I just came back from a long weekend in Beirut, and I have learnt quite a few new things. Politically, the Lebanese seemed obsessed with two events, both originating from Syria. One is the deployment of Syrian troops on the border with Lebanon, close to Tripoli where fundamentalists have been engaged in streetbattles for weeks.
The Syrians claim that this measure is to protect Syria's own national security, since terrorists are sneaking into Syria, and they cite the terrorist attack in Damascus on September 27, 2008, which claimed the lives of 17 Syrians.
In this regard, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad told Lebanese journalist Melhem Karam that terrorists had shifted focus from the battlefields of Lebanon to Syria, and that his country would spare no efforts in eradicating the fundamentalist threat. And just the last week, a terrorist group was arrested in the Yarmouk Camp in Damascus, with arms smuggled in either from Baghdad or Tripoli.
Syrians claim that both the events were not homegrown. They were channelled into Syria either from the mayhem of Tripoli, or the wilderness of Iraq.
However, the Lebanese are crying foul, completely downplaying the Syrian argument and claiming that Syria is preparing for another military "invasion" of Lebanon.
Strange as the argument may seem - since the security situation is completely different from 1976 - there are well-placed Lebanese within the political community who are seemingly very convinced of this argument.
But no matter how loud the Syrians say it, some parties in Lebanon don't want to listen: nobody in Damascus is thinking of returning to Lebanon. That adventure was too costly, politically, militarily, and financially, and led to a lot of bilateral corruption that was frowned upon by ordinary Syrians. It gave Syria a bad name.
It led to the smuggling of state-subsidised Syrian gas, for example, costing the Syrian treasury millions and leading to the lifting of the price of gas in Syria. It led to the Syrians getting blamed for every ill that happened in Lebanon. It also led to a grand opening of the Syrian economy - one of the positive symptoms of leaving Lebanon - where private banks were opened in Syria, along with insurance companies, universities, schools and markets.
When the Syrians went into Lebanon in 1976 it was an unpopular decision at the grassroots level, frowned upon by ordinary Syrians. Syria was talked into entering Lebanon in 1976 by then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger believed that once the Syrians sank into Lebanese quicksand, they would place full military weight in the battle for Beirut and this would distract them from fighting Israel, at a time when he was delicately working with Anwar Sadat to achieve peace on the Israeli-Egyptian front.
Kissinger's way
Calling on the Syrians to enter Lebanon was Kissinger's way of further securing the borders of Israel. Instead of telling the Syrians, "Beware, if you enter Lebanon, so will Israel" Kissinger famously used the argument, "if you don't enter Lebanon, Israel will!"
That is now history.
Yet, what makes it more startling for worried Lebanese in 2008 is that the US seems completely un-interested in what is happening in Lebanon and that the objectives of the "Cedar Revolution" which were once a high priority for the Bush Administration have almost completely been crossed off the American list.
The Americans are more worried about the snowballing economic crisis at home, Iran's nuclear file and the pending security agreement with Nouri Al Maliki's Iraq. The last meeting between Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Mua'alem and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (their second in a year) added to Lebanese fears that a Syrian-US deal was being struck at the expense of Lebanon.
Mua'alem and his US counterpart discussed the situation in Iraq and the pending indirect Syrian-Israeli peace talks in Turkey. Rice reportedly showed a fresh interest in the peace talks, signalling a change in the US attitude towards Syria.
Previously, the Americans had argued that Syria was more interested in a peace process, to end the US-imposed isolation on Damascus, than a peace treaty. Syria's willingness to attend the Annapolis Conference in the US last November, despite the loud objections of both Hamas and Iran and its own conviction that Annapolis would not bring about Middle East peace, was a positive signal noted in Washington.
The Lebanese realise that Ehud Barak will be more determined to achieve peace with Damascus. With him heading the talks, and the US showing interest to possibly attend the upcoming round (through US Undersecretary of State David Welch), this very much might lead to a breakthrough in Syria's relationship with the entire international community.
Gone would be the sanctions placed on Syria. Gone would be the Hariri Tribunal. And gone would be the policy of not talking to the Syrians.
Above all, it will be topped with the cementing of ties between Syria and France, and the fact that Washington is afraid of strengthening relations between Damascus and Moscow, make the situation for March 14, the Lebanese opposition grouping, all the more troubling.
What equally troubles the anti-Syrian camp in Lebanon is another conviction that Syria and Iran have made a deal about the peace talks. Many in Beirut were banking on Iran being opposed to the Syrian-Israeli talks in Turkey.
There is now fear that the following deal has been made: Syria helps Iran with its nuclear negotiations, in exchange for Iran not vetoing the indirect talks with Turkey. Reportedly, the Syrians can use their influence in the international community, and the fact that they are viewed as more credible, honest and less anti-American than the Iranians, to help Iran solve its problems with the UN, Europe and the US.
In exchange for Syria's help, Tehran would turn a blind eye if a peace deal is formulated between Damascus and Tel Aviv. When that happens, some imaginative players in March 14 believe, the Syrians would be given a carte blanche to re-enter Lebanon and "right all the wrongs" done to them by UNSCR 1559 and the exodus from Lebanon after the assassination of Rafik Al Hariri in 2005.
Dr Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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