LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
APRIL 28/2006

Below news from the Daily Star for 28/04/06
FPM students accuse LU Law Faculty dean of election rigging
Siniora: Leap in science and technology is at hand
Solution to Lahoud remains elusive
Bolton slams Syrian failure to mend fences
Israeli officer 'guilty' of spying for Hizbullah
Lahoud opponents: Cause won't end with dialogue
Lahoud heads calm Cabinet session
Qassem denounces Roed-Larsen's report
U.S. courts grant Lebanon 50 days to settle with Libancell
U.S. and Iranian officials have led the world into stalemate
Iran defiant ahead of UN deadline to halt enrichment
Mubarak vows to win his own 'war on terror'
Below news from miscellaneous sources for 28/04/06
Further progress in Lebanon requires cooperation of Syria: Annan-UN News Centre
Damascus maintains influence despite military retreat-Euronews.net
The United States and Lebanon: A Meddlesome HistoryForeign Policy In Focus
US, France want resolution on Syrian-Lebanon tiesReuters
Lebanon plans to ask for Hariri inquiry extensionABC News - USA
Further progress in Lebanon requires cooperation of Syria: Annan-UN News Centre
1 year after the pull out: Syria, Iran still control Lebanon-WorldNetDaily
US calls for new resolution on Lebanon-Syria ties-Ya Libnan
Iran role in Lebanon worries US-CNN - USA
France-US for UN Syria-Lebanon result-United Press International
Larsen urges Lebanon , Syria to set borders-Alarab online
UN envoy rejects Syria's claim that diplomatic ties with Lebanon -Khaleej Times
In Focus: Alienating support-Al-Ahram Weekly
A year after Syria's pullout Damascus and Tehran still-AsiaNews.it
Syria: Has Assad Dodged a Bullet?-Council on Foreign Relations
US, France Prepare Security Council Resolution Pressuring Syria-Voice of America

Subject: Bush Adm. to freeze the assets of all terrorists in the murder of Harriri
MIDEAST NEWSWIRE SPECIAL
April 26, 2006
Sources tell Mideast Newswire that the measures by the Bush Administration to freeze the assets of whomever is linked to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is a prelude to a wider international move to freeze all assests of all terrorists implicated in that murder and subsequent assassinations.
The sources said Syrians and Lebanese nationals with links to the assassination and to the networks or agencies implicated in the bloodshed will be marked for assests freezing. But analysts revealed to Mideast Newswire that "when these monies will be frozen by the US, other consequences are to be expected, particularly the following:
1. More investigations about the money trail leading to other terrorist operations executed by the same persons, should they be linked to regimes or organizations.
2. More files could open as a result, including the investigation into the "activities" of politicians who served as a cover to the assassasins or who were or even are currently collaborating with the terrorists.
3. Measures could widen later to reach the visas of those falling into these categories.
Furthermore, if a new UNSC resolution is issued about "Syria's current involvement in Lebanon, including assassinations, cross border sneaking of weapons to terrorists, and human rights issues such as mass graves and detainee," said the sources, "direct measures will be taken against Syrian networks, their terror allies in Lebanon and the associates of the latter."
FULL TEXT
Executive Order Blocking Property of Additional Persons in Connection with the National Emergency with Respect to Syria
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), section 5 of the United Nations Participation Act, as amended (22 U.S.C. 287c) (UNPA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code; and in view of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1636 of October 31, 2005,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, determine that it is in the interests of the United States to (1) assist the international independent investigation Commission (the "Commission") established pursuant to UNSCR 1595 of April 7, 2005, (2) assist the Government of Lebanon in identifying and holding accountable in accordance with applicable law those persons who were involved in planning, sponsoring, organizing, or perpetrating the terrorist act in Beirut, Lebanon, on February 14, 2005, that resulted in the assassination of former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafiq Hariri, and the deaths of 22 others, and other bombings or assassination attempts in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, that are related to Hariri's assassination or that implicate the Government of Syria or its officers or agents, and (3) take note of the Commission's conclusions in its report of October 19, 2005, that there is converging evidence pointing to both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in terrorist acts, that interviewees tried to mislead the Commission's investigation by giving false or inaccurate statements, and that a senior official of Syria submitted false information to the Commission. In light of these determinations, and to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004, concerning certain actions of the Government of Syria, I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) Except to the extent that sections 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3) and (4)) may apply, or to the extent provided in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date of this order, all property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, including any overseas branch, of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of State,
(i) to be, or to have been, involved in the planning, sponsoring, organizing, or perpetrating of:
(A) the terrorist act in Beirut, Lebanon, that resulted in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and the deaths of 22 others; or
(B) any other bombing, assassination, or assassination attempt in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, that is related to Hariri's assassination or that implicates the Government of Syria or its officers or agents;
(ii) to have obstructed or otherwise impeded the work of the Commission established pursuant to UNSCR 1595;
(iii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, any such terrorist act, bombing, or assassination attempt, or any person designated pursuant to this order; or
(iv) to be owned or controlled by, or acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person designated pursuant to this order.
