The
Secret War Against Hizbollah
By Alberto Cruz
13 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A time-worn adage in journalism
says that redundancy enables a better understanding of language, so
here we go again : the tree of Iraq stops us seeing the Middle East
wood. Absorbed in our navel-gazing, we behave like children covering
our ears to stave off a reality we find distasteful. That happens in
Iraq when we refuse to acknowledge that there are more variables than
are apparent when trying to pin down what is happening in that country
and it also happens in Lebanon when reality smacks us in the face. Reality
turns up to find us, not asleep, but otherwise engaged.
In less than a year we have
witnessed two predictable events whose occurrence nonetheless took many
people unawares. The first was the war last summer and now it is happening
again with confrontations between the Lebanese army and an apparently
Palestinian organization linked to the most orthodox Islam. In an article
published on June 13th last year at the very start of the war, I wrote,
"In Lebanon there is not an Iraqi-style sectarian confrontation,
but Sunni radicalism is on the increase in places like Tripoli and Akkar
where it seems Al Qaeda is growing strong." (1)
Like it or not, Al Qaeda's
progress in the Middle East is very fast and the terrain is made fertile
by the war in Iraq. De facto, Al Qaeda is like the alien in Ridley Scott's
film - a creature that grows inside the body feeding on it and when
sufficiently strong it attacks its host. Scott could have added a line
to the film's credits - "based on real life events". Events
that took place in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. The aliens
in those days were Islamists from all over the world who arrived in
that land with the generous support of the United States and Saudi Arabia
and who, after the Soviet withdrawal, evolved into the Al Qaeda phenomenon.
The Al Qaeda alien is now
autonomous in Iraq and active on several fronts (against the occupiers,
the Sunnis and the Shia whom it fights considering them apostates) but
it can still not manage to fend for itself in Lebanon and needs a body
on which to feed.. That body may well be Fatah al Islam, an organization
that does not openly identify itself as part of Al Qaeda but does say
it is "understanding of the brothers" (referring to Al Qaeda)
and shares with them their religious and political tenets. Fatah al
Islam identifies itself as "followers of the salafiyyah tradition
of the Islamic nation", says it has a presence "in the land
of Al Sham" (2) and in one of the few known documents of this group,
dated in February, calls on muslims the world over to fight against
"the enemies of Allah", criticises "apostate leaders"
and especially Hamas for having signed the deal with Fatah to secure
a government of national unity and accuses Hamas of having made "concessions
in the rights of the Palestinians".
What are the reasons for
this confrontation with a group inserted into a Palestinian refugee
camp, not comprised simply of Arabs of that nationality who in fact
are a minority, and an army that stayed on the sidelines during the
war with Israel? Here are a few of them.
The Second Report
of Ban Ki-moon
On May 7th this year the
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, published his second report on Lebanon
(the fifth in all since the end of last summer's hostilities). In it
he maintained the previous line and drew even further away from the
attempted even-handedness of his predecessor Kofi Annan in the report
Annan published prior to his retirement in December 2006, the third
overall. Nothing is squandered in Ban Ki-moon's report (3) and the accusations
against Hizbollah for not disarming and against Syria and Iran are constant
throughout the document's 14 pages and 66 points.
Ki-moon repeats to exhaustion
that the Lebanese government is "legitimate" (ignoring the
fact that the resignation of Shi'ite ministers and one Christian minister
render it unconstitutional) thus dismissing protests that have been
made since last November calling for a more representative government
of national unity; it insists that arms trafficking continues from Syria
to Hizbollah (accepting Israeli cliams on that issue and thus giving
the all clear to Israel's constant violations of Resolution 1701 through
its air force and spy plane flights); and despite having said in the
previous report of March 14th this year that the maps defining the Shebaa
Farms as either Syrian or Lebanese would be ready in June this year,
now he says the map-makers "continue their work" and asks
both countries to agree their territorial limits and frontiers. This
request is not simply a formula to draw a new line on the map, it is
vital to get the UN Security Council to extend the UNIFIL mission on
the Syrian frontier so as to control the traffic in arms that, according
to Israeli arguments, occurs along the whole length of the border.
Ban Ki-moon's report appeared
after a failed attempt by the United States, France and Britain to get
a new Security Council resolution on Lebanon in support of the Siniora
government and accusing Syria and Iran of continuing to help Hizbollah
with arms and money. The attempt to get the resolution passed was stopped
by China and Russia and other member countries of the UN Security Council
like Ghana and South Africa. In the failed draft resolution, the UN
Security Council was asked to form an "independent mission"
made up of "a committee of UN experts" to control the border.
