U.S. stance on cease-fire angers Lebanese
Resistance to quick truce has many feeling betrayed
CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST
By Liz Sly
Tribune foreign correspondent
chicagotribune.com
July 26, 2006
BEIRUT -- With civilian casualties mounting and no end to the fighting in sight, anger is growing among ordinary Lebanese over the United States' refusal to back calls for an immediate cease-fire, fueling fears that Lebanon once again is in danger of descending into an era of instability in which radicalism will flourish.
Memories have faded of the 1980s, when Shiite extremists with ties to Hezbollah bombed Beirut's bars, abducted U.S. citizens and turned the country into a no-go area for Americans. Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts shops have sprouted among the reconstruction after the nation's civil war, and Lebanon's reputation as the party capital of the Middle East has been restored.
But perceptions that the United States supports Israel in its sustained campaign not only against Hezbollah strongholds but also against Lebanon's infrastructure is again inflaming anti-American sentiment.
"If this continues without a solution we are going to become a new Iraq, and what happened in Iraq will happen in Lebanon," said Ahmed Fatfat, Lebanon's acting interior minister. "It will be a fertile ground for terrorism, without a government, without a strong army, without a state."
Fatfat is a member of the democratically elected government brought to power on the heels of last year's Cedar Revolution, the popular uprising by mostly middle-class Lebanese against Syria's occupation that was hailed by President Bush as symbolic of a new era in the Middle East. Now Lebanon feels betrayed, he said.
"A year ago it was in America's interest to support us against Syria," he said. "Now it is America's interest to support Israel against Lebanon."
In a sharply worded editorial criticizing what it called American "shortsightedness," the English-language Beirut Daily Star warned that Lebanon could turn into "another Iraq" if there is no quick end to the fighting.
"If Israelis feel insecure now, they will shudder in the days ahead if their neighbor Lebanon becomes another Iraq--an open recruiting ground for the region's terrorists and a theater of widespread lawlessness, anarchy and terrorism," the paper said.
The specter of Iraq, where the United States' seeming swift military victory evaporated in the face of widespread insecurity and the lack of a strong central government, haunts many in Lebanon's government, which so far has held together in the face of the crisis.
The government says it supports the U.S. goal of disarming Hezbollah and restoring Lebanese sovereignty across the strip of southern Lebanon now controlled by Hezbollah fighters. Such a disarmament would be in accordance with UN Resolution 1559.
`Encouraging radicalism'
But attempting to enforce that resolution through military action risks further radicalizing the population and undermining support for Lebanon's democratically elected government, said Sami Haddad, Lebanon's economy minister.
"This war is encouraging radicalism all over the region," he said. "I really don't see how this war will further the goals of peace, stability and moderation."
Anger over the U.S. support for Israel in the fighting already is running high among the Shiites of the south who have been driven from their homes by the warfare.
"America gave Israel the weapons that are destroying Lebanon, so I blame America first," said Ali Mashoul Abu Jabbal, 35, who fled the southern town of Nabatiyeh and now is living with his pregnant wife under a tree in a Beirut park. Patting his wife's belly, he vowed: "He will be a Hezbollah fighter."
Listening to the conversation, Hadi Ossaili, 30, from the southern village of Haris, nodded in agreement.
"America wants the war to continue because she wants to get rid of all Muslims that are not under her control," he said. "America wants to control all the Arab countries."
There also is dismay among the middle-class Lebanese--Sunnis, Christians and Druze--whose hopes for a new era in their long-occupied and war-ravaged country were dashed by the eruption of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Bush administration's decision last week to speed up the delivery of precision bombs to Israel only affirmed the view of Karim Salam, 25, a banker with Citibank, that the current war represents an extension of the U.S. attempt to reshape the Middle East that began in Iraq.
"The Americans are supporting Israel in an obvious way now," said Salam, visiting in a West Beirut cafe. "Before it was under the table; now it's obvious. Under the cover of attacking Hezbollah, America wants to take over all the Middle East.
"Last year America supported us. Now she's giving the green light to Israel to massacre civilians and destroy the country."
Still, there are some, especially within the Christian community, who are quietly applauding Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, hoping it will rid their country of the Shiite fundamentalist movement that is Lebanon's most powerful military force.
`We have to crush Hezbollah'
Sipping iced coffee in a Starbucks in a Christian neighborhood, George Abdul Noor, 41, a cultural critic, said Lebanon had no choice but to endure Israel's punishing bombardments as the price for achieving long-term stability.
"We have to crush Hezbollah once and for all because otherwise they will come back in a much more dramatic way," he said.
"We've been in this maelstrom since 1975," he added. "Here we are in Starbucks, an American symbol. You could think we are in the West. But with Hezbollah it won't last because they want to drag us back to the Middle Ages with their ideology."
Whether the attempt to bomb Hezbollah into submission will succeed in ending the movement's appeal to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Shiites is questioned by others, however.
Suicide bombings at the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks by Iranian-backed extremists linked to Hezbollah ended the last U.S. attempt to reconfigure Lebanon after Israel's invasion in 1982. With Americans again leaving Lebanon in droves, escorted by U.S. Marines on ships dispatched to evacuate them, the cycle is in danger of repeating itself, warned a commentary in Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper.
"The American and Israeli aims are illusionary," it said. "Perhaps the continuing massacres and destruction will lead to doubling Hezbollah's rocket power and developing its weapons and widening its resistance. This may also lead Lebanon at a later date to fall into the grip of Syria and Iran more than any time before."
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lsly@tribune.com
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