Post by Bozur on Feb 26, 2005 19:47:19 GMT -5
Damascus weakens its hold over Lebanon
Syria said it would never be forced out by the UN. So why did it appear to cave in last week?
By Hugh Macleod in Damascus
Syria’s President Bashir Assad is under intense inter national pressure after a shock official announcement last week appeared to accelerate the timetable for Damascus’s military withdrawal from Lebanon.
The controversy began on Monday, when Amre Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, made the first public statement on Damascus’s military policy since the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Following a meeting with Assad, Moussa said: “President Assad stressed his firm determination to go on with implementing the Taif agreement and achieve Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon,” adding that withdrawal would be “soon”.
After initial confusion as to why the chief of an organisation based in Cairo rather than Syria’s head of state should be speaking for Syrian policy at such a critical juncture, attention turned to matters of language: “withdrawal” as opposed to “redeployment”.
The terms may be military, but their difference is essentially political.
According to the 1989 Taif accord, Syrian troops and intelligence agents – in Lebanon to restore security after the civil war – would “redeploy” to the eastern Bekaa Valley, within Lebanon but close to the Syrian border. This would be only the first stage of a complete withdrawal on a timetable to be agreed between the two governments.
However, UN resolution 1559 of 2004 demands the immediate “withdrawal” of all foreign forces from Lebanon. This demand was underlined last week when UN secretary -general Kofi Annan warned Syria would face “measures”, presumably sanctions, if it did not pull out of Lebanon completely by April.
To “redeploy” is for Syria to be self-governing; to “withdraw” its 14,000 remaining troops on a timetable set by the international community is for Damascus to lose face badly.
Hence the shock at Moussa using the word “withdrawal”, and the urgency with which, just a few hours after his statement, Syrian information minister Mehdi Dakhlallah was insisting it was “nothing new”, adding that his country’s forces would continue to be redeployed within Lebanon.
It was not a good day to be dawdling. In Brussels, US President George Bush and French President Jacques Chirac put differences aside to issue a statement demanding “full and immediate implementation” of resolution 1559, while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw piled on further diplomatic pressure by saying there was “a high level of suspicion of the potential involvement of Syria in the assassination [of Hariri]”.
And in Beirut, on the same day, the largest-ever anti- Syrian protest in Lebanon witnessed chants of “Syria out!” and “get your dogs out of Beirut,” a reference to the presence of Syrian military intelligence officers in the Lebanese capital.
The appointment, just weeks before Hariri’s death, of Waleed Mualem as Syria’s deputy foreign minister to take charge of the Lebanese file and report directly to the president, was seen by some as an indication that Damascus was already changing its policy in Lebanon.
“The gamble now is on institutionalising relations with Lebanon,” said Samir Altaqi, a member of the strategic centre at Damascus University.
“It’s a strategic policy for Syria to replace the previous way of dealing with Lebanon, through military intelligence [for example], with reinforcing economic ties. The question is can Syria’s decision making cope with the pace needed to neutralise international pressure?”
A statement from Mualem on Thursday, however, raised more questions than it answered.
The Syrian government, he said, had a “keen interest” in implementing resolution 1559, but the country “reiterates commitment to implementing the Taif accord”, under which all further “withdrawals” to the Bekaa Valley would take place.
As of yesterday, none of the Syrian troops stationed in the mountains around Beirut or in the northern areas of Lebanon around Tripoli had begun redeployment.
“This is a new farce solely to appease Lebanese opinion. It won’t work,” said Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze Muslims and a powerful anti-Syrian figure in Lebanon.
Ironically, however, as Lebanon prepares to hold parliamentary elections in early May, it is just such opposition that might actually allow Damascus to sidestep the authority of the UN.
“Some members of the opposition may support 1559. But we are with the Taif,” said Jumblatt, who supports the accord precisely because it calls for a complete eventual withdrawal of Syrian troops.
“If the Lebanese factions can achieve a consensus on the Taif accord in the coming elections, the pressure of 1559 will be weaker,” said Altaqi.
Several informed sources in Damascus say that the final aim of the Taif is indeed the complete withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Others are not convinced. “I think Syria will move its troops to the Bekaa and then wait and see what the international reaction is,” said Obeida Hamad, a young Syrian graduate. “If the Americans and French are satisfied, then I think they will leave them there.”
In the coming weeks, a number of factors – the threat of further US sanctions, the support of the Arab League summit next month, the UN report into Hariri’s assassination and Lebanon’s strategic importance in negotiations with Israel over its occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights – will all determine whether a “redeployment” by Damascus really does turn into a “withdrawal”.
“It’s like when you are swimming in the ocean,” said Obeida, “you have to make a few compromises with the waves. And this is certainly a big wave we are facing now.”
