Beirut: In what is little more than lip-service to Lebanon, leaders representing major powers regularly uphold their putative commitments to the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, even when partition of this small land remains on the table.
After a long and still unsettled civil war, absolute internal discord among citizens and, increasingly, the uprisings throughout the region, partition is once again openly discussed by many. If Iraq and Syria succumb to geo-political divisions, can Lebanon hold together?
Beyond conspiracy theories attributed to the principal American colonial power in the Middle East, Israel, and which sees justification to the divide-and-rule model, Lebanon’s fate is directly linked to both domestic disharmony between various communities — which are increasingly divided along confessional lines — and developments in Syria.
Although Lebanese officials skirt the issue, recent emphasis — especially by the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) tenors — that “Christian rights” were and are being usurped, highlight profound below-the-surface tensions. Christian cabinet ministers openly accuse their Muslim counterparts of re-arranging the chairs on the proverbial deck, isolating or simply removing individuals based on their religion, promoting members from the Sunni or Shiite communities, and otherwise disenfranchising many that, they claim, violate the 1989 Taif Accords that ended the Civil War.
Phalange Party leader Sami Gemayel regularly talks about federalism as a way out of the dilemma.
The FPM’s Michel Aoun, who desperately wants to become president of the republic, insists that he will restore Christian prerogatives that Taif allegedly stripped. Even the Lebanese Forces’ Samir Geagea, while upholding the “state”, acknowledges that many Lebanese see little future in a unified country where rights and privileges are disappearing just as fast as corruption is rising.
What preoccupies most Lebanese citizens, nevertheless, are the dangers of a spillover of the Syrian catastrophe that, many affirm, will directly lead to partition. Some fear that if Syria is partitioned, a possibility that can no longer be ruled out, Lebanon will succumb as well.
A few weeks ago, and notwithstanding significant efforts by the UN diplomat Staffan de Mistura to patch up Syria, the challenges that confront that hapless country led US Secretary of State John Kerry to publicly mention partition as “Plan B”. Regrettably, separation gained momentum given various uncertainties that a mounting death toll generated — some researchers now place the figure at 500,000.
Observers believe that political division, even of the limited variety, might allow warring factions to negotiate in earnest and, at a later stage, decide whether they can draw a new constitution for a federal entity.
The result, analysts conclude, will create an independent Allawitestan running from Damascus to the Mediterranean Sea ruled by the Al Assad regime or its successors and, if Turkey accepts it, a Kurdish region, though the bulk of what would be left would fall under Sunni authority.
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad rejected partition, of course because, he argues, that would effectively cede much of Syria to Sunni extremists. Although he has yet to speak on alternatives, Al Assad may accept a federal system allowing a high degree of local autonomy, but that has its own risks as well that the Damascene knows all too well.
Still, and regardless of which direction Syria goes, it may be absurd to dismiss Sunnis as extremists, since Daesh (the so-called Islamic State), Al Qaida, Al Nusra Front and the assorted motley crew of confused opportunists that hijacked Islam do not and cannot dominate the vast majority. Though superficial discourses allege that Sunni extremists are about to take over the world, an extraordinary recent book titled Istihdaf Ahl Al Sunna [Targeting Sunnis] by Nabeel Khalife, an established Lebanese Christian thinker with numerous publications to his credit, refutes such assertions. Khalife’s studies concentrate on the rekindled Sunni-Shiite struggle for power, which he affirms was carefully planned by leading Western powers, including Russia, all to preserve Israel and impose the latter’s acceptance in the Middle East. He finds fault with Arab regimes that fail to empower their own populations to become productive and, when discussing Syria and Lebanon, concentrates on intrinsic links between the two neighbours. Khalife fears that partition is likely unless Levantines redraw their socio-political contracts.
“What Damascus missed during the past few decades,” Khalife affirmed, “was to demarcate its borders with Lebanon.” By refusing to accept Greater Lebanon, said the erudite analyst, “Syria weakened its own sovereignty and retained those shaky foundations that threatened its integrity”.
Such a preference was directly tied to the Syrian refusal to accept the very existence of Lebanon as an independent state, as formal diplomatic relations were only established in October 2008, 65 years after both countries gained independence from France. Khalife was adamant that Damascus never accepted Lebanon as an independent country even if they exchanged ambassadors and feared that this was the root cause that tied Beirut’s fate to the seriously discussed “Plan B” for Syria.
In fact, as the former British Foreign Secretary William Hague told BBC radio on August 20, 2013, “What is happening now in the Middle East is the most important event so far of the 21st century, even compared to the financial crisis we have been through and its impact on world affairs.” Khalife quoted Hague specifying that it might “take years, maybe decades, to play out, and through that we have to keep our nerve in clearly supporting democracy, democratic institutions, promoting dialogue, and [overcoming the] many setbacks” even if turbulence in Syria is not about to end.
Whether “supporting democracy, democratic institutions, [and] promoting dialogue” can make sense without redrawing regional maps and whether Western powers share responsibility to achieve such objectives are at the very centre of all recent debates. Indeed, it is possible to understand the recent Russian involvements in Syria as a way to deal with the putative statelets that might emerge since Moscow knows quite well how to deal with minority populations even if was not always successful in the past.
Regional partition in the Levant could well see, in addition to the Jewish nation, Christian, Allawite, Kurdish, Druze, and Shiite nations, all of which will strengthen the minority-majority balance of the power game. Khalife emphasised that there were 59 minority nations throughout the Middle East, and that those who managed to survive were those that associated themselves with their land.
Lebanon, he emphasised, was a particularly complicated country, and it was critical for Lebanese Christians, Khalife underscored, to remain attached to their land if they are to survive. In an interesting twist on Pope John Paul II’s 1997 declaration in Beirut — that “Lebanon is more than a country — it is a message” — Khalife said that “it must be a symbol before it can be a message”, a symbol of freedom where Levantine Christians cannot be border churches that are linked together to become Western patrols and act as barriers vis-à-vis the Sunni Arab majority.
“Our role is to be a link to bring culture to the East,” avowed Khalife, and “while much is asked from us, we must maintain impeccable ties with the majority Sunnis”. “If we think as minorities,” affirmed Khalife, “then partition will become inevitable.”
