May 10, 2008
Now What?
So Hezbollah controls West Beirut, and the government has so far refused to either give up and/or resign or to take steps to drive them out.
Driving them out will not be easy; not only because Hezbollah outguns them and has much better training, but because doing that means the beginning of a civil war.
Despite Hezbollah's invasion and the rising body count - now around 20 - this isn't a civil war yet. As I mentioned before, the amount of firepower in use these past couple days should have resulted in a much higher body count - they're not fighting for real yet. And if they're not fighting for real, there's no war. Yet.
The standard example to refer to here is World War II. Germany annexed Austria, but there was no war because the Austrians didn't fight back. They went into the Sudetenland, but there was no war because the Czechs didn't fight back. But when they invaded Poland, the Poles fought back, and the war began.
The government and pro-government forces still haven't really fought back. There have been clashes, but it appears that these were largely in violation of orders from both Hariri and Jumblatt, who told their people to stand down. But if they're not going to fight Hezbollah, what they hell are they doing?
Jumblatt is an unlikely candidate for a Ghandi-style non-violent resistance campaign. His guys are believed to be some of the most heavily armed, hair-trigger brigands in Lebanon. Yet he's ordered them to stand down and back off in West Beirut, even as he himself remains under siege in his compound there.
The first explanation I jumped to was that the PSP was withdrawing so it could fight on its own turf, united, rather than street to street in Druze heavy neighborhoods in Beirut, which aren't contiguous. Jumblatt's statements calling for a rejection of arms and dialogue, as he was ordering his people to give up their positions, made me wonder if he was actually switching sides in the face of an overwhelming force - which would be a classic move for him.
Jumblatt's pro-Syrian Druze rivals seemed to smell blood in the water, too. Wiam Wahhab started demanding Jumblatt hand over all PSP positions, while Talal Arslan played good cop, talking to Jumblatt about the need for communal "unity."
But when Hezbollah pursued the PSP into Aley in the Chouf, Jumblatt jumping ship seemed less likely as a scenario. The Druze of Aley came out and fought Hezbollah and drove them off, leaving a few dead (media accounts are varying on the numbers, and I haven't been able to get in touch with my friend there) and reportedly capturing a couple Hezbollah fighters. (Hezbollah has accused the PSP of "executing" two of their people and kidnapping another. So what were they doing in Aley, then?)
Jumblatt, however, was angry that they'd fought at all. So he's not jumping ship, but he's not fighting back. What gives? Here's my guess: Hezbollah made its move on Thursday, while everyone in Lebanon was glued to the television watching Hassan Nasrallah's speech. Hezbollah teams, along with Amal and the SSNP, invade and occupy West Beirut. Despite the sound and fury accompanying it, the army basically does nothing except keep them from storming Hariri's and Jumblatt's personal residences. Hariri and Jumblatt tell their people to stand down and get out of the way, leaving Hezbollah and their allies in control of West Beirut.
Now, however, Hezbollah is stuck. They don't want to run West Beirut, not directly. Now they're an occupying force, not the patriotic resistance-against-Israel-under-attack that they were painting themselves as before.
Hezbollah wants the pro-government forces to fight back. They refuse, and they refuse to give ground politically. So now Hezbollah has to choose whether to take the fight further - into Christian areas? Aoun's not prepared to play the SSNP role for them, and that would be a major and blatantly unprovoked attack. The SSNP appears to be trying to keep things bubbling in the north, in Tripoli, with some success, but in Beirut things so far are on a pretty tight leash despite attempts at provocation. Do they back off instead? That's a big climb down, and hard to spin as anything else.
They could just sit and wait, and bet that March 14 has to make a move at some point. A sit-in and occupation of West Beirut and access to the airport can't be worked around the way the downtown sit-in was. But then it becomes a question of what runs out first - March 14's patience, or Hezbollah's remaining credibility.
Posted by ben at May 10, 2008 10:25 AM