Going in?

BEIRUT In my pre­vi­ous post, I men­tioned that Maj. Gen Ashraf Rifi, the head of the Inter­nal Secu­rity Forces told me, he “thinks the army will have to go in” to Nahr el-Bared to uproot the mil­i­tants of Fatah al-Islam. “They are very dan­ger­ous,” he told me in his plush office. “We have no choice, we have to com­bat them.”
Per­haps I under­played his com­ments, because if he’s right, “going in” would be a huge devel­op­ment. The Pales­tini­ans have run their own secu­rity in the 12 camps under a 1969 agree­ment bro­kered by the Arab League. Now, that agree­ment was allegedly revoked in 1987 by the Lebanese Par­lia­ment, but there’s still at least a tacit agree­ment that the Pales­tini­ans mind their own store.
That’s not really a viable secu­rity option any­more, as we can see just north of Tripoli.
Now, what was Rifi try­ing to say? Was he merely repeat­ing the phrase of my ques­tion — “Will the army have to go in?” — because his eng­lish isn’t so good, as he protested a cou­ple of times? (He spoke well enough to con­duct an inter­view, mind you.) Was he try­ing to empha­size the point that there are ele­ments in the gov­ern­ment that are rarin’ to go get those Fatah al-Islam guys while oth­ers, per­haps Prime Min­is­ter Fuad Sin­iora, are will­ing to take a slower approach?
Or was he try­ing, in his own locu­tion, to empha­size the impor­tance for Lebanon of win­ning this bat­tle? Because this is make or break time for Lebanon as a sov­er­eign state.
If the army fails at this task of defeat­ing Fatah al-Islam — and I’m not talk­ing about some mealy-mouthed “arrange­ment” where a few of the mil­i­tants are hauled in — it will under­mine the legit­i­macy of the army as a state insti­tu­tion. And that will very much play right into Hezbollah’s hands.
See, Hezbol­lah has often said it is needed as an armed resis­tance because the army is too weak to stand up to Israel. (True.) But the Shi’ite group won’t put itself under the com­mand of the army because to do so would mean that any attack it launched on Israel such as, say, cap­tur­ing and killing Israeli troops, would mean Lebanon was the aggres­sor and as such would bring down the wrath of the Israeli mil­i­tary on Lebanon.
Of course, this is exactly what hap­pened last sum­mer, but let’s not quib­ble. In Lebanese pol­i­tics, there are appar­ently no lim­its on hypocrisy.
If the army fails and is seen as weak or ille­git­i­mate, Hezbol­lah has a strong argu­ment for say­ing it must keep its arms for the defense of Lebanon. Now, one of the def­i­n­i­tions of sov­er­eignty is the monop­oly on the legit­i­mate use of phys­i­cal force, or vio­lence. Since Lebanon’s gov­ern­ment and weak army would be unable to claim that fol­low­ing a loss at the hands of Fatah al-Islam, there would be no real sov­er­eignty here. Hezbol­lah 1, Lebanon 0.
One can argue whether a sov­er­eign Lebanon is a good or bad thing in the grand scheme of things, an argu­ment I can’t address on this hum­ble blog, although I favor the for­mer. But it’s vitally impor­tant to the Lebanese gov­ern­ment.
It’s so impor­tant that some ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Rifi’s for­mer boss, cab­i­net mem­ber Ahmad Fat­fat, are call­ing for storm­ing the gates of Nahr el-Bared.
There is some buzz that this will be resolved in 48 hours. That may be true, or it might not be. A lot can hap­pen in this small coun­try in that time.
By the way, the dona­tions are work­ing again, and cov­er­ing this place ain’t cheap. Fix­ers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and free­lanc­ing for news­pa­pers only cov­ers part of it. If you’d like me to keep blog­ging the devel­op­ments in Lebanon’s lat­est cri­sis, please con­sider drop­ping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

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