BEIRUT — The Doha agreement that ended the latest round of political tension and armed clashes in Lebanon has bought, at best, 18-24 months of calm for the country — and an opportunity for the largely discredited political elite to start acting responsibly. Hizbullah remains the focus of discussion about the challenges ahead, given its dominant strength relative to the other Lebanese factions, including the central government and its armed forces.

The dilemma for Hizbullah is that its strength — from its inception a quarter of a century ago in the early 1980s — is now its weakness in its political engagement inside Lebanon. Its combination of military prowess, links with Syria and Iran, and domestic strategic political ambiguity about its ultimate aims for Lebanon are issues that have rallied the opposition to it among a growing circle of Lebanese.

This is not purely a question of “What does Hizbullah want?” or “Will Hizbullah give up its arms?” Hizbullah’s power and aims cannot be analyzed in a vacuum, because the party did not emerge as the most powerful military force in the country in isolation of the behavior of other national actors. Two issues are at play here: Hizbullah’s status, and the quality of Lebanese statehood.

The strength and status of Hizbullah and the weakness of the Lebanese state are symbiotic developments that feed off each other, and can only be resolved together.

The coming era of calm political adjustment in Lebanon — including the national unity government and the Spring 2009 parliamentary elections — must address the very difficult core disputed issues. The central one is the Hizbullah-state relationship, which is directly or indirectly linked to other tough issues such as Syrian-Lebanese ties, and the role of external powers such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.

If Lebanon does not make progress on these issues in the coming few years and instead falls back into a pattern of stalemate and street fighting, a second civil war is likely, and no country I know of has survived two civil wars and remained intact. A resumption of fighting on a large scale will see the country slip into a slow and steady pattern of dysfunctional statehood and patchwork sovereignty, somewhere between the Yemen and Somalia models.

The challenge remains to construct a state built on equal citizenship rights in which all Lebanese have the opportunity to improve their quality of life in the context of the rule of law, rather than tribal or communal self-defense. The manner in which the parties at Doha haggled over electoral districts in Beirut and other parts of the country suggests that the concepts of the Lebanese state and citizens’ rights remain subsidiary to the more powerful forces of sectarianism and tribalism that define both the affirmation of identity and the exercise of power. This is not unique to Lebanon. Most of the Middle East suffers the same problem, but elsewhere it is camouflaged beneath the stultifying calm of the modern Arab security state.

Hizbullah has proven to be very good at most of the things it does, including social service delivery, communal mobilization, military resistance and appealing to wider public opinion around the region. It is the culmination of one of the most impressive and compelling political sagas of the modern Arab world — the journey of the Lebanese Shiite community from marginalization, abuse, and subjugation to dominant power in a span of just over a generation, starting in the early 1970s.

Yet Hizbullah has proved to be very weak in domestic political engagement, mainly because it is inexperienced. Some of its strongest critics say it is insincere, and does not care to engage politically or share power, because it reflects Iranian-Syrian rather than Lebanese priorities. The arguments here are fierce. We shall soon find out. Politics, however, remains new territory for Hizbullah.

Its 18-month-long political challenge to the government was a stalemated failure and exploits such as its downtown tent encampment were occasionally an embarrassment. It gained the upper hand only when it responded to the government’s challenge to two aspects of its security system by sending armed men into west Beirut.

To fight instead of bargaining is not a sign of political prowess or sophistication.

Hizbullah and the Lebanese state must both now grapple with basic issues of their own legitimacy, efficacy, and reach. It is clear that the existing balance of power is not sustainable. More and more Lebanese are openly challenging Hizbullah, which responds with familiar arguments about the centrality of its resistance role — arguments that sound increasingly less credible to many compatriots. There is no easy answer to this dilemma of how to reconcile a weak state with a strong parallel state structure. But an answer must be found, or both will pay the price in the years ahead.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 02 June 2008
Word Count: 802
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BEIRUT — The Doha agreement that has resolved the immediate political crisis in Lebanon is the latest example of the new political power equation that is redefining the Middle East. It reflects both local and global forces, and eighteen years after the Cold War ended, it provides a glimpse of what the post-Cold War world will look like — at least in the Middle East.

Several dynamics seem to be at play, but one stands out as paramount: We are witnessing the clear limits of the projection of American global power, combined with the assertion and coexistence of multiple regional powers (Turkey, Israel, Iran, Hizbullah, Syria, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, etc.). These local powers tend to fight and negotiate at the same time, and ultimately prefer to make reasonable compromises rather than perpetually to wage absolutist battles.

The Doha accord for Lebanon was much more than simply a victory for Iranian-backed Hizbullah over the American-backed March 14 alliance. It is the first concrete example in the Arab world of a negotiated, formal political agreement by local adversaries to share power and make big national decisions collectively, while maintaining close strategic relationships with diverse external patrons in the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The Lebanese agreement (unlike the failed Fateh-Hamas unity government) is likely to succeed because all the parties know that to live together peacefully they must make mutual compromises. This accord has been forged in the furnace of Middle Eastern demographic and political realism, in contrast to the hallucinatory absolutism that often drives American-Israeli policy in this region.

