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Lebanon

Lebanon’s new government cause for guarded optimism

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salam

No one had high hopes that Tammam Salam would form a new government for Lebanon, and now that he has, the expectations for the Salam government are low — that he’ll see Lebanon through to a presidential election in May and parliamentary elections that have been delayed since last year.Lebanon

Ten months after the resignation of former prime minister Najib Mikati, Salam has assembled a national unity government that tries to bring together elements within the ‘March 8’ coalition sympathetic to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, including the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, and other elements within the ‘March 14’ coalition that have closer ties to the West and sympathies for the Syrian rebels in a civil war that’s soon to enter its fourth year.  The Syrian conflict has flared occasionally in Lebanon as well, with anti-Assad Sunni Lebanese and pro-Assad Shiite Lebanese clashing in Beirut and other cities.  At the end of 2013,  the assassination of prominent ‘March 14’ leader and former US ambassador Mohamed Chatah only underlined the fragility of Lebanon’s security.

The new 24-member Cabinet allocates eight positions to the ‘March 8’ coalition, nine positions to the ‘March 14’ coalition and seven more positions to those close to Salam, top Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and outgoing Lebanese president Michel Suleiman.

Salam must still reach a compromise over his government’s ‘policy statement,’ which will likely include little more than caretaker steps to get Lebanon its next elections and attention to ameliorating the growing crisis for Syrian refugees that have fled their country for Lebanon.  His government must then win a confidence vote in the parliament — an outcome not entirely ensured if the two competing blocs can’t agree to even the most basic guiding policy statement.

Last month, former prime minister Saad Hariri, the leader of the Future Movement, a top party within the ‘March 14’ coalition, and the son of the late former prime minister Rafic Hariri, backed away from his opposition to participating in a government that also includes Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, which is openly backing Assad in Syria, now faces violent repercussions throughout Lebanon, with Shiite-dominated areas of Beirut and southern Lebanon increasingly targeted by Sunni militants in retribution for Hezbollah’s efforts in Syria.  Hariri, who has been living outside Lebanon for the past two years out of fears for his safety.

The tentative breakthrough between Hezbollah and the Hariri bloc could pave the way for future cooperation over electing Suleiman’s successor, enacting a new election law and, most importantly of all, reducing the sectarian tension that still threatens to engulf Lebanon.

Accomplishing much in the next three months, however, won’t be incredibly easy — meaning that the chief accomplishment of the Salam government might be the fact that it even exists. Continue reading Lebanon’s new government cause for guarded optimism →

Lebanon

The legacy of Mohamad Chatah — and his tragic assassination

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Chatah

Mohamad Chatah, a leader of the ‘March 14’ coalition in Lebanon and former ambassador to the United States, was killed in a Beirut car bomb blast on Friday in perhaps the most chilling political assassination in Lebanon since former prime minister Rafic Hariri was killed in 2005. Lebanon

Just a couple of hours before his death, Chatah tweeted the following message out to the world:

It’s a macabre epitaph for a man who spent his career pulling his country away from the impact of both Sunni and Shiite militants in favor of a vision of a modern, moderate and prosperous Lebanon.  Chatah, who was born in Tripoli, the Sunni-dominant city in Lebanon’s north, was a top advisor to Hariri, and other relatively anti-Assad prime ministers, including Rafic Hariri’s his son Saad and Fouad Siniora.  An economist who worked at the International Monetary Fund between the 1980s and 2005, Chatah served as Lebanon’s ambassador to the United States between 1997 and 2000.  After Hariri’s assassination in 2005, Chatah returned to Lebanon, where he served as a vice-governor of Lebanon’s central bank and, from 2008 to 2009, its finance minister.

Since the 2005 assassination, Lebanese politics has been polarized between the ‘March 14’ coalition (comprised of moderate Sunnis and Maronite Christians) that opposed the role Syria played in internal Lebanese affairs and the ‘March 8’ coalition (comprised of mostly Shiite Lebanese, Greek Orthodox, other Sunnis and a minority of militant Maronites) that were more pro-Syria.  Druze political leaders, the most prominent of which is Walid Jumblatt, are often play the determining role in which coalition holds power.  As Syria has descended into civil war, however, the two coalitions have taken increasingly strong positions over Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.  Even as most of Lebanon’s political elite have strained to keep their country from being sucked into Syria’s violence, the ‘March 8’ coalition is much more sympathetic to Assad and the ‘March 14’ coalition much less so.

Chatah was certainly among the most vocal opponents of both Assad and of Hezbollah (حزب الله‎), the Shiite militia and political group that is now openly and notoriously working to support the Alwaite (a Shi’a sect) Assad regime and has ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose leadership is also Shiite.  Sunni Salafists from Lebanon are also fighting openly and notoriously on behalf of chiefly Sunni anti-Assad rebels.  Just last week, Chatah wrote an open letter to Iran’s new president Hassan Rowhani to help reduce Hezbollah’s role in Syria in the hopes of stabilizing Lebanon.  It’s hard not to see Chatah’s death as a direct message from Assad supporters to the ‘March 14’ coalition.

Chatah was buried earlier today amid anti-Hezbollah chants, and Saad Hariri blamed Hezbollah directly on Friday:

“Those who assassinated Mohammad Shatah are the ones who assassinated Rafik Hariri; they are the ones who want to assassinate Lebanon,” the former prime minister said.

“The suspects are those who are running away from international justice and refuse to appear in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon; they are the ones opening the window of evil and chaos to Lebanon and the Lebanese and are drawing regional fires,” he added…. “Anger exists and we are heartbroken and we will remain heartbroken. But wisdom is needed so that we can build the Lebanon we dream of,” he added.

Though Lebanon hasn’t descended into outright war, sectarian tensions are rising: Continue reading The legacy of Mohamad Chatah — and his tragic assassination →