From Beirut to the Beltway

As a follow up to my last post, it seems Hizbullah is succeeding in turning Lebanon into a police state. The following is outrageous, and incredibly damaging to Lebanon and its tourism sector. Hizbullah, which effectively controls Lebanon's border, has decreed that Lebanese authorities spy on foreigners with names that sound Jewish, and even turn some of them away.

During an interview with Al Manar TV, the head of the GDGS, General Wafiq Jezzini, who has close ties to Hezbollah, described his new plan to keep Israeli infiltrators out of Lebanon. According to Jezzini, lists of Jewish family names have been distributed at the borders. “When someone arrives in Lebanon with a foreign passport and his family name suggests that he is of Jewish origin, the border center sends his information to the central information office at the General Security Directorate, which specifically takes responsibility for following this individual,” Jezzini said.

Several foreigners NOW Lebanon spoke to have already been denied entry into the country at the airport. Most of them were in Lebanon to study or were employed by Lebanese companies. Some of them ended up stranded in other Middle Eastern countries while all their belongings stayed here. In the meantime, their friends are trying to convince the General Security that they made a mistake. [Now Lebanon]

What a travesty! Hizbullah's and Syria's minions are now waging a smear campaign against the Internal Security forces, the president, and the US embassy. They are purging the country of anything and anyone opposed to their agenda. It's terrorism in broad daylight, yet very few see it.

They are inevitable—the tears you try to hold back but successfully battle their way to your eyes as your plane lands. Flying over decrepit and illegal structures doesn't lessen the emotional impact of being back "home". Or what used to be home for many long years. Years that seemed unending—until that day when I told my father, "this country has its people, and I'm not one of them".

Mind you, it's not like I didn't try.  I wasn't young when I left, and it wasn't something planned. My generation's circumstances are very different from those whose war memories consist of the May 7 events, or the various Hizbullah-Israel episodes. My memories include Palestinian boots, Syrian terror, Israeli arrogance and Lebanese folly.  Growing up I often wondered to myself if it would ever end. And when it did, I found myself prisoner in a vast and imaginary universe whose population had nothing to do with Lebanon. 

Circumstances helped put me on the fast immigration track. Before I knew it, I was swearing allegiance to a new existence, one that had no bombs, no fires and no people offending me with their loud distaste for law and order.

But as you could tell, the divorce was not permanent. Yesterday, hours after we landed, I breathed the fresh air of my childhood once again. I revisited with that sea, that old sea that is once again delivering dead bodies to its bordering land, albeit calmly. Strangely, and because I had chosen to make my peace by declaring divorce on the pages of this blog and elsewhere a little bit more official, it felt… peaceful. I never thought this place would one day deliver the peace I needed. Maybe because I had stopped expecting it to be something it would never be. Maybe because I no longer tied the country's well being to my own sanity. I had stopped obsessing over its news, partly because of a huge undertaking that had kept me busy, and partly because it just felt better to not be so involved. Now, reading about Nasrallah flexing his Iranian muscles and setting Jumblatt up with Bashar doesn't bug me as much as it had years ago.

Why let it get to you when the people here listen and then party on? They showed up on February 14 brandishing the same flags but with more cautious slogans. Personally, I would have worked overtime that day. This country cannot be built on slogans by politicians, just like no other country was built solely by fiery speeches. One day they promise you liberation, the other they seek to polish the boots of the dictator whom they once vowed to battle or eternity.

We have frequently blamed it on Lebanese citizens: for picking crappy politicians to represent them, and for not doing enough to alter the status quo. We were right, of course. But let us not get too angry with them over something their politicians failed to deliver. Lebanese people aren't natural born rebels. They either flee, or bite the bullet and survive with help from those who fled. Or they come back and make urgent peace. In most cases, the peace made by people on the inside seems so fake and temporary.

Maybe that's why we feel so responsible. That responsibility is a killer. But the danger is in letting this curse we all carry dictate life for those who stayed inside the walls.  Let them build malls, and make fashion their way of life. Let them listen to Nasrallah and do absolutely nothing. Let his words fall on deaf ears, or ears that no longer give a damn about the creep in the hole. 

Is Jumblatt a fool for pushing a theory that living with the enemy is better than living under the enemy? Aoun did it before him, and we all thought he was a madman. Don't get me wrong, both took it to extremes. But who is going to arm their young men? Have you not seen what happens when Lebanese take up arms and plunge into wars, no matter how noble their initial goals?

