How to solve the Mideast crises

Illustration by Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News

January 12, 2007

By Patrick Seale

Imagine for just a moment that, instead of a stubborn and belligerent president in the White House, instead of an impotent UN Security Council, a divided Europe, a squabbling Israeli cabinet and a seething Muslim world, there were a benevolent angel able to wave a healing wand over the Middle East.

What would he (or perhaps she, because we don't know the sex of angels) do?

The angel might begin with Lebanon because, in spite of appearances, it could be the easiest crisis to solve. The heart of Lebanon's problem would seem to be that the Shiite community, mainly located in the south of the country and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, has for long been denied its fair share of state power.

Since independence 60 years ago, this community has been neglected by the central government. It is now demanding its rightful place.

The discrimination the Shiites have suffered is all the more striking because today they constitute the largest single community in Lebanon and, virtually single-handed, have defended the country against Israel's repeated assaults and invasions from the 1970s to the present.

Lebanon's National Pact of 1943, a power-sharing agreement between Maronites and Sunnis which was amended at Taif in 1989, no longer reflects Lebanon's demographic and political realities. A new pact is required which will ensure a better representation of all communities in the country's institutions.

Ideally, the Lebanese should decide to abolish the confessional system altogether, which has been the source of many conflicts and replace it by a new model of secular citizenship, in which any capable Lebanese - man or woman, Christian or Muslim - should be able to accede to the highest positions in the state.

Twenty-one years ago, in January 1986, former president Ameen Gemayel proposed that a post of vice-president of the Republic should be created for the Shiites. That proposal was not adopted. Today, a still more radical reform is required to overcome the sterile ideological quarrels which are tearing Lebanon apart.

Such a reform should not be seen as a threat to Lebanon's other communities or to the interests of any external power. On the contrary, by consolidating Lebanon's national unity, it would be a major contribution to the stability of the entire region.

The angel would also need to direct his or her attention to healing Lebanon's relations with Syria, which have been severely battered over the past couple of years. Yet, a permanent estrangement between Beirut and Damascus is unthinkable.

Carved out of the same flesh, the two countries are indispensable to each other. But, for the current hostility to be overcome, mistakes must be corrected. Officials of both countries responsible for past crimes and abuses must be punished.

The angel would probably recommend that senior officials from both countries - perhaps at prime ministerial level - should arrange to meet soon, in a neutral country like Switzerland, to put an official end to their quarrel and hammer out the terms for future coexistence.

Diplomatic relations should be established on a basis of dialogue not coercion, and ambassadors exchanged.

History and geography dictate that Syria and Lebanon are bound together by a "special relationship", unique in the region. The immediate task is to put these relations on a healthy basis.

Resolving Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and with Syria may require not just a single supernatural mediator but an entire heavenly host of angels and archangels.

The problem is that Israel has so far been unable to produce a government willing and able to do what is necessary - namely withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, including Arab Jerusalem, dismantle the colonies and come down from the Golan. All hope, however, is not entirely lost.

As for US President George W. Bush, it is reliably reported that he is causing much despair among the community of angels. Instead of seeking to resolve Middle East conflicts by encouraging Israel to seek peace with its neighbours and by engaging Iran and Syria in dialogue, he is doing the very opposite.

A shadowy group of Washington officials drawn from the State Department, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the CIA has been plotting to bring about "regime change" in Syria, by providing generous funding to opposition groups and at the same time cripple Iran by undermining its banking system and preventing foreign firms from investing in and developing its oil fields.

Biggest headache

The war in Iraq is by far Bush's biggest headache. But he is evidently not yet ready to acknowledge defeat and wind up this disastrous adventure.

All the indications are that, against the sage advice of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, he is still intent on pursuing his bankrupt "victory strategy" - a doomed enterprise in which more lives and much treasure will be thrown away.

But that is not the end of Bush's mischief. Driven by such neoconservative hawks as Eliott Abrams at the National Security Council, the US is seeking to destabilise Hezbollah in Lebanon - in effect, to complete the job Israel failed to do last summer.

To achieve this goal, the US has been arming the Internal Security Forces of the Siniora government and has put great pressure on General Michel Aoun, the Christian leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, to break with Hezbollah.

The US seems equally determined to destroy the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas by supplying arms, training and tens of millions of dollars to its Fatah rival.

This appears to be another covert programme conceived by Eliott Abrams and implemented on the ground by David Welsh, a senior State Department official.

Rather than bringing peace to the troubled region, these programmes will fan the flames of war. Little wonder that the angels are said to shake their heads in despair at the folly of men. There is even talk that they may give up their healing mission in disgust.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.