Deal in Lebanon

Looks like Lebanon's political factions have reaches a deal that's okay with Hezbollah and may pave the way to relieve the atmosphere of crisis that's been gripping the country. I meant to link yesterday to an excellent point Fareed Zakaria made about Hezbollah:

Hizbullah is not like Al Qaeda, a rootless organization that engages solely in existential terrorism. It's a homegrown group with deep roots in Lebanon's Shia community. The organization was formed to oppose Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and still derives some of its appeal from that history of resistance. It's since become the voice of the Shia community, which is institutionally discriminated against in the country's power structures. (Shiites make up between 30 and 40 percent of the Lebanese population, yet are accorded only 18 percent of parliamentary seats.) Finally, Hizbullah runs an impressive network of social services, which provide health care, small loans and family support.

Right. Americans, because of our own situation, tend to look at Hezbollah primarily through the lens of its attitude toward Israel, to its attacks on U.S. troops in the early 1980s, and to its relationship with Iran. But to Lebanese Shiites, the primarily interesting thing about Hezbollah is its attitude toward Lebanon -- a country where political institutions structurally disenfranchise Shiite voters. And because political institutions disenfranchise Shiite voters, government social services are undersupplied to Shiites communities. Hezbollah both fills the void in terms of direct provision of social services, and through its lawless behavior and unwillingness to operate like a "normal" member of the Lebanese political process stands up for the interests of a community that's structurally disadvantaged by the process.

Talk of democracy in Lebanon needs to be put in this context. The pro-western, March 4 Coalition is not, for example, "pro-democracy" in the sense of favoring moves toward a fair voting system. But under the circumstances, it's hardly surprising if Lebanese Shiites decide that they don't really need democracy.

Comments

What??! Actual analysis of the political situation??

Are there red states and blue states in Lebanon? Has Hezbollah distanced itself from Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah?

Posted by Marshall | May 21, 2008 9:38 AM

FYI:

The Sunni-Druze-Maronite alliance is March 14th.

The Hezbollah-Aounist-Amal grouping is March 8th.

Posted by Feathers McGraw | May 21, 2008 9:44 AM

Hezbollah's primary goal is the establishment of a Shi'ite theocratic regime in Lebanon on the Iranian model. It's a shadow government-and-military in waiting, and its goals are realistic. The Israeli invasion of 2006 greatly strengthened Hezbollah, for two reasons. First, it weakened the legitimate government by showing that the government could not provide stability and order to ordinary Lebanese. Second, it made Hezbollah into the heroic resisters of an invasion. Now we're seeing the results of the invasion play out. This newly announced deal leaves the Hezbollah militia untouched while giving the political wing veto power over the government. Since veto power means the power to prevent the legitimate army from opposing the militia, the Hezbollah militia will now exercise de facto control over the country. Hezbollah hasn't completely won accomplished its goals but it's taken a very large step in that direction.

Posted by Bloix | May 21, 2008 10:13 AM

Oh boy...are the neocons going to flip...someone been talking to the enemy.

Posted by jerri | May 21, 2008 10:16 AM

Hezbollah's primary goal is the establishment of a Shi'ite theocratic regime in Lebanon on the Iranian model. It's a shadow government-and-military in waiting, and its goals are realistic. The Israeli invasion of 2006 greatly strengthened Hezbollah, for two reasons. First, it weakened the legitimate government by showing that the government could not provide stability and order to ordinary Lebanese. Second, it made Hezbollah into the heroic resisters of an invasion. Now we're seeing the results of the invasion play out. This newly announced deal leaves the Hezbollah militia untouched while giving the political wing veto power over the government. Since veto power means the power to prevent the legitimate army from opposing the militia, the Hezbollah militia will now exercise de facto control over the country. Hezbollah hasn't completely accomplished its goals but it's taken a step in that direction.