(b) I hereby determine that, to the extent section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) may apply, the making of donations of the type of articles specified in such section by, to, or for the benefit of any person designated pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by paragraph (a) of this section.
(c) The prohibitions in paragraph (a) of this section include but are not limited to (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person designated pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec. 3. For the purposes of this order:
(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;
(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and
(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.
Sec. 4. For those persons designated pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338, there need be no prior notice of a determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.
Sec. 5. The Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA and UNPA, as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.
Sec. 6. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.
Sec. 7. This order is effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on April 26, 2006.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 25, 2006.

Bolton slams Syrian failure to mend fences
Larsen: 'a united lebanon has offered an outstretched hand'
By Leila Hatoum -Daily Star staff
Friday, April 28, 2006
BEIRUT: Syria has "failed, failed and failed again" in its relations with Lebanon, according to John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN. Bolton's comments came after a Security Council meeting late Wednesday. "Syria continues to have disdain for some of the most basic requirements of sovereign equality in the way it treats Lebanon," the ambassador said.
He also described Premier Fouad Siniora's presentation before the Security Council earlier this month as "important," adding: "I think the thing that came through very clearly from Siniora's presentation was how much he would welcome assistance from the Security Council in securing the implementation of 1559."
The resolution calls in part for the disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militia, namely Hizbullah. Hizbullah continues to refuse such disarmament until Israel withdraws from the Shebaa Farms, which the Lebanese government and the resistance insist is Lebanese territory.
"I think that the most important point, whatever one does with Shebaa Farms, is that it's unacceptable in a democratic society for something that purports to be a political society to be an armed militia as well," Bolton said. "From that perspective, I don't think Hizbullah has any credible argument that it needs to remain a paramilitary force."
He added: "An overwhelming preponderance of the evidence is that Shebaa Farms is Syrian territory."
Also Wednesday, Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN secretary general's special envoy for the implementation of 1559, briefed the Security Council on the progress in the resolution's implementation.
"With the agreements unanimously reached in the national dialogue and their initiative to work proactively and constructively with the Syrian Arab Republic, a united Lebanon has offered an outstretched hand to Syria," Larsen said.
"I call on Syria to accept this offer," he added, calling on Damascus to work with Siniora on establishing diplomatic relations and delineating the border between the two countries.
"It takes two to tango ... Siniora has stretched out his hand ... We're asking all actors, including Iran and Syria, to be helpful in this regard," Roed-Larsen said.
Meanwhile, Syria Thursday criticized as "premature" a decision by U.S. President George W. Bush to authorize freezing the assets of anyone involved in last year's killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.In a phone interview with AP, Syrian legislator Mohammad Habash accused the U.S. of bias against Syria, saying Washington was trying to "divert the track of the investigation" and "ensure a suitable climate for a negative report on Syria."Bush issued an executive order Wednesday to freeze the assets of anyone determined by the UN commission to have been involved in Hariri's killing. U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman said Bush's decision also includes freezing the assets of anyone found to have been involved in a series of bombings in Lebanon since October 2004. In other developments, Justice Minister Charles Rizk said Lebanon will attempt to extend the term of UN probe for an additional "one year term." Rizk said the matter will be discussed during a Cabinet session on Tuesday. The investigation's six-month mandate is set to expire in June.

FPM students accuse LU Law Faculty dean of election rigging
Disaffected Scholars form shadow cabinet
By Hadi Tawil -Special to The Daily Star
Friday, April 28, 2006
BEIRUT: Student members of the Free Patriotic Movement at the Lebanese University's Faculty of Law have accused the university's dean George Sharaf of "tampering with the student election results." The FPM student body, along with Communist Party representatives from the faculty, held a news conference Thursday to announce they would challenge the election's "fixed results."The students also called on the education minister and LU president to "intervene and put an end to Sharaf's abusive acts." The FPM students decided to boycott the elections as Sharaf has caused "tension among students through separating the Master's students' representatives from those representing the students in other academic years."
