a consequent Lebanese non-Hizballah discourse that argues that Hizballah's "provoked" war with Israel has stolen the momentum, that the resistance was nothing more than an armed attempt at depriving the country of its independence project, and that the Cedar Revolution that flooded the streets of Beirut a little over a year ago was the victim of Shi'ite vigilante adventurism. It is striking, in this respect, to contrast the two diametrically different narratives of the recent war that are dividing the Lebanese polity and society: contradictory analyses of the real causes of the war, and contradictory assessments of who really won it and lost it.

But Lebanese have a very costly and painful experience with opposing narratives, with stories of one party's epic turning out to be another's debacle. They also know that words can sometimes be as lethal as weapons. When an entire sector of the community is depicted as having a deeply different sense of belonging, identity and collective goals, and when this sector is moreover accused of being a hostile "foreigner's" proxy, then the "enemy within" is here and strife is no longer far away.

Thus it is not surprising that a probing question that has periodically haunted the Lebanese is now with us again: are we on the brink of a new civil war? The question is not new; it was raised many times before the recent round of violence, and it became obsessive after Hariri's assassination, in which many saw the trigger of unavoidable tension between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Lebanon, reflecting the tension that flared up in Iraq after the fall of Baghdad. In the incredibly tense atmosphere the last war has generated, it will take a lot of domestic political generosity on all sides and an improbably benevolent international concern to keep Lebanon from sliding down such scary slopes.

Let's hope that scenarios of the "Hizballization" of Lebanon or the civil war nightmare are still too extreme and far-fetched. Realistically, one cannot yet rule out another classic accommodation "a la Libanaise" in which Hizballah agrees to trade off its military "victory" for mutually accepted political benefits. This time, however, if a "Lebanese bazaar" is to be opened again, one should also realistically expect that the structural changes and transformations that have been at work since the end of the last civil war would prove too complex to be integrated and digested by traditional mechanisms such as the one provided by Taif.

If Hizballah is not to become a state within a state or even the state itself, it will still have the ambition--some would say the right--to implant its own definition of Lebanese statehood and the new "Lebanonism". In such a venture, in which many Lebanese will have to learn to accommodate those they consider newcomers, the Lebanese social and political fabric will again probe the limits of its complexity and subtlety. And once again, while experiencing the fragility of Lebanon's equilibrium, this country's friends and foes alike will be reminded that compromise and consensus often come at the expense of decision-making and state-building.- Published 24/8/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Joseph Bahout teaches Middle East politics at Science-Po Paris, and is a senior researcher at Academie Diplomatique Internationale.

Having won the war, is there a chance that Hizballah will lose the peace? Judging by the pace at which the fundamentalist Shi'ite movement is acting to compensate the Lebanese victims of the violence and the speed with which it has started its reconstruction effort, literally leaving the government in the dust, there seems to be very little chance of Hizballah falling behind in the internal Lebanese political game. The war and now reconstruction have tightened the movement's hold, at least for now, on its core Shi'ite constituency. It has reasserted itself as the resistance, against Israel and against American intentions for the country, and it has pushed the internal Lebanese debate back by at least several years, to when it was considered close to treason for politicians to criticize the movement.

At the same time, it is facing more internal criticism than ever before, even from within its own Shi'ite community. During the war criticism was certainly muted and even now, when a lot of people are still waiting for handouts, it has not yet become overwhelming. But certainly among the other communities there is a feeling that things cannot continue the way they were before Hizballah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others on July 12, sparking more than a month of death and destruction for Lebanon. There is also a realization, brought on both by what is seen as Israel's indiscriminate use of force and its failure to strike a real blow at Hizballah, that the only way to deal with the movement is internally. No outsider, whether Israel, the UN or anybody else, will solve the issue of Hizballah's arms and its ability to undermine Lebanon's stability.