The best antidote to obscurantism is a life lived abundantly. The Iranian revolution, we thought, had killed that spirit, but how wrong we were. Some things never die, and Lebanese have this resilient will to live that will carry them to the shore eventually. Some will drown, naturally, because that boat is not the safest, and because people like me jumped ship and are trying not to look back. But who am I to tell people how to swim when I have chosen life outside the shark-infested pool?

Don't get me wrong, I still call this country names. I still hate it with the same passion that drove tears to my eyes when my plane landed. But it is time we made peace with it.  And every now and then, when time allows, and the bottom of the list becomes priority again, we will offer our skewed opinion. It will be angry. It will be resentful. But it will be hopeful. And it will be what it is: a cry for something better.  

I think Pierre Sadek captured this ridiculous moment quite well:

Those following the cabinet formation circus in Lebanon must be puzzled by two things: Aoun's flagrant nepotism, and March 14's inability to explain why, given how cabinet appointments are made in this country, Aoun is not being allowed to name the minister of his choice.

Gebran Bassil might not be the most inspiring choice for telecom minister (a post that he currently holds), and indeed, he seems like a really bad one, but what, really, is the issue with him? His incompetence? Qualities a different FPM minister could bring to the table that Bassil can't?

It appears that there is more at play here. Bassil, after all, is a mini Aoun, imitation-folly at best.  He has the demonstrated ability to be obstructive and the willingness to bend the FPM's own alleged ideals to service the interests of his father in law, and more importantly, those of Hizbullah. For that, Aoun sees him as the preferred choice.

What we have here is a distrustful Aoun (of his own party) on the one hand, and on the other, an unspoken March 14 concern that Hizbullah's continued indirect control of the telecommunications ministry means no serious reform of the sector will take place, and that eavesdropping and domestic spying by Hizbullah will continue. It is not a secret that the party of perpetual "resistance" benefitted a lot from Bassil's control of the ministry, on many levels, including turning a blind eye to the existence of Hizbullah's private telecommunication network. 

March 14, and Saad Hariri in particular, has not been able to present a strong and convincing public argument against keeping Bassil as a minister. The PM designate probably does not wish to ruffle Hizbullah's feathers at a point the public thinks he has their blessings, though this might change following Hizbullah's recent criticism. Instead, Hariri's people have been resorting to arguments about nepotism, cohesiveness in the cabinet, ineligibility of those who lost elections, and lame and unimaginative accusations about Israeli-linked internet networks.

Hizbullah's defense of Aoun's demand wasn't a surprise, and takes advantage of Hariri's weak strategy, although their argument that there is no legal reason for election losers to become ministers contradicts their (and Aoun's) opposition to March 14 presidential candidates who had lost parliamentary elections (think Nassib Lahoud).

March 14, or what's left of it after Jumbaltt's departure, shouldn't be shy to point out Hizbullah's role here, and their continued use of Aoun and the FPM as cannon fodder. Anyone bemoaning the return of Syria to Lebanon should pause and reflect on how Hizbullah has pretty much filled the role previously played by Syrian intelligence. The Party of God has been playing the role of occupier since the May 7, 2008 invasion of Beirut and the apparently galvanizing attack on Jumblatt's Chouf. 

There is more at stake here than just a game of stubbornness and obstruction.  Unfortunately, Jumblatt was the one who once tasked himself with "exposing" some of Hizbullah's motivations, and their agenda to turn the country into an ideological concentration camp. Now that Jumblatt is on the divine victory bandwagon, singing the praises of the resistance "past, present, and future"-- , and lecturing Hariri about Sunni Islam, March 14 finds itself lacking the ability to throw punches.

There is no doubt that March 14's victory in the elections was dealt a severe blow following Jumblatt's defection. This battle against Aoun over the telecom ministry would have been easier to fight with him on board. In 2008, Hariri backed a "Walid Jumblatt government" that didn't hesitate to take on Hizbullah. Today, he is being told to head a government of "true partnership" that will arguably be weaker and less effective than the ones Siniora headed. No wonder Saad seems so despondent at times. The resistance against Hizbullah's and Syrian domination has just become a lot harder.  One wonders if he would have agreed to the premiership had Jumblatt announced his decision sooner. But that is a different discussion.

