As Lebanon Goes, So Goes Middle East

As Lebanon goes, it is often said, so goes the rest of the Middle East. Regrettably, Lebanon is about to go.

This is not to say a renewed civil war is imminent, although it's possible. But the Land of the Cedars has always been a regional weathervane, and it is even more so now, as instilling democracy in the Arab Middle East has become global policy. And today, Lebanon's democracy does not look so good.

Secretary-General Ban, who visited Beirut last week, and France are working to find a compromise that will allow Lebanon's fractious body politic to coalesce around a candidate to replace President Lahoud, whose term officially ends Friday. Once — and if — a new president is found, he will replace the current government headed by Prime Minister Siniora.

At best, finding such a compromise presidential candidate, who according to the constitution must be a Maronite Christian, will delay solving the problems at the root of the presidential dispute. At worst, the candidate will end up compromising the implementation of U.N. resolutions and nation-building efforts.

If democracy ever takes root in the Arab Middle East, Lebanon has the conditions to sustain it. It has a well-established, democratically oriented constitution, civic institutions, a loud and unabashed (though not always fact-based) press, and a vibrant, well-educated middle class that is usually more concerned with commerce than it is with wars against its neighbors. But Lebanon does have neighbors, and they happen to be at the forefront of a regional struggle for power between the West and Iran. They also rarely play the democratic game fairly — and I don't mean in the sense of the American Democratic presidential candidates' "throwing mud" at Senator Clinton. For those in Lebanon who are allied with Syria, eating into a parliamentary majority means literally cutting opponents down. Six members of the governing coalition, known as the March 14 bloc, have been assassinated since winning the 2005 election, slashing the majority in Parliament to 68 of 127 seats.

As the end of Mr. Lahoud's presidential term has neared, Lebanon's pro-Syrian politicians, including legislators from the Iranian-controlled terror organization Hezbollah, have argued that the constitution requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament to elect a new president. Otherwise, they say, they will create a separate Lebanese government, splitting the country in two.

Working with Lebanon's top Maronite patriarch, Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, the French Foreign Ministry devised a plan that Damascus signed on to: Mr. Sfeir would devise a list of several Christian presidential candidates, and Lebanon's top Sunni leader, Saad Hariri, and his Shiite counterpart, Nabih Berri, the Parliament speaker, would agree on one. But Syria then reneged, and its Lebanese allies demanded that the decision on a new president would remain exclusively within the Christian community.

Unlike the largely pro-Syrian Shiites and the largely anti-Syrian Sunnis, the Maronites are deeply divided. Even the Free Patriotic Movement, a Maronite party, may split between sympathizers of the March 14 coalition and the currently pro-Syrian leanings of the FPM leader, the top presidential candidate and former general Michel Aoun. Mr. Aoun, who is currently allied with Hezbollah, meanwhile, is fighting with another Christian leader, Samir Geagea. The big picture has to do with Syria and Iran. Syria's overarching interest is to undermine an international tribunal the United Nations set up to try Lebanese political assassins, who by all evidence are controlled by Damascus. Iran's top strategic goal is to maintain an armed presence on Israel's northern border through its proxy, Hezbollah, in violation of Security Council resolutions banning all armed Lebanese militias.

The secretary-general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, gave a tough speech last week in which he made clear that disarming is not an option. While other forces may seek all sorts of compromise, it is hard to envision any pact that would cross the Syrian or Iranian red lines. A compromise candidate, approved by those two powers, could therefore end up halting all democracy-building in Lebanon — not to mention undermining Security Council resolutions and U.N.-backed institutions.

Even if they wanted to, outsiders like the United Nations and France can never convince all the Lebanese politicians on issues like the Talmudic dispute over whether the country's constitution absolutely requires a two-thirds majority to pick a president, because such issues are merely a symptom of Lebanon's ills. Those ills are rooted in Tehran and Damascus, not Beirut.

bavni@nysun.com