Posted by Bloix | May 21, 2008 10:17 AM

Lebanon's woes are a good example of the folly of open-borders, globalist, cosmopolitan thinking. In Lebanon, enough Muslim Palestinians immigrated in, and enough Christian Lebanese emigrated out, as to change the demographic balance of the country, and call into question the future of what Lebanon is to be- a Christian state or a Muslim one- and in what the essence of the Lebanese nation consists. The last remnants of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli, for which the Crusaders fought and died, is abbout to lose its ancient Christian identity.

The present of Lebanon is the future of parts of Europe if she does not come to her senses.

Posted by Hector | May 21, 2008 10:28 AM

Hector -- your comment is inane -- are you trying to be as obnoxious as Steve Sailer?

Palestinian refugees have no political voice in Leb. They are disenfranchised, confined to camps, and not allowed to enter higher professions. All Lebanese, Christian and Muslim, generally support this policy.

And even the most flint-hearted immigration restrictionist does not advocate the prohibition on emigration.

Anyway, while "do not feed the trolls" is a good policy, it's worth pointing out that you don't know crap.

Posted by Ikram | May 21, 2008 10:33 AM

Hector, your comment seems to be "rich countries are wrong for allowing rich Lebanese Christians to move out of Lebanon and into their countries because that makes Lebanon less Christian and signs it over to the Islamofascists." What Lebanon shows is the folly of enshrining proportional sectarian representation on a single questionable census and assuming those population ratios will stay constant forever. If Lebanon's confessional model had been more flexible so that it could conform to changing realities, the civil war would have been less likely to have occurred, meaning Syria would have been less likely to have intervened, meaning Israel thus would have had no reason to intervene to counteract Syria and thus Hezbollah would have had no reason for coming into being in the first place.

Posted by Reality Man | May 21, 2008 10:38 AM

Hizballah isn't like Al Qaeda, but the rest of the above exerpt is misleading. Hizballah doesn't just have a relationship with Iran, it was created by Iran. Hizballah's "deep roots" with the Lebanese Shi'a are largely artificial. The Shi'a depend on Hizballah, but only because of the services they provide with Iranian money combined with the fact that Hizballah suppresses any would be Shi'a political opponents. Hizballah isn't ideological representative of Lebanese Shi'a, the shi'a population is relatively secular while Hizballahs leadership is quite religious.

Yes, other Lebanese sects marginalize the shi'a of Lebanon, but that doesn't make Hizballah good guys. That doesn't mean the western press should sing the praises of Hizballah. They are an organization funded largely by a foreign government. It is folly to think Iran is pouring billions of dollars into Hizballah with the end goal of making sure the lebanese shi'a have a fair say politically. Iran views Hizballah as a political and military asset. That's why they fund them. Iran's interest in Hizballah and the interests of the Lebanese Shi'a differ radically. Hence, it is naive to think that Hizballah can act as a positive force for the SUSTAINABLE integration of lebanese shi'a into the political system.

Posted by rbnsn | May 21, 2008 10:39 AM

rbnsn, nobody is saying Hezbollah are the good guys. A lot of what you wrote could be applied to the Chinese people and the CCP, for example, in several ways, but that would still make trying to remove the CCP with force foolish. Nobody has to like Hezbollah, but at the point we are right now in terms of the dominant political narrative in the US and to a lesser extent in Israel, we need to get over our war fetishism whose only logic is "one terrorist group = all other terrorists = bad = everyone who supports them is evil = must be destroyed."

Posted by Reality Man | May 21, 2008 10:49 AM

I met a Palestinian woman born in Lebanon who told me the Palestinians in the camps have no right to vote and no citizenship in Lebanon even if they're born there, as a great many of them now are. She told me she understands and accepts this because everyone knows that if Lebanon gave them all the vote then the demographic balance would shift and it would become a theocracy, and she understands why they can't have this. The cause and effect of "not needing democracy because disenfranchised" versus "disenfranchised because hostile to democracy" is a little more nuanced than this post is aware of. Cf. the effect of Hamas' rule in Gaza on the native Arab Christians, who have been leaving in droves:

