Topic “Lebanon”
Pirates ... and Lebanon!
April 15, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 4:45pm | 12 Comments
God bless Sean Lee, who has figured out a way to allow me to talk about pirates and Lebanon. If anyone figures out a way to bring military innovation theory into this conversation, let me know. (I suspect it will not be hard, actually.)
We need to deal with this problem from the beach side, in concert with the ocean side, but we don’t have an embassy in Somalia and limited, ineffective intelligence operations. We need to work in Somalia and in Lebanon, where a lot of the ransom money has changed hands. But our operations in Lebanon are a joke, and we have no presence at all in Somalia.
It's all going off in the Bekaa...
April 13, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 11:45am | 1 Comment
Mexico is not the only state whose authority is being challenged by drug gangs. This has nothing to do with Hizballah, either. This is about Shia drug clans. Which is a phrase that sounds as cool as it does incongruous. Try using "Shia drug clan" in one of your office conversations today, people.
BEIRUT (AP) -- Gunmen ambushed Lebanese troops in the east of the country on Monday, spraying their military vehicle with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, a senior military official said. Four soldiers were killed and an officer was wounded in the attack.
The ambush on a major road near the town of Rayak comes after a recent push by Lebanese troops to crack down on the drug trade in the Bekaa Valley and carried the hallmarks of a revenge attack by clansmen.
The official said the gunmen, traveling in three four-wheel drive vehicles, sped away after the attack.
The Regionalization of Hizballah
April 13, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 8:06am | 0 Comments
A few years back, folks were debating when Hizballah would finally become "Lebanonized" and confine their activities to the Lebanese political sphere. Between 2000 and 20005, roughly, scholars hopefully wrote about the "Lebanonization" of Hizballah. In the end, something else happened.
I have been among those who advises everyone to take a deep breath whenever Michael Braun and others -- operating under a very loose definition of who is and is not "Hizballah"* -- start feeding stories about how Hizballah is masterminding the drug trade along our southern border and other such nonsense. Hizballah is not a transnational terror organization like al-Qaeda that operates without being rooted in a local constituency. Hizballah is, for the most part, a violent non-state actor that both participates in the Lebanese political process and carries out a foreign and defense policy separate from that of the state of Lebanon. The vast majority of its military activities are confined to southern Lebanon.
In the past year or so (perhaps since the 2006 war, actually), though, Hizballah's rhetoric has become regional in its focus. Hassan Nasrallah, in speeches, has consistently recognized the "resistance" in not only Palestine but also in Iraq.** Rhetorical support, though, is different from material support. Now, though, not only is Hizballah open about its "train and equip" mission for Palestinian groups in Lebanon, it is also claiming a Hizballah operative caught in Egypt is in fact a Hizballah operative and that he was carrying out logistical missions in support of Palestinian groups.
This is extraordinary. It is also a huge mistake. Egypt, for all its flaws as a state, is not Lebanon. The security apparatus in Egypt is strong, and Egyptians -- no matter how much they dislike Hosni Mubarak -- did not much like it when Hassan Nasrallah called him out on television during the Gaza War. I do not believe Nasrallah wants Egypt to start cracking down on all the Shia Lebanese expatriates who pass through. In the same way, it is not in Hizballah's interest for the international community to come to the conclusion that Hizballah is not content to confine its operations to southern Lebanon. Because what could be dismissed as a sub-regional issue now becomes a regional issue. And that brings in more states and international actors.
So I think Hizballah has overreached here. And I think that they and the constituency upon whom they rely for support are going to pay a price for that overreach.
*The definitions of many domestic agencies about who can be considered "Hizballah" often conform to legal definitions -- which are designed to include those who have given monetary support to the organization by way of donations -- but lack explanatory power because they fail to separate the actual activists from those who just happen to be Lebanese Shia expatriates who support Hizballah's agenda. As many Lebanese Shia expatriates tend to do. Case in point: the government of Germany claims it has 800 Hizballah operatives active in Germany. Do you see the problem here? That's almost as many men as Hizballah is estimated to have put in the field during the 2006 war. So either someone's math is off, or we need to tweak our definition of who is and is not "Hizballah".
**To be fair, support for the Palestinian resistance has been a constant of Hizballah rhetoric and policy and is nothing new.
I have been among those who advises everyone to take a deep breath whenever Michael Braun and others -- operating under a very loose definition of who is and is not "Hizballah"* -- start feeding stories about how Hizballah is masterminding the drug trade along our southern border and other such nonsense. Hizballah is not a transnational terror organization like al-Qaeda that operates without being rooted in a local constituency. Hizballah is, for the most part, a violent non-state actor that both participates in the Lebanese political process and carries out a foreign and defense policy separate from that of the state of Lebanon. The vast majority of its military activities are confined to southern Lebanon.
