Lebanon's internal politics can be baffling to outsiders, even as fresh rounds of assassinations and demonstrations continue to make international headlines. But understanding Lebanon is essential if we are to make sense of the broader region, says Institute Senior Program Officer Patricia Karam. "Lebanon is the barometer of the Middle East," she says. "It has always reflected regional tensions and drawn in outside powers." To help unravel Lebanon's complexities, USIP talked with Karam about the country's past and its prospects for the future. What emerges is a portrait of a nation riven by deep internal cleavages and surrounded by powerful neighbors, a country at the epicenter of ever-shifting geo-political forces, where the hard, precarious work of peace can be upset by sudden, unpredictable tremors.

Image on right: The Lebanese army extinguishes a fire set by protestors in the streets of Beirut, Lebanon on Jan 23. (Photo: AP/Wide World)

• You've written that since 1975 political science has gained a new term of art: libanization, meaning the "collapse of state authority and the disintegration of civil society into a Hobbesian state of nature." What are the roots of this tragedy?
• Lebanon's civil war lasted fifteen years and only ended in 1990. Why did it begin, and what, if anything, did it resolve?
• And what was Syria's role during this period?
• You've said that the agreement ending the Civil War was fundamentally flawed. How so?
• The Cedar Revolution of 2005 seemed to herald a hopeful change in Lebanon's political evolution. Yet that spirit of hope seems not to have lasted.
• How did last summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war change the country's political dynamics?
• So what is the situation today?
• What can the United States do to help?

You've written that since 1975 political science has gained a new term of art: libanization, meaning the "collapse of state authority and the disintegration of civil society into a Hobbesian state of nature." What are the roots of this tragedy?

The Lebanese state, in 1975, had all but collapsed. State institutions, such as the central bank, water, telephone, and electrical services functioned intermittently, but for all intents and purposes, the Lebanese state was no longer functioning--or independent. The sources of power had switched to the militias. In the ghettoized geography that Lebanon had become, militias controlled their populations, collected taxes, administered services, and mostly, offered protection. For example, custom duties levied on ports and the government's main source of income ($600 million per year) fell in the hands of the local militia, which happened to control the coastal strip. Libanization of a conflict means exactly that: militia politics. As the Lebanese scholar Ghassan Tueni said at the time: "The government does not exist, and whatever part of it exists has no authority, and whoever has authority is not in the government."

There were three principal causes for this collapse: First, as you know, Lebanon's political system is based on consociationalism, that is, on the practice of apportioning power in government along religious or communal lines. The 1943 (unwritten) National Pact established the principles of the nascent democracy: Lebanon's president would be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of Parliament a Shi'a Muslim. The intention was to promote an equitable balance of power among the various sects according to their proportion of the population, based on a 1932 census. Parliamentary seats were also divvied up among Christians and Muslims in a six-to-five ratio. Ministries were informally understood to "belong" to certain sects. This system, originally adopted as a way of accommodating differences, has had, in my opinion, the effect of hardening and institutionalizing communal differences.

Second, on the socio-economic front, while the country underwent its rapid modernization during the Golden Years of the 1950s and 1960s, the Shi'a--the fastest growing community in Lebanon--hardly profited from any improvement of their living conditions. Traditionally, the Shi'a were more rural than the cosmopolitan Maronite or urban Sunnis, and were therefore considered the "underdog" of the political establishment. They immigrated to Beirut in the hope of a better life but only managed to swell the "Poverty Belt" that already surrounded the capital with Palestinian refugee camps and poor slums. By 1960, roughly 50 percent of the population was defined as poor, enjoying a mere 18 percent of the GNP. The top four percent of the population enjoyed 32 percent of GNP. The emergence of the Movement of the Deprived, composed of the rural and urban poor under the leadership of the Shi'a's highest spiritual authority in Lebanon, the Imam Musa al-Sadr, epitomized the sudden appearance of previously underdeveloped and neglected social forces on the national scene.

And the Shi'a were by no means the only radicalized group in Lebanon. It was in Beirut that revolutionaries from every part of the Arab world met to plot, conspire, devise, and plan coups, counter-coups, and palace-coups. And it was in Beirut that most Arab ideologies--many of which were leftist, pan-Arab, socialist--flourished. Their awakening social consciousness, taking place in an environment of unequal economic growth, caused widening gaps between people's aspirations and expectations. Thus, the mass radicalization of Muslim groups, which had been co-opted in the political process since 1943, took place in opposition to the traditional arrangements by which power and wealth were exchanged and shared within a small class of Lebanese elites.