From the Guardian:
Persona non grata in Gaza

They have been there since the fourth century. But many of the territory's Christians now live in fear of their Muslim neighbours and want to leave

Posted by q | May 21, 2008 11:08 AM

Reality Man,

What would be the point of an infinitely flexible confessional model? Lebanon was founded in large part as a homeland for Christians who would not have to live under Muslim rule. Lebanon has throughout the ages been a Christian enclave in a Muslim sea, that's probably the reason why Christian Armenians emigrated there during the Middle Ages. Lebanon's history for the past 2000 years is largely tied up with its identity as a Christian nation- the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and so forth. A non-Christian Lebanon has little logical reason to exist.

I didn't say they should not have been _allowed_ to emigrate, just that their emigration has had the terrible consequences that are plain for everyone to see.

Posted by Hector | May 21, 2008 11:15 AM

Hector,

How many countries have a logical reason to exist? Does Canada? Do all of the various South American countries with similar ethnic make-ups?

I hear this kind of talk with regard to Israel as a jewish homeland, but are countries really supposed to have a logical reason to exist? I suspect most countries simply exist out of inertia. I am curious if it is established that Lebanon no longer has a logical reason to exist what happens to it. Does the land mass go up in smoke. Does it suddenly become justified for one of its neighbors to invade? Does it simply lose its seat at the UN?

Posted by Lon | May 21, 2008 11:32 AM

"What would be the point of an infinitely flexible confessional model? Lebanon was founded in large part as a homeland for Christians who would not have to live under Muslim rule. Lebanon has throughout the ages been a Christian enclave in a Muslim sea, that's probably the reason why Christian Armenians emigrated there during the Middle Ages. Lebanon's history for the past 2000 years is largely tied up with its identity as a Christian nation- the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and so forth. A non-Christian Lebanon has little logical reason to exist."

This is more of a nationalist Lebanese history than reality. While Lebanon wasn't carved out of the Arab world by the French out of whole cloth, Lebanon as we think of it is a rather recent creation. Also, nations don't exist as abstracts without being given meaning by the people living in that nation. A nation is whatever its people chooses it to be. Modern-day Korea is possibly the most homogeneous nation on earth, but many areas were once distinct kingdoms that saw each other as enemies. Times change. Lebanon can be whatever the Lebanese decide it is. Pakistan was created to be a Muslim state, but if in the future immigration causes Pakistan to have a Christian majority, then the Pakistanis of the future will get to decide what it means to be Pakistani. If a governmental set-up doesn't serve the needs of the people currently living in that nation-state, then the reasoning behind that state's creation is moot and is hampering the state's ability to serve the need of its people.

Posted by Reality Man | May 21, 2008 12:24 PM

Ok. So they are only cavalier existential terrorists and part-time killers,insurgents, and thugs who are really not interested in democracy but a tribal welfare state and the destruction of Israel--now that 40 percent of the population represented by the thugs can veto the 60 percent of the population represented by a legitimate government. Also, a legitimate government that did not invade Israel in 2006, unlike Hezbollah, and invasion Israel responded to in 2006 with their cross border incursion that you so graciously call an invasion--an invasion in response to a stateless entity running amok within a welfare state that wasn't providing the goodies? Poor babies. Didn't this happen once in the 80s with Arafat and Fatah? But I guess that's looking at the situation from a western Jewish point of view. So now the thugs get their goodies, subsidized by the West instead of Egypt and Jordan, a veto, get to keep their weapons with more rockets on the way, and are at the beck and call of Iran and Syria. Your balanced analysis is breathless for its paralysis. I can't wait until the thugs have 51 percent of the Lebanaese population and a true democracy; boy, the neo-cons will really be sorry then for not practicing appeasement. In that event, maybe if the new oppressed minority were not realists they could work up the courage to practice assymetrical democracy with serial political asassinations by the bullet too. You think?