In the past year or so (perhaps since the 2006 war, actually), though, Hizballah's rhetoric has become regional in its focus. Hassan Nasrallah, in speeches, has consistently recognized the "resistance" in not only Palestine but also in Iraq.** Rhetorical support, though, is different from material support. Now, though, not only is Hizballah open about its "train and equip" mission for Palestinian groups in Lebanon, it is also claiming a Hizballah operative caught in Egypt is in fact a Hizballah operative and that he was carrying out logistical missions in support of Palestinian groups.
This is extraordinary. It is also a huge mistake. Egypt, for all its flaws as a state, is not Lebanon. The security apparatus in Egypt is strong, and Egyptians -- no matter how much they dislike Hosni Mubarak -- did not much like it when Hassan Nasrallah called him out on television during the Gaza War. I do not believe Nasrallah wants Egypt to start cracking down on all the Shia Lebanese expatriates who pass through. In the same way, it is not in Hizballah's interest for the international community to come to the conclusion that Hizballah is not content to confine its operations to southern Lebanon. Because what could be dismissed as a sub-regional issue now becomes a regional issue. And that brings in more states and international actors.
So I think Hizballah has overreached here. And I think that they and the constituency upon whom they rely for support are going to pay a price for that overreach.
*The definitions of many domestic agencies about who can be considered "Hizballah" often conform to legal definitions -- which are designed to include those who have given monetary support to the organization by way of donations -- but lack explanatory power because they fail to separate the actual activists from those who just happen to be Lebanese Shia expatriates who support Hizballah's agenda. As many Lebanese Shia expatriates tend to do. Case in point: the government of Germany claims it has 800 Hizballah operatives active in Germany. Do you see the problem here? That's almost as many men as Hizballah is estimated to have put in the field during the 2006 war. So either someone's math is off, or we need to tweak our definition of who is and is not "Hizballah".
**To be fair, support for the Palestinian resistance has been a constant of Hizballah rhetoric and policy and is nothing new.
Arguing the 2006 War
April 6, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 8:29am | 52 Comments
Greg Jaffe has an A1 article in today's Washington Post all about the 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah and the way in which the war is used in contemporary U.S. defense policy debates. Jaffe starts with a simple question: Why, despite fighting in two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that both offer all kinds of lessons of their own, is the U.S. military spending so much of its time and money studying the 2006 war?
(Unless, of course, these drug wars in Mexico lead to the rise of some Hassan Nasrallah figure who starts lobbing Katyushas over the border into El Paso. Then it's game on.)
...the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe. "I've organized five major games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah," said Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico.Steve Biddle, per usual, has the answer to the question Jaffe is asking:
"The Lebanon war has become a bellwether," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. "If you are opposed to transforming the military to fight low-intensity wars, it is your bloody sheet. It's discussed in almost coded communication to indicate which side of the argument you are on."Here's the problem with that, though. As Jaffe notes toward the end of the article, the 2006 war is a kind of Rorschach test that does not so much point toward obvious conclusions but rather highlights pre-existing biases on the part of those researchers looking to draw conclusions. Personally, I believe you can take any number of important lessons from the war and can use the war writ large to argue all sides of the ongoing defense debates. If you just look at the war within the 34 days of open fighting, for example, it is clear the Israelis allowed their conventional war-fighting skills to atrophy as they engaged in low-intensity operations in the Palestinian territories between 2000 and 2006. But if you look at the war from the other side of the border -- which few studies have done -- you see the way that, over a span of time beyond the 34 days of open fighting, Hizballah employed non-kinetic lines of operation (to include information operations and the provision of essential services to their population), to virtually ensure that no matter how the Israelis performed operationally, they would have a tough time winning strategically. Or, to put it another way,
"Even if the Israelis had done better operationally, I don't think they would have been victorious in the long run," said Andrew Exum, a former Army officer who has studied the battle from southern Lebanon. "For the Israelis, the war lasted for 34 days. We tend to forget that for Hezbollah, it is infinite."So there are lessons to be found in the 2006 war for Cold Warriors and COINdinistas alike. What we should do, instead, is study the wars we are actually fighting. That will cost guys like me several thousand dollars in consulting fees each year for those war games Frank Hoffman mentions, but it makes a lot more sense to study the wars in which Americans are actually fighting and dying than it does to study a war whose lessons are only vaguely applicable to the future of American war.
(Unless, of course, these drug wars in Mexico lead to the rise of some Hassan Nasrallah figure who starts lobbing Katyushas over the border into El Paso. Then it's game on.)