This is not a full defeat for the United States — more like a draw. It puts into concrete political form the most powerful force that has defined the Middle East in recent decades: the willingness of individuals, political movements and some governments to openly defy, challenge, resist and occasionally to fight the United States, Israel and their Arab and other allies. The United States since 2004 has explicitly, repeatedly and passionately singled out Lebanon as an arena where Hizbullah and other regional Islamist forces backed by Iran and Syria would be faced down and defeated. But now, the United States will face these forces from across the same cabinet room table, not as bludgeoned and defeated foes, but rather as partners and colleagues in Lebanon’s national unity government. When Hizbullah and Hariri exchange kisses, a befuddled Condoleezza Rice should take care not to fall off her exercise bicycle.

The United States is a slow learner in the Middle East, where the terrain is strange to it, the body language bizarre, the fierce power of historical memory incomprehensible, and the negotiating techniques other-worldy. But the US is not stupid. It learns over time that if you retread a flat tire over and over again, and it keeps going flat on you, perhaps it is time to buy a new tire — if you hope to actually move forward. Now that we have a draw in the broad ideological confrontation throughout the Middle East that pits Israeli-Americanism against Arab-Islamo nationalism, we should expect the players to reconsider their policies if they wish to make new gains on both sides.

Lebanon, however, is not the most significant development this week reflecting the limits of American power in the Middle East. The truly remarkable manifestation of how the United States has marginalized itself is the conduct of the Israeli government. The United States has pushed the Israelis hard to do two things in the past two years: Do not negotiate with Syria and do not engage Hamas. What has Israel done during the past few months and more? It has been wisely negotiating with Syria via Turkey, and engaging Hamas on a truce deal through the intermediation of Egypt. Hold on, Condi, this gets even worse.

It is no big deal in Washington when nearly five hundred million Arabs, Iranians and Turks ignore and defy the United States. But when Israel — the only democracy in the Middle East, America’s eternal ally, and the bastion of the epic modern struggle against fascism, totalitarianism, Nazism, communism, and terrorism — ignores the United States, that is newsworthy.

So we now have a rare moment in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, all the Arabs, Hizbullah, Hamas, and Israel all share one and only one common trait: They routinely ignore the advice, and the occasional threats, they get from Washington. Condoleezza Rice was correct in summer 2006 when she said we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East. But the emerging new regional configuration is very different from the one she fantasized about and tried to bring into being with multiple wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia and Lebanon, and threats against Iran and Syria.

The new rules of the political game in the Middle East are now being written by the key players in the Middle East — and that should be welcomed.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 26 May 2008
Word Count: 813
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BEIRUT — Lebanese leaders and their Arab friends may be wasting their time exploring the realm of politics to try and hammer out a new governance and power-sharing agreement in Doha, Qatar. Instead, they might learn much more from the lessons of nature right at home in Beirut. When the Lebanese politicians return from Doha, they should go straight to the campus of the American University of Beirut (AUB) to learn firsthand about an example of peaceful coexistence between living organisms who would otherwise have a tendency — even a genetic imperative — to fight and kill.

I’m not talking about AUB’s Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Orthodox, and Druze students and faculty, who seem to generally get along fine — mainly because they leave politics outside the campus gates.

I’m talking about the campus cats and pigeons, hundreds of which live peacefully together in the beautiful AUB campus that is something of a natural sanctuary. This is about as close as it gets in real life to the idea that “the lion shall lie down with the lamb…”

Cats are natural predators of birds — except at AUB. A cat stalking an unsuspecting bird is one of nature’s most dramatic and suspenseful spectacles: a thrill when the cat pounces and the bird escapes, and a tragedy when the bird is caught and eaten. Birds rarely reverse the process and attack cats — except perhaps in places where large predators like eagles and hawks can occasionally swoop down and snatch some baby kittens or a lazy adult cat for a meal.

Everyday as I walk across the AUB campus, I am pleased to see many of the several hundred AUB cats that live freely on campus dozing happily on the grass or amidst bushes and trees, while delicious-looking pigeons of assorted sizes walk lazily past them, just meters away. The cats don’t bat an eyelid. Natural aggression and the instinct to hunt and kill are somehow blocked, in favor of happy coexistence.

“Could this amazing reversal of natural law and biological imperative be applied to human beings?” I wondered the other day, while trying to stay out of the way of bullets exchanged by Lebanese gunmen on the streets of my neighborhood. We are likely to get a short-term political accord from the Doha gathering, but not permanent stability — unless, that is, we discover a way to live according to the same principles that define the lives of AUB’s cats and pigeons.

Having pondered this issue and closely observed the beasts on campus for some years now, I conclude that a natural conflict of interests has been replaced by a fraternal conviviality due to the following reasons, some of which are especially apt for the Lebanese politicians in determining how they can treat their fellow citizens:

1. Cats and pigeons have stopped fighting and fearing each other at AUB because they live under a clear law, or set of rules. There is an actual “AUB cats policy” that is posted on the university website. It clarifies that cats are fed and inspected regularly, are not allowed into buildings, and should not be taken on or off campus without supervision. Even cats, it seems, thrive under the rule of law — if it is explicit, clear, and is fairly and consistently applied.