Thirdly, at a deeper level, the Lebanese state itself is built on fundamental contradictions. When the French--yielding to Maronite demands--annexed different parts of the Ottoman provinces of Beirut and Damascus into greater Lebanon and granted it independence in 1920, they bequeathed a state that had been willed into being by one community of its population among others. The Maronites did not consider themselves Arabs and viewed Lebanon as the eastern frontier of the Christian West. Their rejection of Islam and an Arab ancestry was based on a dubious claim that they were descendents of the Phoenicians. But from the Arab nationalist point of view, this French-created Lebanese Republic had no legitimacy as a nation-state distinct from Syria. The very existence of the Lebanese entity proved to be a lasting thorn in the minds of Arab nationalists, serving as dynamite for the civil war.

Lebanon's civil war lasted fifteen years and only ended in 1990. Why did it begin, and what, if anything, did it resolve?

Part of the reason the war lasted so long is continuous interference and meddling by regional powers, within the overarching context of the Israeli/Arab conflict and Arab politics in general.

From 1948, the date of the first Palestinian exodus to the various Arab states surrounding Palestine, to 1984, the number of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanese camps is estimated to have risen to 500,000, representing 15 percent of Lebanon's population. The Palestinian resistance movement garnered support and sympathy among the Lebanese Muslims, especially the more radical groups who came to see their struggle as inextricably linked to that of their southern brothers. Lebanese domestic politics and Palestinian politics became entangled to a point of absurdity. The Palestinians established themselves by playing on the deep cleavages in place among Muslims and Christians. The Palestinian cause came to play a determining role in the breakdown of Muslim-Christian relations in Lebanon, as it crystallized the various points of view and focalized the tensions between the communities on a non-Lebanese problem.

The Palestinians had at their disposal in Lebanon a rear base from which they could launch relentless commando attacks on northern Israel, which inevitably brought Israeli retaliation on Lebanese soil. On several occasions, the Israelis went as far as conducting commando incursions into Beirut, destroying civilian airplanes in the Beirut International Airport or assassinating top PLO leaders in their homes in Beirut. The Lebanese state proved powerless to stop the Palestinians from attacking Israel or to protect itself from Israel. The Muslim establishment, and more vociferously the radical organizations, supported the Palestinian commandos and were adamantly against any efforts by the Lebanese state to restrict them. The Christian establishment, outraged at the breakdown of law and order in the south of the country, demanded that the PLO be stopped. The army, however, was incapable of taking any decisive action, lest it simply dissolve. Composed of both Christian and Muslim troops, it was in no position to set itself up as arbiter. The result of this deadlock could be felt on a weekly basis from the late 1960s onwards, as Palestinian and Israeli attacks and counter-attacks merged into one continuous campaign.

By then, the state had ceased to exercise its rightful sovereignty over the areas adjacent to either Israel and Syria, which contained the greatest concentration of Palestinian guerrillas. Under the Cairo Agreement, signed by Arafat and the commander in chief of the Lebanese army in 1969, the Palestinian Armed Struggle Command was granted the right to establish its own armed units and posts in refugee camps, effectively granting it sovereignty over its own population. Furthermore, the Lebanese army and authorities were to facilitate the movement of commandos to and from the Israeli border. (After 1969, some 2000 to 2500 Palestinians were located in Arquoub and South Lebanon, frequently raiding Israel.) In Weberian terms, the Lebanese state had relinquished its monopoly on violence.

From there, the situation deteriorated quickly. The Cairo Agreement served as a pretext for the formation of para-military groups which could, under the Palestinian umbrella, bear arms and create private militias. In addition, the agreement, which allowed the fedayeen to carry weapons only in the refugee camps, was difficult to enforce. So, very rapidly, the Palestinians came to control vast areas of Beirut, where they established road-blocks and check-points, much to the wrath of the Christians. This in turn, led to an impressive surge of mobilization and counter-mobilization within Lebanon's many other sectarian communities, each of which felt compelled to take up arms to protect their own.

By the early 1970s, the dynamics of Lebanese internal politics overlapped with those of the Palestinian and Arab states. The Lebanese state became marginalized in the affairs of its own territory, neutralized in its dealings with national security and stability, and ultimately crippled, if not paralyzed, when the civil war broke out in 1975. By allowing for the emergence of substitute forms of authority--and here we're back to Libanization--the Lebanese state had in fact signed its own suicide note. Gripped by an inability to reach a consensus, infiltrated by rival gangs, harassed within its own borders by foreign powers, the already frail state disintegrated. It ceased to exercise its function as mediator between social groups and as a vehicle for nonviolent conflict resolution.

