IN A POLITICAL MOVE, LEBANON OFFERS AN ARMY THAT ALL OF ITS SECTS CAN ACCEPT: ITS OWN
By John Kifner And Jad Mouawad

New York Times
Aug. 14, 2006

BEIRUT, Aug. 12 – Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s offer to send the
Lebanese Army into the Hezbollah-dominated south proved central to
breaking the diplomatic impasse over Israel’s invasion. But it is an
almost entirely political – or even symbolic – gesture.

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Lebanese Army soldiers in Tyre. The army lacks modern equipment,
but it has integrated the nation’s sects.

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The army, for many years the least bellicose group of armed men in
a country otherwise filled with them, is more suited to internal
security than to facing outside threats. It has no modern tanks,
no air force – only a handful of Vietnam-era helicopters – and its
modest budget goes mostly for salaries.

The resolution on a truce adopted by the United Nations Security
Council on Friday calls for 15,000 Lebanese soldiers to patrol southern
Lebanon, once Israeli troops withdraw, in concert with an international
peacekeeping force of the same size. The Lebanese Army has about 3,000
crack troops, Lebanese officers say, in units that specialize in tasks
like commando operations and hostage rescue, aimed primarily at dealing
with fractious local elements like Palestinian or Islamic militants.

The army was once divided into brigades by religion – the Sixth
Brigade, made up of Shiites trained by Americans, was saddled with
the motto "we serve and defect" when it went over to local militias
in the early 1980’s.

But in recent years, the army has been transformed into a national
force, with the various sects integrated in the units.

Its deployment, some hope, could help soothe Lebanon’s fragmented
politics and strengthen the government’s shaky legitimacy.

"This is a political mission for the army," said Brig. Gen. Elias
Hanna, who is retired from the Lebanese Army.

"The Lebanese Army reflects the fabric of this society," General Hanna
said. "Lebanon is a very small country. Everybody knows everybody.

"When you talk about the Shia in the army, you are talking about
relatives, neighbors and friends. All we need in Lebanon is political
consensus."

Prime Minister Siniora, a newcomer to politics who ran the vast
business empire of Rafik Hariri, the assassinated former prime
minister, is being widely praised here for his role in trying to end
the fighting and, particularly, for calling for the army deployment.

"It shows the determination of the Lebanese government to act as a
government, finally," said Rami G. Khouri, a columnist at The Daily
Star and the director of a new Middle East research center at the
American University of Beirut.

"That’s significant," Mr. Khouri said. "The recent history has been
one of terrible personal divisions. This sets the stage for future
reconciliation."

Indeed, Mr. Siniora’s performance drew a positive assessment even
in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, where Zvi Barel wrote that he
"has managed to surprise everyone.

"His decision regarding stationing Lebanese Army reserve soldiers
to prove that his intentions are genuine, was a perfect move in
negotiations," he said.

After 15 years of civil war, 15 more of Syrian domination, past
Israeli invasions and attacks, official corruption beyond measure and
countless political assassinations, Lebanon had seemed, before the
current conflict began, to be on the brink of establishing a legitimate
independent government. But under the surface, the sectarian divisions
remain and with them the fear of a renewed civil war.

In elections last spring, an anti-Syrian reform coalition – including
some members who were old civil war enemies – won a narrow majority
in Parliament.

But the voting still ran along religious lines, with Hezbollah
candidates piling up huge margins in the Shiite districts.

In the sectarian straitjacket that allots political office, the
speaker of Parliament must be a Shiite, so the post was retained by
Nabih Berri, a longtime ally of Syria – as is President Emile Lahoud,
a Maronite Catholic.

The result was a government stalemated on virtually every front.

But Mr. Siniora, a Sunni, has managed to get all of the major players
to sign on to what he called his Seven-Point Plan for a cease-fire.

Hezbollah’s insistence that it would not give up its weaponry has
remained a troubling unresolved issue, though, and it continues to
raise doubts about whether Mr. Siniora’s plan can work.

In addition to his own Sunni backers, the rival Christian factions
loyal to either the former warlord Samir Geagea or to Gen. Michel
Aoun and the Druse chieftain Walid Jumblatt, the plan now has its
most important backer: Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader.

In a televised speech on Wednesday night, he said, "Now for the sake
of national unity and despite our reservations we will not stand as
an obstacle."

"The deployment of the army protects the sovereignty and the
independence of the country," he added.

For more than a year, outside the formal government structure, the
real powers of Lebanon, largely an assortment of near feudal clan
chiefs known here as zaim and figures from the 17 different religions
– the tiny Armenian community sent a rotating representative – have
been meeting around a large round table in an effort to achieve a
national dialogue.

The most difficult issue was Hezbollah’s weaponry, which it defended
as necessary to resisting what it considers Israel’s occupation of
the Shebaa Farms area.

"The main sticking point was the weapons," said Nizar Hamzeh, a
political science professor at the American University of Kuwait and
the author of "In the Path of Hezbollah."

Mohammed Chatah, an important behind-the-scenes adviser to Mr. Siniora
in the current negotiations and a former Lebanese ambassador to the
United Nations, agreed, saying, "That’s at the heart of the discussion
that’s been going on."

"They argued strongly that a separate resistance entity served the
country better," Mr. Chatah said, adding, however, that the contention
"that it was a deterrence did not stop the Israelis."

He emphasized the difference in perspective between the Western and
Arab views of Hezbollah.

"I do not regard Hezbollah as a renegade militia," he said. "We are
in a war against Israel which is perceived by many in this country
as doing terrible things in Gaza and elsewhere."

Speaking of support for Hezbollah during the current Israeli occupation
of southern Lebanon, he said, "There is a degree of solidarity that
transcends diverse politics."