Posted by don | May 21, 2008 1:14 PM

Ok. So they are only cavalier existential terrorists and part-time killers,insurgents, and thugs who are really not interested in democracy but a tribal welfare state and the destruction of Israel--now that 40 percent of the population represented by the thugs can veto the 60 percent of the population represented by a legitimate government. Also, a legitimate government that did not invade Israel in 2006, unlike Hezbollah, and invasion Israel responded to in 2006 with their cross border incursion that you so graciously call an invasion--an invasion in response to a stateless entity running amok within a welfare state that wasn't providing the goodies? Poor babies. Didn't this happen once in the 80s with Arafat and Fatah? But I guess that's looking at the situation from a western Jewish point of view. So now the thugs get their goodies, subsidized by the West instead of Egypt and Jordan, a veto, get to keep their weapons with more rockets on the way, and are at the beck and call of Iran and Syria. Your balanced analysis is breathless for its paralysis. I can't wait until the thugs have 51 percent of the Lebanaese population and a true democracy; boy, the neo-cons will really be sorry then for not practicing appeasement. In that event, maybe if the new oppressed minority were not realists they could work up the courage to practice assymetrical democracy with serial political asassinations by the bullet too. You think?

Posted by don | May 21, 2008 1:17 PM

"Hezbollah both fills the void in terms of direct provision of social services, and through its lawless behavior and unwillingness to operate like a "normal" member of the Lebanese political process stands up for the interests of a community that's structurally disadvantaged by the process."

Al Capone opened soup kitchens was able to get mild dated so that it wouldn't be sold after it became spoiled. Guess what? He was still a vicious murderer, not someone who stood up for the interests of a community that was structurally disadvantaged by the process.

What is it about liberals who believe terrorists actually care about the people they claim they represent? It's a big lie. Hezbollah is nothing more than a gang of organized criminals.

Posted by SteveIL | May 21, 2008 3:04 PM

Reality Man,

Yes, "Lebanon" with current borders was a modern creation. But it has historical antecedents in ancient Phoenicia, and more recently in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Little Armenia. Lebanon today is mean to embody the fact that for many centuries that part of the world has been a Christian enclave in a Muslim sea. We tend to forget that Syria and Palestine were Christian before they were Muslim.

And no, a nation is not 'whatever its people choose it to be'. A society and a nation are greater than the sum of the individuals who make them up just as a body is greater than the sum of its individual cells. As a Christian and an economic leftist, I cannot live a full and happy life within America which is a fervently secular and capitalistic society, because Christian morality is something that can only be fully lived out collectively, not individually. The idea that freedom lies in each person being able to do their own thing denies us the deepest and most important and highest form of freedom, the freedom to try and shape society in the vision of what we believe to be right. This dystopia or autonomous individualism is in its own way a tyranny. Well has it been called 'the dictatorship of relativism'.

Posted by Hector | May 21, 2008 3:13 PM

"Al Capone opened soup kitchens was able to get mild dated so that it wouldn't be sold after it became spoiled. Guess what? He was still a vicious murderer, not someone who stood up for the interests of a community that was structurally disadvantaged by the process.

What is it about liberals who believe terrorists actually care about the people they claim they represent? It's a big lie. Hezbollah is nothing more than a gang of organized criminals.

Posted by SteveIL | May 21, 2008 3:04 PM"

First of all, Zakaria is a self-described conservative who worships Reagan. Secondly, there is a big difference between describing why Hezbollah is hard to drive from holding onto any power and why it endures from saying Hezbollah is good. No one here is backing Hezbollah or has any illusions about it being an evil organization. However, modern conservative foreign policy thinking has devolved to the point that the fact an organization is both the beginning and end of the conversation. Recognizing that Hezbollah simply has enough backing among the Shi'ites (in part by violently making sure it can be the only game in town) that Beirut is going to have to play ball with it to get anything done and avoid civil war. We Americans have just been so sheltered from the reality of life beyond our borders that we don't realize that such moral clarity can't be applied with any reasonable logistics without causing a bloody and unnecessary war. That is reality for most people in the world: that you have to do business with the thugs down the street if they are popular. If you really think liberals or anyone on this thread likes Hezbollah, you simply need to go back to school to re-learn how to read.