(4) A mission that was to be made up of European countries and into
which were invited Egyptians and Jordanians, the two countries in the
area that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
Once that effort failed it
was necessary to show unwilling countries and the world in general that
the objectives in view were praiseworthy. No sooner did the fighting
in Nahr al Bared begin than accusations against Syria have appeared
in practically all the news media. Of Fatah al Islam little is known
beyond that it is a splinter organization from Fatah Intifada and from
that Syrian patronage is inferred. The Lebanese government and its Western
mentors have rushed to accuse Syria of being behind this group with
the purpose, they allege, of obstructing the international tribunal
investigating the death of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. For almost two
years the case of Hariri (a Sunni multi-millionaire closely linked to
the Saudi regime and particularly Prince Bandar bin Sultan, now Saudia
Arabia's Security Minister) is the only pretext offered by a corrupt
neo-liberal government to explain what is happening in Lebanon and is
nothing more than a sign of its own corruption and its submission to
neo-liberal politics designed by the IMF and the World Bank.
Syria may be involved or
it may not. What is clear is that Fatah al-Islam became known in 2006
at the same time as the proclamation of the Islamic State in Iraq by
Al Qaeda. And for anyone familiar with the situation in the Palestinian
refugee camps it is obvious that the group has nothing to do with Syria.
In the course of a visit
to some of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon (Nahr Al Bared,
Ein el Helwe, Chatila y Burj el Barajne) in December 2006 during an
impressive popular mobilization for a representative national government
in Lebanon (5), leading members of the Popular Council that governs
Nahr al Bared spoke with me about the existence among them of Fatah
al Islam whom they did not describe as a Palestinian organization since
it was made up mostly of Saudis, Morrocans, Algerians, Jordanians, Yemenis
and Egyptians , "many of them jihadists in Iraq". Other representatives
of Ein el Helwe mentioned that after the confrontations between militias
of another Islamist organization, Jund al Sham and other Palestinian
organizations like Asbat al Ansar, also radically Islamist, which caused
two deaths, some members of Jund al Sham moved "to the north"
and have joined Fatah al Islam. Compounding the suspicious appearance
of this group in Lebanon, even then it was noted that the funding for
its growth came from the Saudis and Hariri's own son Saad with the double
aim of limiting the prestige of Hamas among Palestinians and also, above
all, that of Hizbollah.
The United States'
secret war against Hizbollah
Time, an implacable judge,
has ended up vindicating people who have been right all along despite
the campaigns of the Western mass media. No one can dispute that Hizbollah's
victory over Israel is perhaps the most striking event so far in the
21st century, given that it put an end to one of the myths of the 20th
Centruy, the invincibility of Israel. It is what Middle East experts
are beginning to call the "Hizbollah effect" and it has overturned
neocolonial designs in this part of the world. That is why from almost
the very moment it acknowledged Israel's defeat the United States has
set in motion a secret war against the Lebanese political-military movement.
Various newspapers (the UK
Guardian, the Lebanese Daily Star and the US New Yorker for example)
have published since January this year news or reports on that issue.
In March the journalist Seymour Hersh said that the US Vice-President
Dick Cheney, National Security Council adviser Elliot Abrams and Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, himself his country's Security Minister, had agreed
to fund Fatah al Islam "as a counterweight to Hizbollah".
On April 12th, the Daily Star noted that the United States had earmarked
US$60m to reinforce Interior Ministry forces and Sunni organizations
identified by the paper as "jihadists", without specifically
mentioning any of them. Some days later Asia Times gave ample coverage
along the same lines, "Iraq has arrived in Lebanon. Hundred of
jihadists spread among more than 400,000 Palestinians who live in the
refugee camps are joining Ansar al Islam or Fatah al Islam clearly following
plans of Al Qaeda and with combat experience acquired on the Iraqi battlefield
fighting the US occupation."(6) And Hizbollah itself, via its Al
Manar television station confirms the thesis, alleging that the presence
of jihadists in Lebanon is part of a US, Israeli and Saudi strategy
seeking a regional war between Sunni and Shia which would see the partition
of Iraq followed by the partition of Syria and Lebanon. (7)
The US plan is being implemented
by Fouad Siniora's government which has not hesitated for a moment to
accuse Syria of protecting and arming Fatah al Islam. With this episode,
on the one hand strong tensions are built up with the aim of softening
the positions of countries critical of US, French and British efforts
to secure a new UN Sceurity Council resolution to extend UNIFIL's mission,
to control the Syrian frontier under the pretext of arms smuggling and
to justify a kind of international tutelage of Lebanon. The new French
President Nicolas Sarkozy will have his first test to see if he maintains
the policy of his predecessor Jacques Chirac who has received favours
and money from Saad Hariri and who in return supported him unconditionally
following his father's assassination.