2. Cats have become non-aggressive because their basics needs are met — especially food, water, shelter, medical care. When basic needs are met, and desperation fades away, living beings become prone to peaceful coexistence.

3. Credible institutions have been established to provide for the cats’ needs. AUB has an Animal Welfare Club, which is responsible for feeding, spaying, and neutering the campus’ cats, “in order to sustain a healthy and steady population of felines on campus,” according to the university Cats Policy. Institutions, rather than the whimsy of individuals, seem to create conditions that are conducive to security and conviviality.

4. Simple human decency and dignity, or, in this case, decency to animals, prods beasts of all kinds to coexist naturally. Cats are treated kindly at AUB — students gently pet them on benches and on the grass; the wonderful lady who feeds them twice daily has a name for each cat, to which each animal responds warmly and quickly. The anonymity and alienation that many humans suffer, and that often prods individuals towards violence, does not exist in AUB’s cat universe, where there are no refugee, stateless, nameless, or homeless cats. They each have a name, friends, dignity. I’m not surprised that in turn they treat the pigeons kindly, understanding better than most human politicians that dignity, law and institutions — not violence — is the lynchpin to stability and security.

If the cats and pigeons get it, a few dozen Arab politicians should be able to rise to the same high standard. We shall soon find out.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 21 May 2008
Word Count: 805
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BEIRUT — The agreement among all the Lebanese political leaders to hold talks in Doha, Qatar, and keep meeting until they resolve their current political impasse will probably bring peace and quiet to Lebanon for a period of time — certainly months and perhaps even years.

Skepticism abounds, though, alongside signs of hope and maturity. Speaking for myself, this is the third time in my life that I have lived in Beirut — 1958, 1975 and 2008 — when the country has been scarred by internal fighting and the entanglement of foreign powers and troops.

A complex matrix of issues defines the current situation. Local, regional and global power relationships all have to be sorted out, and the three levels are deeply intertwined. I see two core issues at stake here, and everything else is footnotes:

(1) If the central state does not meet its citizens’ needs, how does the state work out a credible balance of power with indigenous groups and powerful armed organizations like Hizbullah — who do respond to citizen needs more efficiently?

(2) Is Lebanon mainly an Arab-Islamic-Middle Eastern society integral to Syrian and Iranian interests, or is it a more Western-oriented, liberal society that sits more comfortably in the American and French orbits?

In both cases, the central issue is the relationship between Hizbullah and the state. Last week’s fighting and political crisis in Lebanon revolved around the government’s decision to curtail aspects of Hizbullah’s security system, to which Hizbullah responded with a fast and decisive show of force that overwhelmed the Hariri camp and other March 14 groups allied to the government.

Two red lines, previously viewed as sacred, were broached: when the government tried to interfere in Hizbullah’s telephone system — vital for the group’s security network; and, when Hizbullah and allies used force against fellow Lebanese. Those two new actions clarified the main issues that have to be discussed and resolved in Doha and beyond. Yet the Doha talks are hindered by the persistent problem that hovers over all issues in Lebanon today: the sense among many pro-government Lebanese that Hizbullah is being used by Syria and Iran for those two countries’ purposes.

These people argue that Syria wants to regain control of Lebanon and stall or stop the international tribunal that would bring to justice those to be accused of killing the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and a dozen other personalities. While Iran wants to be able to use Hizbullah and its formidable military and logistical capability in any potential confrontation with Israel or the United States.

These are very serious charges, to which Hizbullah remains vulnerable because it persists in using ambiguity as a strategic weapon in dealing with its foes and critics. The fact is that many Lebanese simply do not trust Hizbullah, and that sentiment has increased since the fighting last week.

Hizbullah’s emergence as the single most powerful military-political group in Lebanon is augmented by its alliance with the prominent Christian leader Michael Aoun. The Hizbullah-led alliance of these and other smaller groups demands a greater say in the cabinet and parliament, which are designed to reflect power balances among the country’s main sectarian and religious groups. A significant reconfiguration of the traditional power-sharing system must be undertaken.

This can probably be done in a manner that all Lebanese can accept. What remain problematic are the underlying issues of Hizbullah’s arms, and the influence of Iran, Syria and the United States. Therefore, for long-term peace and security to prevail, the Doha talks would have to agree on fundamental structural reform of the Lebanese governance system, and the ideological values that define the country.

A real shift in the balance of power among the country’s main confessional groups means that Christians and Sunnis in particular would give up some power in favor of Shiite Hizbullah and its allies. They are reluctant to do so without some guarantees on the status and use of Hizbullah’s arms. This in turn requires Hizbullah to clarify its future stance on its arms, its relationship to Israel, and other important issues.

When either side relies more on its external support to overcome internal pressures, the other side becomes more confrontational and daring. The result is the Lebanon we have today, which keeps having to turn to external assistance to resolve political confrontations that are also heavily caused by other external assistance in the first place.