On Lebanon and Lebanese Elections
April 1, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 9:00am | 9 Comments
I posted yesterday to remind our readers that this is not a Middle East policy blog. The comments I received in reply assured me that a) you all understand this and b) any Lebowski reference will be rewarded with hilarious commentary. For example, from the comments:
Nihilists? F@*k me!, I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Population-centric counterinsurgency doctrine, Dude, at least it's an Ethos!All that having been said, this blog has often posted on events in Lebanon, as that is where this blogger happened to both earn his master's degree and do his field work for his PhD. My ear is no longer to the ground in that country, though, so I am not following the run-up to the important elections in June as closely as I perhaps should be. Enter Qifa Nabki. A few weeks ago, I told Qifa to be prepared to be the go-to blog for Abu Muqawama readers looking for insights on the elections. I have been really impressed by the mix of serious analysis and good humor on this blog. So consider my duties as a Lebanon analyst on non-security-related matters officially outsourced.
Oh, for the love of all that is holy...
March 30, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 6:03pm | 17 Comments
Well, kids, here it is. You knew it was coming.
I still think Totten should have kicked his ass out of principle once they had returned to the hotel. (Thanks, SNLII)Well, call me old-fashioned if you will, but I have always taken the view that swastika symbols exist for one purpose only—to be defaced. Telling my two companions to hold on for a second, I flourish my trusty felt-tip and begin to write some offensive words on the offending poster. I say “begin” because I have barely gotten to the letter k in a well-known transitive verb when I am grabbed by my shirt collar by a venomous little thug, his face glittering with hysterical malice. With his other hand, he is speed-dialing for backup on his cell phone. As always with episodes of violence, things seem to slow down and quicken up at the same time: the eruption of mayhem in broad daylight happening with the speed of lightning yet somehow held in freeze-frame. It becomes evident, as the backup arrives, that this gang wants to take me away.
I am as determined as I can be that I am not going to be stuffed into the trunk of some car and borne off to a private dungeon (as has happened to friends of mine in Beirut in the past). With my two staunch comrades I approach a policeman whose indifference seems well-nigh perfect. We hail a cab and start to get in, but one of our assailants gets in also, and the driver seems to know intimidation only too well when he sees it. We retreat to a stretch of sidewalk outside a Costa café, and suddenly I am sprawled on the ground, having been hit from behind, and someone is putting the leather into my legs and flanks. At this point the crowd in the café begins to shout at the hoodlums, which unnerves them long enough for us to stop another cab and pull away. My shirt is spattered with blood, but I’m in no pain yet: the nastiest moment is just ahead of me. As the taxi accelerates, a face looms at the open window and a fist crashes through and connects with my cheekbone. The blow isn’t so hard, but the contorted, glaring, fanatical face is a horror show, a vision from hell. It’s like looking down a wobbling gun barrel, or into the eyes of a torturer. I can see it still.
Talking to Arabs, Big and Small
March 18, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 9:18am | 17 Comments
You'll remember that I echoed Philip Bennett's lament in Sunday's Post that so many of the narratives to have emerged from the Iraq War have left out the voices of Iraqis themselves. The exception to the rule has been the work of Anthony Shadid, who is now back in Iraq and busying himself with speaking to ordinary Iraqis on the streets of Baghdad. Our understanding of Iraq and its peoples is much richer for his reporting, so read what he wrote today. Most reporters in Iraq are hard-working professionals who hustle to keep track of the latest military and diplomatic maneuvers. But an Arabic-speaker like Shadid can spend two hours at a schwarma stand and proceed to tell us more about Iraq than 90% of other stuff out there.
Give some credit, too, to Robert Pollock, who went to Lebanon for the Wall Street Journal and interviewed Muhammad Hussein Fadhlullah. This is a very good interview. Pollock presses Fadlallah on key questions but also allows him time to formulate cogent responses. The title of this post, actually, should have been "Talking with Arabs." Because listening to their responses is often more important than what we Westerners have to say.
Give some credit, too, to Robert Pollock, who went to Lebanon for the Wall Street Journal and interviewed Muhammad Hussein Fadhlullah. This is a very good interview. Pollock presses Fadlallah on key questions but also allows him time to formulate cogent responses. The title of this post, actually, should have been "Talking with Arabs." Because listening to their responses is often more important than what we Westerners have to say.
Extended Thoughts on Hizballah
March 16, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 4:35pm | 116 Comments
Long-time readers of this blog will have noticed a bit of pessimism in my recent posts on Hizballah. Cynicism about Lebanese politics is nothing new for this blog, but even some of my most enthusiastic readers wondered if I had not already caught a case of "think tank-itis."
The truth is, I have been pretty pessimistic about the near-term prospects for peace in southern Lebanon for some time now, and much of this pessimism was informed by my recent time spent in Lebanon -- rather than the past two months in the 202 area code. To a degree, I have always taken some of Hizballah's public rhetoric with a grain of salt, conscious that what was meant for external consumption may or may not accurately reflect the internal logic and decision-making process of the organization.
