The Next Crusades
By Uri Avnery
06 March, 2005
Gush
Shalom
Many
years ago, I read a book called The Quiet American by Graham
Greene. Its central character is a high-minded, naive young American
operative in Vietnam. He has no idea about the complexities of that
country but is determined to right its wrongs and create order. The
results are disastrous.
I have the feeling
that this is happening now in Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded
and no so naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go into
a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and use force to impose
on it order, democracy and freedom.
Civil war: Lebanon.
Lebanon is a country with a peculiar topography: a small country of
high mountain ranges and isolated valleys. As a result, it has attracted
throughout the centuries communities of persecuted minorities, who found
refuge there. Today there are, side by side and one against the other,
four ethno-religious communities: Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druse.
Within the Christian community, there are several sub-communities, such
as Maronites and other ancient sects, mostly hostile to each other.
The history of Lebanon abounds in mutual massacres.
Such a situation
invites, of course, interference by neighbors and foreign powers, each
wanting to stir the pot for its own advantage. Syria, Israel, the United
States and France, the former colonial master, are all involved.
Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders
of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then Minister of Defense) and Moshe Dayan
(the army Chief-of-Staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose
on it a Christian major as dictator and turn it into an
Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, the then Prime Minister, attacked
this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has
been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the
proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity
of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end
in disaster.
At the time, Sharett
won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly
what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen
by Sharett.
Anyone who follows
the American and Israeli (there is no difference) media, gets the impression
that the present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two camps,
the supporters of Syria on the one side, the opposition
on the other. There is a Beirut Spring. The opposition is
a twin sister of yesterdays Ukrainian opposition, and loyally
imitates all its methods: demonstrations opposite the government building,
a sea of waving flags, colorful shawls, and, most importantly, beautiful
girls in the front row.
But between the
Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not the slightest similarity. The Ukraine
is a simple country: the east tends towards Russia, the
west towards Europe. With American help, the west won.
In Lebanon, all
the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each
plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity.
Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all
are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of
young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one
does not know the community which stands behind them.
Only thirty years
ago these communities started a terrible civil war and all of them massacred
each other. The Christian Maronites wanted to take over the country
with the help of Israel, but were defeated by a coalition of the Sunnis
and Druze (the Shiites played no significant role at that time). The
Palestinian refugees, led by the PLO, who formed a kind of fifth community,
joined the battle. When the Christians were in danger of being overrun,
they called on the Syrians for help. Six years later, Israel invaded,
with the aim of evicting both the Syrians and the Palestinians and imposing
a Christian strongman (Basheer Jumail).
It took us 18 years
to get out of that morass. Our only achievement was to turn the Shiites
into a dominant force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shiites received
us with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would throw out
the Palestinians, who had been lording it over them. A few months later,
when they realized that we did not intend to leave, they started to
shoot at us. Sharon is the midwife of Hizbullah.
It is difficult
to foresee what will happen if the Syrians accede to the American ultimatum
and leave Lebanon. There is no indication that the Americans are concerned
with the creation of a new fabric of life for the Lebanese communities.
They are satisfied with babbling about freedom and democracy,
as if a majority vote could create a regime acceptable to all. They
do not understand that Lebanon is an abstract notion, since
for almost all Lebanese, belonging to their own community is vastly
more important than loyalty to the state. In such a situation, even
an international force will be of no help.
The re-ignition
of the bloody civil war is a distinct possibility.
Civil war: Iraq.
If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in
the region. In Iraq, such a war - if almost secret - is already in full
swing.
The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation
army, are the Kurdish Peshmerga (Those who face death).
The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played
an important role in the battle of Faluja, a big town that was totally
destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out.
Now the Kurdish
forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north
of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the
town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted
there by Saddam Hussein.
How can such a war
be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under
the carpet of the war against terrorism.
But this small war
is nothing compared to what may happen in Iraq, once the time comes
for deciding the future of the country. The Kurds want complete autonomy,
or independence by another name. The Sunni would not dream of accepting
the rule of the Shiite majority, which they despise, even if came about
in the name of democracy. The outbreak of a full-fledged
civil war may only be a question of time.
Civil war: Syria.
If the Americans succeed, with our discreet help, in breaking the ruling
Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced
by freedom and democracy.
Syria is almost
as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south,
a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to
which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally
divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people
have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what
may happen if the regime collapses.
It is not likely
that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation
of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not
sure that it would be good for Israel.
Religious fervor:
Iran. The main American objective is, of course, the overthrow of the
Ayatollahs in Iran. (It is a little bit ironic that at the same time
the Americans are helping to install the Shiites in power in neighboring
Iraq, where they insist on introducing Islamic law.)
Iran is a much harder
nut to crack. Unlike to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, this is a homogenous
society.
Israel is now openly
threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days
we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting
of their readiness to do this at a moments notice.
The religious fervor
of the Ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious
revolution after some time. But a military attack by the Big Satan
(the US) or the Little Satan (us) may set fire to the whole
Shiite crescent: Iran, South Iraq and South Lebanon.
And here, too. Israel,
too, has recently witnessed a tiny civil war.
In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an Arab Christian
community have been living side by side for generations, a bloody incident
suddenly erupted. It was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon
the Christians, attacking, burning and destroying. By a miracle, nobody
was killed. The Christians say that the Israeli police (many of whose
members are Druze) stood aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak:
some doctored nude pictures on the Internet.)
It is easy to ignite
a civil war, whether out of fanaticism or out of intolerable naivete.
George Bush, the (not-so-)Quiet American, runs around the world hawking
his patent medicines, freedom and democracy,
in total ignorance of hundreds of years of history. Hard to believe,
but he draws his inspiration from a book by our own Nathan Sharansky,
a very small genius, to say the least.
Every human being
and every people has a right to freedom. Many of us have shed their
blood for this aim. Democracy is an ideal that every people has to realize
for itself. But when the banners of freedom and democracy
are hoisted over a crusade by an avaricious and irresponsible super-power,
the results can be catastrophic.
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