The real issue, then, also becomes clearer: the viability, credibility and legitimacy of Arab statehood. Lebanon — as a weak state — has led to the birth of groups like Hizbullah, who provide services that the weak state cannot offer its citizens. Hizbullah now is a parallel state. How can the state and Hizbullah coexist? This is the central issue around which all others revolve. It is also an issue that plagues many other Arab governments, as the years ahead are likely to show.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 16 May 2008
Word Count: 809
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BEIRUT — Events in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon continue to move erratically, with simultaneous gestures of political compromise and armed clashes that have left more than 20 killed in the past week. The consequences of what has happened in the past week may portend an extraordinary but constructive new development: the possible emergence of the first American-Iranian joint political governance system in the Arab World. Maybe.

If Lebanon shifts from street clashes to the hoped-for political compromise through a renewed national dialogue process, it will have a national unity government whose two factions receive arms, training, funds and political support from both the United States and Iran. Should this happen, an unspoken American-Iranian political condominium in Lebanon could prove to be key to power-sharing and stability in other parts of the region, such as Palestine, Iraq and other hot spots. This would also mark a huge defeat for the United States and its failed diplomatic approach that seeks to confront, battle and crush the Islamist-nationalists throughout the region.

The brief, isolated, but intense clashes that occurred in the four days between Wednesday and Sunday threatened a total, Iraq-like collapse of Lebanon, with the Hizbullah-led alliance controlling power in the capital Beirut and other critical areas. The frantic pace of political and street action comprised and clarified four noteworthy developments, whose implications for the rest of the Middle East could be momentous:

1. When the government decided to challenge Hizbullah last Tuesday, by announcing it was sacking the Shiite army general in charge of airport security and dismantling Hizbullah’s underground security telecommunications network, Hizbullah saw this as the first serious attempt by the government to try and disarm it. Hizbullah immediately challenged the government, warned it against these decisions, and made a show of force to protect its security and telecommunications system. When street clashes started in several parts of Beirut, the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah-led opposition alliance quickly and roundly asserted its dominance over the US- and Saudi-backed government alliance. Put to the test, the new balance of power in Lebanon affirmed itself on the street for the first time in less than 24 hours.

2. All the Lebanese parties repeatedly indicated a preference for political compromise over communal war, but also showed they were prepared to fight if forced to. The persistent negotiations via the mass media included critical agreements on naming armed forces commander Michael Suleiman as the new president, resuming the national dialogue, forming a government of national unity, and revising the electoral law before holding parliamentary elections next year. Negotiation offers came in sequence from Hizbullah secretary-general and Shiite leader Hassan Nasrallah, Future Movement head and Sunni leader Saad Hariri, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and the Shiite Amal movement of Hizbullah ally Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

3. The newly vulnerable government effectively backed down Saturday and reversed its two decisions, as Hizbullah had demanded. The street balance of power was translated into a new political equation inside Lebanon. Hizbullah and its allies had achieved on the street that which they had been asking for politically: the capacity to veto government decisions that were seen as threatening Hizbullah’s security and resistance activities.

4. By immediately handing over to the armed forces those few buildings and strategic locations that they had taken over in Beirut, Hizbullah and its allies sent the signal that they did not want to rule the entire country, and that they trusted the army as a neutral arbiter between the warring Lebanese factions. Prime Minister Siniora sent the same message when he asked the armed forces and their commander Michele Suleiman to decide on the fate of the two contested government security decisions that had sparked Hizbullah’s move into West Beirut. The armed forces emerged as the powerful political arbiter and peace-keeper, effectively forming a fourth branch of government, and the only one that is credible and effective in the eyes of the entire population.

All factions have agreed to get armed gunmen off the streets and leave only the army and police as public security guardians. Now they are expected to follow up quickly by formally naming Suleiman as president (to which they have all agreed already), agreeing on a transitional national unity government of technocrats, and drawing up a new election law. The precise sequence of those events is one of the disputed points that must be agreed, but agreement may be easier now that the army has emerged as a pivotal arbiter and political actor.

The new domestic political balance of power in Lebanon will reflect millennia-old indigenous Middle Eastern traditions of different and often quarreling parties that live together peacefully after negotiating power relationships, rather than one party totally defeating and humiliating the other. Lebanon can only exist as a single country if its multi-ethnic and multi-religious population shares power. As the political leaders now seek to do this, they operate in a new context where the strongest group comprises Iranian- and Syrian-backed Islamist Shiites and their junior partner Christian and Sunni Muslim Lebanese allies. They will share power in a national unity government with fellow Lebanese who are friends, allies, dependents and proxies of the United States and Saudi Arabia.

If a new Middle East is truly being born, this may well prove to be its nursery.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 12 May 2008
Word Count: 875
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BEIRUT — As often happens in this strange world, it was my water turtle Jerry who brought home to me the tough choices we make in times of war. This happened on Friday morning, when bullets and rocket-propelled grenades were exploding all around our apartment near the Hamra area of west Beirut, during the latest episode in Lebanon’s long-running civil strife and political showdown.

