Syria's Allies Take Their Allotted Places

Michael Young's Thursday editorial echoes some of the sentiments expressed in my last post while elaborating on the Hizballah-Ahbash clash in Beirut and the Syrian-Iranian maneuvering over Lebanon:

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It is ironic that Berri’s stalwart defense of the Lebanese state and its sovereignty should only serve to strengthen the hand of Syria in the struggle over Lebanon’s future, the same Syria that ravaged both the state and its sovereignty during its 29-year military presence.

In that light, it appears increasingly clear that the Burj Abi Haidar incident last week was less a Hizbullah signal directed at Damascus that it would not bend in the face of Syrian pressures, than a message from Syria to Hizbullah. As the fighting began, there was military mobilization in Sunni neighborhoods around Burj Abi Haidar, with Syria’s allies there bringing out their weapons. Hizbullah was reportedly bewildered by the sudden proliferation of armed groups lining up against the party, even as its units were being bussed into the area where the clashes were occurring. Hizbullah not only had to swallow the killing of two officials, it was unable, or not allowed, to enter the perimeter around the Ahbash mosque in Burj Abi Haidar.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad tends to work from the same template as his father when it comes to Lebanon. In 1985-86, Hafez Assad engineered a return of Syrian soldiers to western Beirut, from where they had been compelled to withdraw by the Israelis in 1982. Assad managed this by allowing pro-Syrian militias in that part of the city, principally Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party and Berri’s Amal movement, to go at each other with vicious abandon. Western Beirut effectively reverted to a state of nature, until the Sunni elite asked Assad for help. He was glad to oblige, and in 1985 he deployed intelligence agents in the capital, and a year later his army returned.

It was lost on no one what Wi’am Wahhab announced after the Burj Abi Haidar incident. Wahhab’s sole reason for existing, evidently, is to issue statements clarifying the Syrian mindset, or at least that of the intelligence agencies, and he warned that Syria would intervene using all possible means to prevent a Sunni-Shiite conflict in Lebanon. Not surprisingly, Berri and Jumblatt simultaneously played up the sectarian nature of the Burj Abi Haidar incident, at a moment when Hizbullah was busily trying to portray it as a personal quarrel.

It would be too simplistic to suggest that the Syrians provoked the Hizbullah-Ahbash confrontation in order to bring their army back to Lebanon. Bashar Assad would like to do so, because only a military presence allows him to truly control the country and regain the Lebanese card regionally. However, such a process requires time, careful preparation regionally and internationally, and patience. For now the Syrians are focusing on gaining leverage against Hizbullah, which holds the political and military initiative in the country.
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It is interesting that Hariri should have raised the issue of demilitarizing the capital. ... Demilitarization of the capital is Hariri’s indirect way of indicating that he will support Hizbullah as a resistance force in south Lebanon, but not the party’s takeover of the rest of the country. The Syrians probably agree with this, because ultimately their objective is to use Hizbullah in the south, too, while they themselves take over the rest of the country. However, by making Hariri play down his demilitarization demand, Assad was plainly suggesting that Syria alone is entitled to raise that matter.
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Related Posts:

• Proxy Country
• Syria's Message: Us or Hizballah
• Iran and Syria: Lebanon Tug of War
• Hizballah-Ahbash Clash in Beirut

Proxy Country

Arguments as to the breaking away of Syria from Iran are generally rife with logical land-mines, fantastic delusions, and faulty readings of historical events, trends and agreements between the two ruling regimes in those countries over the past thirty years.

In Lebanon, however, a narrow fissure of divergence between the interests of the two autocratic states has been exposed through the violent clashes between the Iranian-backed Hizballah and Syrian-backed Ahbash groups that occurred on August 24th in the Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.  Over the past several months Michael Young has done an excellent job of chronicling this divergence, as well as the myriad of Lebanese politicians that have had to perform a series of political acrobatics to accommodate the contesting factions.  A recent subject of Young's discerning analysis was Walid Jumblatt (who today visited the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon, a day after having visited the Iranian ambassador - walk that tight rope Walid Beik).

Interesting/Entertaining/Illuminating/(Humiliating?) as Walid Beik's acrobatics have been, there is another politician whose attempts at balancing amid the turbulent waves of this intra-axis-of-terror (pardon the term) friction have most recently provided a source of illumination on the darker undercurrents of events shaking the country.

As the holder of the Shiite community's highest position within the Lebanese state, Nabih Berri is, for better or worse (mostly worse), the irrefutable representative and primary agent of that community's post-Taef participation in the Lebanese state.  As a leading ally supplicant of the Syrian regime in the country, the Speaker of Parliament was instrumental in implementing that regime's attempted derailing of the establishment.  Framed thus, the Speaker's recent rejection of the characterization of Lebanese Shiites as 'rebels' can only be aimed at Hizballah, an entity which continues to attempt to define itself as the definitive representative of that community while in itself operating completely outside the purview of the state. 

