[Mb-civic] Lebanon and the Avaricious Superpower -- The Next Crusades

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Lebanon and the Avaricious Superpower 
The Next Crusades

By URI AVNERY

March 7, 2005 

http://www.counterpunch.org/

Many years ago, I read a book called "The Quiet
American" by Graham Greene. Its central character is a
high-minded, naive young American operative in Vietnam.
He has no idea about the complexities of that country
but is determined to right its wrongs and create order.
The results are disastrous.

I have the feeling that this is happening now in
Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded and no so
naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go
into a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and
use force to impose on it order, democracy and freedom.

Civil war: Lebanon. Lebanon is a country with a
peculiar topography: a small country of high mountain
ranges and isolated valleys. As a result, it has
attracted throughout the centuries communities of
persecuted minorities, who found refuge there. Today
there are, side by side and one against the other, four
ethno-religious communities: Christians, Sunnis,
Shiites and Druse. Within the Christian community,
there are several sub-communities, such as Maronites
and other ancient sects, mostly hostile to each other.
The history of Lebanon abounds in mutual massacres.

Such a situation invites, of course, interference by
neighbors and foreign powers, each wanting to stir the
pot for its own advantage. Syria, Israel, the United
States and France, the former colonial master, are all
involved.

Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place
among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then
Minister of Defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army
Chief-of-Staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade
Lebanon, impose on it a "Christian major" as dictator
and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe
Sharett, the then Prime Minister, attacked this idea
fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which
has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total
ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the
incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social
structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in
disaster.

At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem
Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and
Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen
by Sharett.

Anyone who follows the American and Israeli (there is
no difference) media, gets the impression that the
present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two
camps, "the supporters of Syria" on the one side, the
"opposition" on the other. There is a "Beirut Spring".
The opposition is a twin sister of yesterday's
Ukrainian opposition, and loyally imitates all its
methods: demonstrations opposite the government
building, a sea of waving flags, colorful shawls, and,
most importantly, beautiful girls in the front row.

But between the Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not
the slightest similarity. The Ukraine is a "simple"
country: the east tends towards Russia, the west
towards Europe. With American help, the west won.

In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action.
Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the
others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity.
Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with
Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their
ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so
prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not
know the community which stands behind them.

Only thirty years ago these communities started a
terrible civil war and all of them massacred each
other. The Christian Maronites wanted to take over the
country with the help of Israel, but were defeated by a
coalition of the Sunnis and Druze (the Shiites played
no significant role at that time). The Palestinian
refugees, led by the PLO, who formed a kind of fifth
"community", joined the battle. When the Christians
were in danger of being overrun, they called on the
Syrians for help. Six years later, Israel invaded, with
the aim of evicting both the Syrians and the
Palestinians and imposing a Christian strongman
(Basheer Jumail).

It took us 18 years to get out of that morass. Our only
achievement was to turn the Shiites into a dominant
force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shiites received us
with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would
throw out the Palestinians, who had been lording it
over them. A few months later, when they realized that
we did not intend to leave, they started to shoot at
us. Sharon is the midwife of Hizbullah.

It is difficult to foresee what will happen if the
Syrians accede to the American ultimatum and leave
Lebanon. There is no indication that the Americans are
concerned with the creation of a new fabric of life for
the Lebanese communities. They are satisfied with
babbling about "freedom" and "democracy", as if a
majority vote could create a regime acceptable to all.
They do not understand that "Lebanon" is an abstract
notion, since for almost all Lebanese, belonging to
their own community is vastly more important than
loyalty to the state. In such a situation, even an
international force will be of no help.

The re-ignition of the bloody civil war is a distinct
possibility.

Civil war: Iraq. If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon,
it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq,
such a war- if almost secret - is already in full
swing.

The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from
the occupation army, are the Kurdish "Peshmerga"
("Those who face death"). The Americans use them
whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an
important role in the battle of Faluja, a big town that
was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out.

Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the
Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in
order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town
of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who
were implanted there by Saddam Hussein.

How can such a war be practically ignored by the media?
Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the
"war against terrorism".

But this small war is nothing compared to what may
happen in Iraq, once the time comes for deciding the
future of the country. The Kurds want complete
autonomy, or independence by another name. The Sunni
would not dream of accepting the rule of the Shiite
majority, which they despise, even if came about in the
name of "democracy". The outbreak of a full-fledged
civil war may only be a question of time.

Civil war: Syria. If the Americans succeed, with
Israel's discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian
dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will
be replaced by "freedom" and "democracy".

Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a
strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious
Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community
(to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The
Sunni majority is traditionally divided between
Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The
people have resigned themselves to the Assad
dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the
regime collapses.

It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break
out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is
quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not
sure that it would be good for Israel.

Religious fervor: Iran. The main American objective is,
of course, the overthrow of the Ayatollahs in Iran. (It
is a little bit ironic that at the same time the
Americans are helping to install the Shiites in power
in neighboring Iraq, where they insist on introducing
Islamic law.)

Iran is a much harder nut to crack. Unlike to Iraq,
Syria and Lebanon, this is a homogenous society.

Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian
nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV
screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting
of their readiness to do this at a moment's notice.

The religious fervor of the Ayatollahs has been
flagging lately, as happens with every victorious
revolution after some time. But a military attack by
the "Big Satan" (the US) or the "Little Satan" (us) may
set fire to the whole Shiite crescent: Iran, South Iraq
and South Lebanon.

And here, too. Israel, too, has recently witnessed a
tiny civil war.

In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an
Arab Christian community have been living side by side
for generations, a bloody incident suddenly erupted. It
was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon the
Christians, attacking, burning and destroying. By a
miracle, nobody was killed. The Christians say that the
Israeli police (many of whose members are Druze) stood
aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak: some
doctored nude pictures on the Internet.)

It is easy to ignite a civil war, whether out of
fanaticism or out of intolerable naivete. George Bush,
the (not-so-) Quiet American, runs around the world
hawking his patent medicines, "freedom" and
"democracy", in total ignorance of hundreds of years of
history. Hard to believe, but he draws his inspiration
from a book by our own Nathan Sharansky, a very small
genius, to say the least.

Every human being and every people has a right to
freedom. Many of us have shed their blood for this aim.
Democracy is an ideal that every people has to realize
for itself. But when the banners of "freedom" and
"democracy" are hoisted over a crusade by an avaricious
and irresponsible super-power, the results can be
catastrophic.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with
Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The
Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also
a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at:
avnery at counterpunch.org. 

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