ROBERT FISK WARNS OF DETERIORATION OF CONDITIONS
NaharNet, Lebanon
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March 20 2007
British correspondent Robert Fisk has warned of further deterioration
of conditions in Lebanon with Washington now "much more deeply involved
in Lebanon’s affairs than most people are."
In an article published by the British daily The Independent on Monday,
Fisk wrote: "Dangerous cracks are opening up in Lebanon and the
White House is determined to prop up Fouad Saniora’s government."
Indeed there is a danger that – confronted by its disastrous
"democratic" experiment in Iraq – the U.S. government is now turning
to Lebanon to prove its ability to spread democracy in the Middle East,
Fisk said.
He said that it now seems that every Lebanese potentate is heading for
Washington, adding that Walid Jumblat, the wittiest, most nihilistic
and in many ways the most intelligent, is also among the most infamous.
Fisk went on to say: "Now that poor old Lebanon is to become the latest
star of U.S. foreign policy, Jumblat sailed into Washington for a
35-minute meeting with President George Bush … and has also met with
Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Gates and the somewhat
more disturbing Stephen Hadley, America’s National Security Adviser.
He said that there are Lebanese "admirers" of Jumblat who have been
asking themselves if his recent tirades against Syria and Hizbullah –
not to mention his meetings in Washington – "aren’t risking another
fresh grave in Lebanon’s expanding cemeteries."
Fisk hailed Jumblat as a "brave man," adding that "whether he’s a
wise man will be left to history."
"But it is America’s support for Saniora’s government – Jumblat is a
foundation stone of this – that is worrying many Lebanese," according
to Fisk.
He said that with the Shiite ministers willingly quitting the
government, Saniora’s administration may well be, as the pro-Syrian
President Emile Lahoud says, unconstitutional; and the sectarian
nature of Lebanese politics came violently to life in January with
stoning and shooting battles on the streets of Beirut.
"Because Iraq and Afghanistan have captured the West’s obsessive
attention since then, however, there is a tendency to ignore the
continuing, dangerous signs of confessionalism in Lebanon," Fisk
explained.
He said that while several Shiite families in the predominantly Sunni
neighborhood of Tarik Jedideh have left for unscheduled "holidays,"
many Sunnis will no longer shop in the cheaper department stores in
the largely Shiite southern suburbs, or Dahiya.
More seriously, Fisk said, the Lebanese security forces have been
sent into the Armenian Christian town of Aanjar in the Bekaa Valley
after a clump of leaflets was found at one end of the town calling
on its inhabitants to "leave Muslim land."
True, Saad Hariri, has been holding talks with opposition Parliament
Speaker Nabih Berri and the Saudis have been talking to the Iranians
and the Syrians about a "solution" to the Lebanese crisis, Fisk
wrote, adding that Saniora seems quite prepared to broaden Shiite
representation in his cabinet but not at the cost of providing them
with a veto over his decisions.
One of these decisions is Saniora’s insistence that the U.N. goes ahead
with its international tribunal into the 2005 assassination of former
Premier Rafik Hariri "which the government – and the United States –
believe was Syria’s work," Fisk said.
"Yet cracks are appearing," he said, adding that "France now has no
objections to direct talks with Damascus and Javier Solana has been to
plead with President Bashar Assad for Syria’s help in reaching peace,
stability and independence for Lebanon."
"What price the U.N. tribunal if Syria agrees to help?," Fisk wondered.
Already Assad’s ministers are saying that if Syrian citizens are found
to be implicated in Hariri’s murder, then they will have to be tried
by a Syrian court – "something which would not commend itself to the
Lebanese or to the Americans," he said.
He said that Saniora, meanwhile, can now bask in the fact that after
the U.S. administration asked Congress to approve $770m for the Beirut
government to meet its Paris III donor conference pledges, Lebanon will
be the third largest recipient of U.S. aid per capita of population.
Fisk remembered that Saniora was also banned from the United States
for giving a small sum to an Islamic charity during a visit several
years ago to a Beirut gathering hosted by Sayyed Hussein Fadlallah,
whom the CIA tried to murder in 1985 for his supposed links to the
Hizbullah. "Now he is an American hero," he wrote in The Independent.
"However faithful its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may be to Iran
(or Syria), the more Saniora’s majority government is seen to be
propped up by America, the deeper the social and political divisions
in Lebanon become," Fisk said.
"International support for the Lebanese government will do a great deal
for advancing the cause of democracy and helping avoid civil war,"
Fisk quoted David Shenker of the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy as saying last week.
Shenker said that the "Bush administration has wisely determined not
to abandon the Lebanese to the tender mercies of Iran and Syria,
which represents an important development towards ensuring the
government’s success."
But Fisk was not too sure about that.
"Wherever Washington has supported Middle East democracy recently –
although it swiftly ditched Lebanon during its blood-soaked war last
summer on the ridiculous assumption that by postponing a ceasefire
the Israelis could crush Hizbullah – its efforts have turned into a
nightmare," he wrote.
Now we know that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had already
pre-planned a war with Lebanon if his soldiers were captured by
Hizbullah, Nasrallah is able to hold up his fighters as defenders
of Lebanon, rather than provokers of a conflict which cost at least
1,300 Lebanese civilian lives, Fisk concluded.
"And going all the way to Washington to save Lebanon is an odd way
of behaving," he believed, adding that the "answers lie here, not in
the United States."
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