Consider also the fact that even as the bullets and RPGs continued to fly through the streets of the Burj Abi Haidar neighborhood (and Basta, and Nabaa, etc...) Berri was quick to distance himself from Hizballah.  The clashes came after the announcement of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to Lebanon.  That visit will come in the wake of the joint Saudi-Syrian summit that took place in the country only one month ago, and in which Hizballah neither hosted nor was received by either of the two visiting foreign dignitaries - instead, the group had to contend with being relayed second-hand information by Berri.  Contrast this with the image of Hassan Nasrallah walking in stride with Bashar al Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Damascus.  As Tony Badran accurately predicted, Hizballah's primary answer to the Saudi-Syrian summit, which was ostensibly aimed at tempering the increasingly threatening war-drums sounded by Hizballah over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, was found in violence in the South - the message was loud an clear: we still control events on the ground.  Perhaps, this time ahead of a visit and not after, the Burj Abi Haidar clash was Syria's response.

In the broad picture of things, Syria is and will, of course, remain a staunch ally of the Iranian mullah-regime.  At the same time, it will, of course, seek a military return to Lebanon, one in which it, and not Iran (through Hizballah) will be the primary agent of influence.  Towards that end, the regime in Syria will continue to seek out and exploit triggers to chaos, instability or war in Lebanon.  That the primary trigger for now is an increasingly well-armed militia made further neurotic by a delayed  tribunal and with a nuclear time-bomb ticking overhead should be no surprise.  The message is all too clear, in Lebanon it is us or the deluge.

Related Posts:

• Syria's Message: Us or Hizballah
• Iran and Syria: Lebanon Tug of War
• Hizballah-Ahbash Clash in Beirut

Syria's Message: Us or Hizballah

Lebanese mourners walk past a portrait of the late founder of the Islamic republic in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, during the funeral of Hezbollah member Mohammed Fawaz in the village of Tibnin in southern Lebanon on August 26, 2010, two days after he and two other Lebanese men were killed in clashes in Beirut's Burj Abi Haidar district, between two pro-Syrian movements, the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the Sunni Muslim al-Ahbash group. (Getty Images via Daylife)

Hanin Ghaddar comments on the recent Hizballah-Ahbash clash in the Abi Haidar neighborhood of Beirut.  As always, the article is worth reading in full, excerpts below:

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Thus, the clashes must be seen as a message from Syria to Hezbollah that Damascus is back and that the Party of God no longer single-handedly controls the political scene in Lebanon. It is also worth mentioning that this happened immediately after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that he would visit Lebanon on September 11 and 12.

Using a Sunni militia to deliver the message is interesting, as Syria might also be sending another message to the Saudis and Prime Minister Saad Hariri that it can protect the Lebanese Sunnis. As for the international community, Syria was clearly telling it that it can hurt Hezbollah, and that it should be given back Lebanon as a reward.

... The Lebanese in general and the Sunnis in particular are being given two options: Hezbollah’s control or the return of Syrian hegemony. This means that the Lebanese have to pay for the Syrian-Iranian alliance and for when this alliance weakens.

... The day after the clashes, Al-Ahbash officials went to Damascus to meet senior Syrian general and former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon Rustum Ghazali, a clear indication that Syria sponsors and controls Al-Ahbash. Of course, this does not mean that Syria and Iran are no longer allies. When Imad Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus, ... many laid the blame on the Syrian regime, claiming Mugniyah had been killed to sever the tie linking Hezbollah to the Hariri assassination.
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Related Posts:

• Iran and Syria: Lebanon Tug of War
• Hizballah-Ahbash Clash in Beirut

Iran and Syria: Lebanon Tug of War

 

People check damages to their shops a day after street gun battles in Beirut's residential area of Bourj Abu Haidar, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010.(AP Photo via Day Life)

Michael Young spells it out in an editorial for the Daily Star, extensive quoting below:

You had to agree with the pro-Hizbullah daily Al-Akhbar when it observed in its Wednesday edition that one could only “naively” assume that the Burj Abi Haidar fighting the previous evening was the result of a personal dispute between supporters of Hizbullah and the Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, known as the Ahbash.

... most media outlets agreed that tension had been brewing in the neighborhood for some time. The Ahbash are close to Syria, not to say the Syrian intelligence services, which has long employed the group as a counterweight to Sunni militant groups the Syrian regime considers threatening, above all the Muslim Brotherhood. In the postwar period, the Syrians used the Ahbash against the Hariri family – indeed Ahbash members were suspected of involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri – and to undercut the authority of the mufti and the Sunni religious establishment.