We went to bed Thursday night amid repeated rounds of automatic rifle and handgun fire, punctuated by the occasional roar of a loud explosion that was probably a rocket-propelled grenade. The fighting stopped around 1 a.m., soon after a serendipitous spring rainstorm engulfed Beirut.

The fighting resumed in the early morning. One of our balcony window panes shattered just after we woke up at 7:30 a.m., pierced by a bullet or a ricocheting stone. A few minutes later, as we prepared coffee in the kitchen that we thought was shielded from the shooting in the streets below, a bullet hit the balcony above us. Shattered stones fell past our balcony to the street below. We ducked and quickly got out of the kitchen, but with our coffee in hand.

Jerry the turtle was in his water tank on the balcony, and had not been fed since the previous night. We knew we had to feed him soon, but wondered whether it was safe to go on the balcony, from where the gunmen along the large street junction, 25 meters away and four stories below, could clearly see us.

The trouble was, we had no idea who was fighting whom, or whether any actual battles were taking place. Some neighbors thought that heavily armed fighters were simply asserting their presence and control of the neighborhood.

This was the third time in a generation that I lived through armed conflict in Beirut, including the early months of the civil war in 1975, the war with Israel in summer 2006, and now this battle — both a local test of political strength and a proxy battle for the wider ideological war pitting United States-led, predominantly Sunni Muslim Arabs vs. Iranian- and Syrian-led, heavily Shiite Muslim Arabs. The regional and global confrontation translated this week into who controlled a few buildings and streets in West Beirut.

Our home is near two key buildings owned by the family of the late Rafik Hariri and his son Saad Hariri who essentially heads the government coalition: his home in Qoreitim district and the Future television station. Pro-Hariri armed young men had always occasionally patrolled our neighborhood, given our proximity to Hariri installations. This city block had much symbolic significance.

Hizbullah and its allies decided Wednesday-Thursday to make a show of force by quickly taking control of and closing Beirut’s airport and seaport, and then shutting down all the Hariri-owned media (television, radio and newspaper). The message was clear: Hizbullah could take over all Beirut at any moment it desired.

This was probably an inevitable moment, when Hizbullah felt it had to show the government the real balance of power between them. The fighting Thursday morning saw Hizbullah, Amal and smaller Lebanese leftist allies quickly take over Hariri-owned facilities, and then just as quickly turn them over to the Lebanese army, which is still seen as a national institution working for the unity and security of the country.

Hizbullah may have been making the point that it did not want to conquer Beirut or run all Lebanon, but rather that it wanted to push the government into making a negotiated deal that would recognize and institutionalize the real political and military power of Hizbullah and its allies. Thursday evening, both Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri had made television statements in which they insulted each other, but also offered proposals to end the clashes and reach political agreement.

The two principal political leaders in Lebanon were doing what they have always done: protect their own communities’ rights and wellbeing, assert their willingness to fight if necessary, rely on foreign powers for whom they often acted as local proxies, insult each other with mutual accusations of serving Israeli or American interests, and, finally, offer proposals that comprised a political opening for dialogue and negotiations.

All of this happened in the span of 12 hours, during which my water turtle Jerry had not been fed. In his own little water tank world, he was getting anxious, as were all the Lebanese people who were becoming fed up with their leaders’ inclination to perpetuate civil strife. In the context of the new political balance of power in Lebanon, our stepping out on the balcony to feed Jerry might have risked our lives. I told my wife Ellen I would kneel down and do a semi-crawl to the balcony, reaching Jerry and his food without being seen by the gunmen whom we could see from the corner of our window. I was overruled by the prevailing balance of power in our home, when my wife insisted she could do the crawl more safely and swiftly. I concurred, and as she prepared to feed Jerry, I held my breath.

I also thought then that the situation might be changing. The gunfire was slowing down and becoming more sporadic. Every 10-15 minutes or so, a burst of shooting or a loud explosion would rattle our windows. It seemed that whoever was emerging on top was asserting his control of the neighborhood. Ellen timed her feeding expedition with one of the lulls, and all went smoothly.

An hour later, the situation seemed to change. The rumble of Lebanese army armored personnel carriers on our street signaled that the pro-Hizbullah gunmen had turned the neighborhood over to the army. The shooting and explosions stopped.

Neighbors ventured out onto their balconies for the first time in 18 hours. We and Jerry seemed to sense that a new situation was coming into being — in Lebanon and the entire Middle East. Where it would lead was not clear, but by the next feeding on Friday night we would probably have a better idea. We decided to leave Jerry on the balcony, assuming that reaching him would not be dangerous. We shall soon find out.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 09 May 2008
Word Count: 1,031
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BEIRUT — The convergence of six trends in the Middle East — food, energy, water, population, urbanization and security-dominated politics — is likely to create conditions that will be politically challenging, if not destabilizing, in many countries in the years ahead. The confluence of these trends is very similar to what happened in the region in the mid-to-late 1970s, when the current Islamist wave of social identity and confrontational politics was initiated.

