The End of the Dissociation Policy

Ibrahim al-Amine

Al-Akhbar daily, 23-03-2013

In spite of the too many details, and the fresh facts--starting with the Rome journey of House Speaker Nabih Berri and [outgoing] Prime Minister Najib Mikati, to the staunch conviction of the President of the Republic, Michel Suleiman, of the necessity to alter the internal political situation and the contacts over the latest two Cabinet sessions-the resignation of Najib Mikati is certainly at the core of the Syrian crisis.

Pertaining to the internal factors linked to what is happening in Syria, several notes are worth-mentioning:

The ballooning US, European, and Arab custody of a major political camp in Lebanon, including President Suleiman, Premier Mikati, and MP Walid Jumblatt, has become barefaced. These countries seemed concerned with refusing any new elections law that would torpedo the majority of March 14 camp and threaten the size of kingmaker Walid Jumblatt. Subsequently, they vehemently mobilized to obstruct an agreement on a law that does not comply with their strategy.

Moreover, the confusion which struck Kataeb and the Lebanese Forces parties was not enough to venture into the battle of ratifying the Orthodox proposal.
As the Suleiman-Mikati-Jumblatt trio insisted on pressing Berri into maneuvering to tumble the Orthodox law, the House Speaker might have erred by not dashing to refer the said proposal to the Parliament. But the trio immediately embarked upon entering the preventive battle aimed to render the 1960 law a de facto matter. This team assumed that it could wield pressure on the President and the Prime Minister to achieve this goal. Once again, the trio corroborates that it worked as per an agreement with the Speaker. Otherwise, why did Berri accept not to convene the Parliament to discuss the Orthodox proposal? However, the trio missed that the deciding forces would not give in to blackmailing again.

Other factors are related to the security juncture in the country. Not only did the West and the Arabs of the West work on putting the Lebanese army aside, preventing it from terminating the precarious chaos, and waving to divide and splinter it, but they also demanded to keep the Internal Security Forces institution under direct tutelage. This camp found that keeping Major General Ashraf Rifi in office a stringent need after the assassination of General Wissam Hassan.

The West and the Arabs did not spare any opportunity to highlight this matter, from the repeated statements of US ambassador to Lebanon, to the President and Premier's pledge to extend Rifi's mandate Saudi envoy alleges to have received, and the French Prime Minister's broaching this affair with Mikati and telling him, "President Hollande recommends to renew for Rifi."

At that very moment, the trio-quite defiant today-seemed concerned as concerted mediations took off waving a bargain to pass the elections supervision committee's formation and extend Rifi's tenure. More specifically, Mikati was seeking to reap a pointblank promise from the House Speaker. As he failed, he sought to at least obtain a promise from Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement. The surprise was that Hizbullah answered Mikati just minutes before he announced his resignation: "Do whatever you see suitable!"

Now that analyses and stories about the internal domestic gridlock will surge, the bigger congestion is linked to the place of Mikati's step on the course of the Syrian crisis. Accordingly, the following is worth noting:

- The rush of the Arab and international camp opposing to the Syrian regime to taking field measure aimed to increase the political and on-the-ground pressure; from suppressing any initiative by any oppositionist-like isolating Moaz al-Khatib-to breaching the US-Russian agreement and appointing a Prime Minister for the transitional government, and staging the widest training and gearing up operation for gunmen inside Syria and in Jordan and Turkey, with a view to devising a plan the Turkish will be assigned to announce, considering that it would be the watershed battle against the regime during the next three months.

- The crystallization of the real outcome of the visit of US President Barack Obama to Palestine and Jordan, where he solicited the Palestinian President to intensify prayers. Obama was also firm with the Jordanian King in terms of the necessity to fully implicate in the front endeavoring against Bashar Assad. Most importantly, Obama compelled the "Israeli" command to keep quiet and abstain from taking any initiative against Iran, Syria, or Hizbullah, and to reconcile with Turkey to clinch a new level of coordination between "Israel" and Turkey, especially that they are nowadays before one sole enemy, that is Bashar Assad.

- A US-European-Gulf mobilization against Hizbullah, which was mainly embodied in energizing the dossier of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, pressing ahead with driving Europe to enlist Hizbullah as a terrorist group, wide spreading a climate of provocation against the party and depicting it as a threat to the daily bread of the Lebanese in the Arab world, directly pressuring the Prime Minister to do what it takes to downplay the presence of Hizbullah inside the government, concerting the campaign against it by Islamic forces in order to intimidate it with Sunni-Shia discord, and setting a special file titled "the role of Hizbullah in Syria."
Building on the aforementioned, one may jump to worrisome conclusions:

- Completely relinquishing the motto of dissociation from the Syrian crisis. Albeit the slogan is not realistic in principle, the government's resignation entails Lebanon's direct implication. Security tension are thus predictable, not just along borders with Syria, but also on the Lebanese soil, in tandem with additional pressure on the army to prevent it from any deterrence, and with considering the ISF an institution en route to division, which eventually means inefficiency.

- He who stands behind this "stupid" step is strongly betting on decisive changes in Syria soon. An eminent security figure relates that he is time after time surprised by the fact that some world capitals are behaving on the basis that war in Syria is about to end and that the regime is about to fall. This bet means the exposure of the Lebanese arena to waves of tensions, considering that this would disturb Hizbullah and hence prevent it from aiding Assad's ruling.

- The political chaos will last, and elections are ipso facto postponed. Furthermore, the trilateral political alignment of Suleiman, Mikati, and Jumblatt will somehow reinvigorate March 14 camp, which poles seemed to have rushed to holding contacts to arrange new cars and neckties, with the high hopes of occupying key presidential, ministerial and security positions...

May God Have Mercy!