... Here was, perhaps, the first armed confrontation between Iran and Syria in Lebanon, through proxies, to determine who will dominate the country in the future. More specifically, the Syrians, in endeavoring to revive their hegemony, have entered into a struggle for power with the only force that can stand up to them locally, Hizbullah, on which Damascus seeks to impose its priorities. Not surprisingly, Hizbullah has refused to surrender the political gains it accumulated during the past five years – gains, above all, in the service of Iran.

The heart of the problem is the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. A decision is expected from the institution in the coming months – whether indictments or the identification of suspects. Hizbullah feels it will be targeted by such a step and has raised the heat on the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri to immediately end Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal. Hariri has refused, and can afford to buy time. That’s because Hariri knows that Syria intends to use any tribunal decision as leverage over Hizbullah, to push the party to surrender to Damascus key posts it controls in the public administration and the security and military apparatus.

In light of this, Syria, like Hariri, is waiting for the tribunal to come out with something first, before opening negotiations with Hizbullah; while Hizbullah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, keen to avoid any such bargaining, is out to create an intolerable situation on the ground so that Hariri is left with no choice but to scuttle the tribunal before its findings push the party into a corner.

Initially, Hizbullah felt that it had a range of options to intimidate Hariri. Party spokesmen ominously mentioned a return to May 2008, when Hizbullah and Amal overran western Beirut militarily and forced the government of Fouad Siniora to annul two decisions that the party regarded as threatening. Hizbullah officials also raised the possibility of bringing down the current government. However, at a summit in Beirut several weeks ago, President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and President Bashar Assad of Syria signed on to a statement that effectively ruled out both measures.

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What will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks is what happens on the margins of the Syrian-Iranian struggle over Lebanon. The Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, whose allegiances are with Syria, must yet be very careful of how he manages his relationship with Hizbullah. It was indicative of Berri’s dilemma that during the Burj Abi Haidar incident Amal issued a statement saying it was not involved, even as some of its men fought on Hizbullah’s side.

Walid Jumblatt is another politician who must play the Syria-Hizbullah rivalry very carefully. He has been especially vocal recently in calling for the tribunal to be abandoned. That’s because it only exacerbates the tensions between Damascus and Hizbullah, and Jumblatt and his community happen to be caught in the middle. The Druze leader has been the target of repeated condemnation in Al-Akhbar lately, principally because Hizbullah views him as particularly vulnerable (which Jumblatt is), and wants to keep him in line.

...What divides Syria and Iran is power, which is something neither is presently inclined to share in Beirut. Even if Hizbullah and Syria avoid episodes like the one on Tuesday, there will be other outbursts of violence or political altercations as the tribunal nears the time when it takes some sort of action.

Particularly revealing is the extent to which Hizbullah feels confident that it can out-maneuver Syria in Lebanon. Damascus was never very good at anchoring itself among the Lebanese without its army and intelligence services around to enforce its dictates. Ironically, Hizbullah has become the principle bulwark resisting a Syrian comeback, because the party wants to preserve Lebanon for Iran. What abysmal choices we Lebanese are left with.

 Related Posts:

• Hizballah-Ahbash Clash in Beirut

Hizballah-Ahbash Clash in Beirut

Hizballah fighters clashed with Ahbash (a Syrian-backed Sunni organization) fighters in the Abi Haidar neighborhood of Beirut on the night of August 24th, 2010, leaving one Hizballah official (Mohammad Fawaz, the Hizballah director for the neighborhood) and his bodyguard dead.  A 19 year old Kurdish resident of the neighborhood (described as an Ahbash fighter) along with another bystander were also killed (reportedly in a nearby neighborhood which got caught up in the fighting).  NOWLebanon has a good on the ground piece on the finding.

Meanwhile, speculation abounds as to the "significance" of the clash given the Ahbash's unilateral and superseding loyalty to the Syrian regime - and, of course, Hizballah's to Iran - and the feverish fervor and eagerness to fight displayed by both parties.

The clash comes in light of intense speculation and popular apprehension of upcoming Special Tribunal for Lebanon indictments rumored to be issued in December.  In recent weeks Hizballah has aggressively maneuvered to cast doubt on the Tribunal and the investigation into the Hariri assassination (as well as those that followed) and paint it as an international conspiracy contrived against the Iranian-outfitted group. 

Some images of the gunfight (via DayLife) and its after effects below:

Above: A Lebanese gunman takes position along Burj Abi Haidar Street in Beirut, late on August 24, 2010, during clashes between the Shiite movement Hezbollah and a Sunni Muslim group al-Ahbash (Getty Images). Second: Lebanon's Hezbollah gunmen walk at Burj Abi Haidar street in Beirut during clashes (Reuters Pictures).Third: Lebanese civil defense workers carry an injured man that was hit in the clashes that erupted (AP Photo). Bottom: Lebanese people flee the area of clashes in Beirut's Burj Abi Haidar neighbourhood on August 24, 2010 (Getty Images).