From Beirut to the Beltway

A historic day

The UN Security Council is expected to vote later today on a resolution to set up the long awaited Hariri tribunal. The resolution would unilaterally establish the tribunal under the binding chapter 7 of the UN charter. Press reports expect the resolution to pass with nine "yes" votes, and five abstentions from Russia, China, Qatar, Indonesia and South Africa.

One day, someone will bother to analyze Qatar's role in Lebanon and the region since the emir decided to act on his illusions of grandeur, and try to become more than an overweight ruler with money to build ghost malls. But right now, what the emir and his media-based empire do or say is of little significance to the millions of Lebanese inside and outside Lebanon who will regard the UNSC action as a step in the right direction. It would have been a sweeter victory had Lebanese parliament convened to approve the text. But the role of parliament and government has not ended. The resolution merely establishes the tribunal, and much remains to be approved and worked out in the Lebanese institutions.

The text of the resolution gives Lebanon until June 10th to ratify the tribunal in parliament. Otherwise, the resolution would "enter into force". The Russians objected to the idea of the Security Council ratifying agreements "on behalf of a parliament of a foreign country". However, they are not expected to veto the resolution, which they know is the only way to establish the tribunal.

Saad Hariri called on all his supporters to stay home and light candles tonight, and avoid the provocations of pro-Syrian regime elements who, he said, will use the occasion to prove to the world that establishing the tribunal will create great conflicts in the country. Likewise, Walid Jumblatt urged calm, calling today a "historic day" and an occasion to remember and reflect on the martyrs of the march for Lebanese independence, the Lebanese civilians who lost their lives, the Lebanese detainees in Syria, and the Syrian prisoners of conscience.

And as Jumblatt said, this is only the "beginning of a long road". Indeed, the "opposition"  said that it will not recognize the authority of the UNSC. And Syrian-installed president Emile Lahoud proposed a "six-member national salvation cabinet" to deliver the country from the evil of international justice!

But the opposition, led by the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, has vowed it will never accept the tribunal and blocked government efforts to win parliament's endorsement for the project."Do not expect that we will recognise this tribunal, directly or indirectly," said opposition lawmaker Ali Hassan Khalil.

Lebanon's Damascus-backed President Emile Lahoud on Tuesday proposed a six-member "cabinet of national salvation" with each member representing one of the main religious communities, as a way of ending the political deadlock.

But Saad Hariri said the timing raised "suspicions" and branded it another attempt to hamper the creation of the court. (AFP)

It is a long road indeed.

Update. The Hariri tribunal is born. 10 for, 0 against, 5 abstained. The resolution is called UNSC 1757.

As expected, Qatar, Russia, China, Indonesia, South Africa abstained. China considered it interference in Lebanese affairs. Russia warned of legal implications and said Lahoud's letter should have been taken into consideration. But who cares, they abstained, and the noose around the Assad regime is tightening.

A loud explosion was just heard in Beirut. It could be fireworks, it could be the Assad regime responding.

Why The Army Will Invade Naher al-Bared

First, a caveat: I am fully aware that trying to predict the outcome of a political struggle in Lebanon is a recipe for failure and embarassment.  Luckily for you, I am completely without fear or shame, and have a massively overstated opinion of my own intelligence. 

"We are ready to die," said Fatah al-Islam's Abu Salim Teha.  One can only imagine that most Lebanon feel the same way about Teha.  There has been a bizarre, little pause in the last few days in Tripoli.  The fighting flares and then quickly dies down; only a few grenades have been tossed here in Beirut.  That's what passes for a lull in Lebanon, these days.  During the stalemate, U.S military aid has been rushed to the Lebanese Army, Naher al-Bared is being emptied of civilians, and the Palestinians are trying to broker a compromise.

But don't mistake the intermission for the end of the show.  The Lebanese Army probably will end up invading the camp, for both military and political reasons.  First, the obvious military reasons: thirty soldiers have died.  Armies do not just smile, accept that number of casualties, and walk away.  Fatah al-Islam is also an obvious danger to Lebanon's stability. The Palestinian negotiators have proposed a deal where Fatah al-Islam is allowed to walk away, maybe back to Syria.  There simply is no common ground here.  Unless its members are dead or in jail, Fatah al-Islam will remain a threat to Lebanon.

