The Clashes in Beirut: Is the Bush Administration Stirring the Pot?
The last time Hezbollah shut down the city of Beirut in January 2007 it was not an act of war. I was living there reporting for the English-Language daily newspaper the Daily Star.
Last night when I went to sleep in Brooklyn, after reading (the meager English-language) reports of "clashes" in the capital, I assumed this violence was not much different than last year's. There were images of men holding pieces of bread and placards near piles of smoldering rubber and garbage. I got the usual warning from the US Embassy to steer clear of large public gatherings a couple of days ago.
I woke up to e-mails from friends in Lebanon and news that the violence had gotten worse.
One e-mail said: "We're hearing gunfire everywhere in the streets..It's not fun or funny."
What began as a labor union protest--enforced by Hezbollah--to raise the minimum wage became what another friend called "an existential battle" for the party.
Rumored to be at US urging, on Tuesday Prime Minister Fouad Siniora threatened to have Lebanese Army troops shut down a telephone network operated by Hezbollah in South Lebanon and the Southern suburbs of Beirut. They also sacked an airport official tied to Hezbollah and accused the group of spying on the government through secret security cameras in the airport.
"Touching their phone network is tantamount to touching their weapons and they have to make that clear...They have to show their strength and to prove that they can't be pushed around," my friend wrote.
Hezbollah Secretary General Said Hassan Nasrallah must have agreed.
"This decision was a declaration of war and the start of war on the resistance and its weapons," he said at a press conference today.
"Our response to this decision is that whoever declares or starts a war, be it a brother or a father, then it is our right to defend ourselves and our existence."
Like a lot of things Hezbollah does, the de-facto travel embargo they imposed on the capital 18 months ago, as well as yesterday's, reflect the total powerlessness of the state and the party's own political opportunism.
Last year a source of mine from Hezbollah, Ali, called me the day before the demonstrations to warn me not to go into certain areas--he did not need to specify that he meant the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods South of Sodeco Square, on the edge of Achrafieh--the Christian district that is the Beirut's equivalent to the Upper East Side. Earlier today I watched a CNN correspondent tell viewers that Sodeco is a likely flashpoint for violence to occur if it were to. This is where Hizbollah set up the first barricade to block the road to the airport about 18 months ago.
Ali does not look like the blind-folded militia fighter pictured in American movies. He looks like a bureaucrat with a wife and kids, which is incidentally exactly what he is. He had worked in the energy ministry when it was headed by fellow-party member Mohammad Fneish. After the Shiite Cabinet ministers resigned from government in November 2006, Ali started a law firm to help residents in the Shiite neighborhood of Dahiyeh claim government compensation for their homes damaged during the 2006 war with Israel. (This is the neighborhood that got pounded for a month straight between July and August. The one the Western media has misleadingly labeled a Hezbollah stronghold, implying that the government has actually attempted to assert a presence there. Hezbollah certainly keeps a tight grip over the area and provides residents with basic services. But the government has never tried to extend its authority over the Southern Suburbs, even when it has had the opportunity to).
Like many Hizbollah members Ali was educated at an American University so he speaks fluent, but quiet, English. The only overt signs of his sectarian affiliation are his name and his tendency to raise his hand to his heart and give a mini-bow when a woman tries to shake hands. He was just being a nice guy when he called a naïve, American foreigner unsolicited on January 23rd, to make sure I wouldn't go scampering off and get into trouble.
I ignored his advice because it did not seem dangerous then. Bands of teenagers were manning the makeshift barriers lining both highways linking Lebanon to the outside world. They were kids in plain clothes, with no uniforms or guns. That they could shut down the city, made the government look all the more weak.
A Lebanese girlfriend of mine who reports for an international newspaper did manage to get to the airport by bike. Hezbollah security was guarding the door and wouldn't let her in. They stole her notebook and pushed her.
As far as I know that is the worst it got. No one knows if this will be Lebanon's long-awaited second Civil War, but if the US does not stop stirring the pot by pressuring Siniora and the out-of-touch March 14th posse to assert their sovereignty--notice I don't use a "re" prefix--to counter Hezbollah, Bush is going to have another foreign policy debacle in the Middle East on his conscience.