Things will be much more difficult this time around. The consequences could be much worse, especially in view of the ripple effect of the war in Iraq, Iran’s growing influence, continued stalemate in Palestine, and the weakening of some Arab governments. It is difficult to predict exactly what will happen in the years ahead, but the stressful factors pushing change are already clear and we would be foolish to ignore them.

Two critical basic needs — food and energy — are becoming more costly simultaneously. (And a third — water — is likely to do so, given the high population growth rate and finite available water resources.) Arab governments are scrambling to find stop-gap solutions to the problem of rising food and energy prices, which touch every household.

Most Middle Eastern countries cannot subsidize energy and food prices forever, given the divergence between rising prices and limited government finances. With the price of oil now around $120 a barrel, most countries are being forced to allow domestic energy prices to reflect actual market costs. This means that household energy and fuel costs will probably double for most families in comparison with what they were paying five years ago.

Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and other countries have announced wage increases for public sector employees, partly in response to political pressures from restless populations. But the increases will not keep pace with rising costs, and governments will not be able to keep increasing wages in tandem with commodity price increases.

The demographics of the Middle East also increase economic and political stresses. The population of the region is now mostly urban, young, educated, and defined by rising expectations, while at the same time being politically frustrated. Socio-economic and political trends are on a collision course: At the family and grassroots level, the vast majority of Arabs are finding their lives increasingly stressful due to the rising costs of basic needs, while their political systems in most cases are becoming increasingly autocratic and security-focused.

The post-9/11 trend in the region has seen governments emphasize security measures to the detriment of political liberalization and democratization. Existing “democratic” and participatory systems, such as the Egyptian, Moroccan, Jordanian, Iranian and most other regional parliaments, continue to lose credibility, thus shutting down an important peaceful outlet for expressing people’s frustrations and concerns.

This is a certain recipe for tension and confrontation, which is exacerbated by the continuing popular anger and humiliation at trends in Iraq and Palestine, where most Arab governments are widely seen by their own citizens to be fully subservient to American and Israeli dictates. As food and energy price increases work their way through all aspects of daily life, and access to clean water and decent jobs becomes more precarious for many people living in burgeoning cities, citizen concerns will have to find a credible outlet. Ordinary citizens will at least want to be sure that shortages or price increases are distributed equitably across the population, and that any available state subsidies are targeted at those most in need.

A huge difference between the 1970s and today is that angry or frightened citizens seem now to have many more outlets for their political activism, not all of them orderly. The Islamist political movements that flourished in the 1970s-80s were not successful in changing government policies or equitably redistributing limited state financial assets. Political liberalization and democratic reform have proved illusory in most countries in the region, leading to recent situations (e.g., Morocco and Egypt) where most citizens ignored local and parliamentary elections.

Not surprisingly, growing frustration and weakening central government authority in some cases prompted new forms of political organization and expression throughout the Arab world. These have included local gangs, militias, criminal networks, tribal groups, family associations, terrorist organizations, and highly efficient Islamist political parties, while democracy and human rights groups have floundered due to lack of impact.

A fresh round of economic and social pressures, combined with even more limited outlets for political expression and orderly policy change, portend a new stage of political action in many Arab countries. This time, however, greater urgency and even some existential desperation — families that cannot feed themselves or heat their homes in winter — will drive some people to more extreme forms of action. We should not be surprised when this happens. This is the biggest test that Arab governance systems have faced in a generation.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 07 May 2008
Word Count: 795
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CORVALLIS, Oregon — Linus Pauling was one of the greatest scientists and most renowned peace activists of the 20th century: the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel Prizes (for chemistry in 1954, and peace in 1963).

Normally his life and mine would not cross paths, especially because I still have not overcome the deep emotional trauma and psychological self-esteem scars I suffered in high school due to my total inability to comprehend anything that happened in classes of chemistry or physics, his fields of renown. But a few months ago, I was honored with an invitation to deliver the 25th annual “Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Memorial Lecture on World Peace,” at Oregon State University.

This gave me the opportunity to learn more about his extraordinary life, which I write about today because it remains relevant for two reasons: first, that men and women of letters, science, business and the arts should courageously enter the world of politics and bring their knowledge and influence to bear on the policies of their governments; and, second, for pointing out the several ways in which the policies of global powers intersect with the affairs of smaller countries around the world.

While preparing for my talk, I visited the complete collection of the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers at the university’s Valley Library, where I experienced the thrill of leafing through letters between Pauling and world figures like Martin Luther King, Bertrand Russell, and John F. Kennedy.

I came away feeling that Linus Pauling’s most impressive and enduring legacy — which reflected the profound influence of his wife Ava Helen — was to combine his scholarly genius with a moral commitment to work for world peace and nuclear disarmament. His pursuit of a world without war was inspired mainly by his scientific awareness of the destructive capacity of the thermonuclear weapons that were being developed in the late 1940s and 1950s. He felt that powerful bombs and sophisticated new missile-based delivery systems would forever change “the nature of war,” in a manner that would result in mass suffering from the direct destruction of war, along with the lingering impact of radiation and disease and the parallel threat of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.