This also is a (for lack of a better word) good battle for the Lebanese Army to fight.  It is a popular cause -- Fatah al-Islam is widely reviled among all segments of the Lebanese population.  They even lack a base of support among the Palestinians.  Nobody is more aware of their reputation for being an ineffective fighting force than the Lebanese Army itself.  They are also aware that their authority within Lebanon is severely threatened by Hizbullah.  A total victory over Fatah al-Islam would do a great deal to establish their reputation as a serious fighting force, and their legitimacy as the defender of Lebanese security.

The government forces might also hope they can use the invasion of Naher al-Bared to drive a wedge in the opposition.  As Jeha pointed out, the FPM's site is currently a giant Valentine's Day card to the Lebanese Army.  They've pledged to support any action the Army deems necessary, while Hizbullah vows to oppose an incursion into the camp.   A prolonged battle within the camp would put stress on the Nasrallah/Aoun alliance, and establish a larger point about the Army's authority within all of Lebanon.  That's not the message a certain state-within-a-state wants to see the Army deliver.

Right now, the government is happy to equip its soldiers with shiny new weapons, evacuate civilians to make an assault less bloody, and make a show of looking for a negotiated solution.  But in the end, all the arrows point to a final, decisive battle.  The outcome will say a great deal about the strength of the army, and its ability to keep order in Lebanon.  Stick around.  This could be one of those weeks that define the political terrain for future months or years.

P.S. Abu Kais should be back tomorrow, a situation that resembles the parents returning to town after the children have trashed the house.  Throw the pizza boxes in the closet, pour the alcohol down the sink, pretend everything is normal.  Anyway, this will probably mark the end of my term as your guest host.  I had a blast, and thanks very much for the opportunity!

Through The Fog

Wars are funny things.  On the face of it, this one started for a seemingly apolitical reason -- a bank was robbed, and the army tried to arrest the criminals.  It could have been the plot of a particularly spectacular episode of Law and Order.  When the serious fighting broke out, the question of how the battle will affect the basic political terrain of Lebanon were irrelevant.  Over thirty soldiers have been killed; the terrorists have to die.  But how will Lebanon look different, after the smoke clears?

The most intriguing possibility is a crack-up of the pro-Syrian coalition.  While Nasrallah is warning that an incursion by the Lebanese Army into Naher el-Bared constitutes "a red line," the FPM supports "any action the army undertakes." (Hat Tip: Beirut Spring) When the matter is purely hypothetical, it is unlikely to break up the March 8th coalition -- all of whose parties are perfectly well aware of the cost of failure.  But in the event of a sustained army invasion of the camp, the split could widen.    

Meanwhile, I am sympathetic to a strategic argument against invading Naher el-Bared: a guerilla battle in narrow streets, with the distinct possibility of radicalizing the Palestinians present, should be avoided if at all possible.  The Lebanese Army also does not, presumably, want to set a precedent of assuming responsibility for patrolling the camps.  But I am confused by Hizbullah's moral qualms about the Lebanese Army entering Naher al-Bared.  The Shi'a militia opposes the Lebanese Army doing whatever it can to wipe out a group who considers them infidels because -- because -- why?  Maybe, because they are temporarily fighting for the same side.  Paging Seymour Hersh...

I also cannot imagine that the Aounists really believe that Al Qaeda is setting bombs in Christian areas.  It takes a special kind of person to believe that Al Qaeda has lost interest in Iraq, in favor of scaring the Maronites and destroying Lebanon's tourist season.  It requires ignorance of the international political situation, any knowledge whatsoever of the international tribunal's imminent creation, and a total lack of understanding of who benefits from chaos in Lebanon.  But, in some ways, it no longer matters what Aoun thinks.  He has made his bed with Hassan Nasrallah and Syria, and now he needs to sleep there.

And then, of course, there are the Palestinians.  There are many questions about how Lebanon will look different after the latest battle; there is one certainty.  Naher el-Bared will be half-destroyed and there will be many Palestinian civilians among the dead.  The abject poverty that the Palestinians live in will become more abject, the already-high potential for radicalization among the Palestinians will become higher.  The Arab governments, which claim to fight on behalf of the Palestinian cause, should be disgraced by their refusal to integrate Palestinians within their own countries.  Some things never change.

