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What the experts say
NOW Lebanon, May 14, 2008

Experts, activists and journalists blasted Hezbollah’s violence in Lebanon and said the Lebanese government and the world should take tougher stances in confronting the group, during a panel at the Hudson Institute on Tuesday. The event saw the participation of Firas Maksad, executive director of the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation; Hussain Abdul-Hussain, Washington correspondent of Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai; Tony Badran, fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Hassan Mneimneh, fellow at the Iraq Foundation; and David Wurmser, former senior Middle East advisor at the Office of the Vice President. The panel was moderated by Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson Institute. Lebanese Ambassador to the US, Antoine Shadid, was scheduled to participate in the event but later declined. He sent a note saying he would not join, and insisted his announcement be read before the audience. Maksad argued that:

Hezbollah cannot completely take over Lebanon, given the nature of the Lebanese political system, but it is out to restore the puppet regime that pre-existed the Cedar Revolution. Hezbollah appears to be after a political settlement that would maintain a much weakened Hariri and Jumblatt as fig leaves, while it controls all matters pertaining to security and foreign policy. There are those who are characterizing this as a Lebanese issue ; it is not. It has broader consequences for the balance of power in the entire region, what’s taking place in Beirut, and any action by the international community must keep that in mind. As one Hamas activist put it in yesterday’s Washington Times, Gaza fell in 2007, Beirut is on the verge of falling in 2008, Amman and Cairo, God willing, will fall in 2009.

For his part, Abdul-Hussain expressed concern over Shadid’s absence:

I regret the absence of Ambassador Shadid. It is this governmental policy of making nice to Hezbollah that allowed it to grow, and to eventually use its weapons to terrorize Lebanese civilians in the streets of Beirut. Hezbollah does not seek a larger share in the state. It already controls the state, and wants everyone to remain in line. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is Hezbollah’s ally. Former President Emile Lahoud was controlled by Hezbollah. The coming president, Army Commander Michel Sleiman, is also Hezbollah’s choice, that March 14 only approved of. Hezbollah goes to war with Israel on its own, and holds negotiations with Israel over prisoner swap. I think Hezbollah is the one who should share its power with the state, not the other way around. Hezbollah lies when it describes itself and its actions. Hezbollah says it is defending resistance, and then it retracts this idea after seeing no one had bought it, and started talking about its retaliation after a rally of demonstrating union workers was shot at.

Badran gave a brief description of the battle in Mount Lebanon. He said that when the Lebanese Forces tried, in 1984, to weaken Jumblatt in the Chouf area and prop up Majid Arslan, father of former MP Talal Arslan, they failed and ended up actually strengthening Jumblatt:

The idea was to finish up a person like Jumblatt politically by putting up Arslan. Well, Arslan’s militants started fighting alongside Jumblatt’s people against Hezbollah’s advent in the Chouf. The failure was evident when we saw Hezbollah’s Druze crony Wiam Wahhab picking up his people, 100 at best, and leaving the Chouf completely. This is a repetition of the January 2006 events, but this time with weapons. They tried it in 2006 in eastern Beirut with the Christian faction of Michel Aoun, which was completely demolished within hours by the Lebanese Forces. At the time, it was Samir Geagea who thwarted the Hezbollah coup, now it is Jumblatt. Like we saw in 1973, a lull meant that parties organized themselves and armed because when the army remains neutral, people will arm and fight.

Hassan Mneimneh slammed what he called Hezbollah’s false propaganda:

We are not at the verge of civil war. We are in the middle of one. Make no mistake, what we have in Lebanon today are two conflicting and contradictory visions of what Lebanon is. The first view, that of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, looks for a thriving Lebanon, even if oligarchic, but still has the potential of becoming a democracy. The second Lebanon is the Lebanon of war. Hezbollah is a political party that is totalitarian. It has a utopian view based on total control of society. Unfortunately, large segments of the Shia community now share the vision of Hezbollah toward Lebanon. To Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah is God. His name literally translates into Divine Victory, a name that Hezbollah used for the 2006 July War. His words are truthful promises, which he breaks all the time.

The last of the speakers, David Wurmser, said that while at first sight it seems that it was the Lebanese government who provoked the war in Beirut, the truth of the matter is that Hezbollah has become more radical, corresponding to a similar shift in Iran, where radicals are taking over and sidelining the moderates:

The Lebanese government dealt in four areas that were defined as key to Hezbollah. The first was the cabinet’s decision to stop the growth of a secret Hezbollah communications network. The second was the cabinet’s intent to deal with runway 17 at the airport, which dignitaries use and which was monitored by Hezbollah, probably for assassinations, and the third was related to Walid Jumblatt’s speech against the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon, describing him as someone acting as a high commissioner. However, the biggest challenge of all was when Jumblatt and others from March 14 described Hezbollah as a state within a state. If you look back to April, there was confidence that a president was going to be elected during the 18th election session, and people like Marwan Hamadeh were saying that they should enter into dialogue with Hezbollah. Suddenly, Hezbollah’s ally, Speaker Nabih Berri, pulled the plug and rescheduled the session. This brought the crisis ahead and forced the government to say, we will act, and thus put the government in the position of reaction to Hezbollah. The Lebanese crisis is not going to resolve itself by dialogue, diplomacy or anything between the signs, precisely because it is about two conflicting visions. The actions Hezbollah are taking are too dangerous for the leadership of Lebanon.