So when I would hear about building a "society of resistance" I didn't think too much about it at first. Traveling through southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut this past summer and fall, though, I grew worried that Hizballah might actually succeed in building a society around the act of "resistance" -- and began to think about what that might mean for Lebanon and the sub-region.
On 6 November, I went to the ardi festival in Beirut's southern suburbs, where merchants and artisans hawked some amazing food and spices from rural Lebanon in addition to kitsch featuring Hassan Nasrallah and Michel Aoun. It was just delightful, really. But on the walls of the big structure in which the festival was held were two huge banners -- one in Arabic and one in English -- that featured a picture of Imad Mughniyeh against a backdrop of Hizballah militants lined up in their ranks: "Imad Mughniyeh left you thousands of fighters who are ready for martyrdom."
These kinds of posters and banners are up all over southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs, and maybe it should not have affected me, but in my last months in Beirut, it did. And as I sat there enjoying fresh bread and thyme, I had a nagging worry in the pit of my stomach.
As I wrote in the World Politics Review a few weeks ago, the danger of trying to create a society of resistance is that you might succeed. And once you do, it gets awfully tough to talk your constituents down from the rhetorical ledge you've constructed. So I worry that at this point it would be a lot more difficult for Hizballah's leadership to lead their constituents toward disarmament because they have constructed this external enemy that gives the organization its meaning. (The Israelis play a role in this as well, of course, but Israeli threat perception and strategic culture are subjects for, oh, about 500 other posts.)
Then there is the whole problem of Hizballah's rhetoric. Trying to convince one's self that armed resistance isn't actually the organization's rasion d'être takes a Golden Gate Bridge-sized suspension of disbelief. Hizballah is, in the words of Hassan Nasrallah, "a resistance movement, pure and simple." Hussein al-Mousawi said that "The Resistance is Hizballah and Hizballah is the Resistance." Naim Qassem, in his book, goes to great lengths to stress that Hizballah's armed resistance mission is the most important thing the organization does.
When Mona Harb and Reinoud Leenders wrote their excellent article criticizing existing Hizballah scholarship a few years ago, most people focused on the rather unkind words they had for the shoddy "scholarship" on Hizballah's military activities -- much of which was written while relying heavily, if not exclusively, on dodgy Israeli "intelligence" "sources" and with little to no time spent researching in Lebanon. But Harb and Leenders had another complaint: most of the good scholarship on Hizballah went almost out of its way to ignore the organization's military behavior. (Which, admittedly and as I know all too well, is the most difficult part to research.) But if the organization itself continuously stresses that armed resistance is the most important thing about the organization, what the hell are we doing treating Hizballah like the Hamilton Co. (Tennessee) School Board? (Which, actually, is probably more heavily-armed than Hizballah.) I know Nick Noe and others want us to believe that we need only address certain "bleeding wounds" for Hizballah to disarm, but c'mon, Nick: you edited an entire book of Nasrallah's speeches. What in that book of speeches should lead you or anyone else to believe that Hassan Nasrallah and the rest of the organization is not committed to continued and unyielding armed struggle against the Israelis?
This is what worries me. As anyone who knows me and my biography can attest, I am as big a fan of the Lebanese people as I am a critic of their political leaders. I especially adore southern Lebanon, the area which bears the brunt of any fighting between Israel and Hizballah. (In my mind, as I sit here in my Washington office on a gloomy gray day, I am instead swimming off the beach at Tyre -- as I was as late as last November.) I love Lebanon and its people. But when I listen to the rhetoric of Hizballah, I have no faith the people of southern Lebanon are going to enjoy an extended period of peace -- no matter who is in office in Jerusalem or what Israel does.
About a year ago, I was hanging out with a friend of mine, another graduate student researching Hizballah. He was listening to Hizballah battle anthems and songs on his computer. "Doesn't this stuff pump you up?" he asked me, smiling.
No. No, it doesn't. It depresses me. And that's what is behind my pessimism.
Update: Whenever I call someone out, I like to give them (unedited) space to respond. This is Nick Noe:
The truth is, I have been pretty pessimistic about the near-term prospects for peace in southern Lebanon for some time now, and much of this pessimism was informed by my recent time spent in Lebanon -- rather than the past two months in the 202 area code. To a degree, I have always taken some of Hizballah's public rhetoric with a grain of salt, conscious that what was meant for external consumption may or may not accurately reflect the internal logic and decision-making process of the organization.
So when I would hear about building a "society of resistance" I didn't think too much about it at first. Traveling through southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut this past summer and fall, though, I grew worried that Hizballah might actually succeed in building a society around the act of "resistance" -- and began to think about what that might mean for Lebanon and the sub-region.