It's tornado season in Lebanon.  The balance of power is out of whack, awaiting Saad Hariri's return from his surprise vacation to resume his consultations to form a cabinet.

Just last week, Hassan Nasrallah was singing the praises of the upcoming cabinet, which seemed like a done deal. So perfect it was going to be, Nasrallah even described it as a "true partnership". This wouldn't be laughable if it weren't coming from the man who refuses to partner up with the state's institutions.

In fact, the only hurdle left by July 31 was that crazy man Michel Aoun, who was whining that "nobody consulted him", insisting on making his son in law minister.  

The formula was going to look like this: 15-10-5.  

Cut to today. Jumblatt, who was going to be represented in March 14's 15 share,  decided to break with his partners by suddenly renouncing their slogans—which he had helped formulate.

Is this the "true partnership" that Nasrallah was talking about? One where Jumblatt is neutral, or neutralized, and Hariri unable to command a majority in the cabinet, or block any attempt to knock out UNSC 1701?

During the parliamentary elections, many in Lebanon were convinced that Jumblatt was going to ally himself with Hizbullah. The transformation was ready, but Jumblatt didn't do it. Maybe it was Biden. Maybe it was something else. He instead chose to stay in the March 14 camp, even giving up a few seats for the sake of his former trench buddies.  Whether or not he had then decided to claim his independence at a later stage is left for the history books.

Hariri and Geagea have opted to flee the country than face the new reality that their former death list buddy created. After all, the day has come when Wiam Wahab is saying good things about his former enemy, bestowing Syrian amnesty on the man who once wished to overthrow the Assad regime. And Jumblatt has miraculously rediscovered "Palestine and Arabism", so "Lebanon First" now sounds... phoenician. Saad Hariri, by Jumblatt's new benchmark, appears like  the leader of the Sunni version of the New Phoenicians. Who knew that Beirut's Sunni's are less attached to Palestine than Lebanon's Druze?

With Jumblatt today coupling his support for Hariri with a clarification that the Druzes' survival depends on a rejection of Lebanese sovereignty as March 14 defines it (demarcation of border with Syria, end of Syrian interference), the balance of power in the country appears to have suddenly tilted back towards Hizbullah.

Jumblatt has violated the terms of the agreement with March 14. In theory, Saad and his remaining allies need to gather their strength, give Walid a big hug, and tell him to go find neutrality elsewhere, and quit asking for a change in slogans.   

Of course this is easier said than done. Mostly because, March 14's strength, if that existed, emanated from the men who made it, not so much the principles or the "slogans" they devised.  Just as Lebanon depended on a pact between men, March 14 was, at times, nothing more than a marriage of convenience.

Saad's choice is not easy. The producer has left the building. The young Hariri has to go it alone without his father's friend, and grow up fast, real fast, if he is to stop the country from sailing towards Nasrallah's "true partnership". 

They say old habits die hard. This blog died, albeit softly. Walid Jumblatt, some will also say, lived to kill, again, those who died for an idea he helped foment. 

But to attack Jumblatt for his gradual about face risks lending his soon to be former friends an undeserved credit for waging a good fight. For none of them, ironically, showed the guts Jumblatt showed during the fabled Cedar Revolution. When he drew the line, they cheered, mimicked, or produced nothing of consequence. Some were too weak and unimaginative, others were shackled by their criminal past.  So when Jumblatt decides to run for the hills and disassociate himself from them, one has to wonder whether he's partly doing it for lack of faith in his comrades, and in those who promised him the moon. Jumblatt woke up from the red and white dream to find the swamp underneath full of alligators that are tearing apart the fabric he tried to patch up. No US muscles or European currency could send them away. The US had gone Obama's way, and Europe is in bed with Sarkozy. The age of new beginnings had come. What is the point of the fight, Walid thought, when the result would never amount to independence sought? Why engage in a bloodbath featuring farmed martyrdom-bound humanoids and insane orange lemmings?

The man who helped give Bashar nightmares and strip Hizbullah of its myths gave up. He did not want to fight the kind of independence battle that many idealists on this very blog wished for the Lebanese. So, we got this:

Jumblatt emphasized his desire for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to unearth the truth behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, without countries influencing its decisions and meddling with its results.

He expressed regret about meeting with neoconservatives in the US to protect the Cedar Revolution, describing the meeting as a “black point in the party’s white history.” He also added that it is “not PSP policy to meet with those who have spread chaos in the Middle East, however, our priority was the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”

He also commented on Lebanese-Syrian relations, emphasizing the necessity of having good relations with Syria now that Syria’s mandate over Lebanon has ended.   