Posted by Reality Man | May 21, 2008 3:20 PM

"And no, a nation is not 'whatever its people choose it to be'. A society and a nation are greater than the sum of the individuals who make them up just as a body is greater than the sum of its individual cells. As a Christian and an economic leftist, I cannot live a full and happy life within America which is a fervently secular and capitalistic society, because Christian morality is something that can only be fully lived out collectively, not individually. The idea that freedom lies in each person being able to do their own thing denies us the deepest and most important and highest form of freedom, the freedom to try and shape society in the vision of what we believe to be right. This dystopia or autonomous individualism is in its own way a tyranny. Well has it been called 'the dictatorship of relativism'.

Posted by Hector | May 21, 2008 3:13 PM"

You have not given any reason why a nation cannot be "whatever its people choose it to be." Those are not the same thing. You have only given a reason why you're so miserable living in a nation you reject. Who are you to choose what Lebanon can and cannot be? Are you the elected president of Lebanon? Are you its dictator or monarch? What would be freedom for you would be oppressive to me because such a society would have no room for me. We were never founded as a Christian nation and you only came to your form of Christianity via conversion, so you chose to separate yourself from the American mainstream. Nobody owes your own version of individualism you wish to collectivize any respect as a mass ideology we should all embrace. You have chosen to adopt beliefs that make you miserable. Be a man and deal with that. Here's a hint: when everyone in a nation would have to adopt your ideology under your preferred governing system, it's doomed to failure because people don't like being forced into little boxes like that. It failed under Mao, it failed under the Taliban, it failed under Hitler and it would fail under you as well.

Posted by Reality Man | May 21, 2008 3:30 PM

Reality Man,

Uh, the problem with Hitler, Stalin, and Mullah Omar wasn't that they headed authoritarian regimes. The (fundamental) problem was that they were wicked men who used that power to do wicked things. I want a regimented regime ruled over by the authority of Good Men, not by the authority of gangsters and sadists.

And no, I'm not the dictator of Lebanon. That's why my responses are limited to shaking my head over the tragedy of Lebanon, and warning that the past of Syria is the present of Lebanon and the future of France. But I do see it as my duty to inform people that it is a tragedy. Just recently I was with a Catholic friend who said basically, 'why is it such a big deal? Christianity and Islam are just different names for the same thing, why can't we all get along?" and so forth. I had to correct her by pointing out that no they aren't the same thing. One belives that Jesus was God Incarnate, the other thinks he was just a nice guy.

Posted by Hector | May 21, 2008 4:51 PM

Reality Man,

Uh, the problem with Hitler, Stalin, and Mullah Omar wasn't that they headed authoritarian regimes. The (fundamental) problem was that they were wicked men who used that power to do wicked things. I want a regimented regime ruled over by the authority of Good Men, not by the authority of gangsters and sadists.

And no, I'm not the dictator of Lebanon. That's why my responses are limited to shaking my head over the tragedy of Lebanon, and warning that the past of Syria is the present of Lebanon and the future of France. But I do see it as my duty to inform people that it is a tragedy. Just recently I was with a Catholic friend who said basically, 'why is it such a big deal? Christianity and Islam are just different names for the same thing, why can't we all get along?" and so forth. I had to correct her by pointing out that no they aren't the same thing. One belives that Jesus was God Incarnate, the other thinks he was just a nice guy.

Posted by Hector | May 21, 2008 4:53 PM

The morons are out in force in this thread, I see.

Hector is an example of what's wrong with the world. There's literally no difference between his attitude and the worst of the Muslim fanatics. Giving an idiot like Hector any authority in any country and it will instantly turn into the Inquisition, worse than Iran (as anybody who knows anything about Iran knows.)

