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| Author: | Mohamad Bazzi, Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow 2007-2008 |
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May 20, 2008
Christian Science Monitor
Beirut, Lebanon—Huddled at home in front of their TVs during last week’s fighting, the Lebanese relived one of their worst memories: masked gunmen setting up makeshift checkpoints and demanding people’s identity cards. The image of gunmen stopping civilians at checkpoints to sort and often murder them on the basis of religion is perhaps the most enduring symbol of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.
During that war, the sectarian divide was between Muslims and Christians. This time, the conflict is mainly between Sunnis and Shiites. It is also an extension of the ongoing proxy war in Iraq—pitting Iran and Syria (which support the Shiite militia Hezbollah) against the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni Arab regimes (which back Lebanon’s Sunni- and Christian-dominated government).
Each Lebanese faction accuses the other of serving external masters. Hezbollah claims the US put the ruling coalition up to issuing two recent orders: one outlawing the militia’s private communications network and another dismissing the security chief at the Beirut airport. In turn, the government accuses Hezbollah of carrying out a “coup” at the behest of Iran and Syria.
But while external players have a hand in the latest bloody confrontations, they don’t deserve all the blame. For the most part, the Lebanese did this to themselves—and they need to find a political settlement of their own by modernizing an antiquated power-sharing system. Otherwise, the Sunni-Shiite rift in Lebanon will explode, especially since it has been fueled by years of sectarian bloodletting in Iraq .
In Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President, experts from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution propose a new, nonpartisan Middle East strategy drawing on the lessons of past failures to address both the short-term and long-term challenges to U.S. interests.
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