Details Of An Explosion

The picture above is of a political rally in the town of Aley, late last night after the explosion.  The shocked, unsure reaction that had characterized the scene at the other two attacks was gone.  These people were mad (as they had every right to be); they wanted blood.  It was not hard to see how Druze retaliation could create a situation which would quickly spiral out of control.  More than fear, I just felt like a foreigner -- someone who would never understand the crevices of generations-old grudges, who would never be willing to fight and die for their sect like the Lebanese on the television.

So, I went to Aley today with some trepidation.  I went half-expecting to find a village preparing for war.  Instead, I found a strange sort of street fair -- except the event did not revolve around a bandstand, but an explosion.

This is ground zero, so to speak.  A crowd of older Druze men held court in the area.  The conversations all seemed very businesslike.  People were greeting friends and smiling, in that rueful way that Lebanese smile when they know that something is very wrong but that there is nothing to be done about it.  People were scared, but they were still functioning.  The bomb broke most of the windows for an approximately 300- foot radius, and totaled four or five cars.

This is what characterized the entire trip, for me.  People were calmly repairing the damage.  This Vero Moda store was open for business.  People were shopping inside, thumbing through clothes like he.  The conversation on the street was uniformly about how quickly everything could be rebuilt, when Aley would be up on its feet again.  The cell phone store bragged about reopening on Monday; the bank employee said that he would be doing business again tomorrow.

I thought the citizens of Aley exhibited just the right mix of resolution, self-control, and defiance.  I've been told that this sign translates roughly as "Nobody can defeat us."  It was a large banner, professionally printed and composed, and in the process of being hung over Aley's city center a little more than twelve hours after the explosion.  With this attitude, they're right.

I'm American, Blame Me

Hey guys, this is David Kenner -- your host for the next few days.  Though I am only your virtual host, I have lived here long enough to still feel vaguely guilty that I cannot provide you with a table full of mezze and arak, then become incredulous when you protest about the improbably large portions that I heap onto your plate.  Hopefully, I can provide you with the perspective of an American living in Beirut.  I will try to provide deeper insights than "there are a lot of old Mercedes here," and "you sure do honk your horns a lot."

But down to business.  It is an ugly fact of life that, as an American, you get blamed for many of the region's problems.  Some of these criticisms are valid and some of them are not, and you need to pick your battles.  Here is one battle that is worth fighting: the storyline which blames America for Fatah al-Islam and the recent slew of bombings.

That is the narrative that Seymour Hersh is advancing, and which Hizbullah mouthpiece Al-Manar happily passes on:

[T]he idea was to get support, covert support from the Saudis, to support various hard-line jihadists, Sunni groups, particularly in Lebanon, who would be seen in case of an actual confrontation with Hezbollah - the Shiite group in the southern Lebanon - would be seen as an asset, as simple as that.

As the story goes, these groups were groomed by America and Siniora to be their attack dogs against Hizbullah, and then turned on their owners.  It totally ignores the larger international situation.  It is just a coincidence, according to Hersh, that these attacks are happening when the international tribunal is on the verge of creation.  Syria could not be involved, because after all they are allied with Hizbullah and the Sunni Islamists don't like Shi'a either.

There are many objections to this line of thinking, but I want to focus on just one of them right now.  Hersh (who was a great journalist, though you are excused for not noticing) credits Syria with more rationality than the United States.  When the confused CNN anchor asked why -- if neither country was ideologically aligned with Fatah al-Islam -- it makes sense for America to be funding the terrorists but not Syria, Hersh answered, "You're assuming logic by the United States government."  And that is about as far as the opposition's ridiculous explanations for the recent violence extends: forget the regional situation, forget who benefits from chaos in Lebanon.  Dick Cheney sure is sketchy, isn't he?

P.S. I'm off to Alay now.  Expect pictures and a report later.

