BEIRUT — A year ago this week, the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah came to an end, but since then the wider ideological battle between Israel-the United States and friends and Hizbullah-Iran-Syria and friends has only escalated and expanded. A regional diplomatic balance sheet one year after the war suggests that conditions have deteriorated on all fronts, with the possible exception of a renewed focus on resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even there, though, the sincerity and the efficacy of the main players — Israel, the United States, the Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas — are very suspect.
Lebanon has been the main loser from last year’s war, despite the sense of achievement among Hizbullah supporters who rightly take pride in the organization’s ability to fight Israel for 34 days and force it into a diplomatic draw. Hizbullah is discovering that proving one’s prowess in unconventional warfare and armed resistance requires very different skills from proving one’s skill and agility in political contests.
Hizbullah now finds itself in a much more difficult position than it did a year ago. Militarily it is more constrained by the presence of Lebanese and international troops in south Lebanon. The international community is maintaining and raising the pressure on Hizbullah’s military re-supply routes — presumably from Syria and Iran, primarily. Within Lebanon, Hizbullah’s bold challenge to the Lebanese government in which it once served has elicited a firm counter posture of political resistance, commensurate with Hizbullah’s military resistance to Israeli aggression.
More troubling for Hizbullah is the incremental criticism it has elicited among some Lebanese who were once admirers or neutral observers, but who now blame it for triggering the war, paralyzing the government, and weakening the economy. While Hizbullah’s own support base remains firm and substantial, its wider popular appeal is more vulnerable to shifts, and its alliance with Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun remains susceptible to changes in the mercurial Aoun’s own erratic public standing.
The Lebanese government for its part is not in much better shape. It battles on four fronts simultaneously: against the Hizbullah-Aoun-led opposition, the Fateh el-Islam militants in Nahr el-Barid refugee camp in the north, a perceived threat from Syria’s desire to reassert control in Lebanon, and the constant threat of economic deterioration due largely to the political uncertainties. It has become identified with the US-led drive in the Middle East against Islamists, Syria, Iran and others who challenge Washington and Israel. And this while suffering the continued discomfort — if not humiliation — of seeing the United States insist on keeping Lebanon armed forces limited in their capabilities, while giving Israel everything it needs to dominate the neighboring Arab states.
Israel drew lessons from the 2006 summer war and adjusted its armed forces capabilities and training accordingly, but politically it remains hampered by two cardinal problems: Its government has very low credibility at home, and it remains totally baffled by how to resolve peacefully the core conflict with Palestinian nationalism that has befuddled it since its birth in 1948. Its three soldiers who were taken prisoner by Palestinians and Hizbullah in 2006 — the alleged trigger for the war it launched against Lebanon — remain in captivity.
Conditions in Palestine itself also have deteriorated in the past year, with the West Bank and Gaza now effectively ruled by two different Palestinian governments. Both have domestic legitimacy, though Israel, the United States, Europe and other key players only deal with Abbas in his West Bank enclave, while boycotting Hamas in Gaza.
Wider afield, Iraq continues to plague everyone, the United States maintains pressure on Iran and Syria without any appreciable signs of change in Iranian-Syrian policies, and Saudi Arabia seems to have toned down its diplomatic dynamism of the past year.
The threat of terrorism continues to spread throughout the region, especially in the form of small, home-grown groups with strong regional links. Typical are the ones that have reared their heads in Lebanon recently, notably Fateh el-Islam, Jund el-Sham, and Usbet el-Ansar. The continued expansion and popularity of fundamentalist Sunni Islamist groups, both militant jihadis as well as non-violent Salafis, is the most dramatic and troubling ongoing development throughout the region.
It is intriguing that the Bush administration recently recommitted the United States — rhetorically at least — to working actively for a negotiated Arab-Israeli peace agreement via a regional conference this coming Autumn. There is no sign that the United States will mediate this issue in a balanced and just manner, pull back from its strong pro-Israeli bias, or engage the democratically-elected Hamas leadership.
Nevertheless, the revived American peace-making rhetoric is fascinating, if it reflects sincere acknowledgment that resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict justly is the most important single step that can be taken towards addressing the many other conflicts that plague the modern Middle East — including last summer’s wasteful war and the many new problems, deadlocks and tensions it has spawned.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 17 August 2007
Word Count: 808
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