According to Jad Ghoson and Elie Aoun, who represented the FPM students during the conference, "this method of dividing the elections, a week after an official memo set the elections date, would lead to a change in the voting results."
Ghoson told The Daily Star: "We are boycotting the elections due to several reasons; one is the students' electoral law, which is unfair and doesn't pave the way for equal representation in the Cabinet."
Ghoson lashed out at Sharaf for establishing the law. "Sharaf is biased, he favors the Lebanese Forces, and is working to promote their interests in the university," he said. He added: "In addition to that, the law allows people to register in the university and not attend any lectures. Thus, they only register to vote."
The students said they have formed a "shadow student Cabinet" with independent members and the Communist Party.
"We and the Communist Party have formed a shadow Cabinet of 10 students. Its job is to monitor the actions of the unjustly elected student body," Ghoson said. Sharaf issued a memo regulating the election of the student bodies' at LU's Faculty of Law on April 12, one week after an official memo was issued calling for elections. Attempts by The Daily Star to contact Sharaf and other LU officials failed, as well as LF students' representative Daniel Spiro. - Additional reporting by Leila Hatoum

Solution to Lahoud remains elusive
By Zeina Abu Rizk -Special to The Daily Star
Friday, April 28, 2006
Anything is possible on Friday when participants gather in Nijmeh Square to resume their national dialogue, except an actual presidential change. Political rows and discord on this crucial topic could erupt at any moment, especially when Zahle MP Elie Skaff and Metn MP Michel Murr officially present Michel Aoun's candidacy, as is widely expected.
But if some expect political clashes, especially between Aoun and Saad Hariri, amid mounting animosity between the two, no one believes an agreement will be reached on a new president. Many believe the Shiites have been avoiding giving their honest opinion on Aoun's candidacy. While supporting Aoun's candidacy for tactical reasons, mainly to maintain Lahoud in power, they may not actually be so fond of the general. For the Shiites, the problem isn't between themselves and Aoun, but between Aoun and the March 14 Forces, which clearly has no intention of backing the general.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said recently it was up to the majority to propose a list of presidential candidates for the rest of those gathered at the negotiating table to approve or not. In such an equation, and if the March 14 Forces reject Aoun's candidacy, the Shiites will not even have to emit a straightforward opinion on the matter. And if, on the contrary, the March 14 Forces decide to include Aoun on their presidential list - which is highly improbable - the Shiites would have nothing to lose by openly supporting the general with the knowledge that the majority needed for his election is already secured.
Clearly, the Shiites have effectively used every political maneuver in the book to keep Lahoud in place, proving they are the most politically deft group. They joined forces with Aoun to avoid a decision on the presidency being commandeered by the majority and conducted a successful first strike to knock the question of Lahoud's fate to a secondary level at the national dialogue. They spoke instead of a governing crisis, insisting from day one that Lahoud's successor should be secured before the president is overthrown, and later protested the proposal of only one name as the next president - a reference to former MP Nassib Lahoud.
However, if Lahoud were to remain in power until the end of his mandate, it would not be exclusively due to the March 8 camp's political dexterity. Equally responsible for this situation is a lack of vision on the part of the March 14 Forces.
For far too long this group focused solely on bringing down the president, without securing the means needed for this effort. As one former major player said, the March 14 Forces succeeded only in "raising Lahoud's value at a time when he no longer had one." Standing proudly behind its Shiite allies, Damascus in particular will have scored a major victory against its detractors if Lahoud stays in office. Reassured by this quasi-certain victory, and by the fact that none of the issues agreed on in the dialogue can be implemented without its support, Syria was confident enough to launch a counterattack against the March14 Forces.
From the announcement of an opposition front to include pro-Syrian political forces to Nasrallah's recent comments denying any unanimous decision at the round table regarding a delineation of the Lebanese-Syrian border, to the president's renewed defense of his four imprisoned generals and the reappearance of Nasser Qandil, the latest developments all indicate Syria is more than ready to retaliate against its foes in Lebanon. A year after their pullout, it has become clear the Syrians are still heavily present and highly influential in Lebanon, and perhaps will always be.