Despite a certain sense of pride among many Lebanese for having withstood the Israeli onslaught, there is an even stronger sense of desperation following the war. People have had enough of the constant conflict that seems to afflict their country, disturbs their lives and destroys their livelihoods with upsetting regularity. Some who stayed throughout the 1975-1990 civil war are now talking of leaving, others will stay to rebuild their hard-hit businesses and careers but they wonder how often they will have to go through this again. And there is an enormous sense that this is not finished yet, that even if the UN sends its troops and the Lebanese army deploys up to the border for the first time in decades, the next round will not be far off. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz has already said that his country should prepare for just that.

The government in which Hizballah participates but which is dominated by the anti-Syrian majority that came to power after elections last year has shown itself incapable of tackling Hizballah. The so-called March 14 movement, named after the date of the mass demonstration against the Syrians last year following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, has tried to co-opt Hizballah by drawing it into the cabinet and adopting many of the movement's positions during a national dialogue that was still underway when the two Israeli soldiers were captured. The main idea was to "take the cards out of their hands", or "not let them have any more excuses" by adopting seemingly essential Hizballah demands such as the return of the Shebaa Farms area that Lebanon now claims but that according to the UN is part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Even more worryingly for the international community, the government seemed to have been on the verge of adopting Hizballah's stance on the issue of its arms. The group is the last Lebanese faction to have retained its arms after the end of the 1975-1990 civil war because it was engaged in a fight with Israel. UN resolution 1559 of 2004 demands the disarming of all groups outside the army. The March 14 movement had originally supported 1559 but its hold on power was so weak--and in general, so is the power of the Lebanese central authority--that Hizballah was able to push it into the direction of a non-compromise whereby the movement would have indefinitely retained its arms and its hold on southern Lebanon, at most coordinating with the army, as long as the government had not worked out a defense strategy that could defend the country against Israel. Since everybody knows that this is an impossibility, it was tantamount to refusing to disarm and Hizballah is using the same language today to avoid a discussion on its arms.

The March 14 majority is now talking about a new agreement with Hizballah that would make the movement commit to not involving the country in a war through unilateral action, the way it did on July 12. But leaders of the March 14 grouping have maintained that they already had exactly such an agreement and Hizballah clearly did not abide by it. Still, they have few options, given the demonstrated military might of Hizballah and the political impossibility of forcing the movement into any arrangement that it does not agree to. Above all, the March 14 politicians are pre-occupied with avoiding new civil strife.

Politically there may be only one way forward, by recognizing the growing Shi'ite demographic and political weight in the country. This would involve breaking open the Taif agreement that ended the civil war and reducing in particular Christian but also Sunni power in Lebanon, a step that nobody thinks is currently viable.

Even without changing Taif, the other groups could try to strengthen the central state. But then they would have to give up their own patronage system that lets small groups or families run the different communities like fiefdoms, such as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt or the Hariri family among the Sunnis. In the end, there is not such a huge difference between Hizballah's arms-assisted stranglehold on the Shi'ite community and the way other groups in Lebanon conduct their affairs. The instability caused by Hizballah is really the instability of the Lebanese system itself.- Published 24/8/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Ferry Biedermann is a freelance correspondent based in the Netherlands.

As the war escalated in Lebanon last month, the country's weak and fractured government put aside its differences to condemn Israel's extensive use of force in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizballah. Over the course of the war, initial grumblings from parts of the pro-western axis of the Lebanese government gave way to a unified voice calling for an end to the war.

Now, with a ceasefire in place, political tensions within Lebanon's fragile government that simmered beneath the surface during the war are threatening to explode. A US-backed coalition of the March 14 forces, which forced Syria out of Lebanon last year, has emerged weaker and furious at Hizballah for dragging their country into war. The country's pro-Syrian camp, which is aligned with Hizballah and is backed by Iran and Syria, has emerged stronger. Increased hostilities between the two sides will likely once again focus on the issue of disarming Hizballah.