On 6 November, I went to the ardi festival in Beirut's southern suburbs, where merchants and artisans hawked some amazing food and spices from rural Lebanon in addition to kitsch featuring Hassan Nasrallah and Michel Aoun. It was just delightful, really. But on the walls of the big structure in which the festival was held were two huge banners -- one in Arabic and one in English -- that featured a picture of Imad Mughniyeh against a backdrop of Hizballah militants lined up in their ranks: "Imad Mughniyeh left you thousands of fighters who are ready for martyrdom."
These kinds of posters and banners are up all over southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs, and maybe it should not have affected me, but in my last months in Beirut, it did. And as I sat there enjoying fresh bread and thyme, I had a nagging worry in the pit of my stomach.
As I wrote in the World Politics Review a few weeks ago, the danger of trying to create a society of resistance is that you might succeed. And once you do, it gets awfully tough to talk your constituents down from the rhetorical ledge you've constructed. So I worry that at this point it would be a lot more difficult for Hizballah's leadership to lead their constituents toward disarmament because they have constructed this external enemy that gives the organization its meaning. (The Israelis play a role in this as well, of course, but Israeli threat perception and strategic culture are subjects for, oh, about 500 other posts.)
Then there is the whole problem of Hizballah's rhetoric. Trying to convince one's self that armed resistance isn't actually the organization's rasion d'être takes a Golden Gate Bridge-sized suspension of disbelief. Hizballah is, in the words of Hassan Nasrallah, "a resistance movement, pure and simple." Hussein al-Mousawi said that "The Resistance is Hizballah and Hizballah is the Resistance." Naim Qassem, in his book, goes to great lengths to stress that Hizballah's armed resistance mission is the most important thing the organization does.
When Mona Harb and Reinoud Leenders wrote their excellent article criticizing existing Hizballah scholarship a few years ago, most people focused on the rather unkind words they had for the shoddy "scholarship" on Hizballah's military activities -- much of which was written while relying heavily, if not exclusively, on dodgy Israeli "intelligence" "sources" and with little to no time spent researching in Lebanon. But Harb and Leenders had another complaint: most of the good scholarship on Hizballah went almost out of its way to ignore the organization's military behavior. (Which, admittedly and as I know all too well, is the most difficult part to research.) But if the organization itself continuously stresses that armed resistance is the most important thing about the organization, what the hell are we doing treating Hizballah like the Hamilton Co. (Tennessee) School Board? (Which, actually, is probably more heavily-armed than Hizballah.) I know Nick Noe and others want us to believe that we need only address certain "bleeding wounds" for Hizballah to disarm, but c'mon, Nick: you edited an entire book of Nasrallah's speeches. What in that book of speeches should lead you or anyone else to believe that Hassan Nasrallah and the rest of the organization is not committed to continued and unyielding armed struggle against the Israelis?
This is what worries me. As anyone who knows me and my biography can attest, I am as big a fan of the Lebanese people as I am a critic of their political leaders. I especially adore southern Lebanon, the area which bears the brunt of any fighting between Israel and Hizballah. (In my mind, as I sit here in my Washington office on a gloomy gray day, I am instead swimming off the beach at Tyre -- as I was as late as last November.) I love Lebanon and its people. But when I listen to the rhetoric of Hizballah, I have no faith the people of southern Lebanon are going to enjoy an extended period of peace -- no matter who is in office in Jerusalem or what Israel does.
About a year ago, I was hanging out with a friend of mine, another graduate student researching Hizballah. He was listening to Hizballah battle anthems and songs on his computer. "Doesn't this stuff pump you up?" he asked me, smiling.
No. No, it doesn't. It depresses me. And that's what is behind my pessimism.
Update: Whenever I call someone out, I like to give them (unedited) space to respond. This is Nick Noe:
Quickly - I think some more of how I think on Hizbullah's discourse will be clearer next week when a long essay on Nasrallah is published in the national magazine. Lets see if that makes things clearer vis a vis the party's states goals, aspirations, interpretations. But even without such a line of argument, we need to end this idea once and for all that I am arguing for removing the bleeding wounds - and that with their removal, Hizbullah disarms. I am NOT. The paper I released argues that this would certainly not get the job done. Instead, it is my position that 1) you must view Hizbullah's discourse dialectically as an operation between reason/unreason, totalitarianism/radical democracy and peace/violence. When you do that and then add an analysis of the multitude of constraints which the Party faces in exercising violence towards its goals (which are themselves a dialectical operation as I stressed), you arrive, I believe, at the conclusion that a strategy of using reason, democracy and nonviolence to undermine all that is indeed unreasonable and violent about Hizbullah is the best strategy for serving US interests and, I believe personally, Lebanese interests. That strategy has THREE key parts: 1) Remove the bleeding wounds because these are the areas where conflict might reasonably be sparked in the short term (so remove the likely conflagration points; 2) Credibly arm the LAF to defend Lebanon against Israel and internal threats (and Syria too!). This means, as Aram and I BOTH argue a) the US, Israel and M14 accepts that a strong LAF is not to be used to forcibly disarm Hizbullah (although it can and should protect a credibly constructed state!) and b) the US accepts a recalibration of Israel's QME WITHOUT an a priori peace agreement; and 3) the US begins to help the Lebanese push the process of deconfessionalization and enfranchisement which the Lebanese have already mapped out for themselves (this rests on Bilal Saab's argument that the US should support certain processes rather than parties and figures in Lebanon).