Many will fault him for the above, and explain it as typical "pendulumistic" behavior, a la Jumblatt. That's fair. But those who accuse him of killing March 14 are wrong, for that movement died long before. 

I remember a defiant Jumblatt at the Brookings Institution in March 2006, months before the July 06 war, and at a time we were still running on the heat of the revolution. Here is some of what he said.

"It's a long struggle", he said, much harder than the Ukranian revolution, which was a "promenade" in comparison. "The March 14 forces are weak on their own. We need Arab and international backing. That's why I am here."

He said Lebanon faces the fundamental issue of how to "reconcile the independence movement with the Syrian regime. Can democracy coexist with a dictatorship next door smuggling weapons? If we don't change Syrian policy in Lebanon, there will be no independence."

Lebanon could not get the kind of support Jumblatt shopped for, at least not in Jumblatt's limited time frame. Instead, the country got a war by Israel, war by Syria via Fateh al-Islam, war by Iran via Hizbullah in Beirut, the Doha agreement from the Arabs, and a president that embodies the failure of the state. No ships came to the rescue, and worse, the Lebanese themselves proved to be too obsessed with cosmetics to care about the disease that lurked under their skins.  

And Jumblatt himself failed. His arsenal was depleted. What would you like the old man of the mountain to do that he didn't try during what he now calls the "black" years of the revolution? In that same defiant Brookings speech, he had confessed that he never opposed the Syrian regime that killed his father because he "lacked moral courage". Now that he has seemingly been shown that moral courage is synonymous with suicide, Jumblatt defaulted to moral cowardice to survive and achieve peace, and reap the promised fruit of the fabled "new beginning", albeit at the expense of an independence that will likely never come.

They say home is where the heart is. But when your home breaks your heart, do you look for a different home?

That’s essentially me. Over the past four years, sometimes on the pages of this blog, I shed all the broken pieces of the heart that Lebanon broke. In 2005, when a car bomb put the country on an existential trajectory, I shifted gears, changed my cause, and started an epic to defend a picture of Lebanon that, looking back, had never been, and will probably never be.

Around the same time, my heart was acquiring a different home. The move began one sunny morning in a city otherwise known for its fog, and continued when two angels came into my life, giving me a new sense of purpose, and anchoring me to a new reality.

Lebanon became my past, and though it survived in words I typed on this blog, it started to take the backseat with every diaper change and every family celebration outside the Lebanese box. Last year, fate had it that I became a US citizen without any family by my side, as if to test my new loyalty.  I waved the American flag alone, swore to defend my adopted country, and promised to renounce allegiance to my birthplace.  From then on, the USA became first. Lebanon was past tense. 

It became harder to blog. It had been gradual.  It was one disappointment after the other. It’s not like I didn’t know what to expect. But my past just did not want to end. It continued into my present, shackling me with a weight that I could not bear. Not if I wanted to live free. The end came, however, when I saw the passport. Like others like me, it seems, I had been waiting for the ship.  And when the ship came, I took it, willingly, and with a sense of satisfaction mixed with the sweet taste of revenge. I am finally where I can be better.

My new American dream replaced my Lebanese nightmare, at least during the day, when ghosts hide under pillows. At night, however, they rear their ugly heads, redrawing that path of self-torture that raised me. I will probably always dream of the shells, the darkness of the shelter, and the frustrations of living small in a place that pretends to be large. But when the light rises from behind the hill, I am new. Remember that myth about the Phoenix rising from the ashes? It is true. But in my case, life came back somewhere else.

That was my past. Thank you for reading. This blog is over. My story begins.

When Hussein rode his Arabian horse to Karbala more than 1400 years ago, he knew the risks involved getting beheaded by nascent Muslims, but he did not know that his death would be incorporated into a pseudo-Arab martyrdom formula. What would Hussein, the prophet's grandson, think today if he heard Hassan Nasrallah, who chose life in a hole over decapitation, likening Gaza to Karbala?

There is no doubt in any Shia mind that Hassan Nasrallah is having a field day with what Israel is doing in Gaza.  Appearing on TV recently to condemn Israel, Egypt and his own lack of candor, he presented us with the same old two choices: surrender or resistance.

