Beirut's Fragile Peace

Logan Mock-Bunting / Getty Images The pro-Western coalition in Lebanon is wary of Obama’s gestures toward Syria and fears losing crucial summer elections. Judith Miller reports.

Whenever Washington sits at the table with Syria, Lebanon usually turns out to be lunch. So it is understandable that Lebanese who treasure their country’s independence would be nervous about President Barack Obama’s new policy of “engaging” Damascus, which in 2005 finally withdrew Syrian forces from Lebanon after 29 years. Though American officials insist that no deal with Syria will be cut at Lebanon’s expense, many Lebanese fear that Washington, despite its lofty promises, will abandon them yet again—this time to woo Syria away from Iran.

“You can resist an occupation or an army, but how do you resist a parliamentary majority?”

For that reason, the relative optimism about President Obama and his Middle East policies I encountered on a visit to Beirut last week—my first in more than a decade—was both unexpected and intriguing. Why were so many of Lebanon’s most-seasoned political players suspending their well-justified cynicism about America and their country’s political prospects?

For Nassib Lahoud, a minister without portfolio aligned with the pro-Western “March 14th coalition" that has ostensibly governed Lebanon since the national elections four years ago, the turning point came when he met earlier this month with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At a closed-door gathering during the conference in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, Lahoud said, Mrs. Clinton assured Lebanon’s prime minister, foreign minister, and him that U.S. policy toward Lebanon would not be tied to Syria but would “stand alone.” America, she vowed, remains committed to Lebanon’s independence and would continue supporting the Lebanese armed forces. (Washington has given $410 million a year since 2006 to bolster the country’s pro-Western government and counter Hezbollah’s well-armed militia.) She also pledged increased financial support for the international tribunal in The Hague investigating the 2005 the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

“We heard everything we wanted to hear,” Lahoud declared.

On March 14, 2005, outrage over the massive bomb attack that killed Hariri and 22 others prompted 1.5 million of Lebanon’s estimated 4 million citizens—representing nearly all political factions and its 17 officially recognized religions—to take to the streets demanding an independent Lebanon, free of Syria, which was blamed for the attack, although Damascus formally denied it. American support for this “Cedar Revolution” finally forced Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and helped the pro-Western, pro-democracy March 14th coalition win a narrow electoral victory over the Iranian and Syrian-backed alliance headed by militant Shiite Islamic Hezbollah. Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s so-called March 8th coalition has accumulated enough power—partly through an alleged campaign of political assassinations—to block March 14th from governing effectively.

This June, the March 14th and March 8th coalitions will square off once again in crucial parliamentary elections that most analysts predict will be extremely close. “A pro-Syrian majority in the Lebanese parliament would be far more dangerous even than military occupation,” said former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, the Christian leader of the Kataeb party and part of the March 14th alliance. “You can resist an occupation or an army, but how do you resist a parliamentary majority?”

Saad Hariri, the slain premier’s son and the Sunni Muslim leader of the largest faction in the March 14th bloc, agreed. “If we lose the election,” he said, “why should you help us?” Mindful of the recent assassinations of several prominent pro-Western politicians—not one of which “has been resolved,” he notes—Hariri lives as a virtual prisoner in his lavish, well-guarded mansion, venturing out mainly for visits abroad and mandatory political gatherings.

David Schenker, a former Pentagon official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned that a loss for March 14th would be perceived throughout the region not just as a reversal of the Cedar Revolution, but as a “a victory for Tehran and Damascus and other radical forces and a defeat for Washington.”

Whenever so much is at stake in this cantankerous country the size of Connecticut, violence usually erupts. But my week in Beirut was amazingly violence-free. Lebanese analysts attribute this calm to Syria’s relative good behavior not only because it is eager to engage with Washington, but also because it fears embarrassment by two international panels: the Hague tribunal and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.