Hot and Bared

Tempers were hot following the Aley explosion—hundreds took to the streets of the Druze village to shout death to Bashar, Lahoud and their gang. Meanwhile, Nahr El Bared, or the cold river, is nothing but bared. The government gave the terrorists an ultimatum—surrender or die. However, whatever heat that ultimatum may have generated got washed away when part of the task was delegated to a Palestinian militia under the command of an authority from a troubled land, the Palestinian Authority. I guess full Lebanese authority in the camps has to wait for the gods of the Arabs and Israelis to decree an end to the 60 year old misery.

The Palestinians of Nahr El Bared, many of whom came to the country in 1948 and 1967, lived their second dispossession in 2007. Ironically, both dispossessions were at the hands of terrorist gangs. Today, the force that claims to fight their battle, have set their children and their houses on fire. There is no cause without victims. And Palestinians are the Arab world's favorite victims. Watch Aljazeera and you will see how what a Lebanese views as a battle for his country, the channel presents as something about Palestine, and a fight against its treasured and infallible victims. Regardless, the 2007 ordeal of the Nahr El Bared Palestinians will soon end in a return to their temporary existence. And if they're lucky, this might be the wake up call they needed. The mythical battle was lost a long time ago, and the right of return that lives in children's drawings got buried under the boots of Arab dictators. There is no escape from reality: Israel is here to stay, and Palestine will not come back while some Palestinians look east for soldiers who believe in salvation through complete destruction. Israel was not created through mass suicide, and Palestine will not be reborn with a suicide belt.

The angry shouts of Aley could not drown the fury of the Palestinians who wore their jihad belt today in a Sidon camp. Will the events of the north trigger an uprising as one Palestinian official warned? Perhaps. The Lebanese civil war started with them, and it would be apt for it to be restarted, or perhaps conclude, with them. Maybe that is the door that leads to hell on the way to paradise. Maybe it is just hell.

Whatever it is, the battle for Nahr El Bared, which has not even begun, has to mean something. It has to mean that the country cannot move forward with militias controlling parts of the land. It has to mean that the speaker of parliament should not be allowed to condition his support for the state on a sellout to a foreign country.

It has to mean that this is about Lebanon, not Palestine, not the Arabs and certainly not their surrogate battles.

This is my last commentary until I return from a business trip. I leave you in the capable hands of David Kenner. Take it away, David.

Terror strikes Aley

First it was Christian Ashrafieh, then Sunni Verdun, and now came the turn of Druze Aley. An explosion in the resort village of Aley caused extensive damage to shops and residences. The bomb was planted in an area full of shops and cafes. LBC is reporting five wounded.

Nahr El Bared returns to Lebanon

The Lebanese army is acting to "finish off" the terrorists in the Nahr El Bared refugee camp, after receiving a green light Monday from the Lebanese cabinet, and political cover from the Palestinian factions, who are now concerned about the civilian death toll. The army is now reportedly moving into the camp and arresting some of the terrorists.

Months after Palestinian factions lost control of the camp to the Syrian-intelligence Islamist creation, the terrorists felt they could get away with massacring Lebanese soldiers and terrorizing Lebanese citizens. More details have emerged about what transpired Sunday morning. According to As-Safir, an ISF investigation into a bank robbery accidentally led the police to an apartment in Tripoli that members of Fatah al-Islam used as a base. The Islamists reacted to the police operation by attacking a Lebanese army post near the Nahr El Bared refugee camp, slaughtering 17 Lebanese army soldiers in their sleep, and ambushing others on leave in Qalamoun and Koura. The terrorists' weapon of choice: suicide attacks. As-Safir said the ISF and the Army intelligence had been monitoring the movements of Fatah al-Islam for months. They succeeded in apprehending over a dozen members, but the camp was off limits to them.

The terrorist group, implicated in a terrorist attack last February, and reportedly charged with killing politicians and attacking UNIFIL troops, as well as killing "crusaders and Zionists", had been trying to extend its zone of influence to the international highway connecting Lebanon to Syria. The group often clashed with other Palestinian factions, especially Fatah, which accused it at various points in time of being controlled by Syrian intelligence. There have been attempts by local camp leaders to hand over suspects in the Ain Alaq bombings to the Lebanese authorities, but these attempts failed.