There it is in a nutshell - so please do NOT consider me duped by Nasrallah or an "admirer" which suggests a positive value judgement. I agree with mona and reinoud's point on the military-jihadist core for Hizbullah because they both insist on viewing this DIALECTICALLY....But remember, as i said in the paper, even if you think that Hizbullah operates towards the most extremist, evil ends, they operate within a framework which can be deftly marshalled to deflate violence and build peace. The openings for this is what I am focused on. Sadly though, I have not seen much in the way of good ideas from those who understand this and who then criticize this approach. But let me know, because one should not give up on proposing peaceful options even when you think the actor in question is bent on evildoing - and especially when that other actor is far more complicated than that and faces other actors who hold such a perponderance of power!
Ouch.
March 13, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 11:12pm | 47 Comments
I didn't say anything in response to Nick's response to my criticism. Hassan Nasrallah does all my heavy lifting.
I have two thoughts:
The bottom line is, we the United States made things easy on Islamist groups from 2001-2009. With hard-liners in Washington, they could always deflect blame onto the United States and our inflexible policies. Now, I suspect, they will have to adjust to the new realities in Washington -- or risk isolating many of the supporters they have gathered in recent years.
One more thought: this new Neko Case album is quite good.
Personally, I think Hizballah is a lot more intimidated by Barack Hussein Obama than it ever was by the cartoon villain George W. Bush. It would be like if Iran voted in a moderate president and we still had to deal with the issue that the Iranian population still wants nuclear power and feels they have a right to it. It's all well and good when some cartoonish clown like Ahmadinejad or Bush is in charge. When a conciliatory moderate is in charge but your interests still aren't alligned, that's when you see the real differences -- and you can't blame all your disagreements on the other side.The leader of Lebanon's Islamist Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, has said his group will never recognise Israel's right to exist.
He was responding to a US suggestion that both Hezbollah and the Palestinian faction Hamas should recognise Israel before expecting any US engagement.
"We reject the American conditions," he said. "As long as Hezbollah exists, it will never recognise Israel."
Israel and Hezbollah's armed wing fought a bloody conflict in 2006.
Mr Nasrallah made the statement rejecting the US conditions for talks said in a speech marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.
I have two thoughts:
- Maybe it's about time we start taking some Islamist groups seriously and at their word. When Hamas or Hizballah says there is no circumstance under which they would recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution, maybe we should, you know, believe them.
- Maybe we shouldn't think about how we are going to pursue our own interests without first seeing whether or not we have partners willing to meet us halfway. Hizballah can put the most enlightened spokesperson in front of the organization -- Ibrahim Mousawi, Hussein Rahal, whoever -- but if it looks as if there is no middle ground on which we can meet, there is really nothing we can talk about.
The bottom line is, we the United States made things easy on Islamist groups from 2001-2009. With hard-liners in Washington, they could always deflect blame onto the United States and our inflexible policies. Now, I suspect, they will have to adjust to the new realities in Washington -- or risk isolating many of the supporters they have gathered in recent years.
One more thought: this new Neko Case album is quite good.
Noe on Lebanon Policy (Updated)
March 12, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 9:54am | 88 Comments
My friend Nick Noe has a new paper, readily downloadable from the Century Foundation (.pdf), arguing for a new direction in U.S. policy toward Lebanon. I read a draft of the paper this fall and registered a full list of criticisms with Nick. The paper, as I read it now, is much improved. But some of the objections I had then I still have now:
1. Nick (correctly) takes a critical eye toward the statements of politicians associated with Lebanon's March 14th coalition. But no where in the paper do I see the same degree of criticism extended to politicians aligned with the rival March 8th coalition. I don't know, maybe I have grown too cynical about Lebanese politics, but as a rule, I tend to believe Hassan Nasrallah can be just as full of %$#@ as Ahmed Fatfat. Only once in the paper (that I saw) did Nick entertain the thought that a statement made by Nasrallah might not be 100% sincere. Otherwise, his words were treated with deference. Again, maybe I am too cynical, but I tend to assume anything Hassan Nasrallah says should be treated with the same amount of criticism as the words of Walid Jumblatt or Saad Hariri. I know Nick really admires Nasrallah, but c'mon -- he is a politician.