On the other hand, the Lebanese
army is being tried out in a role it has not been involved in since
the Taif peace agreement, until now : internal repression. What is being
seen is the possibility of a future confrontation between the Lebanese
army and Hizbollah, which explains why the political military movement
has from the outset supported the army. In a somewhat complex statement,
Hizbollah has condemned the attacks of Fatah al Islam against the Lebanese
army at the same time as it has criticised the government ("we
feel there is someone who wants to drag the army into confrontation
and bloody fighting to serve well-known projects and objectives")
and asked for a political solution to the crisis to avoid more suffering
for the already hard-hit Palestinian population of the camps. (8) Hassan
Nasrallah, Hizbollah's Secretary General has been more explicit, saying
" the problem in the north can be solved politically and judicially
in a way that protects the Lebanese army, our Palestinian brothers,
a state of stability and peace wihtout turning Lebanon into a battlefield
on which we fight Al Qaeda on the Americans' behalf". Nasrallah
went even further and categorically said that what imperialism wants
is a conflict between Al Qaeda and Hizbollah and "is bringing Al
Qaeda fighters from all over the world to Lebanon" to that end.
(9)
Nasrallah also said, in a
warning to the Siniora government and the forces that support it that
"the Lebanese army is the guardian of national security, stability
and unity", for which it is respected as the "only institution"
able to preserve those things and that an attack on the army is the
"red line" whose transgression that Hizbollah will not tolerate
by anyone. Furthermore he put his finger on the sore point by affirming
that military aid provided by the United States is dangerous and asks
the Siniora government "where were these arms when Israel bombed
your vehicles and your positions? It is something one has to ask the
Lebanese, Palestinian and Arab peoples." Nasrallah has repeatedly
accused the Bush administration of unleashing a "fitna" or
"fragmentation within Islam" referring to tensions and confrontations
between Sunnis and Shia.
But there is more. NATO has
in mind building a military base in Qleiat very close to Tripoli - where
the Nahr el Bared camp is sited - and to the northern frontier with
Syria. It will accommodate a helicopter squadron, special forces units
and will train the Lebanese Army and police. (10) The area will already
have been visited in mid-April by a team of US, German and Turkish military
looking for the ideal location.
The US and its European and
Arab allies are doing all they can to avoid the collapse of the Siniora
government because that would be seen by the Arab peoples as an unequivocal
sign of US decline in the Middle East. For that reason every change
in the current correlation of forces in Lebanon (where the Shia population
is under-represented in the government despite forming 40% of the coutnry's
population) needs to be blocked, which in turn explains Siniora's resistance
to the opposition forces' democratic proposals : either a government
of national unity or a bringing forward of elections.
The fiasco of the Paris 3
aid commitments
Into this scenario one has
to add that the aid (almost US$8bn) promised to the Siniora government
by the Western powers and many Arab countries during January's Paris
summit not only never came but is in fact generating debt. Treasury
minister Jihad Azour has had to recognize that the bogged-down political
situation is going to cost Lebanon a billion dollars since the neo-liberal
economic measures promised in order to get that aid cannot be implemented.
Parliamentary assent is required for that to happen and the opposition
is clear that there will be no parliamentary quorum so long as elections
are not called or else until a national unity government is installed.
One must not forget that Saudi Arabia has big financial interests in
Lebanon that cannot proceed so long as the current parliamentary boycott
persists.
On May 10th, the Siniora
government signed an agreement to oversee Lebanon's State sector spending
with the IMF, heavily criticised by Hizbollah, Amal and the Free Patriotic
Movement (the biggest Christian organization composed mainly of that
religion's middle and lower-middle classes). The instability helps prop
up Siniora, hands arguments to those forces pulling the strings from
the outside and to some extent confounds the opposition albeit indirectly
since in supporting the Lebanese army they are obliged to align themselves
to a degree with the government. That is something Siniora's pro-Western,
neoliberal administration actively sought since several criticisms have
been heard internally of what is considered "complicity with the
opposition" by a section of the army, which is mostly made up of
Shia.
And with that panorama, a
question : if it is of such interest for the UN to enforce resolutions
on Lebanon - how long before 194, the right of return of the Palestinian
refugees? The Arab League plan dusted off after Hizbollah's victory
included this right, but in the negotiations between the Saudis, Egyptians,
Jordanians and US and Israeli emissaries, they are already talking of
accepting just a symbolic return. The Palestinians, once more history's
great pariahs, are turned into exchange currency and cannon fodder.
Notes
(1) Alberto Cruz, "La lección de Hizbulá" http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=34516
(2) Salafiyyah Islam is the tradition of following the first believers
of Mahomet's generation. The reference to Al Sham is historical and
refers to the area currently comprising Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.
(3) Fifth semester report of teh Secretary General on the application
of Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004) S/2007/262 of May 7th 2007.
(4) The Daily Star, 20 de abril de 2007.
(5) Alberto Cruz, "Hizbulá lee a Gramsci" http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=43303
(6) The Asia Times, 20 de abril de 2007.
(7) Al Manar, 23 de abril de 2007.
(8) Al Manar, 20 de mayo de 2007.
(9) Al Manar, 25 de mayo de 2007.
(10) Al Diyar, 15 de abril de 2007.
Alberto Cruz is a journalist,
political scientist and writer specializing in international relations.
Translation copyleft by tortilla
con sal.
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