Lebanon's Layers (With A Side of Crow)

Operating under the quaint notion that anyone might actually be reading this (besides you, Mr Hengist, bless yer heart), I thought it rather important to point out that my last couple of posts on the situation in Lebanon appear to have been based on a rather muddled understanding of some key points, and that it has caused my analysis to go somewhat-to-badly askew in places. Embarrassing, but a good opportunity to share my learning curve (still on-going!) on this very complex nation.

One key premise from previous posts was that Iran and Syria were renewing their efforts to weaken the Lebanese government through Hezbollah power plays. Not much question there. I further tied the timing of this to the recent worsening of Iran's fortunes in Iraq with Maliki's government successfully pushing back against Mahdi Army, and the growing impatience of Iraqis with the meddling of Tehran in their affairs. Given the compelling evidence of Hezbollah's influence with the Shiite portions of the Iraqi 'insurgency,' it doesn't seem to be an unwarranted leap to suggest that Iran and Syria may be trying to reestablish the initiative on another front. Where I think I really jumped the rails on this point was in my overly simplistic depiction of the political landscape of Lebanon, in particular the short shrift I gave to the Druze and Christians in their ability to fend off the aggression of forces like Hezbollah, if sufficiently provoked, as Michael Totten summarizes in an article for Commentary Magazine:

Far less attention has been paid to Hezbollah's military and strategic failure in the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut where Lebanon's Druze community lives. Hezbollah picked a major fight there and lost. After three days of pitched battles, its gunmen were unable to conquer a single village--even when they brought out mortars and heavy artillery.

The Druze are among the fiercest of warriors, and everyone in Lebanon knows it. They are well-known in Israel, too, where they often serve in elite units of the Israel Defense Forces and suffer lower-than-average casualty rates in battles with Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups. Most of Israel's Sunni Arabs abstain from military service, but Druze Arabs are as loyal to the Israeli state, and are as willing and able to fight for it, as their Lebanese counterparts are in their own country. There's a reason two of the Middle East's religious minorities--Maronite Christians and Druze--live in Lebanon's mountains in significant numbers: attempts to invade and subjugate them are ill-advised, very likely to fail, and therefore rarely attempted by even large armies.

This would appear to argue pretty forcefully that Hezbollah would be unwise to overplay its hand in Lebanon, especially after having demonstrated with very little room for ambiguity that its claims to be a Lebanese resistance force and social movement are little more than window dressing for its true ambitions. I think the impression I mistakenly gleaned, and embedded in my posts, was that the resistance within Lebanon to what will likely be seen (accurately) as a blatant Syrian/Iranian stratagem would be weak and scattered. I have no idea if such resistance would be strong enough to galvanize the various factions in defense of Lebanese sovereignty, but I think I was overly pessimistic in projecting that such resistance would almost surely be inadequate to the task.

Another point on which I believe I erred was in projecting too confidently that al Qaeda would find fertile ground for injecting itself into the Lebanese theater on behalf of the Sunnis. While it was evident as long ago as 2003 that Salafist Jihadi factions were developing disturbingly unmolested footholds in parts of Lebanon, especially in the lawless Palestinian refugee camps, it has also been shown that the landscape in which they might function is more complex and treacherous than they would like:

Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq have alienated some of their most natural supporters through their unusually brutal tactics. Although it is too early to predict whether they will repeat this pattern in Lebanon, the Palestinians have shown a preliminary willingness to act against al-Qaeda operatives. In April 2004, Fatah forces in Lebanon arrested a Saudi al-Qaeda affiliate who had come to Ein el-Hilweh from Syria. Fatah has also skirmished with members of Asbat al-Ansar and Jund al-Sham (a splinter of Asbat) in Ein el-Hilweh, most recently at the beginning of January 2006. The January al-Qaeda warning for Palestinians to "return to Islam" and threats to "eliminate" Palestinian leaders will only escalate hostilities.

Now, if there is one thing that al Qaeda operatives have demonstrated again and again, it is their chronic inability to rein in their most brutal tactics in their quest for domination. It is entirely possible that the indigenous Palestinian and other groups will not take kindly to foreign-backed Jihadists' ravening appetite to usurp the authority of any groups they deem less pure (basically, anyone).