And what was Syria's role during this period?

Syria's role in Lebanon has been complex, obscure, and opportunistic. Syria always played the Lebanese game to the fullest. Syria has sided, at different times, with the Maronite Christians, the Palestinians, the Sunnis, the Druze, and the Shi'a, always playing one side against another, and never letting one side achieve a stable advantage. For example, after the outbreak of civil war in April 1975, the Lebanese army disintegrated. By June 1976, the PLO-backed forces had gained the upper hand against the Christian Lebanese Front and controlled 80 percent of the country. Fearing that a Palestinian victory would weaken its own strategic position, Syria sent 27,000 troops to the rescue of the Lebanese Front forces. This is how the Pax Syriana concluded the first phase of the conflict.

Syria flexed its muscles again in 1989. The signing of the 1989 Ta'if Agreement in Saudi Arabia put an end to the violence within Lebanon--at the cost of formalizing Syrian hegemony. Syrian control was further ratified in 1992, when Hafez al-Assad (father of the current Syrian president) instigated the election of a supportive Lebanese government that signed a Treaty of Brotherhood, Friendship, and Cooperation with Syria. At the time, Assad had 40,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon. This treaty, intended to "harmonize" Lebanon's actions with Syria's, ultimately subjected any Lebanese governmental decision to the acquiescence of Damascus. Lebanon effectively remained under dual occupation: the southern buffer zone under the control of the Israelis since 1978, and the rest under Syria.

You've said that the agreement ending the Civil War was fundamentally flawed. How so?

The 1989 Ta'if Agreement addressed both domestic and international dimensions of the Lebanese conflict. It called for the withdrawal of both Israeli and Syrian forces from the country, and for the disarmament of all non-national militias. The agreement sought to recalibrate the consociational system to enable equal participation of Muslim and Christian communities in thecabinet and parliament. The number of parliamentary seats was also increased to 128, equally divided between Muslims and Christians. It turned the Maronite Christian president into a figurehead and made the Sunni prime minister responsible for the legislature rather than the president, as had been the case earlier. Though Ta'if identified the abolition of political sectarianism as one of its national goals to be achieved gradually, no specific deadline, formula or timetable was provided. Ta'if effectively ratified and institutionalized the 1943 Pact--unwritten until then--further entrenching political confessionalism and leaving the door open to renewed conflict.

In retrospect, it is clear that Lebanon's problems run deeper than a Syrian or Israeli occupation or even the political under-representation of certain communities. At the heart of the matter is a chronically weak Lebanese state. For all its promise, Ta'if, brandished as a solution to Lebanon's problems, remained rooted in Lebanon's fragmented, sectarian history. And society remained extremely polarized, right down the middle. Hezbollah's status as a resistance movement against the Israeli occupation allowed it to circumvent Ta'if's requirement that the militias needed disbanding.

The Cedar Revolution of 2005 seemed to herald a hopeful change in Lebanon's political evolution. Yet that spirit of hope seems not to have lasted.

On February 14, 2005, Rafiq Hariri, who had just recently resigned as prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in a car-bomb attack. Fingers immediately pointed at Syria, despite the lack of substantial evidence, because of its extensive military and intelligence influence in Lebanon, as well as the public rift between Hariri and Damascus just before his resignation on October 20, 2004. Syria denied wrongdoing. However, two weeks of protests followed the assassination, with the crowds calling for Syria's withdrawal.

What ensued was a see-saw of popular demonstrations, for and against Syria, revealing the deep divisions within Lebanon. The anti-Syrian demonstrations led to the resignation on February 28 of pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami. But he was reappointed by President Lahoud, on March 8, after a demonstration by hundreds of thousands of pro-Syrian, Hezbullah-supported Lebanese. On March 14, marking the one month anniversary of Hariri's death, a massive anti-Syrian rally took place in Martyr's Square in Beirut, with between 800,000 and a million demonstrators chanting "Freedom, Sovereignty, Independence" and carrying a huge Lebanese flag. Demonstrators demanded a Syrian pullout and an international inquiry into Hariri's murder. (The two sides have taken these dates as shorthand names for their movements: hence the "March 8 Coalition" and the "March 14 Coalition." ¹)

