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.

THE MEANING OF LEBANON

They quarreled with Rafiq Hariri's way of rebuilding Beirut, dismissing his renewal project as an assault on the capital's archaeological heritage and the graceful old city of fabled memory. They wrote off his ambitious economic policy, pointing to the vast public debt that accumulated under his stewardship. Many Lebanese saw Hariri as Saudi Arabia's man, never quite taking to the swashbuckling way he climbed to the heights of power. But on February 14, when the former prime minister was struck down by a huge bomb that shattered his motorcade as it passed near Beirut's swank hotels and sea front -- in the very district his construction company had remade from rubble -- Lebanon had its first "martyr" in many years.

Hariri had not been a vocal opponent of Syria, but the opposition now claimed him as its own. He had risen through the subtle workings of politics and power, but "the street" now belonged to him. A Sunni Muslim, he had never bonded entirely with the Christians of East Beirut and Mount Lebanon, but he now became public property, a symbol of national unity. If Hariri's assassins sought to make an example of him for his growing defiance of Syrian power, the aftermath of the crime mocked them. A country forgotten and consigned to the captivity of its eastern neighbor shook off its fear and reticence. For the span of a generation, Lebanon was merely an appendage of Syrian power: for all practical purposes, the small republic left the world of independent nations. But now the Lebanese were clamoring for a return to normalcy, calling their spontaneous eruption the "independence intifada."

Lebanon, with a distinctive history and character, was not, after all, a part of "Greater Syria"; it would not be written off as a strategic consolation prize for a regime locked into an increasingly uneven standoff with Israel. It had taken a quarter century of guile for the late Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad to consolidate his power over Lebanon (although Syria's occupation officially dates from 1990). He did it, alternately, by stealth and brutality. There was no blitzkrieg like Saddam Hussein's conquest of Kuwait; the trappings of Lebanese sovereignty were kept but were emptied of content. But now, in one brazen act of terror, the Syrian presence in Lebanon would become a concern of the world.

It is safe to assume that no inquiry will establish with certainty if the Syrians were responsible for the deed. It is likely that the trail to Damascus will never be found. Access to the "crime scene" -- Lebanon itself -- has been limited, and Syria's regime of satraps in Beirut has done its best to hamper a thorough investigation of the crime. But the Lebanese opposition has no doubt as to the identity of the assailants, and is taking matters into its own hands.

SHIFTING GROUND

If the outrage within Lebanon broke through the old taboos of the Syrian-Lebanese relationship, the international setting has been dramatically transformed as well. France and the United States feuded over Iraq; Syria's occupation of Lebanon has provided them with an opportunity for common purpose. Assad's inexperienced heir, his son Bashar, is now caught in an international storm destined to be the test of his regime.

In 1990-91, in the context of a radically different international order, the world averted its gaze as Syria destroyed the last vestiges of Lebanon's independence. That was the price willingly paid by President George H.W. Bush for enlisting Damascus in the first campaign against Saddam. Those were good wages garnered by the Syrians. Syria did little for the coalition but was accepted as the gendarmerie of a volatile Lebanese polity. Then the outside world forgot about Lebanon. The missionaries, businesspeople, writers, and spooks who had known the country wandered away or aged. The dominant impression of Lebanon became that of a country given to tribal atavisms and bottomless feuds.

But more than a decade later, U.S. power positioned itself in Iraq, directly on Syria's eastern border. Pax Americana's tolerance for bargains with strongmen had substantially eroded since the September 11 attacks. True, Syria had not merited charter membership in President George W. Bush's "axis of evil." The Syrians warded off danger by "turning state's evidence" -- sharing what intelligence they had about the countless jihadists who hailed from Syria. But even as Syria tried to sit out the campaign in Iraq, it could not do so entirely. The lucrative Syrian trade of reexporting Iraqi oil in violation of international sanctions -- bringing in a windfall of some $1 billion a year -- was one casualty of this war. The other was most of Syria's leverage with the United States. Damascus had no real claims on Washington's loyalty and indulgence. The sort of access to the Pax Americana enjoyed by Cairo and Riyadh was not available to Syria's rulers. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Damascus had voted for a Security Council resolution authorizing Iraq's disarmament. But that could not buy Syria indefinite protection against the United States' wrath. Indeed, Bashar al-Assad and his cronies could be forgiven their worries that their regime could be the next target in U.S. cross hairs. The spectacle of the Iraqi dictator chased into his "spider hole" provided a cautionary tale. Hard as Damascus may have tried to maintain that Iraq was not its affair, the toppling of the Baathist tyranny next door was a crystal ball in which Syria's rulers could glimpse intimations of their own demise.