Beirut on the Brink
- 05.07.2008 - 3:16 PMLebanon is in turmoil again today, but this time the turmoil is clearer than it has been in the past. As things stand right now, members of Hezbollah are thugging their way through the streets of Beirut, setting fires, fighting, and dumping piles of dirt and trash in the roads in order to shut down the city. Most importantly, Hezbollah has closed the highway that connects Beirut to Lebanon’s major airport.
All of this is in response to a few brave and necessary actions recently taken by the Lebanese government. The cabinet voted to dismiss the Beirut airport security chief, a Hezbollah loyalist who allowed the group to set up a video surveillance system to monitor the airport. The government also ordered a judiciary probe of the independent telecommunications network that Hezbollah has been building, with Iranian assistance, in recent months.
So Hezbollah has responded by doing what it does best: sowing chaos and violence, escalating its confrontation with the Siniora government, and hoping that when the dust settles Siniora is weakened (or even removed from power) and Hezbollah is on stronger ground.
The flashpoint to watch is the airport road. Lebanon, like Israel, has only one major airport (although there is talk of quickly turning a smaller airport in the north into a functioning international hub), and its closure is debilitating and unacceptable. The Lebanese government faces the grave and immediate question of whether to capitulate to Hezbollah or to send troops to open the road, which Hezbollah has been covering with truckloads of landfill. Siniora says that his government will not back down; Hezbollah says that it now considers the Lebanese army as having “joined the enemy,” and might build a tent city on the airport road, just as it has done in downtown Beirut.
Hezbollah, though, is isolated in Lebanon as never before. In its latest tantrum, it operates without the sectarian cover of its erstwhile Christian ally, Michel Aoun; the fight is now more clearly than ever one of Hezbollah vs. Lebanon, rather than one of some Lebanese groups vs. some other Lebanese groups. This is bad for Hezbollah, because it puts them in a corner in terms of political tactics — there will be no alliance-shuffling and dealmaking in the offing, always the hallmarks of Lebanese crisis-management — and because it puts Nasrallah in a win/lose corner: either he forces the government to capitulate, or he is seen as having been defeated.
And Hezbollah’s military options against the Lebanese government aren’t clear, given that Hezbollah has organized itself to fight a rocket and guerrilla war against Israel, not street battles in Beirut. If Hezbollah forces an armed conflict, its fealty to Iran and fundamental hostility to Lebanon will be laid bare as never before. Stay tuned.
| »Back to Contentions | »Back to Commentary |
May 7th, 2008 at 4:59 PM
[…] | 4:58 pm I’ve gotten 2 emails alerting me to the situation in Lebanon, which Noah Pollak covers superbly. As things stand right now, members of Hezbollah are thugging their way through the […]
May 7th, 2008 at 5:31 PM
Boom. Lebanon reverts to the usual barbarity which infects the middle east, all because its most strident members know of only one way to negotiate anything: kill everyone who disagrees.
Hezbollah, Hamas, AQ…primitives who are busy dragging the societies in which they live back to the stone age.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:51 PM
When Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in 2006 and Israel struck back, the United States should have encouraged Israel to destroy Hezbollah. The US should have called upon the world to give Israel moral support and tactical, and perhaps there could have a been country somewhere that would have responded. Hezbollah has always been America’s enemy, and it is now training Shiite militants to fight in Iraq. Instead, President Bush joined Jacques Chirac of France to sponsor Security Council Resolution 1701, which saved Hezbollah from defeat.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:01 PM
[…] http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/4932 (thanks, as always, to instapundit.com for the link) These latest agitations are not in response to […]
May 7th, 2008 at 6:02 PM
Very strange for Nasrallah to have painted himself into this corner. He’s already out on a very long limb with his continued boycotting of the cabinet and obstructing the presidential vote. But there, as Noah mentions, he has the fig leaf of the FPM covering him.
A possible explanation is that the UN is ready to begin the Hariri Tribunal - perhaps as early as next month. If so, Nasrallah may be eager to keep the Tribunal from discovering some inconvenient truths about Hezb’allah’s role in Lebanese political violence and that of his patron Syria.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:18 PM
I question the timing of such a move by the Hezzies also, Rick. That’s a good observation.
They would rather apply pressure to the Lebanese army than Israel’s. In that respect it makes sense. They are creating a diversion with the least amount of military blowback.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:19 PM
So sad. I lived in Beirut as a kid, back in the 1960’s, and a more wonderful and eclectic city didn’t exist in the world… always something fun to do or see, happy friendly people…
now it’s just another victim of militant Islam. That is the single most destructive and vile force I have ever known. I”m not old enough to have seen Nazi Germany but I can’t help thinking that, apart from the organization, it couldn’t have been any worse than these people.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:31 PM
George, please be quiet. The Israeli campaign in 2006 was an example of studied incompetence.The U.S. and the French saved the Israelis from further embarrassment.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:45 PM
If Hezbollah provokes Israel into this fight, I hope the IDF sends it’s bombers to Damascus this time. I suspect that would a great morale boost for the Free Lebanese.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:50 PM
I DK about the french, but the US certainly hoped israel would debilitate hezballah out of the game, and israel failed. But it was not due just to the leadership crisis in israel. it was also due to the lethal combination of islamo-fascist hiding among civilians and the useful idiots of the MSM who, for various reasons, buy the jihadist propaganda lock stock and barrel. with an incompetent israeli elite this combination is highly effective in inhibiting israel for blasting the barbarians to smithereens. the west does not comprehend that by inhibiting israel its preparing its own grave.
oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/