Dignity Promotion for Lebanon
- 05.16.2008 - 1:36 PMDavid Brooks must have noticed, as I did, Barack Obama’s bizarre statement on the Lebanon crisis. So he called Obama on the phone to find out if he really meant what he said:
I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform. He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites “to peel support away from Hezbollah” and encourage the local populace to “view them as an oppressive force.” The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”
The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.”
Brooks might not have noticed, but Obama just doubled-down on the message of his initial Lebanon statement. Samantha Power may no longer be with the campaign, but Obama articulated precisely her prescription for combating Islamic supremacist groups, who, in the Obama/Power worldview, rise to power and retain political saliency because they seek to address the legitimate grievances of a “disaffected” (Obama’s word) people.
There are several assumptions at work here: that Hezbollah is popular among the Lebanese Shia because of its provision of material benefits, like medical clinics, instead of a compelling ideological message; that Hezbollah will peacefully acquiesce to western social-services projects in Lebanon; that the Shia will be inspired by promises to improve their standard of living, rather than Hezbollah’s promise of religious glory and political dominance; that Hezbollah is a manifestation of domestic Lebanese conditions, and can thus be addressed by solving domestic Lebanese problems. None of these premises comes close to being true.
Obama’s mention of Hamas was appropriate, but not in the way he thinks it was. Hamas slaughters Israelis on behalf of the “legitimate claims” and “grievances” of a group of people whose plight has rarely in history been more thoroughly salved with social services. The West Bank and Gaza are awash in UN- and EU-funded schools, medical clinics, and sinecure jobs programs. Even the trash in the West Bank is collected by large white garbage trucks with the letters “UN” stenciled on the sides. If social services “peel support away” from groups like Hezbollah, as Obama insists, why has Islamic radicalism become more and more popular in the Palestinian territories precisely while outside social services have gotten ever more expansive?
Make no mistake: Obama is not backing down from his promise of a dignity-promotion foreign policy. In its first act, he will insist on recognizing the legitimacy of the “grievances” of Iran’s proxy terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. The message is clear: terrorism and savagery will win an audience with the American president. Please pardon me for calling this appeasement.
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May 16th, 2008 at 3:06 PM
Your list of assumptions about the attitudes of Lebanon’s Shi’a is an excellent one. Too bad you dismissed it with an offhand “none of these premises comes close to being true.” I am not aware that anyone really knows the answer for any of these premises. If you do, you are truly an extraordinarily well informed expert on Lebanon. So…what is your evidence? Because you are correct - these are the assumptions of people who argue that bombing is not the answer, that the lives of the poor and politically marginalized must be taken into account to overcome Islamic extremism.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:25 PM
“Delivery of services” stops the violence? Saudi Arabia which sent 19 murderers to our country makes hundreds of billions of dollars per year from oil sales! What services will Obama give them? The root cause Obama is looking for is Islamic ideology.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:40 PM
” I am not aware that anyone really knows the answer for any of these premises. ”
lol why don’t you talk to a lebanese shia, genius. there are millions of them
hezbollah is hugely popular in lebanon because unlike the lebanese government they aren’t seen as tools of the west and won’t stand idly by while israel drops bombs on them.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:01 PM
William Mills:
It is the “poor and politically marginalized” who danced in the streets on 9/11/2001. It is the poor and politically marginalized who send their children off to be suicide bombers.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:09 PM
The problems of Lebanon are not solvable because the country is nonviable as constructed. There is nothing anyone can do to change that.
While it is true that the Sunni and Christian elites of Lebanon in the past did not do anything to develop the Shia parts of the country or give them equal opportunity in education, etc., doing that now would not solve the problem. The Shia, like all Muslim triumphalists, want to impose their version of Islam and their cultural attitudes on the more liberal, westernized Christians and Sunnis. Of course, they will never agree to this (and neither will the Druze).
Lebanon, therefore, is like Yugoslavia, an artificially constructed country of incompatible cultural groups that should be partitioned. How to partition such a small country like Lebanon, and what to do with multiethnic Beirut, not to mention the neighboring countries who have “interests”, is most likely another unsolvable problem.
Nobody has any realistic or convincing solutions, so the conflict will rumble on. The real powder keg, however, will be the unraveling of Syria, which has the same existential ethnic problems as Lebanon, but is a much bigger and more important player in the region. Stay tuned for that episode.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:14 PM
ellen- do you know any syrians or lebanese?
you seem to be just supposing things, making them up based on your limited understanding of the region. do you think canadians live in igloos?
syria and lebanon are real places and the people who live there wake up go to work and watch tv like you or I. christian and muslim alike. sheesh
May 16th, 2008 at 4:29 PM
Let’s face it. Obama’s foreign policy will revolve around the concept that there isn’t anything that a few “community organizers” can’t fix. Ya know, been there, done that! Root cause of grievances solved by government provided social services. Folks just need to be organized so as to better lobby their local government. Takes a genius like Obama to sort out these issues.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:47 PM
food and oil will overtake all of these. you’ll dream of the days when we could talk about confronting iran. when oil is 200 a barrel and ceral costs 8 dollars a box you’ ll be singing old lesters tune: bulldoze the beltway!
May 16th, 2008 at 5:50 PM
Lester put down your bong. Oh forgive me, hookah.
Ellen is completely right. Lebanon is a false construct set up by the British and French. In fact there are those who have suggested over many decades that the entire Middle East, as drawn, was specifically designed to engender discord. A casual perusal of boundary lines, from Turkey south and east, randomly drawn through historic tribal regions speaks to diabolical Stalinesque intrigue.
As to Lebanon itself the moments of peace are accidental. They come from exhaustion both in Lebanon itself and in Syria it’s puppet master these last 29 years.
Hezbollah is just the latest in criminal mafias that roam the Middle East pretending to address civic, spiritual or whatever the flavor of the day demands are but at their core lies a blood lust using Israel as their excuse. If Israel disappeared tomorrow they won’t. What is certain is Lebanon’s continued tribal bloodletting. It’s just chapter 3673 in the centuries old Sunni/Shia schism.
Enjoy the interlude. God help us if that Iman ever crawls out of the well!
May 16th, 2008 at 6:11 PM
Patrick you are totally correct, as am I. Do you want to know how you can tell when borders are completely artificial in their construction, rather than conforming to real ethnic and demographic realities? When they are straight lines drawn down a map. No realistic border would ever be a straight line - it would twist and turn, following demographic demarcations and tribal fiefdoms.
Most of the borders created by the perfidious Sykes-Picot agreement in 1921, dividng up the Middle East into artificial countries, were straight lines because they were drawn in European sitting rooms, rather than created by natural forces. That’s why they are so phony and so non-sustainable.