One year after the pullout:
Syria and Iran still control Lebanon
By Walid Phares
On April 26, 2005, pictures of the last Syrian soldiers were seen around the world. Today on the first annual withdrawal of the Syrian regular forces from Lebanon there are reasons for celebration and other reasons for great concern. While Syrian road blocks have vanished from Beirut and the various regions of Lebanon, many questions are still troubling the minds of most Lebanese and their friends around the world. The truth, the whole truth, is not yet fully out in the open. What caused the abrupt Syrian withdrawal, and is the latter complete? What is causing the non fulfillment of the UN resolution 1559 which called for liberation and disarming? What can the US, Europe and the international community do to help Lebanon's civil society one year after its supposed emancipation - regain its place among democracies?
When reviewing the events leading to the Syrian redeployment out of Lebanon in April 2005, and the developments that followed since until April of this year, one can note the following realities:
It is thanks to the efforts of the Lebanese Diaspora's lobby and the forces of civil society in Lebanon that Western democracies led by the United States and France, decided to seize the United Nations Security Council and issue UNSCR 1559 asking the Syrian regime to pull its forces out of Lebanon, disarm the militias and promote democracy.
It is thanks to the UNSCR 1559 and the courageous response of the Lebanese masses on March 14, 2005 to the assassination of former Prime Minister Hariri on February 14 and the pro-Syrian demonstration by Hizbollah on March 8, that the Cedars Revolution broke the wall of fear from Syrian repression: One million and a half people submerged downtown Beirut.
In response to the Cedars Revolution, it is thanks to the strong warnings by US President George Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and other world leaders, to the Assad regime in Damascus during the months of March and April 2005 that Syrian forces begun to pull out from the country.
The Syrian pull out came as a result of the combined efforts by the US-led international pressures and the popular uprising of the Cedars Revolution. However let's note today, one year after the redeployment that Lebanon is till far from full recovery:
Let's remember that Lebanon's legislative elections in May 2005 took place before the disarming of Hizbollah and the other Jihadi and pro-Syrian militias; and citizens had to vote while Syrian influence in Government and the security services was still predominant. Le's also note that Lebanon pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud wasn't removed from power. Hence, despite a new anti-Syrian majority in parliament and the formation of a new cabinet headed by M Fuad Saniora, an ally to the late Hariri, the Syrian-Iranian sponsored alliance in Lebanon has been unfortunately successful in blocking the full implementation of UNSCR 1559 and bogging down the Cedars Revolution.
Since last May, a Terrorist campaign has been able to assassinate a number of politicians such as leftwing politician George Hawi, liberal journalist Samir Qassir, democracy leader MP Jebran Tueni, and attempt to assassinate media figures such as May Chidiac.
Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Syria's allies in Lebanon have been threatening violence against any attempt to pull the remnants of the Syrian occupation, the disarming of their militias and the deployment of the Lebanese army into south Lebanon or along the Syrian-Lebanese borders.
International, US, and European officials and observers have concluded that Syrian security personnel remain along the borders inside Lebanese territories. Human Rights groups have uncovered mass graves at the locations of former Syrian Mukhabarat in Lebanon; and NGOs representing the families of the missing citizens under Syrian occupation report that hundreds are still detained and tortured in Syrian jails.
Hence, one year after the official withdrawal of the Syrian Army, it is fair to state that more freedoms have been acquired in Lebanon more people have seen their liberties expanding. But at the same time another Syrian-Iranian controlled army remains inside the country and is blocking the recovery of the small nation. Therefore, at the first anniversary of the official pull out, the international community should commit to another series of efforts, perhaps more difficult, aiming at the full implementation of UNSCR 1559. During these very dangerous times as Ahmedinijad's regime in Tehran is challenging regional and international security with his nuclear ambitions, as the Assad regime continues to interfere with the political process in Iraq by supporting the Terrorists across the borders, and as Hizbollah continues to assist radical groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, it is crucial to enable Lebanon’s civil society to develop a full democracy in the country.
It is then very urgent that the international community extend its support to the forces of civil society, the Government and the Army in Lebanon to reclaim a pluralist, democratic and sovereign Lebanon.
**Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington and was one of the main architects in the campaign behind UNSCR 1559. He contributed this article to LEBANONWIRE.

The United States and Lebanon: A Meddlesome History
Stephen Zunes | April 26, 2006
Editor: John Gershman, IRC
While the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon one year ago was certainly a positive development, claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that the United States deserves credit are badly misplaced. On the first anniversary of the ousting of Syrian forces by a popular nonviolent movement, it is important to recognize that American calls in recent years for greater Lebanese freedom and sovereignty from Syrian domination have been viewed by most Lebanese as crass opportunism. Indeed, few Americans are aware that for decades the United States pursued policies which seriously undermined Lebanon's freedom and sovereignty.
