Lebanon …  and ‘the day after’

Fate had it that I was in Damascus the day of Rafik Hariri’s assassination on Feb. 14, 2005. That night, I felt that a violent earthquake had struck Lebanese-Syrian relations. Earthquakes need wise men, not strong men. On my way back the next day, I stopped by the town of Chtoura to have a cup of coffee with a friend. His words gave me pause: “The Syrian intelligence can behave in unsettling ways and I do not support their remaining here permanently, but I will not hide the fact that their withdrawal scares me, because of what I know of the Lebanese and their divisions.”

I returned to Beirut and it was boiling. Most people in Lebanon felt that the country’s backbone had been broken. Many were angry and demanded the withdrawal of Syrian forces, who they held responsible for Hariri’s assassination. These were violent and worrying times.

My journalistic curiosity got the better of me and, at the end of that month, I was in President Bashar Assad’s office. Our conversation was off the record. I asked Assad if his country’s forces would withdraw from Lebanon and he replied that some military officials believed that remaining in a strip of the Lebanese Bekaa would facilitate a defense of Damascus in the event of Israeli aggression. I asked what he would do if international pressure to withdraw his forces escalated and he replied that he would issue the order for his troops to withdraw to the border.

Assad was adamant in his insistence that Syria had no hand in Hariri’s assassination. Why be so certain, I asked, why not at least leave the possibility that a foreign entity had infiltrated one of your agencies to carry out the assassination? “We are a state and do not have merchants running our apparatuses. We had nothing to do with it and this will become clear to you in time,” he said. I also asked him about his brief final meeting with Hariri and other things, but that is beyond the scope of our conversation here.

The opportunity to return to the state was squandered and Lebanon became an arena for broader regional conflicts

Ghassan Charbel

During the years that Syrian forces were deployed in Lebanon, the Syrian intelligence bureau in Anjar (in the Bekaa Valley) issued the verdicts and stamps and it allocated shares of power. The withdrawal of the Syrian “supreme leader” left a large void that the country’s political forces failed to fill through the development of a state within the framework of the Taif Agreement.

Divisions deepened when Lebanese security agencies pointed to signs that Hezbollah elements had been implicated in Hariri’s assassination. Events escalated and the 2006 war further cemented Lebanon’s position in the so-called Resistance Axis. The opportunity to return to the state was squandered and Lebanon became an arena for broader regional conflicts.

Lebanon is currently being subjected to an Israeli assault that threatens to turn into a catastrophe for the small country. The Israeli killing machine has wiped entire villages off the map and left immense destruction in Hezbollah’s community. This violence has been met with sympathy or understanding in the West, under the pretext that Hezbollah chose this war by declaring a “support front” after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

It is clear that the party had hoped for skirmishes that did not violate the so-called rules of engagement. However, Hezbollah miscalculated, especially when it insisted on the “unity of fronts” even after Benjamin Netanyahu managed to turn the war into an existential one, which, in his view, justified human and economic losses that Israel had previously sought to avoid.

Immense destruction has been inflicted on this country, which is now teetering on the edge of an even deeper abyss

Ghassan Charbel

Lebanon did not follow the advice that US envoy Amos Hochstein gave it early on. Lebanon only responded after disaster struck. Immense destruction has been inflicted on this country, which is now teetering on the edge of an even deeper abyss. Hochstein presented no solution other than the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was born of the 2006 war and which Israel and Hezbollah had hollowed out. This was especially the case after the latter became a “regional actor” that sends fighters and advisers to battlefields near and far.

Would Lebanon have been in this tragic situation if Resolution 1701 had been fully implemented? It is too late to ask this question, but the resolution must be implemented now as the country burns over a sea of rubble. Sometimes, patients must take bitter medicine to avoid something worse, and we must prevent the disintegration and disappearance of Lebanon.

A genuine exit from the current war and its exorbitant costs places Lebanese forces before a historic duty to turn away from policies of denial, their failure to learn lessons and rubbing salt in the wound. Resolution 1701 must be fully implemented to restore the world’s confidence and encourage the international community to play a role in the reconstruction process. That requires closing the chapter of Lebanon as an arena and beginning the journey to turn Lebanon into a normal state. The key to returning to the state is the implementation of the Taif Agreement and compliance with its spirit. There must be a deep understanding of war’s horrors and how to ensure it does not recur.

Implementing Resolution 1701 would significantly alter Hezbollah’s role in the region. In practice, this means Lebanon withdrawing from the unity of fronts, whose military commitments Iraq is currently trying to avoid. This change will not be simple, but it is necessary if the Lebanese are to reunite under the state and law.

The “day after” the ceasefire in Lebanon will not be easy, but all political forces must rise to the challenge. The bridges between the Lebanese must be rebuilt despite the bitterness of recent years. There must be mutual recognition, compassion and a return to policies suited to Lebanon’s nature. No coercion, no revenge, no diminishing or marginalizing components. The Lebanese cannot afford to waste the day after the ceasefire just like they squandered opportunities on many occasions in the past.

• Ghassan Charbel is editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. X: @GhasanCharbel

This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.