This week, leaders of the pro-US March 14 forces accused Hizballah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah of forcing the country into a war it did not want and imposing Iranian and Syrian interests onto Lebanon's domestic scene. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, one of the coalition's most outspoken leaders, accused Hizballah of being a "tool of the Syrian-Iranian axis". More moderate voices like that of the parliament majority leader Saad al-Hariri dealt indirect blows to Hizballah by calling on the country to rally around the government and the Lebanese army.

Hizballah's popularity has grown sharply in the Arab and Muslim world and among Lebanon's Shi'ite community merely because of its ability to stay standing in the face of Israel's military might. And inside Lebanon, Hizballah has proved in the past that it can use its political clout to protect its arms.

But late last year, Hizballah also proved that it can rely on more than just its arms to wield power. In December, Hizballah members of parliament walked out and effectively closed down the government for seven weeks. The move paralyzed Lebanon. If the country's March 14 coalition decides to push for a disarmament of Hizballah, the movement can opt to play this card again.

Hizballah's swift response to help victims of the country's war-torn areas by handing out large sums of cash or sending bulldozers to clean up debris has also overshadowed the slow response of the US-backed Lebanese government.

Maybe more than Hizballah's strength, the conflict with Israel reaffirmed the weakness of that government. As the war raged, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora tearfully pleaded for an immediate ceasefire to no avail. Washington's ears were closed. Instead, the US backed Israel's decision to continue its extensive raids and bombardments of Shi'ite areas throughout Lebanon.

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush promised Lebanon a mere $230 million in aid to help rebuild Lebanon. The Lebanese government has estimated the damage at around $3 billion. Even during reconstruction, Hizballah has been quicker than the Lebanese government to tend to the needs of Lebanon's victims.

Thus far, the ceasefire negotiated through UN resolution 1701 remains fragile. The Lebanese army is not being allowed within two kilometers of the Israeli border. Israel continues to break the ceasefire agreement and continues to threaten the assassination of Nasrallah. UN officials are struggling to implement a plan to send a mere 15,000 members of a United Nations force to Lebanon. With the possibility of continued war with Israel, any chance of opening discussions on Hizballah's arms becomes nearly impossible.

Much of Lebanon's woes come from the fact that it has long been a country subject to foreign meddling because of its 18 different sectarian groups. In this case, the US and Israel have their sights set on disarming Hizballah, while Syria and Iran are intent on having Hizballah keep its weapons as a way to confront the US and Israel. A weak central government, meanwhile, has created a country where Lebanese leaders have long paid homage to the interests of their country's specific sectarian groups. And foreign powers have always been able to play off the country's divided factions.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has put the issue of national unity at the top of his agenda by saying that Hizballah will not be disarmed by force and calling the issue an internal matter to be determined by Lebanese players. He has played the role of mediator between the March 14 forces and Hizballah and its allies. Earlier this week, he toured devastated areas with Hizballah ally and Shi'ite leader Nabih Berri.

To strengthen Lebanon and its government, the international community must deal with the root of the problem. By pushing for negotiations between Israel and Lebanon on the Shebaa Farms area and assuring an exchange of prisoners, Hizballah would lose its reasons to retain its weapons. The movement would have to finally choose whether it is indeed a political party or an Islamist group bent on fighting Israel. If at that point it chose to disarm, Hizballah might gain greater popularity inside Lebanon, but it would be transformed into a political party like any other.

Opening up negotiations between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights would also neutralize Syria by splitting it from the Hizballah-Iranian alliance, leaving Lebanon finally free of Syrian control and Iran isolated.

What is certain is that Hizballah will not be disarmed by force. The price would be too big for a country that has long known the consequences of internal sectarian strife that have been fueled by proxy wars. Any attempt by the international community to enforce the last remaining point of UN resolution 1559 by force could lead to a breaking point in Lebanon that no one would like to see.- Published 24/8/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Rhonda Roumani is a freelance journalist based in Damascus who writes regularly for the Christian Science Monitor.