Meanwhile, the other morons who think Hizballah are some kind of "existential threat" to Israel don't realize that Hizballah probably wouldn't exist if Israel hadn't invaded Lebanon in the first place, not to mention if Israel hadn't created the Palestinian mess in the first place.

And even if Iran did "create" Hizballah - which is historically inaccurate, and Nasrallah is known not to be a "puppet" of Iran, no matter how much Iran may support his organization, that would be irrelevant to the situation.

Lebanon is not a "democracy". Lebanon is another "fake state" set up by European colonialism, and now US and Israeli colonialism. Lebanon does not represent the Shia and Palestinians who were forced into Lebanon by conditions in their own countries - caused by the Arab states supported by the US, the US itself, and Israel. Therefore, Lebanon has to deal with them.

In the process, Lebanon was invaded by Israel. Hizballah was created to drive Israel out, something Lebanon and Syria could not do. Hizballah succeeded in doing so, and became the representative of the Shia in the process.

Tough shit. Deal with it.

Israel attempted to "deal with it" by using the kidnapping of two soldiers (which, by the way, they just decided they will not negotiate for and are likely to declare them dead - tell me again how the war was about the soldiers) to justify a massive assault on the country, killing over a thousand civilians by air strikes, then dumping cluster bombs all over southern Lebanon to deny the population their homes.

Israel lost. They got their head handed to them.

Tough shit. Deal with it.

So now the US and Israel tried to stage a coup in Lebanon. It failed miserably.

Tough shit. Deal with it.

And now the US and Israel are planning for Israel's next war on Lebanon.

Which will also fail miserably.

Tough shit. Deal with it.

Deal with it by dealing with Israel once and for all. That is the only true illegal, rogue, WMD-possessing, terrorist state in the region.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 21, 2008 6:18 PM

Reality Man said:

However, modern conservative foreign policy thinking has devolved to the point that the fact an organization is both the beginning and end of the conversation. Recognizing that Hezbollah simply has enough backing among the Shi'ites (in part by violently making sure it can be the only game in town) that Beirut is going to have to play ball with it to get anything done and avoid civil war. We Americans have just been so sheltered from the reality of life beyond our borders that we don't realize that such moral clarity can't be applied with any reasonable logistics without causing a bloody and unnecessary war.

How do you think this country (the U.S.) got started? By violent revolution against our British overlords. They weren't going to change their policies towards the colonies, and the colonials weren't going to take it anymore. It wasn't an unnecessary war, as history has shown.

Our Civil War was unnecessary only because the powers that be in the South were too stupid to realize who morally wrong they were to want to continue slavery, and then even more stupid to start the shooting. Once the shooting started, that war was absolutely necessary.

In fact, I would say Hezbollah is very much like the American South during the civil war, implementing an archaic and immoral system of government by violence. They are the ones who started the shooting, and are no better than a large-scale Mafia, with the backing of another gang of organized thugs, the Iranian government.

Yeah, war sucks. The U.S. wouldn't have come about without it. The only way to get rid of hyper-violent organized criminals is to kill them. That is the reality.

Posted by SteveIL | May 21, 2008 8:25 PM

RSH: "Hector is an example of what's wrong with the world. There's literally no difference between his attitude and the worst of the Muslim fanatics. Giving an idiot like Hector any authority in any country and it will instantly turn into the Inquisition, worse than Iran (as anybody who knows anything about Iran knows.)"

So let's say Hector would put the US back (theologically-wise), back where it was pre-ww2. To you, this is "no difference between his attitude and the worst of the Muslim fanatics", "the Inquisition" and "worse than Iran". Even if Hector wanted to put the US back to where it was right after the Revolutionary War (theologically speaking), none of that would be true. Why the insane hyperbole?.

Any one advocating any push back to leftism, in any way, just wanting some aspect of society to go back to where we were, say, 15 years ago, immediately is dishonestly accused of wanting to go back to 1000 AD.

Posted by scottynx | May 21, 2008 8:26 PM