Center for a New American Security

It's decision time for Lebanon's hopelessly dysfunctional politicians, who will all suffer a lot less than their hapless constituents if they can't pull a rabbit out of the hat and agree to a deal today. The BBC leads the coverage, and Anthony Shadid has a typically first-rate article in the Washington Post. The Post also re-ran Steve McInerney's piece on its op-ed page today. Stay tuned for the fireworks...

Update: What a %$#@ show.

Happy Thanksgiving Day, America! Or, as we call it in London and Beirut, "Thursday."

Yesterday's post was all about U.S. policy toward Lebanon, and Abu Muqawama mentioned polls showing the Lebanese population evenly divided between the ruling March 14th coalition and the Hizbollah-led opposition. While that's true, that doesn't tell the whole story. A growing number of Lebanese are simply sick and tired of the bull%$#@ and don't support either faction. They just want a responsible government that will go about the people's business without all the patronage networks and infighting that usually accompanies what passes for "governance" in Lebanon.

Enter Khalass! This group was set up by a friend of Abu Muqawama a while back to mobilize all those Lebanese who could give two cents about the "big men" of Lebanon and wouldn't be caught dead chanting "With spirit! With blood! We sacrifice for _________!" at any idiotic mass march. These crazy kids are currently staging a protest at parliament. Good luck to them.

Abu Muqawama has not posted much on Lebanon recently, but that's not because that troubled little country isn't on his mind. Much of his time in the library these days, in fact, is spent reading about Lebanon's last civil war. For those of you following the political events that have been taking place in the country these past few weeks, you'll know that if Lebanon doesn't elect a new president within the next few days, we could all be heading toward a new civil war.

From a U.S. policy perspective, part of the problem boils down to three things:

1. The U.S. doesn't seem to realize -- publicly, at least -- that the Lebanese populace is really quite evenly divided between the two warring camps. We would prefer to think that our allies in the pro-West March 14th alliance command a solid majority of all Lebanese, but recent polling data indicate that isn't the case.

30 percent identify themselves with the opposition and 28.4 percent identify with the March 14 coalition, yet the greatest percentage of respondents, 37.2 percent, gave no answer regarding their allegiance. When asked who would win the next elections, 37 percent of respondents indicated the opposition and 34 percent indicated the March 14 coalition.

2. You get the feeling the U.S. would rather "wish away" the 35%+ of the population that is Shia and for whom Hizbollah is the sole political representative. From a U.S. policy perspective, it would be a lot easier if those people just didn't exist, or there was a political alternative to Hizbollah (no, Amal is not an alternative), or they didn't have the support of a large part of Lebanon's Christian community.

3. The U.S. insists on seeing the conflict in Lebanon through the prism of its greater clash with Iran. That is the subject of an op-ed in today's washingtonpost.com, in which Abu Muqawama's friend Steve McInerney and some other guy argue this is a huge mistake. While we're viewing Hizbollah as a conflict with Iran, some of our allies in Lebanon and the greater Middle East are funding and manipulating some nasty transnational Sunni terror groups -- the kind of guys who were not only responsible for the recent fighting in Nahr al-Bared but also the worst terror attacks in Iraq. (Oh, and that whole 9/11 thing.) We said post-9/11 that we would not allow another terrorist safe haven after Afghanistan, but that's exactly what the Palestinian refugee camps have become -- often with the support of U.S. allies.

These groups don't have the popular support in Lebanon that Hezbollah boasts. But that also means they have no "red lines" of violence they will not cross. And, while Hezbollah wants to play an expanded political role in the Lebanese state, the Sunni extremist groups would like nothing more than to see the collapse of the state into anarchy and civil war -- truly a worst-case scenario both for Lebanon's fragile democracy and for regional security.

Earlier this year, one such group, Fatah al-Islam, incited three months of clashes with Lebanese security forces around the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared. During a recent congressional hearing, the assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, David Welch, characterized the fighting as "extraordinary, unexpected." He also emphasized that the threat had been dealt with. "Today, the only armed militia in Lebanon is Hezbollah," he said.

In fact, many analysts had predicted violence involving emerging Sunni radical groups "in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south." While promoting their own interests in the power vacuum created by the Syrian military withdrawal in 2005, some of America's closest allies in the Lebanese government and nearby Saudi Arabia and Jordan are believed to have supported the growth of the Sunni extremist groups. Moreover, thanks to a steady stream of Sunni militants from Iraq -- the types responsible for the most horrific attacks there -- continued growth is expected for the foreseeable future. At least, as long as the U.S. continues to look the other way, and as long as U.S. efforts to help the Lebanese military confront such groups are viewed with suspicion.

For the lighter side of the Lebanon crisis, meanwhile, read this article. (Thanks, Seth.)

"They are welcome to all the money I have in America. Rice should take half of it to improve the way she looks. She should have her teeth straightened and her face fixed, and should make herself look nice. I donate what is left to George Bush, because I know he will soon be admitted to a mental asylum because of his policies," former Lebanese minister Wiam Wahhab said. (Thanks, Seth)

But this report on the (in)effectiveness of the Israeli Air Force in the 2006 War with Hizbollah is one he'll read cover-to-cover.