Due to such misunderstanding, a brief review of the history of the U.S. role in Lebanon is in order:
The First U.S. Incursion
In 1926, France carved Lebanon out of Syria—which it had seized from the Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I—for the very purpose of creating a pro-Western enclave in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1943, France granted the country independence, leaving behind a unique governing system where the most powerful position of president would always go to a Maronite Christian and the second most powerful position, that of prime minister, would always go to a Sunni Muslim. The post of National Assembly speaker would go to a Shiite Muslim and on down through the country's smaller ethnic communities such as Druzes, Orthodox Christians, and others. Seats in the National Assembly would be apportioned based upon religious affiliation according to a 1932 French census. This was designed to keep Lebanon under the domination of the Maronite Christians, the country's largest single religious group, who were far more pro-Western and less prone to support radical Arab nationalists than most Lebanese and other Arabs. Indeed, Lebanon's very existence as a separate state was predicated on Maronite domination.
One part of maintaining this balance of power was limiting the Lebanese president to one six-year term. In 1958, a crisis was sparked by efforts to push through constitutional changes that would allow the pro-Western president Camille Chamoun to seek re-election. Though Chamoun backed down, Arab nationalist forces threatened to topple the archaic neocolonial electoral system imposed by the French. The United States responded by sending Marines briefly into Lebanon to suppress the incipient rebellion.
Palestinian Refugees and the Outbreak of Civil War
Internal cleavages in Lebanon were compounded by the presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who had been driven from their homes during Israel's war of independence in 1948 and were denied Lebanese citizenship or any representation in the political system. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—which essentially served as the Palestinians' government-in-exile but was denied recognition by the United States—had taken advantage of the relatively weak central government in Beirut to establish Lebanon as its principal military, administrative, and diplomatic base of operations after being forced out of the Kingdom of Jordan by the Hashemite monarchy in that country's 1970-71 civil war.
Despite these tensions, the Republic of Lebanon—without a monarch or military dictator—enjoyed more political freedom than any other Arab country. The Lebanese capital of Beirut became a popular destination for American and European tourists and investors and became known as “the Paris of the Orient.”
At the same time, the confessional representation system effectively kept elites from various Lebanese clans in control of the country and, while relatively prosperous compared to other non-oil producing states in the region, the government's laissez-faire economic policies exacerbated the huge gap between the country's rich and poor. By the 1970s, as a result of demographic changes, the Maronites had long since lost their status as the largest religious community while Shiite Muslims—who were allocated the least political power of the three major religious communities—had become the largest as well as the poorest.
Tensions grew as rival Lebanese factions began forming heavily-armed militias. A full-scale civil war broke out in April 1975 between Maronite Christians and other supporters of the status quo and their predominantly Muslim opponents.
The “Muslim” side of the conflict during its first phase was actually a largely secular coalition known as the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) which, while consisting primarily of Sunnis and Druzes, also included leftists and nationalists from virtually all of Lebanon's religious and ethnic communities. The LNM in many respects spearheaded an attempt to have Lebanon join the ranks of the other left-leaning Arab nationalist governments which had come to power over the previous 25 years.
Seeking to block the establishment of such a government that would likely enact policies less sympathetic with the West, the United States—along with the French and Israelis—clandestinely supported the Maronites and their Phalangist militia, the largest armed group among the Maronites and their allies. The far right-wing Phalangist Party was founded by Pierre Gemayel during the 1930s, who modeled his party after the fascist movements then on the ascendancy in Europe.
By the end of 1975, armed units of the PLO—based in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the western part of Lebanon—joined forces with the LNM. There were widespread killings of civilians by both sides, particularly by the Phalangists, and the cosmopolitan city of Beirut became a war zone. By the spring of 1976, the Phalangists and other rightist forces were on the defensive. At that point, some pro-Western elements of the Lebanese government—with the endorsement of the Arab League and the quiet support of the United States—invited Syrian forces into the country to block the LNM's incipient victory, eventually pushing back PLO and LNM forces out of the central, northern, and eastern parts of Lebanon.