He also pointed out that the big powers often had a negative impact on local conditions around the world. He foresaw the problem of “small wars” comprising local insurrections and guerrilla movements, often triggered by “economic exploitation and oppression by dictatorial governments which retain power through force of arms.”

Those dictatorial powers often remained in office because they were supported by the world’s superpowers, he noted. He advocated some sort of regular referendum throughout the world to ascertain “the will of the people with respect to their national government.”

I sensed that his political thinking was heavily influenced by his scientific work. He wrote once that, “One way in which scientists work is by observing the world, making note of phenomena, and analyzing them.”

In my own research and preparation for my lecture, I tried to find a link between Pauling’s approach to life, work and public policy, and any relevance to the situation of the United States in the Middle East today. I concluded simply that political leaders in the West today would do well to follow Pauling’s advice on how to work, whether in science or politics. The starting point must be a close, dispassionate observation of realities on the ground: what people feel, say and do, and why they do what they do.

Anybody who applies this method today to the Middle East would see effervescence, turbulence and activism throughout the region, expressed in a wide variety of ways: orderly political action, public religiosity, communal and tribal mobilization for political ends, and some criminal and terroristic acts. A majority of Arabs and Muslims are expressing discontent with their life conditions, political systems, or socio-economic prospects.

Any scientist — even political scientists and politicians — should be able to hear and understand the cries for a more orderly, safe and just society that emanate from throughout the Middle East. Many of the preconceived ideas or simplistic impressions about Middle Eastern Arabs and Muslims that prevail in the United States and other Western countries are not derived from careful observation of facts.

Pauling proved to be correct in being concerned about the synthesis of big powers support for local dictators, the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, and the eruption of “small wars” among populations who were degraded by economic exploitation and political oppression. Those several dangerous phenomena seem increasingly to mesh into a single dynamic in some parts of the world. The Ava Helen and Linus Paulings of our day would do well to stand up now and make their voices heard, just as this courageous couple did half a century ago.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 05 May 2008
Word Count: 803
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LOS ANGELES — One of the important developments in Middle Eastern diplomacy that becomes more obvious with every passing month is the continued marginalization of the United States. As the Bush administration and the presidential candidates find themselves focusing most of their Middle East-related attention on the complex challenges the US invasion has created in Iraq, other important regional issues seem to be moving into the hands of local players and mediators.

The more the United States is marginalized diplomatically as a would-be mediator because of its own short-sighted tendency blindly to support Israel’s positions, to buttress Arab autocrats, and to oppose the large, populist Islamo-nationalist movements, the more other mediators from the area make progress in resolving or reducing the intensity of conflicts.

Two cases in particular are noteworthy: the Hamas-Israel indirect negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza (mediated by Egypt), and the Israeli-Syrian soundings about a full peace treaty (mediated by Turkey). Both are enormously important developments. If consummated, they would represent solid, even historic, steps towards a resolution of the century-old Arab-Israeli conflict. The chances of success are slim, but they are not zero, and that in itself is noteworthy.

I find it striking that the four most significant or dynamic mediators on major regional problems in the past year have been four regional players: Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. George W. Bush’s effort to prod Israeli-Palestinian peace-making, on the other hand, seems hapless and lacking credibility, because it is aimed more at pleasing Israel than at meeting the minimum demands and rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Egypt is trying to arrange a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel; Turkey is the channel for serious diplomatic feelers between Syria and Israel; Saudi Arabia brokered the Fateh-Hamas unity government agreement last year that later collapsed; and the Arab League continues to seek a resolution of intra-Lebanese and Lebanese-Syrian tensions. This is good news, because it signals both willingness and a capacity by regional actors to act as diplomatic mediators, rather than constantly looking to foreign powers to nudge the warring parties towards negotiated accords.

The United States, on the other hand, seems often to want to stoke the fires of ideological tension and military conflict, by supporting, arming, financing, and training one side in domestic political contests such as those in Lebanon and Palestine. The US (and Europe in some cases) is also severely hampered by its own decision to boycott or heavily downgrade contacts with key players like Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran. The combination of boycotting legitimate main actors while actively promoting local confrontations with them is a recipe for what we witness in the Middle East these days: a growing number of major political conflicts within countries, and strong linkages between the warring actors across the region.

Episodic local tensions have now been transformed into a major and chronic cycle of region-wide political battles, pitting US- and Israeli-backed “moderates” against a wide array of Islamists, “extremists” and “militants” in the Arab world and Iran.

The most important diplomatic process these days is the Syrian-Israeli one. Israelis and Syrians alike have made it clear that something serious is taking place behind the scenes. A negotiated, comprehensive Israeli-Syrian peace agreement is not very difficult at the practical level, for it would follow the Israeli-Egyptian and -Jordanian pattern of full peace and normalization for full Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967. Israel will have to remove its colonial settlements, but such is the price of abiding by the law of international relations and UN Security Council resolutions.

