The Lebanese Army’s intervention between rival factions in Beirut to break up street clashes raises questions about the role of the fractured country’s armed forces. Despite its reputed neutrality, the army has found itself confronting the supporters of one side in the current political deadlock.
The army has so far been seen as neutral in the political crisis but the clashes, between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, have raised fears that some might be trying to drag the army, which many believe to be the country’s last hope, into a confrontation with the Shiite which could lead to the collapse of the military.
The clashes are only one more problem in the long list of woes triggered by the country’s not having a president since November. Fouad Siniora, the man who became prime minister at a turning point in Lebanon’s history, has perhaps one of the most difficult tasks of any politician anywhere. He has to run whatever government is left while keeping the country afloat. On the surface, Lebanon is barely functioning. Under the surface it’s not much better — a snake pit of sectarian strife, foreign intervention and endless plotting and assassinations.
Lebanon’s strength was in its openness and pluralism. Now the same things are its undoing. The country has become a target for meddling foreign powers, a victim of personal agendas and an arena for vendetta. French, American and Arab initiatives have failed. Electing Gen. Michel Suleiman as president is a reasonable option by any normal standard. Suleiman has been backed by all sides as the favored consensus candidate to take over the presidency. But there are people in Lebanon who won’t listen to reason. They would sooner drag the country into the abyss than let it survive. Lebanese leaders cannot continue calculating how many people each side can mobilize in a show of strength that inevitably leads to ever-heightening tension backed by ever more vitriolic rhetoric. Once the street takes over, it picks up a violent logic all its own.
A breakthrough in the deadlock might come about on Feb. 26, the next date set for a parliamentary session to elect a president. An agreement on the election of a president is allegedly being concluded. The March 8 and March14 F ronts and the president will be allocated 10 Cabinet seats each. In addition to the likely election of military chief Michel Suleiman, a new elections law will be put in place. The four most sensitive Cabinet portfolios will be divided between opposition and government while the Interior Ministry will be allocated to the president. But will it work?
During the 1975-1990 civil war, the army fragmented along sectarian lines. If it were to do so again, many Lebanese would lose hope of averting another largely sectarian civil war between the factions supporting and opposing the Beirut government. Today’s Lebanon is a shadow of its former self. It is heading down the same road of perdition that is now so common in the region. It seems to have forgotten that freedom is a blessing, not a curse.