On March 17, Syria withdrew 4,000 troops and redeployed the remaining 10,000 to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. A month later, Syrians withdrew completely, ending 29 years of occupation. What was initially called the "Independence Intifada" and later referred to as the "Cedar Revolution" was significant in being a rare instance of popular, civic action, drawing the largest number of demonstrators ever in the history of Lebanon. Its immediate effect was a Syrian pullout from Lebanon, the organization of free parliamentary elections and the establishment of an international commission to investigate the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri. In its immediate aftermath, there was a palpable sense of hope and optimism, which, for the first time, transcended communitarianism. But this moment of enthusiasm lacked the institutional and political framework to entrench itself and the public arena was soon to be reclaimed by conventional politics.

Image on left: From the hills overlooking Beirut, a child watches smoke rise from Rafiq Hariri Airport following Israeli air strikes. (Photo: © UNICEF)

How did last summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war change the country's political dynamics?

Aside from the knockout punch dealt to the economy, the crisis further reversed any positive gains potentially ushered in by the Cedar Revolution. The war advanced what Hassan Mneimneh has called the "project of defiance," represented by Hezbollah and premised on constant militancy and ideological preparedness. The Israeli action, while dealing a large blow to Hezbollah's social service infrastructure, led to substantive gains in Hezbollah's stature and influence locally and regionally, providing it with exploitable opportunities to gather strength. It also led to the weakening of the "project of peace" originating with Rafiq Hariri and gaining ascendancy with the Cedar Revolution. The project of peace was premised on the idea that creating a stable, prosperous society would resolve conflict and dispel passions.

Since then, Lebanon has been dangerously destabilized by the political split between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the Seniora government supported by a parliamentary majority, with Sunnis rallying around Seniora and Shi'a around Hezbollah. The war effectively polarized an already fractured country and reopened unhealed wounds, exacerbating underlying tensions that the Lebanese had been ignoring since the end of the civil war. Indeed, fifteen years after militias laid down their arms, the Lebanese still lived in a sort of officially sanctioned amnesia that concealed memories of the war and discouraged looking back at it. There has been, as a result, very little public debate about the war, its origins or consequences, or even Syrian occupation and hegemony. The same leaders remain in power thanks to a sweeping amnesty passed towards the end of the war which prevents prosecution of ordinary militia members and senior politicians. As novelist Elias Khoury put it: "The most tragic thing about the Lebanese civil war is that it is not a tragedy in the consciousness of the Lebanese."

Even the postwar reconstruction of Lebanon has become politicized as the various external patrons vie to repair damages. Reconstruction has become nothing but a form of Clausewitzian continuation of war by other means. Iran has been pouring money into the south through Hezbollah, while the United States and Gulf states have been scrambling to support the government. At the top of the list of donors pledging aid in Paris is Saudi Arabia, which has pledged $1.1 billion in credits and grants, followed by the United States, which pledged $770 million, pending Congressional approval. Together with the $230 million pledged after the summer war, U.S. aid could exceed $1 billion--more than Washington has ever given Lebanon in the past. (Before Siniora took office in 2005, U.S. aid to Lebanon hovered at $40 million a year.)

Altogether, the latest pledging conference in Paris brought together some 30 donor countries and agencies and produced pledges of $7.6 billion in aid and loan guarantees to Lebanon. While some of this will be allocated to reconstruction, most of it will be used to make interest payments and refinance Lebanon's public debt of over $40 billion, a sum equal to 180% of its GDP, whose servicing is eating up to two-thirds of state revenues. These pledges, however, are linked to unpopular economic reforms that the government has promised to carry out, including raising indirect taxes and privatizing the communications sector and the wasteful Electricite du Liban (estimated to cost the government up to $1 billion a year). Most of the measures will most heavily affect Lebanon's poor and working classes, who are disproportionately Shi'a.

So what is the situation today?