Frustrated by its inability to stem rocket attacks on Israeli soil, Israel expanded its attacks on civilian targets to exact punishment on Hezbollah supporters and the government and people of Lebanon. Israel doggedly explained its action by reiterating again and again that Hezbollah fighters were “terrorists” and that Hezbollah was ultimately responsible for any damage caused, but outside of a small circle of supporters, Israel increasingly was objectified as the aggressor.

Emile sent along his testimony to the U.S. Senate hearing on Lebanon from a few days ago. It makes for good weekend reading. Enjoy!

...when the price of small arms doubles.

Abu Muqawama has been listening this morning to an exchange between Nicholas Blanford, a journalist based in Beirut, and retired IDF Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky. This exchange took place at the Washington Institute's 2007 Weinberg Founders Conference, and it is fair to say the vast majority of the audience was strongly pro-Israel. Nick has been reporting on military affairs in southern Lebanon since the mid-1990s, and though some of Abu Muqawama's fellow Hizbollah-watchers will take issue with his analysis of the political situation in Lebanon and Hizbollah's military preparations, Abu Muqawama thinks he presents a good, dispassionate analysis for this American audience. Nick's reporting on Hizbollah's military capabilities and performance -- for the Christian Science Monitor, The Times of London, and Jane's -- has been the best analysis Abu Muqawama has read in any language.

The real fun begins when Kaplinsky has to explain to this audience how the IDF ended up with egg all over its face in 2006 and then present his analysis of the political situation in Lebanon. Abu Muqawama largely trusts Nick when he talks about what is going on in southern Lebanon today, in 2007. By contrast, Abu Muqawama's three-year old niece probably has a better understanding of southern Lebanon than Moshe Kaplinsky these days. That's too harsh, perhaps, but since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the collapse of Israel's human intelligence capabilities in southern Lebanon, Israel and the IDF have displayed a remarkable lack of understanding of the internal dynamics at work within Lebanese society and its political system. It is funny, though, that Kaplinsky praises American support for the Lebanese Army, considering the #1 mission of the Lebanese Army is to defend Lebanon against ... Israel!

When the fighting at Nahr al-Bared Refugee Camp in northern Lebanon ended, Abu Muqawama wondered how, exactly, the camp's residents would ever be able to re-build. Today's report in the Guardian does nothing to answer that question but paints a bleak picture of what remains for refugees. This blog and the internet don't really do the pictures justice, but you really need to look at the devastation in their special photo essay. The place really is, as this blog has earlier guessed, a "Stalingrad." In the paper version of the Guardian today, they ran a two-page spread of one photograph that was literally breath-taking. Not as breath-taking, though, as this heart-warming vignette:

Inside the few homes that escaped the fires, racist graffiti covered the walls, many signed by a group calling themselves Sons of the Army or by particular commando groups.

One read: "It's a sin for a Palestinian to live in a home, they should live in hovels with the other animals."

Classy. The Arab Nation at its finest. Angry Arab has posted pictures of this graffiti on his website if anyone's interested in the untranslated text.

Anyway, at the moment Abu Muqawama is working on an article arguing why, in the aftermath of Iraq, we can expect to see more bloodshed along the lines of Nahr al-Bared in Iraq's neighboring states.

The idea that the U.S. would want permanent or semi-permanent bases in Lebanon is silly -- for all the reasons mentioned previously by this blogger. And while Abu Muqawama doesn't want to be a water-carrier for Jeff Feltman, there is no reason to believe any of the following isn't true:

Suleiman told the Naharnet Web site Thursday that the purported request for basing rights "has not been discussed with the Lebanese Army."

US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman described the As-Safir article as a fabrication and an insult to the Lebanese Army.

"The purpose of the visit was very clear ... What he discussed was our commitment to help Lebanon to build a strong state and a strong army, especially after the great sacrifices this army has made in Nahr al-Bared," Feltman told reporters after visiting Beirut Maronite Bishop Boulos Matar Thursday.

"We are working hand in hand with the army commander and the minister of defense to strengthen Lebanon's defensive capabilities," Feltman said. "The Lebanese people, at all levels, expressed a desire to establish a strong state and a strong army capable of defending Lebanon as happened in Nahr al-Bared." (more)

Eric Edelman is, as diplomats go, tits on a bull (useless) and should have known that his visit would arouse all kinds of suspicion and rumors. But that doesn't change Abu Muqawama's belief that the U.S. is more worried about the spread of Islamist radicals out of Iraq and into the camps in Lebanon -- and that the summer fight at Nahr al-Bared was just the first of many clashes we can expect -- than they are about the bleeping Russians in Syria. (Do the Cold Warriors as-Safir think this is 1985?) It makes all the sense in the world, then, to aid and help reform the Lebanese Army as soon as possible.