Ten days into the cessation of hostilities, the shell-shocked Lebanese are scrambling to stave off the disastrous effects of the massive destruction of their country--destruction on a magnitude not seen since the end of the 15-year civil war.

The polarized political scene in Beirut on the eve of the war, masked by a round of futile dialogue sessions, will soon face a moment of truth: whether or not to move out of the deadlock and how. At stake is whether the "Party of God" will finally agree to disband its military wing and become a serious partner in the political process to develop a democratic state in Lebanon, and whether the government majority is willing to accommodate its demands in return. With the war over, it is now possible to rethink the political state system in Lebanon and Hizballah's new political role in it.

Following the end of hostilities, Hizballah was quick to declare strategic victory. It was bolstered by the tacit yet pervasive feeling among the Lebanese that a major military success had been achieved against an "untouchable" enemy. The party also announced an ambitious plan to compensate people who had been displaced by the war and to rebuild their damaged properties. Overwhelmingly Shi'ite, the displaced form the party's core constituency; their support will be required for future political repositioning. The announcement, made on the eve of the ceasefire, caught the government off guard. It seeks to ensure that the party's supporters are not enticed to shift allegiances, and to demonstrate that the party is also as capable of rebuilding as it is of making war.

The party sees itself as having written a major chapter in the history of the Middle East by inflicting heavy losses and thereby defeating the strongest army in the region. Emboldened, despite heavy civilian losses and the major concession of accepting the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, Hizballah is seeking to consolidate by reaping political gains.

While the deal to deploy the army is ambiguous, to say the least, the party has in reality given away a major part of its ability to maneuver. In conceding the border region, Hizballah has abandoned observation posts, the free movement of its armed men among sensitive border positions and its ability to move heavy weapons--all of which were previously required to seize the military initiative. This means that it will no longer be able to mount operations like the July 12 abduction of Israeli soldiers or wage an all-out confrontation with Israel without appearing to be the violator of a ceasefire. With time, and if the truce translates into a sustainable ceasefire, Hizballah's weapons are bound to lose relevance and the party will lose the element of military surprise.

Politically, Hizballah is now at a crossroads. It will have to choose between the continuation of an ambiguous political agenda balancing Lebanese with Syrian-Iranian priorities along with its weapons on the one hand, and a strategy that includes a commitment to full implementation of the Taif agreement and UN Security Council resolutions and unequivocal participation in government, on the other. For the latter option to happen smoothly, the government majority will have to embrace Hizballah and get used to seeing its political influence grow and develop.

It is not clear how the party will interpret its military victory in political terms, but the decision to rebuild homes, a campaign of billboards boasting victory and an array of constructive speeches by the party's top leadership indicate preparations for a new political era. Hizballah emerged as a winner not so much because of its self-declared victory but because of the need for the party to play a legitimate and growing role in regenerating consensual politics. Hence it will have to be coaxed gently into full participation in the state. The question is whether the government majority will accommodate the party's new role, insofar as this might require giving it a larger share in the Council of Ministers, among other political perks.

The government is faced with the immediate challenge of creating a realistic and acceptable opening to Hizballah and injecting some creative thinking into the party's weapons dilemma. Clearly, the party will have to work hard to rebuff accusations regarding regional ambitions, by demonstrating beyond doubt that it can maintain Syria and Iran's influence at arm's length.

The war has proven that the Cedar Revolution's long march to democracy that started in the wake of the assassination of Rafiq Hariri cannot be completed without the full participation of Hizballah. There is now a chance to complete this march on a sound basis if the party agrees to join in on negotiated terms. Several issues will have to be resolved before this can happen, including agreement on a common vision for the future of the country and dispelling festering mutual misperceptions and deep-seated mistrust of political designs.

Once again there is an opportunity to rebuild Lebanon and rethink its state institutions. The next few weeks will show whether lessons from past failures have been learned and whether all Lebanese share the feeling of victory from this war.- Published 24/8/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Oussama Safa is general director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut.