Events in Lebanon are cause for the gravest concern. Hezbollah’s takeover yesterday of West Beirut following the worst outbreak of fighting since the civil war has left the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora visibly powerless. The army is reluctant to confront the militiamen, worried that, if it does, it will fall part along sectarian lines, as happened in the civil war. Hezbollah is consequently no longer merely a state within a state; it has made itself “the” power in Lebanon.
It has gone too far. For all its talk about the government declaring war on it, it is the one that has declared war on the government -- and won the first round. That is not to say that the government was not right to decide that the organization’s communications system had to be dismantled, the trigger for Hezbollah’s actions. The government had no other choice. No government in the world would allow a political party such power. It certainly did not have a choice once it was discovered that Hezbollah had been secretly monitoring flights in and out of Beirut airport.
Where the Lebanese government made a monumental and possibly fatal mistake was in deciding to move against Hezbollah without thinking the action through. Further, before the matter came to a head, the Siniora government was not any more willing to make compromises than Hezbollah. It was a miscalculation to believe that the party could be ignored and wished away. Hence, there is an inevitability about what has happened. The country’s stark division into pro- and anti-Syrian camps, and the political paralysis that resulted, with Parliament prevented from electing a new president for six months, created a power vacuum during which Hezbollah has been busy arming itself. The vacuum was never going to last indefinitely. The fear has to be that events will continue to slide inexorably toward renewed conflict. This is not going to end here. Lebanon’s Sunnis, Christians and Druze will not take this lying down. Nor will outside forces.
Nor will it end quietly. Hezbollah is likely to be challenged militarily. Dialogue is not likely to work even if Hezbollah says it wants to talk. There are almost no grounds for a consensus between it and its allies on the one side and the anti-Syrian coalition and its supporters on the other.
The fact is that the political instability, sectarian unrest and now, the shooting war, are more than a contest between the diverse communities of the country for more political space. It is a proxy war between outside forces battling over issues that have nothing to do with Lebanon, its Shiites, Sunnis, Christians or Druzes. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed the right sentiments when she condemned outside forces for their interference in Lebanon. The problem with that highly laudable position is that it seeks to promote her country’s stand that it is the only one that has the right to interfere.
It must be hoped that that proposed Arab League summit will find a way to restore Lebanon to the Lebanese.