These guys have been holed up in the government headquarters at the Grand Serail behind coils of barbed wire and layer of tanks for a year-and-a-half. Once I went to use what had been a public bathroom on the third floor of building after an interview, and a security guard told me that the it was now a private bathroom for Finance Minister Jihad Azour, who was living across the hall.
A reporter I worked with back in Beirut just wrote in an e-mail: "It is, for me, a mystery as to why Siniora's rump cabinet decided to act upon the Hezbollah infrastructure around the airport...especially given that they knew abut the telephone system for the past
five years.
"It's had to believe they weren't acting upon pressure applied from outside, particularly given the speed with which Roed-Larsen went to the UN to deem the system a danger to the sovereignty and integrity of the Lebanese state."
This Western line might be reasonable if Siniora's government had ever had any sovereignty, let alone integrity, but his has always been a shell of a state not unlike many of his predecessors. No amount of prodding and "capacity building" assistance--that's code for military aid channeled to beleaguered US allies in the Middle East like Mahmoud Abbas--is going to change that.
Now I'm watching civilians firing machine guns on Hamra Street, the main commercial drag of West Beirut--and for those who need an American link to comprehend what's at stake, a stone's throw from the American University of Beirut.
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I am glad to have some in depth commentary on the Middle East that does not focus on the primary campaign or exclusively on the tinder points of Iran/Iraq. This commentary leads us to a comprehensive consideration of the fragile balance of power in the whole region and how inept US policy has and continues to be. Thank you
Woooooooooo-scary, I'll vote repub because I'm scared. Bush told us all last year that he would engineer things so that the Iraq war would be easier for the repub nominee to embrace. Death, killing, dismemberment,all repubble power points. Because the instability in the Mideast causes oil prices to go up(historically), Israel will feel insecure and start dropping mulri-million dollar ordnance at US taxpayer expense and people will think this will help in the "war on terror" are thoughts not lost on the bush mafia. Being the lone super power should entail more than bullying the planet. Bush has only two objectives in office-power and money. Oil co's. and defense contractors are such immoral leeches but they wear flag pins. Hey, what would happen if Bin Laden gave out a video wearing an American flag pin? Guess we would have to assume that he loves America. He's never attended Rev. Wright's sermons, you know. We're all being played to the tune of Gabriel's Horn.
Bad new = W.
Naunced.
W caused the hurricane in Myanmar coming in 3...2...1.
Nice try...
This is the same tune as is forcing the Al-Maliki-regime in Iraq to engage al-Sadr's Mehdi-Army in Basra and Sadr-city. Whenever such a mess occurs, you can BET, it's american hands stirring the pot.
The Bush-government is just too imbecile to know what they are doing. Whatever they start, goes wrong. Or - perhaps, they are not? because, actually, this government seems to be in a frenzy to leave their successors as much political mess in the world to clean up behind them, as anyway possible.
Maybe, Carl Rove thinks that, rhat would be the easiest way to secure the 2012 election for the Reps again - by stating: "See, the democrats can't handle that mess we left for them. So, better give it back to those, who started it, because they know, how to end it."
This stinks!
This appears to be a continuation of Bush/ Cheney strategy which can be simply summed up as: If we kill a few more people everything will be all right.
This time they are extending our war into Lebannon. I see this as a proxy war with Iran. The chances of it being successful are next to nil. Yet these fools are going ahead and fanning the flames throughout the Middle East.
The winners will be, no doubt, Iran, Hezbollah and Osam Bin Ladin. Who gains from any chaos in the region.
We allegedly went into Iraq to give them the benefits of "Democracy
I guess they were right in one respect. Democracy has been flourishing. Elections have served to gain power and legitimacy of what we see as "terrorist". Hamas, Hezbollah, al Sadr etc etc etc.
Great article. Having lived in Beirut myself, I know what a poor cartoon most of the reporting about Lebanon is. I wrote a monologue about my experiences there, Arabia and the American Dream: an Autoworkers Lebanon Sojourn, in which I attempted to deconstruct that clash-of-c
While much of the conflict in Lebanon has a religious overlay, it's foundation is in what Leonard Cohen called "the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen over who will eat and who will serve." While perhaps the late Hariri can be credited with providing some stability, he was a Saudi allied, neo-liberal businessman who did not believe in public services. This lead to the vacuum in social services in the poorer Shi'a areas, a vacuum filled by Hizbollah with Syrian and Iranian support.