The residents of the Nahr El Bared camp are today hostages, used as human shields by the terrorist gangs. Negotiations are under way to secure a safe passage out of the camp and relief convoys made their way into the camp. The terrorists, many of whom had no qualms about blowing up civilians in Iraq, could not care less. The Lebanese army denied it was targeting civilians, as networks such as Aljazeera is trying to feed people across the globe, stirring up misplaced pro-Palestinian sympathies, and helping Fatah al-Islam sell their cause to other Islamists from Bangladesh to Morocco.

The Palestinian factions, meanwhile, have been urging the army to avoid shelling the camp, while at the same time agreeing to root out Fatah al-Islam. Fatah official Sultan Abou Al-Ainayn warned of an intifada in all refugee camps if the Lebanese army continued the shelling (LBC News). Tens of refugees took to the narrow streets of their camps in the south to protest against the shelling of Nahr El Bared. The Lebanese army does not have a choice. For the longest time, the Lebanese state has not been allowed in those camps. The Palestinian factions spend their time fighting each other, and splintering into mini groups. These camps have become havens for terrorists and bases for Syrian intelligence. If the lives of Palestinian refugees really mattered to their leaders, then they should hand over their weapons to the authorities and quit stealing international aid.

The Siniora government is waging this war with the support of the international community and the Arab League, which issued a statement supporting the army's operation. The "opposition", meanwhile, continues its occupation of downtown Beirut, even as the city is being targeted on a daily basis. Hizbullah today issued a statement describing the events in the north as an "American project", and ignoring, once again, the destructive role Fatah al-Islam is playing (LBC News). As the Lebanese army storms the Islamist hell, armed with unprecedented popular support, Hizbullah stands on the other side of that hell, feeling the heat of the rule of law. 

Explosion in Verdun

Breaking News: An explosion rocked the upscale area of Verdun in Beirut. LBC is airing footage showing extensive damage to residential buildings and restaurants near the Dunes center, and not far from parliament speaker Nabih Berri's residence. 

Update. The explosion is massive. No reports yet on casualties. 

Update 2. Unconfirmed reports of 6 injured. LBC is showing children being carried to an ambulance. A completely destroyed car with a baby car seat. Horrible images. The LBC reporter says the explosion left a huge crater. This is reminiscent of the explosion that killed Rafik Hariri.

It looks like someone was targeted.

Update 3. The target is Lebanese sovereignty and stability. Seven are wounded. Three Lebanese soldiers were killed today by Fatah al-Islam terrorists in the north, after fighting subsided following a rumored cease fire. Al-Jazeera spent the day villifying the Lebanese army and casting suspicions over its mission in the north. Michel Aoun bashed the "illegal competition" between the ISF and the Lebanese army and had a sarcastic smile on his face that made me switch the TV off. The cabinet licensed his TV station, OTV, aka crap goes digital. Syria's ambassador to the UN said the explosions were an attempt to establish the Hariri tribunal. To comment on the blast in Verdun, Aljazeera interviewed a PFLP-GC official in Damascus. He described the explosions as an internal Lebanese matter.

And there you have it. The Assad regime is waging a war on Lebanon by ripping it apart.

Do you think Nabih Berri heard the explosion?

An uneven battle

More soldiers than terrorists have been killed in the battle between the Lebanese army and the Assad-backed terrorists in the north.  The army that the Syrian regime turned into an ineffective police force to guard celebrities and usher social events, is facing its greatest challenge since the Hizbullah riots pit Lebanese against each other.

Heavy artillery and machine-gun fire reverberated through Nahr al-Bared on Monday as Lebanese troops tightened their grip around the northern Palestinian refugee camp, where militants of the extremist Fatah al-Islam group are holed up. The death toll climbed to near 50, with the number of civilians killed inside the camp unknown. At least 27 soldiers and 20 militants had been killed, Lebanese security officials said Monday, but they did not know how many civilians had been killed inside the camp because it is off-limits to their authority. One official in the camp said a total of 34 people had been killed inside the camp, including 14 civilians. But that could not be independently confirmed, and other estimates of civilian deaths were lower. (Naharnet)

This battle cannot be won by Fatah al-Islam. They are outnumbered by the increasingly popular army, even though they seem to have a lot of weapons. The group, which the head of the Internal Security Forces called "imitation al-Qaeda", consists of former Iraq fighters and international terrorists. That they all got into Lebanon with the help of Syrian intelligence should be a confirmation to all that the Assad regime is a major sponsor of world terror. According to An-Nahar, one of the killed terrorists was involved in the Ain Alaq bombings in February, and another was wanted over the 2006 plot to blow up trains in Germany.

