The Autumn of the Autocrats

Fouad Ajami

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005

Summary:  If the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri sought to make an example of him for his defiance of Syria, the aftermath of the crime has mocked them. For a generation, Lebanon was an appendage of Syrian power. But now the Lebanese people, in an "independence intifada," are clamoring for a return to normalcy. The old Arab edifice of power has survived many challenges in the past, but something is different this time: the United States is now willing to gamble on freedom.

Fouad Ajami is Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Lebanon's identity was at stake, but the backward Syrian regime showed no signs of retreat. A military presence passed off as a counter to Israel's "security zone" in the south had taken Israel's May 2000 withdrawal in stride, as though nothing had happened. The Syrians could have left well enough alone: they could have abandoned Lahoud and chosen another proxy from the Maronite political class. But Bashar al-Assad lacked his father's touch. He was determined to get his way, if only to show that nothing had changed since Hafiz's death. Prime Minister Hariri, a bitter enemy of Lahoud, was summoned to Damascus, where he was informed that the decision to extend Lahoud's mandate had already been made. The meeting between Hariri and Assad lasted only several minutes. A man of great wealth, who had been prime minister for 10 of the preceding 12 years, was shown little respect.

Hariri knew he would be a marked man if he opted for a break with Syria. He hedged his bets, submitted his resignation, and let the word out that he was probing his political options. His government was replaced by one of quislings. The relative legitimacy that had been accorded his cabinet was denied the successor government. Syria now faced the prospect of an immensely influential Sunni Muslim, the leading figure of his community, bringing his followers -- and his substantial wealth and international standing -- into the opposition.

It was in the midst of this crisis that the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559, sponsored by France and the United States, calling for a "free and fair electoral process in Lebanon's upcoming presidential election ... without foreign interference" and for "all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon." The timing was telling: the Security Council vote took place on September 2 of last year; the hapless Lebanese parliament rubber-stamped Syria's extension of Lahoud's tenure a day later.

It was immensely important that Washington and Paris worked together. In the new effort to push Syria out of Lebanon, the United States was free of the burden, and the taint, of unilateralism. Europe had substantial assets to bring to the fight, if only because the U.S. economic, cultural, and political presence in Syria had been rather limited in comparison.

French diplomacy may have been "pacifist" over Iraq, but Paris still felt the tug of its imperial memory. The Mediterranean coastline and the hill country of Lebanon were once French domains. France's language and culture left their indelible mark on the people of Mount Lebanon. The traffic between France and Lebanon's Maronites goes back centuries. In 1860, Napoleon III dispatched a French expedition to Lebanon to help the Maronites after a communal war broke out between them and the Druze. French power, in 1920, created the modern republic of Lebanon, bequeathed it its favorable borders, annexing to the Maronite Mount Lebanon the coastal cities of the Mediterranean, the Bekaa Valley to the east, and the Shia hinterland to the south. And beyond old memories, personal friendship was no doubt a factor: President Jacques Chirac was a close friend of Hariri's for years. The Syrian rulers, generally given to a healthy dose of paranoia, were convinced that Hariri had played a big role in drafting Resolution 1559 and that French diplomacy, in turn, had stiffened U.S. resolve against Syria.

But even before Hariri's tragic death reawakened interest in Lebanon's fate, Syria's occupation was being called into question. In his State of the Union address on February 2, 2005, President Bush announced a departure from the old U.S. reticence: "Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act, and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror, and open the door to freedom." The Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, a congressional initiative of 2003, had given the president broad authority to impose a range of economic sanctions and restrictions on Syria. The White House had initially treated the initiative with some reserve, and so its embrace by Bush signaled a change in official policy.

In the aftermath of Hariri's assassination, Bush upped the ante: Syrian armed forces had to quit Lebanon and take with them their intelligence operatives. There was no small irony in this twist of history: fifteen years earlier, George H.W. Bush and Hafiz al-Assad had struck a deal that liquidated Lebanon's independence; now their sons were bringing that deal to an end. It was fitting that the edifice of Syrian control secured in the first campaign against Saddam was being undone in the course of the second.

Syria never fully assimilated how different the world had become after September 11. In March 2001, Cardinal Sfeir had journeyed to the United States, where he sought an audience with Bush -- in vain. This was, after all, the time of realism: no one wanted to offend Damascus or stir up the passions of Lebanese nationalism. Four years later, however, a president who had "planted the flag of liberty" in Arab lands had no choice but to take up the cause of Lebanon's independence. The war on terror came to Lebanon's rescue. If the Middle East was to be repaired, then the establishment of a legitimate system of authority in Lebanon was of paramount concern. Damascus held effective power but was not accountable; Beirut retained the trappings of sovereignty but could not deliver public order or maintain peace in its territory.

THE HEZBOLLAH EFFECT