Make no mistake, though: al Qaeda has Lebanon squarely in its cross-hairs. This post from the Counterterrorism Blog, resolves some of the apparent contradictions in the volatile coexistence of Sunni and Shiite terror groups within Lebanon:

The [directly al Qaeda-linked Palstinian splinter group] Fatah al Islam is the latest marriage of convenience between a group of committed Jihadists, rotating in the al Qaeda’s constellation but gravitating around Damascus influence. The group accepts Bashar’s support and the Syrian regime tolerates the organization’s “Sunni” outlook: Both have a common enemy, even though they may come at each other’s throats in the future. The men of Bin Laden anywhere in the world, including in Lebanon, have the same standing order: Bringing down the moderate Arab and Muslim Governments (even in multiethnic societies) and replace them with Emirates. The men of Bashar Assad and Mahmoud Ahmedinijad have converging goals, bring down the democratically elected Government in Lebanon and replace it with a Hizbollah-Syrian dominated regime, as was the case before 2005. Thus each “axis” has one objective in Lebanon: crush the Seniora Government. They will take all their time to fight each other after.

That this is very explicitly on the agenda of the senior-most al Qaeda leadership is beyond question, as this article from US News and World Report concludes:

The nearly perfect conditions for an al Qaeda-like outbreak of violence in Lebanon have not been missed by the group's senior leadership. On April 22, al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri suggested the Middle East's most liberal and diverse nation could play an important role in the ongoing conflict with the West. "Lebanon is a Muslim frontline fort," he said. "It will have a pivotal role, God willing, in future battles with the Crusaders and the Jews.

"I call upon the jihadist generation in Lebanon to prepare to reach Palestine and to banish the invading Crusader forces which are claimed to be peacekeeping forces in Lebanon," he said, in reference to the United Nations peacekeepers on Lebanon's southern border with Israel.

Having been so roundly humiliated in their play to subjugate Iraq, al Qaeda's leaders desperately need to re-establish some cred in another theater. I expect they are banking on the fractious nature of Lebanese populations and politics, coupled with the ever-popular effort to undermine Israel and target its maddeningly prosperous civilians, to bootstrap them back to something resembling the force they once were. If recent history is any reliable indication of how they fare against concerted resistance, however, they may be in for another rude Awakening.

I trust that my hypothetical readers will forebear my imperfect and evolving understanding of this dauntingly complicated front in this Long War. The more I have learned about Lebanon, the less inclined I have been to flagellate myself overmuch for getting much of it wrong. It is the solemn duty of armchair analysts such as myself, however, to consume as much information as possible, and to let go my ego as new data make dodos of even my most confident formulations. Let us hope that our foes are quite a bit less willing to abandon the narratives and methods which have failed them so satisfyingly so far.

Osama Joins in the Goal-Post Moving

In yesterday's post, I talked about how Tehran, apparently chastened by the abrupt worsening of its fortunes in the Iraqi theater of its proxy war against the West, seems to have shifted its focus once again to Lebanon. By weakening the Lebanese government (aided by that government's craven capitulation to Hezbollah's latest challenge to its legitimacy) Iran and Syria have set the stage for a new round of combat, hard on the border with Israel.

Osama bin Laden's latest recorded rant is conspicuous in the near-absence of any mention of Iraq as the central front in al Qaeda's global jihad. Instead, he has taken the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding to hold forth on that State's illegitimacy and promise (yet again!) to bring about its demise. About a third of the recent messages from bin Laden and his head henchman Zawahiri have dealt primarily with Iraq, so it may be premature to posit a larger trend. However, given the recent fortunes of AQI, it would seem that any 'sensible' Salafist might be looking to massage the message around now.

The Israeli "occupation" has long served as a handy rationalization for assorted acts of barbaric xenophobia, and the sheer intractability of that situation all-but guarantees that it will remain so for the foreseeable future. Given such an inexhaustible well of grievance, it make sense that both al Qaeda and Iran should turn their attentions thence when things go ill elsewhere. Given the competition between Sunni al Qaeda and Shiite Iran to become the vanguards of global Islamist supremacy (despite the apparent tactical cooperation in which they will at times engage), it is also not unreasonable to speculate that AQ will strive to position itself as a counterweight to Tehran's jockeying for
dominance in Lebanon, and for a crack at the Jewish State. The Sunni population of Lebanon could very well find itself in some very dire straits if the machinations emanating from Tehran and Damascus should blow up as messily as it is looking an awful lot like they will (the Christians and Druze, it appears, will be on their own). Those Sunnis may well be looking for a strong horse in the months to come. I would not be at all surprised if intel of AQ 'redeployments' should begin leaking out of Lebanon in the relatively near future.

In principle, there are advantages to a scenario in which Sunni and Shiite extremists duke it out, to the detriment of both. However, the toll in human suffering will be devastating. One can only hope that, in relatively short order, the people of Lebanon awaken to true sources of their suffering and rise up against their foreign tormentors. Alas, it is far more likely that they will find some way to torture the facts so as to make it the fault of Israel and Bush.