Even if the Lebanese army wins this one, the battle will not be over. The group is not confined to one refugee camp, and the Assad regime has grown other terrorist organizations in other camps in the south and near Beirut. The regime is also escalating its terror attacks. A car bomb exploded in the heart of Beirut last night, killing an old woman and wounding 19 others. Their terrorism will likely be escalated as we approach the establishment of the Hariri tribunal by the UNSC.

There is also the terrorism of Hizbullah and Michel Aoun.

In their "condemnation" statement, the Party of God did not name the terrorists, condemning instead "any attack from whatever source" on the Lebanese army. The statement expressed concern that there is an attempt to "embroil the Lebanese army in a never ending struggle to serve known project". Hizbullah predicted that calls for escalation and fighting will spread chaos and create clashes in Lebanon. The Iranian-funded party then called for a "political solution" to end the current "crisis", laying the blame on the "ruling party".

وقال البيان " إن حزب الله يدين أي اعتداء من أي جهة صدر،يطال الجيش اللبناني والقوى الأمنية، ويهدد الأمن والاستقرار والسم الأهلي في لبنان. ويؤكد على أهمية دور الجيش اللبناني في الحفاظ على السلم الداخلي ووجوب حماية موقعه ودوره في هذا المجال. يدعو حزب الله الى ضرورة تحييد المدنيين لبنانيين وفلسطينيين والحفاظ على أرواحهم ودمائهم، مهما كانت الظروف الميدانية صعبة وقاسية. إننا نشعر أن هناك من يريد زج الجيش اللبناني في صراع دامٍ قد لاينتهي بسهولة خدمة لمشاريع وأغراض باتت معروفه، ونسمع دعوات إلى مزيد من التصعيد والقتال الذي سيؤدي حكما الى مزيد من نشر الفوضى وتعميم الصدامات في لبنان. وختم البيان " أمام هذا الواقع تجب المسارعة إلى تطويق الأحداث والاشتباكات الحاصلة والقيام بمعالجة سياسية جريئة لإنهاء الأزمة القائمة، وهي في الدرجة الأولى مسؤولية الفريق الحاكم في السلطة الذي عليه ان يبادر ويتحرك ولا يترك الساحة تحترق كما هي الآن". (Al-Manar)

In other words, Hizbullah is siding against the Lebanese government and army by not even acknowledging Fatah al-Islam, or its sponsor, and blaming it on a US-Israeli conspiracy. It is ironic how they don't want the army to be engaged in a long struggle against terror, while they advocate permanent war against Israel. I shouldn't waste my breath by asking, but where is Hizbullah's "defense strategy" now? I should not forget that their weapons are designed to be magnets for destruction, and their strategy is to assist the Assad regime in destroying the country's state institutions. These multinational terrorists (Yemenis, Bengalis, etc) were allowed to flaunt their weapons because of Hizbullah's opposition to the disarmament of Palestinian factions (so all the terrorists needed to do is hijack one). These terrorists were empowered precisely because of Hizbullah's obstructive role, not to mention their occupation of downtown Beirut which is draining the embattled Lebanese army.

As for Michel Aoun, he thought it was apt to prescribe a solution in the form of government resignation. While he seemingly supported the operation to root out the terrorists, he blamed the events on the government's focus on the "weapons that liberated the land", describing Hizbullah's weapons as a "source of stability", and ignoring that Hizbullah violated an agreement during the National Dialogue to do away with the Palestinians weapons.

The crazed former general and his divine buddies might as well join Fatah al-Islam. The Lebanese army should not count on their support, but it should count on the support of the majority of Lebanese people, who still dream of the rule of law, even if many of them don't know what that requires.