27 February 2005
Syria said it would never be forced out by the UN. So why did it appear to cave in last week?
By Hugh Macleod in Damascus
Syria’s President Bashir Assad is under intense inter national pressure after a shock official announcement last week appeared to accelerate the timetable for Damascus’s military withdrawal from Lebanon.
The controversy began on Monday, when Amre Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, made the first public statement on Damascus’s military policy since the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Following a meeting with Assad, Moussa said: “President Assad stressed his firm determination to go on with implementing the Taif agreement and achieve Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon,” adding that withdrawal would be “soon”.
After initial confusion as to why the chief of an organisation based in Cairo rather than Syria’s head of state should be speaking for Syrian policy at such a critical juncture, attention turned to matters of language: “withdrawal” as opposed to “redeployment”.
The terms may be military, but their difference is essentially political.
According to the 1989 Taif accord, Syrian troops and intelligence agents – in Lebanon to restore security after the civil war – would “redeploy” to the eastern Bekaa Valley, within Lebanon but close to the Syrian border. This would be only the first stage of a complete withdrawal on a timetable to be agreed between the two governments.
However, UN resolution 1559 of 2004 demands the immediate “withdrawal” of all foreign forces from Lebanon. This demand was underlined last week when UN secretary -general Kofi Annan warned Syria would face “measures”, presumably sanctions, if it did not pull out of Lebanon completely by April.
To “redeploy” is for Syria to be self-governing; to “withdraw” its 14,000 remaining troops on a timetable set by the international community is for Damascus to lose face badly.
Hence the shock at Moussa using the word “withdrawal”, and the urgency with which, just a few hours after his statement, Syrian information minister Mehdi Dakhlallah was insisting it was “nothing new”, adding that his country’s forces would continue to be redeployed within Lebanon.
It was not a good day to be dawdling. In Brussels, US President George Bush and French President Jacques Chirac put differences aside to issue a statement demanding “full and immediate implementation” of resolution 1559, while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw piled on further diplomatic pressure by saying there was “a high level of suspicion of the potential involvement of Syria in the assassination [of Hariri]”.
And in Beirut, on the same day, the largest-ever anti- Syrian protest in Lebanon witnessed chants of “Syria out!” and “get your dogs out of Beirut,” a reference to the presence of Syrian military intelligence officers in the Lebanese capital.
The appointment, just weeks before Hariri’s death, of Waleed Mualem as Syria’s deputy foreign minister to take charge of the Lebanese file and report directly to the president, was seen by some as an indication that Damascus was already changing its policy in Lebanon.
“The gamble now is on institutionalising relations with Lebanon,” said Samir Altaqi, a member of the strategic centre at Damascus University.
“It’s a strategic policy for Syria to replace the previous way of dealing with Lebanon, through military intelligence [for example], with reinforcing economic ties. The question is can Syria’s decision making cope with the pace needed to neutralise international pressure?”
A statement from Mualem on Thursday, however, raised more questions than it answered.
The Syrian government, he said, had a “keen interest” in implementing resolution 1559, but the country “reiterates commitment to implementing the Taif accord”, under which all further “withdrawals” to the Bekaa Valley would take place.
As of yesterday, none of the Syrian troops stationed in the mountains around Beirut or in the northern areas of Lebanon around Tripoli had begun redeployment.
“This is a new farce solely to appease Lebanese opinion. It won’t work,” said Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze Muslims and a powerful anti-Syrian figure in Lebanon.
Ironically, however, as Lebanon prepares to hold parliamentary elections in early May, it is just such opposition that might actually allow Damascus to sidestep the authority of the UN.
“Some members of the opposition may support 1559. But we are with the Taif,” said Jumblatt, who supports the accord precisely because it calls for a complete eventual withdrawal of Syrian troops.
“If the Lebanese factions can achieve a consensus on the Taif accord in the coming elections, the pressure of 1559 will be weaker,” said Altaqi.
Several informed sources in Damascus say that the final aim of the Taif is indeed the complete withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Others are not convinced. “I think Syria will move its troops to the Bekaa and then wait and see what the international reaction is,” said Obeida Hamad, a young Syrian graduate. “If the Americans and French are satisfied, then I think they will leave them there.”
In the coming weeks, a number of factors – the threat of further US sanctions, the support of the Arab League summit next month, the UN report into Hariri’s assassination and Lebanon’s strategic importance in negotiations with Israel over its occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights – will all determine whether a “redeployment” by Damascus really does turn into a “withdrawal”.
“It’s like when you are swimming in the ocean,” said Obeida, “you have to make a few compromises with the waves. And this is certainly a big wave we are facing now.”
27 February 2005