2. Unlike Aram Nerguizian's recent CSIS paper -- which both Nick and I enjoyed -- this paper has some policy prescriptions for what we need to do to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) but without any grounding in theories of military efficiency and without really getting into the weeds on what, exactly, the LAF needs to be effective. And I think Nick has unrealistic expectations for what the U.S. can and should do for the LAF. The CSIS paper noted that Lebanon itself owes the U.S. both reforms and about $1 billion of its own investment. "You know Lebanon can't afford that," Nick told me. "They have too much debt as it stands." And we don't!?! Unfortunately, the U.S. treasury is in no position to go throwing massive amounts of cash at some non-allied nation's military. At the least, though, the Lebanese owe us some reforms as part of any U.S. training and assistance mission. Too much of the LAF's budget goes toward salaries and a bloated senior officer corps instead of training and equipment.
3. I have no idea why Nick left in two bits at the end about how the United States should seek rapprochement with Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and take Fadlallah off the State Department's terrorist watch list. I told Nick this paper would work better if it just focused on strengthening the LAF as a way toward undermining Hizballah's raison d'être, which is a cause I can support. As it reads, though, this paper is like some March 8th wish list.
In the end, I have come around to Nick's way of thinking on some of the specific pieces of hardware and equipment that should be provided to the LAF. (You might, in fact, need CAS in support of missions such as the Nahr al-Bared offensive.) But I think that a) the Lebanese owe us some things as well -- such as reforms, and a coherent National Defense Review around which we can tailor a long-term training and assistance mission -- and b) I am decidedly less enthusiastic about complicated schemes by which we throw gobs of military equipment toward the Lebanese under the assumption that it will cause Hizballah to disarm. Again, maybe I am too cynical, but I think Hizballah will always find a reason to keep its arms. Am I wrong on this? Sound off in the comments.
Update: I told Nick he could respond to this post under the condition that his response would be shorter than the original post. He is paring his response now, and I will post it when he sends it.
Update II: Nick wrote a 342-page response to this post, and I asked him to pare it down a little. The following, unedited by me, is the result, and I will let Nick and the comments section get in the last word.
1. Nick (correctly) takes a critical eye toward the statements of politicians associated with Lebanon's March 14th coalition. But no where in the paper do I see the same degree of criticism extended to politicians aligned with the rival March 8th coalition. I don't know, maybe I have grown too cynical about Lebanese politics, but as a rule, I tend to believe Hassan Nasrallah can be just as full of %$#@ as Ahmed Fatfat. Only once in the paper (that I saw) did Nick entertain the thought that a statement made by Nasrallah might not be 100% sincere. Otherwise, his words were treated with deference. Again, maybe I am too cynical, but I tend to assume anything Hassan Nasrallah says should be treated with the same amount of criticism as the words of Walid Jumblatt or Saad Hariri. I know Nick really admires Nasrallah, but c'mon -- he is a politician.
2. Unlike Aram Nerguizian's recent CSIS paper -- which both Nick and I enjoyed -- this paper has some policy prescriptions for what we need to do to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) but without any grounding in theories of military efficiency and without really getting into the weeds on what, exactly, the LAF needs to be effective. And I think Nick has unrealistic expectations for what the U.S. can and should do for the LAF. The CSIS paper noted that Lebanon itself owes the U.S. both reforms and about $1 billion of its own investment. "You know Lebanon can't afford that," Nick told me. "They have too much debt as it stands." And we don't!?! Unfortunately, the U.S. treasury is in no position to go throwing massive amounts of cash at some non-allied nation's military. At the least, though, the Lebanese owe us some reforms as part of any U.S. training and assistance mission. Too much of the LAF's budget goes toward salaries and a bloated senior officer corps instead of training and equipment.
3. I have no idea why Nick left in two bits at the end about how the United States should seek rapprochement with Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and take Fadlallah off the State Department's terrorist watch list. I told Nick this paper would work better if it just focused on strengthening the LAF as a way toward undermining Hizballah's raison d'être, which is a cause I can support. As it reads, though, this paper is like some March 8th wish list.
In the end, I have come around to Nick's way of thinking on some of the specific pieces of hardware and equipment that should be provided to the LAF. (You might, in fact, need CAS in support of missions such as the Nahr al-Bared offensive.) But I think that a) the Lebanese owe us some things as well -- such as reforms, and a coherent National Defense Review around which we can tailor a long-term training and assistance mission -- and b) I am decidedly less enthusiastic about complicated schemes by which we throw gobs of military equipment toward the Lebanese under the assumption that it will cause Hizballah to disarm. Again, maybe I am too cynical, but I think Hizballah will always find a reason to keep its arms. Am I wrong on this? Sound off in the comments.