"...Bush is going to have another foreign policy debacle in the Middle East on his conscience
I know things have been busy with the democratic primary battle.
I must have missed when it was Bush acquired a conscience.
Lysandra, there's just one problem, George W. doesn't have a conscience.
"Bush is going to have another foreign policy debacle in the Middle East on his conscience
I can't speak to his conscience. Nobody really can. But another foreign policy debacle in the Middle East? Bien sur. It's one of the few things he does well.
David Welch was just recently in Lebanon, pressuring the government to take forceful action (i.e., stirring the pot).
I hope it is not the first step in Cheney's planned war against Syria and Iran.
A likely scenario is for Isreal to become embroiled in Lebanon, blaming Syria/Iran for "provocations, and the US stepping in to support.
Sadly, virtually every Congressperson, including Obama, has pledged "unwavering" and basically unqualified support for whatever Israel's military-dominated government does (always recently with Bush/Cheney's covert and not-so-covert encouragement).
I would suggest that Iran may be fomenting this violence in Lebanon in order to keep the Bushwackers to busy to bomb Iran.
You're hilarious. Iran doesn't need to foment violence there, we do quite well enough. When a rat bites a badger on the butt, he shouldn't be surprised when the badger eats him. The supposed U.S. supported "government" in Lebanon started this.
Lebanon is - and has been - a basket case. The Christians have been fleeing for years (well before Bushco took over). Overpopulationand intractable corruption are what have doomed the Arab world....u
Well said! Lets keep things real and in perspective here. Wish that we could blame Bush for everything, but this extends WELL beyond his influence and time in office.
The mongers of hate will stir the pot of discontent with any paddle available to keep the flame of fear burning hot.
B.S. Didn't you read? The Bush Administration is advising a crack down on Hezbollah.
All that trite blaming it on "thousands of years of conflict" is just so much BS.
The US is once again playing a proxy war. This time in Lebannon. Instead of working for peace they are trying to punish Iran through Hezbollah.
And the Lebannese people are going to pay the price.
Both of you would do well to express your feelings about the bad press W. may or may not deserve in another place. 'Horst', the Christian community, although physically diminished, has tried desperatey to keep the power they have in government. If you were familiar with the government this would come as no surprise to you. What you call over-population and corruption is a manifestation of demographic changes in conflict with an out-of-date national charter. I would wager that Ms. Ohrstrom's first hand knowledge of this situation exceeds both mine and your capacity to begin to comment on whether or not the fault is with W. Furthermore, she cites the Bush Administration, which implicates an entirely different crowd. But what upsets me the most is your comment about the war being interesting to watch. Normally I wouldn't comment on posts that are from someone so obviously uninformed, but your closing clause borders on sadism and for that you deserve far worse than a written reprimand from an amateur like myself.
'MyOwnPerson' (since I see you just added your two cents) the hypocrisy of your post could not be more blatant and if it weren't for the danger of your ignorance it might even be laughable. To commend someone the way you have is "stirring the pot", just in a different way, one that actually perpetuates intoleranc
Thank you so much for this information. I hope you will continue to provide these real life updates so we can all keep up with what is going on.
What is going on in Lebanon is very simple: Israeli bombardments and attempted invasion of Lebanon in 2006 failed because of the excellent Command and control communications networks set up by Hezbollah. The US and Israel would like to see those networks go before they attack Iran and Hezbollah and so they ordered their puppet government in Lebanon to do so. What is very dangerous is that Hezbollah is aware of this and knows that its very survival is at stake. So we are looking at a Lebanese civil war II. I am afraid this one will be the end of the Christians of Lebanon.
That was a refreshingly clear insight - thanks for the reporting. What you say goes along with the following from Al Jazeera's coverage:
' Later, explosions and gunfire could be heard throughout the city, but James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Beirut, said it was not immediately clear who was behind the fighting.
"There was fighting between rival political groups, but all the political parties are saying they didn't order it, they weren't behind it." '
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