Today, it is not an exaggeration to say that Lebanon is living an existential crisis. The Lebanese are more polarized than ever. We are witnessing the erosion of civil ethos, the loss of consensus on the constitutionality of national institutions, the resurgence of sectarian rhetoric, and a high risk of renewed violence. The two sides are locked in a battle for control of the government. That contest is pivoting on several key points:

• The government insists that its parliamentary majority gives it a right to rule, but opponents (Aounists most notably) maintain that the 2005 vote--which produced its majority--was flawed. The pro-Syrian, March 8 coalition, now in the opposition, pulled six of its ministers from the government last November to protest the March 14 coalition monopolizing cabinet decisions. They say that the resignation of the six ministers puts the cabinet in violation of a constitutional requirement to represent all sects.² To underline their demand for a veto-wielding share of cabinet seats, the opposition called for a nation-wide strike. In many places, violence broke out and threatened to broaden into all-out civil war. Three people were killed and more than 100 injured. The opposition eventually called off the strike, but not before demonstrating that while Seniora could not be physically ousted by mob action, he had evidently lost the consent of half his country.
• The opposition ministers alleged that they were not being consulted on national issues such as the tribunal. Indeed, the establishment of a mixed Lebanese-international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has become a major point of contention in Lebanon's ongoing power struggle. Seniora's ruling coalition accused Hezbollah of walking out to block a UN investigation into Hariri's murder, widely blamed on Syria. Hizbullah has admitted that it is worried that the tribunal will be used by its enemies to settle old scores against them.³
• The government further accused protesters of trying to destroy Lebanon's chances of securing debt relief. The donor conference opened two days after the strike was called. The opposition accuses the government ministers of having created the debt. The government charged that Hezbullah's militancy was crippling efforts to leverage loans.
• There is, of course, still the issue of Hezbollah weapons. UN resolution 1559, adopted on September 2, 2004 (and reinforced by UN Resolution 1701), calls for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias." Hezbollah has categorically refused to comply, defining itself as "a resistance movement" rather than a "militia." Hezbollah has claimed that it would hold onto its arms as long as Israel occupies the Shebaa Farms area in the south, which Israel claims is Syrian. Most importantly, it has stated that the party will remain armed as long as Israel remains a threat. This issue will remain unresolved as long as the deadlock continues. And, in a way, the political crisis is about Hezbollah seeking political power to recover institutional legitimacy for the resistance.
• Finally, the crisis has further highlighted how much Lebanon remains a battleground for regional and international wars, with Tehran and Damascus attempting, on the one hand, to deny the U.S. influence, through their allies on the ground, while Washington strives, as best as it can, to check Iranian and Syrian ambitions and influence in Lebanon and bolster a Lebanese government friendly to the West.

What can the United States do to help?

In Arab eyes, the U.S. response to the July crisis undermined its position in the Middle East, in particular with its early opposition to a cease-fire and support for Israel as the toll of Lebanese civilian casualties rose steadily and substantial portions of the Lebanese infrastructure were destroyed. Arguably, this position bolstered Hezbollah's standing in the region.

Given Arab questions about U.S. intentions in Lebanon, U.S. actions must be carefully calibrated to avoid discrediting whichever party(ies) it is seeking to assist. Recognizing that some issues fundamental to the design of the state will need to be worked out by the Lebanese and not by foreign powers, the United States needs to help foster and strengthen a third non-confessional voice, and help society move from vertical to horizontal forms of political competition. It needs to help strengthen Lebanese state capacity--to work on reducing corruption, patronage, inefficiency--but also to help build a culture of accountable and transparent governance. The United States should also be involved in the broader regional effort--with Saudi Arabia, for example. And of course, it needs to be actively involved in ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.

What is needed in Lebanon especially is a shift towards a more integrated, horizontal, non-communitarian model of belongingness. Any positive initiative or intervention has to focus on countering the trend towards sectarianism, fostering and supporting non-communitarian and cross-communitarian impulses. At the same time any program of action needs to balance between the center of greater Beirut, the segregated southern suburb (dahiyah) and the provincial periphery. All immediate actions should be balanced with longer-term initiatives addressing fundamental issues such as constitutional arrangements.

Notes

1. In a peculiar make-up, the March 14 coalition, which is led by Future Bloc leader, MP Saad Hariri and includes Druze and Christian warlords, the business elite, and most Sunni Muslims is pitted against the Hezbullah-led March 8 coalition forces, which include leftists, Arab nationalists, Syrian-backed feudal lords and Aoun loyalists.

2. The relevant sentence in the preamble is: "There is no constitutional legitimacy for any authority, which contradicts the 'pact of communal coexistence.'"

3. While Siniora had enough Cabinet members to achieve a quorum to approve the tribunal last month, the government has been unable to convene Parliament to ratify the tribunal because of refusals from both Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and President Lahoud (who are allied with the March 8th opposition) to call for an extraordinary session before the regular convening of Parliament in March. Seniora requested that the tribunal draft be sanctioned under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter to relieve the government of the need to pass it in Parliament.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.