Update: I told Nick he could respond to this post under the condition that his response would be shorter than the original post. He is paring his response now, and I will post it when he sends it.
Update II: Nick wrote a 342-page response to this post, and I asked him to pare it down a little. The following, unedited by me, is the result, and I will let Nick and the comments section get in the last word.
1) Do be careful about using the word "admire" (one of your commentators has already used that tag as a way to compare me to Zawahiri... we know how this can go and we need to be more precise - if you could star this in your original post it might help). I do not "admire" Nasrallah. I do view him, however, as a far superior thinker, articulator and leader than Fatfat and many others, of course, here and elsewhere - but this is certainly NOT to say that I think Nasrallah's line is good for the US, Lebanon or the rest of the world. As far as value judgements go, the whole paper is premised on the idea that Hizbullah should be disarmed - that the elements of unreason, totalitarianism and violence that do exist with Nasrallah and the party (and which work dialectically with elements of reason, justice and peace within their overall discourse and actions) should be addressed head on by the US and others, via peaceful strategies. The larger point here is that in the paper I am not in the business of proving or disproving statements by either Lebanese side. Fatfat's silly and contradictory comments were useful, but a minor detail and really the only case I think where I used a statement by a Lebanese politician to demonstrate hallowness. The main point, as I explain on page 22-23, is even if you think Nasrallah is a liar, and/or that he wants to liberate Jerusalem or turn Lebanon into an Islamic state, "what he really thinks" or what Hizbullah "really wants" is far less important - and probably unknowable publicly, in any case - than how they sell themselves, how they view their weaknesses and the ways in which their sociopolitical environment can structure, limit and even change their actions and calculations. On this score, as I explain in the paper, Hizbullah is extremely vulnerable to having its unreasonable and violent side deflated... But the US - the actor who holds a great perponderance of power - must emphasize the peaceful means that address the rational basis of Hizbullah's support. The only other suggestions out there (apart from a still unlikely resolution of the Iran, Syrian, and/or Palestinian tracks) are 1) more of the same policy of stagnation (which is fast turning into disregard) 2) a slow and really only marginal uptick in US support for the LAF which will not be decisive enough to get the "peaceful disarmament" job done 3) More war and/or encouraging a new civil war 4) or selling Lebanon out to Syria. I argue that these 4 options are all far worse/unlikely to succeed, more costly, morally problematic and/or more risky than the option of addressing Hizbullah's rational basis for wide public support.
As a final reiteration: its not about Hizbullah "moving the goalposts." They can and may move them all they want. The point is that they likely won't be able to exercise violence towards these goals if you pursue the strategies outlined in the paper.
2) Can a non-military analyst talk in broad strokes about military related policies serving political ends? I think so, especially if I refer to what the LAF itself says it needs...If the main disagreement between us is over the money aspect - or that the LAF somehow "owes" the US some more results, a point which I found bordering on a kind of colonialist thinking (apologies, but remember that we are giving goodies to the LAF and M14 to serve our interests, even if this has not served US interests well in the end!). Let me just repeat what I said to you earlier after the part you quoted. The US has still banked almost $300 million in aid to the LAF - already given by Congress!!! So there is plenty there already to launch a serious program. My proposal in the paper is for a Paris-type conference as well with the arab/gulf states which could help far more..... Instead, the US is going to spend some drips on old M60 tanks! More of the same.... and more lost opportunities with money that is already there!
3)"I told Nick this paper would work better if it just focused on strengthening the LAF as a way toward undermining Hizballah's raison d'être" - This is precisely the main problem - and it is the one which I am saying Aram's paper is also caught in (for he limits himself to what you suggest.)... You cannot decisively undermine Hizbullah's ability to exercise violence independently of the state by just focusing on the LAF. You need a full strategy which ends the bleeding wounds, credibly builds the LAF to defend lebanon AND begins to seriously push politicial reforms focusing on enfranchisement and an end to the confessional system generally (a process sketched out by the lebanese themselves). As a part of this overall strategy I raise the FPM and Fadlallah. It is now evidently stupid that the US "lost" Aoun. On Fadlallah: well, if the US is serious about encouraging Shiite voices that can be a counter weight to Iran and that can have a positive influence on a strategy of peacebuilding in Lebanon and beyond (as Aoun's supporters can) Fadlallah could be pivotal. Aside from that, throwing money at "free shiite" figures is ridiculous. Lets finally undertake this process with seriousness instead of self-deception.
