PEOPLE who have been in car wrecks sometimes recall how they saw the collision happening, as if it were in slow motion. There is an awful similarity to what is occurring in Lebanon, as the Syrian government exports its aggression to the neighbor, in whose affairs it has meddled for so long and so disastrously.
It seems clear that the Assad regime is actively seeking to stir up inter-communal tensions and ultimately conflict among Lebanese. If, using its allies in Hezbollah and Amal, it can open a new battlefront in Lebanon, international alarm will spread, along with the conflict. Might it not also be possible to bring Israel into the conflict by having Hezbollah launch a major rocket offensive against northern Israeli settlements? The inevitable retaliation across the border into a sovereign Arab state which could leave countries that currently back the Syrian opposition in a difficult political position.
Thus, the calculation from Damascus may well be, that having the violence spill over dangerously and unpredictably beyond Syria’s borders, will cause a reappraisal of the general support for the Syrian opposition and the Free Syrian Army. Might it be reckoned, that as the fighting on Syrian soil drags on without clear resolution, the regional instability it is engendering, will become simply too risky? Might the international community switch from supporting the opposition, pure and simple, to looking to impose some end to the violence, before the flames of conflict spread beyond Syria’s frontiers?
The situation in Lebanon is clearly becoming critical, both for the Lebanese themselves and for those who wish their country well. A Shiite clan with close links to the Assad regime has embarked upon a campaign of kidnapping and hostage-taking, particularly of Sunnis. This has caused warnings from our government, as well as those of our GCC partners, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, that it is safer for our citizens to quit the country. Similar warnings have been going out from foreign ministries around the world.
For horrified onlookers of this slow-motion political wreck, the moment of impact is drawing inexorably closer.
However, it must surely be possible to take avoiding action. It has to be that the majority of Lebanese still remembers the trauma of decades of conflict and division. Impressionable young men may fall for the siren words of fiery preachers, who are interested in their own power rather than the wider interests of their community. However most Lebanese, while still uneasy at the forces that are pulling at their fragile unity, and no doubt, still deeply uncertain about that very unity itself, do not want to plunge back into the bloody past.
What they are looking for is wise political leadership from the Lebanese government and parliamentarians. Yet the tragedy is that from neither President Michel Suleiman nor from Prime Minister Najib Mikati nor any other political leader has there come the sort of firm statement that most Lebanese long to hear. Indeed, it is hard not to form the impression, that the coalition government, which includes Hezbollah and its ally Amal, with 16 of the 30 Cabinet seats, would rather say nothing than risk its unity.
Yet there is something that Lebanon’s leaders, all of them, can be saying and should be saying. They should be proclaiming that Lebanon is an independent country, made up of a rich diversity of communities, which inevitably will have affiliations and sympathies with others beyond its borders. And this is that, whatever their backgrounds, every citizen should be putting Lebanon first. Their country is slowly recovering from 25 years of traumatic and brutal civil war. Beirut, once a jewel among Mediterranean cities, is gradually rebuilding itself from years of devastation. The Lebanese genius for business has seen a strong recovery in confidence. Lebanese capital which fled abroad, is returning to foster growth. The economy, though still shaky, is heading in the right direction. Of equal importance, foreign investor confidence is returning with investors, including many from the Kingdom and other GCC members, looking to underpin the rebuilding of Lebanon.
Is not all of this promise and potential, worth a firm declaration from the country’s leaders that whatever the sympathies of individual communities within it, Lebanon is not going to once more find itself embroiled in conflict, and allow itself to be used as a proxy battleground for outside forces and interests? The slow-motion wreck has still not reached the point of impact. There is surely still time for Lebanon’s leaders to stand on the brake?
Editorial: Lebanon’s leaders still have time