It’s Karbala all over again indeed, but not because Palestinians are dying, but because Nasrallah’s Karbala-propelled franchise is producing even more tragic results in Palestine than it did in Lebanon in 2006. Not only are Hamas' attacks against Israel predictably weak and strategically stupid, their people have not been able to savor the purity of Iranian money. Instead, they were made to live under siege, starving, unemployed, and slowly dying—at least until the bombs start falling.  Hizbullah in Lebanon at least feeds its martyrs.

All that should come as no surprise. Hamas failed to follow the path of Karbala (how can they even understand it?), and instead tried to jump to the conclusion of someone else’s adventure. Today, they are nowhere near liberating Palestine. But they’re very much in the same hole Nasrallah put his people in when he decided to stretch and franchise his resistance brand.

So Nasrallah lashes out at the evil Sunni regimes. This is all, he claimed, part of the plot to kill off the resistance in the region. Whether it’s bombardment of Gaza, or the Lebanese government trying to instill rule of law on its own territory, it’s all part of the same Arab-Israeli evil plot to shut down McNasrallah.

The hole that Hamas dug for itself and the people it hijacked may be getting deeper, but don’t count on this region’s inhabitants to lift the Palestinians out of this wretched existence, or see through Nasrallah’s rhetoric. Anger, most of it of course justified, is leading and blinding the way.  The tragic images from Gaza will provoke a lot of protests against the perpetrators of these war crimes. But will they provoke some soul searching, and re-examination of how best to get out of this vicious cycle? Is it through rockets, or a different kind of resistance?

Almost a year ago, "terrorists" blew up and killed a top Lebanese general, prompting the then army commander to insensitively proclaim, on television, and to the victim's family nonetheless, that the army has plenty of other soldiers like Francois. On the first anniversary of his assassination, we hear some decisive language, but sadly not comforting.

So who are the "terrorists"? And where do their "malignant roots" grow? In Baabda, where he was killed? In Damascus or Tehran, where the president seems to be extending his own roots?  It seems to me that the Lebanese military believes in the imaginary nation of Terrorism Land, where terrorists are born, bred and nurtured outside modern notions of time and space.

But then, Lebanese authorities cannot even distinguish traffic violators from law abiding citizens, so why expect them to see the roots of terror? That what we got, one year on, is a slight bending to the will of Assad as far as military policy is considered, shouldn't come as a surprise. Suleiman got the message, and he will never do it again. He has Aoun to learn from, and Hajj's blood to remind him of what fate awaits those who wage battles against Syria. They either become mentally unstable or get put on a death list. So creating a safe imaginary world will do.  

I don't know about you, but I am getting tired of all the assassination talk. First it was Suleiman Franjieh predicting that a major incident similar to the Hariri assassination will rock the nation of Lebanon.  And now March 14 deputies are predicting killings to "muddle the International Tribunal's work and monopolize people's decisions before the 2009 parliamentary elections".

These prognostications are taking place against a backdrop of high level visits to Assad's Syria and Iran, making the situation seem all the more absurd.

Nothing protects you against murder and inspires confidence like sending your top general to meet and seek military assistance from those who killed your country's former prime minister and massacred a bunch of MPs and journalists!

Sending the army commander so soon to Syria, and without any kind of coordination with the cabinet, sends another signal that Lebanon's military, exclusively led by the president, is following its own convoluted agenda. Michel Suleiman is using his meeting with Bashar a couple of months ago as a mandate to appease the Assad regime and force a normalization of ties between the two countries before borders are even demarcated. And just last week, this same president signed a 5-year "security pact" with the Iranian regime to supply Lebanon with "defensive weapons to be agreed upon in the framework of a defensive strategic system the Lebanese will formulate".

These activities make any fears about the harmful effects of engagement by the US and Europe look ridiculous, since the parties who will allegedly get hurt are now doing a lot worse (mind you Jumblatt is not too happy, and neither is March 14, but they're postponing any real opposition until after the elections). But if Lebanese officials are driven by a morbid sense of pragmatism, mixed with good old subservience and treason by some, there is no reason for some Western powers not to offer them all some backbone. Do Lebanese people not deserve carrots? Talk to the Syrians and Iranians all you want, but unless you have masochistic desires to see Lebanon turn into an Iranian satellite, do direct some effort to warn the delusional and disillusioned against signing the country away in defense agreements and joint security committees.