Either way, the prospects for a "peace agreement" between the Israelis and 'Palestinians' are looking even more dim than usual these days.

Iran So Far Away?

Earlier this month, I wrote about the backlash in Iraq against the increasingly brazen intervention of Tehran within its borders. With PM Maliki's courageous pushback against Sadr's Iranian-backed goons in and around Baghdad, and the increasing professionalism and nationalistic esprit de corps within the Iraqi Army, Iran shows every sign of having suffered a severely bloodied nose. Indeed the recently more conciliatory tone set by Iranian spokesmen on Iraq has the authentic look and feel of a tactical retreat. This would, of course, be a very significant strategic gain in our overarching goal of going into Iraq, which was and is to apply pressure on regional actors to change their behavior vis a vis fostering extremism and supporting terrorism.

However, it would be dangerously naive to assume that the Gamesters of Tehran are not running more than one table at a time. In an article for The Weekly Standard, Reuel Marc Gerecht writes at length about the recalibrations taking place within an Iranian government knocked off balance by the deterioration of its proxy campaign within Iraq. Among the more ominous avenues available to the Mullahs is that of fomenting mayhem in Lebanon:

Israel may soon be embroiled in an ugly war with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist movement supported spiritually and militarily by Tehran. This could turn into a two-front confrontation, as Hezbollah, revolutionary Iran's most faithful offspring, is demonstrating its willingness to use force to become the dominant player in Lebanon. Rearmed massively by Tehran since the 2006 summer war against Israel, Hezbollah could again let the missiles fly against northern Israel, while Hamas attacks from Gaza.

The recent and dishearteningly successful challenges of the Lebanese government by Hezbollah have set the board for a disturbingly promising gambit by Iran to regain its feet in the region. By so humiliatingly delegitimizing the Lebanese government, and revealing the Lebanese Army to be powerless/unwilling to defend the sovereignty of that ailing nation against its thuggish tactics, Hezbollah has shown itself once again to be a formidable shaft in Iran's quiver. Thus weakened, Lebanon teeters on the brink of dissolving into bloody wasteland of warring sectarian militias. Sunni, Druze, and Christian populations, now certain that the Army will not protect them from Tehran's Shiite shock troops, will look to their own, and enlist help where they can find it...including from groups such as al Qaeda. Into the ensuing maelstrom, Iran will stretch its arm (wrapped in its Syrian sock puppet) to graciously restore order...and so the last nail will have been driven into the pine box of the Cedar Revolution.

If this sounds unnervingly like what Iran has been trying to accomplish in Iraq, then you have been paying attention.

There are two main aspects of this situation which are especially worrisome. The first is the absence in Lebanon of a cohesive national identity like that which --for better or worse-- was forged (possibly in both senses of the word) by Saddam in Iraq over the course of the calamitous 1980-1988 war with Iran. That nationalistic impulse --animated by the primordial enmity between Persians and Arabs-- has arguably formed a basis for the unwillingness of the Iraqi people to allow Iran to impose its will on them, once its designs became so transparent. I fear that a similar pushback will be hard to come by in a Lebanese society which has long been more salad than melting pot. My second main concern is the fact that, unlike Iraq, Lebanon sits squarely on the border with Israel. In the midst of the turmoil which may soon overwhelm Lebanon, one of the few unifying threads among the various Islamist factions will be their blistering loathing of the Jewish State (or "Zionist Entity," if you must). Imagine a pressure cooker with one escape valve, bleeding live steam toward its neighbor to the south.

If there is in all of this one hopeful note --if it may be so termed-- it is the fact that Hezbollah has tipped its hand by effectively abandoning any pretense of being a Lebanese resistance movement with even a bissel of political legitimacy. Having once expelled Syrian forces from within its borders, it is conceivable that even the fractured populace of Lebanon will resist such a naked power grab by its erstwhile occupiers. I would, however, not bet the farm on this. More likely, the government of Ehud Olmert will [re]discover its vertebrae and "take steps" to interdict Syrian/Iranian aggression from its northern border...or finally fall for failing to do so. The likely result of this would be a repeat of the 2006 Summer War, with the gloves off.

Or, alternately, a show of resolve from the US, Israel, and a sufficient subset of the Lebanese people will push the Iranians into a corner where they must risk open warfare, something which, despite all of their eschatological bluster, they have been consistently circumspect about undertaking...at least until their "peaceful" nuclear program has borne its final fruits.

I judge it to be highly unlikely that full-on war with Iran is in the offing --the strident fantasies of the Left notwithstanding. However one should not mistake this for anything remotely resembling "peace," and those who hang their hopes on diplomacy and persuasion would do well to get a clue.