A Syrian-Israeli peace agreement would impact heavily on every major issue in the vicinity, because Syria has strategic and tactical relations with every nearby major player and country: Iran, Lebanon, Hizbullah, Iraq, Palestine and Hamas. Syria would have to decide if the gains of a peace treaty — regime stability, cash aid, and international economic integration — were worth the inevitable price that will be demanded from it: breaking or significantly reducing strategic ties with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah.

Syria for its part will also want direct or indirect influence over Lebanon, and a downgrading of the international tribunal that will prosecute those to be indicted for the Hariri and other murders in Lebanon since February 2005. Lebanon and the international community are reluctant to offer these to Syria, but probably do not totally rule out a reasonable, face-saving compromise. Many Lebanese will be rightly worried that they are about to be sold out.

Syrian-Israeli peace would totally change the political equation in the region, and probably lead to historic changes in Lebanon, Hizbullah’s standing, Iran’s regional role, the Iraqi situation, and political conditions in Palestine. It is telling of the damage that the United States has done to its own influence in the Middle East that the potentially most important diplomatic development in the past generation seems to be taking place without any significant American role.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 30 April 2008
Word Count: 819
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Is Hamas’ offer of a ten-year truce with Israel sincere? Is it a plausible gesture that should be carefully studied as a possible prelude to a comprehensive peace?

Hamas clearly is sending strong signals that it is prepared to play the diplomatic game, but not at any price — as did Fateh and Yasser Arafat for years. Hamas’ offer of a long-term truce with Israel is neither permanent peace nor recognition of Israel. Those might follow from future negotiations, but only if Palestinians enjoy their equal national rights simultaneously, and this requires rules of the diplomatic game that are more even-handed.

Two pertinent issues are involved here:

One is whether Islamist movements like Hamas, Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhood can be trusted, and taken at their word when they speak of accepting democratic pluralism or negotiating with Israel. Many in Israel, the West and parts of the Arab world view these groups as insincere opportunists and deceitful tricksters who will speak the language of democracy and peace while actually planning to grab power and turn the region into one large Islamic theocracy or Iranian puppet theatre.

The second issue is about the logistics and mechanics of peace-making, about exploring any opening that might lead to a negotiated settlement that replaces the past 60 years of non-stop war.

On the first matter, we cannot conclusively prove if Hamas and other Islamists are sincere or deceitful. They remain exasperatingly imprecise on key issues like the use of military force, coexistence with Israel, relations with Iran, and how they would govern in power. Yet their past actions suggest their likely future policies — for they have negotiated and adhered to cease-fires, exchanged prisoners with Israel, entered in national unity governments with domestic rivals, and suggested that their domestic constituencies are their primary audience.

On the second matter of Hamas’ truce offer, the best way to find out if they are sincere or bluffing is simply to call their bluff. This is the moment when responsible Israelis, Americans and Europeans should stop taking hysteria pills every morning, and instead enter into a calculated diplomatic process aiming for a win-win situation.

Recent history offers a fascinating parallel: the cease-fire declared by the IRA in Northern Ireland in August 1994.

To find out more about this, I spoke this week with John Cullinane, a Boston-based businessman who was actively involved in the economic side of the peace-making process in Northern Ireland. He recalled that American, British and Irish key players had the same doubts about the IRA as key parties do about Hamas today.

“Many people did not know if Jerry Adams and Martin McGinnis were serious about ending the violence and promoting political progress. In retrospect, their offer of a cease-fire was a strong signal that they wanted into the political process. The response to test them on it was as crucial as the initial offer itself,” he recalled.

He also explained that, “There is a tendency to dismiss or misread signals like this when they occur, or to create impossible preconditions that become humiliating hurdles. Demanding that one party stop fighting unilaterally, turn in its arms, or accept the other’s preconditions in full before any talks occur are only a cover for those in power who do not want to negotiate or share power.”

There may be important parallels today between the IRA cease-fire in 1994 and Hamas’ offer of a mutual, not a unilateral, truce. Israel and its friends would seem sensible to respond to Hamas by testing its sincerity about shifting from armed resistance to political negotiation, through a carefully calibrated and negotiated series of steps that simultaneously gives both sides important gains.

A series of related moves is critical now:
• reading the meaning of Hamas’ truce offer correctly;
• third party mediators working quietly but quickly behind the scenes to achieve a truce of at least two years;
• immediately activating a significant economic development plan that prods both public opinion majorities to choose negotiations over militarism;
• promoting other confidence-building measures (prisoner exchanges, easier movement of people and goods, wider Arab-Israeli links) to expand the truce benefits to touch all sectors of society; and,
• using the existing Arab peace plan as an opening, moving swiftly into final status negotiations that can transform a short-term truce into a permanent peace agreement.

An end to mutual attacks, improved daily living conditions, and new hope for future generations would quickly push public opinion in Israel and Palestine to demand more — logically leading to a permanent peace agreement.

Impossible? Not at all. Just go to Northern Ireland and see how peace and power-sharing were achieved, starting with a truce offer that was also widely dismissed at the time. Good things happen when people bury their hysteria pills along with their sectarian guns.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.

Copyright © 2008 Rami G. Khouri

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Released: 28 April 2008
Word Count: 800
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