The 1982 Israeli Invasion
Beginning in the early 1970s, as the PLO expanded its presence in Lebanon, the Israelis engaged in frequent air strikes against both military and civilian targets, ostensibly in retaliation for terrorist attacks against Israelis by exiled Palestinian groups based in that country. Despite the high civilian death toll and damage to Lebanon's economy, particularly in the largely Shiite southern part of the country, the United States defended Israeli actions. Meanwhile, with the collapse of the central government and the disintegration of the country's armed forces into various armed factions with the outbreak of the civil war, fighters from the various PLO factions—particularly those of the PLO's Palestine Liberation Army and guerrillas of the dominant Fatah movement—came to control much of southern Lebanon.
In March 1978, in retaliation for an amphibious Palestinian terrorist attack that killed dozens of Israeli civilians on a coastal highway north of Tel Aviv, Israel launched a major incursion into southern Lebanon, resulting in large-scale devastation and deaths of hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. The United States voted with the rest of the UN Security Council in support of Security Council Resolution 425, which called upon Israel to cease all military action and withdraw immediately. U.S. President Jimmy Carter threatened to suspend some U.S. aid if Israel did not pull back its forces, resulting in a partial withdrawal to what Israel later referred to as a “security zone,” a 12- to 20-mile strip of Lebanese territory along Israel's northern border. A United Nations peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) was brought into Lebanon to separate the two sides. Within the Israeli-occupied territory, the Israelis allied with renegade Lebanese General Sa'ad Haddad to form the South Lebanese Army (SLA), which effectively became a foreign regiment of the Israeli armed forces. Nine subsequent UN Security Council resolutions over the next several years reiterated the demand that Israel withdraw completely and unconditionally from Lebanese territory, but the United States blocked the UN Security Council from enforcing them.
Throughout the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, Israel and the SLA periodically bombed and shelled Palestinian military positions as well as civilian areas in southern Lebanon. Palestinian militia would then lob shells into northern Israel, resulting in scores of civilian casualties. Israel, with its vastly superior firepower, tended to inflict a lot more damage. In June 1981, following a particularly heavy series of Israeli air strikes in a crowded Beirut neighborhood that resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties, an envoy from U.S. President Ronald Reagan successfully brokered a cease-fire.
Despite the fact that the PLO largely honored this cease-fire during the subsequent year, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered a full-scale invasion of Lebanon in early June 1982 under the leadership of his Defense Minister General Ariel Sharon. Within weeks, Israel occupied nearly half the country and began laying siege to Beirut. Meanwhile, Israel bombed Syrian positions in eastern Lebanon and shot down dozens of Syrian military aircraft. The United States vetoed a series of UN Security Council resolutions demanding an Israeli withdrawal; subsequent resolutions simply calling for a cease-fire were also blocked from passage by U.S. vetoes.
In less that two months, heavy Israeli bombardment of residential areas of Beirut and other cities killed as many as 12,000 Lebanese and Palestinian citizens, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians. Despite the level of carnage and Israel's violations of international law, Lebanese sovereignty, and U.S. law which prohibits the use of its weapons for non-defensive purposes, the Reagan administration and Congressional leaders of both parties vigorously defended the Israeli invasion and increased military support for the rightist Israeli government.
U.S. Forces Return to Lebanon
In late August 1982, the United States brokered an agreement whereby the PLO would evacuate its fighters and political offices from Beirut to Tunis, capital of the North African country of Tunisia, 1500 miles to the west. In return, Israel pledged not to overrun the city. The agreement included the deployment of a U.S.-led peacekeeping force to oversee the evacuation of Palestinian fighters. Regarding the safety of the now-disarmed Palestinian refugee population, the agreement stated that, along with the government of Lebanon, the “ United States will provide appropriate guarantees of safety.” Of particular concern to Palestinian civilians was t he Phalangist militia, which had engaged in a series of attacks against Palestinian civilians during the first phase of the civil war, the most infamous being the 1976 massacre of as many as 2,000 Palestinians at the Tal al-Zaatar refugee camp in East Beirut.
Three days following the signing of the August 20 agreement, a rump Lebanese national assembly—under the gaze of Israeli artillery in nearby hills—met to choose a new president. Despite the Phalangist movement's fascist leanings and its history of atrocities, Bachir Gemayel—the Phalangist militia leader and younger son of the movement's founder—was chosen as president.
Within two weeks, U.S. forces withdrew from Lebanon, far earlier than anticipated. Three days later, President-elect Gemayel was assassinated in a bombing of Phalangist headquarters, which many have since blamed on Syrian intelligence operatives. Israel used the assassination as an excuse to break its pledge by ordering its armed forces to occupy Beirut. Though this was the first time since World War II that the capital of an independent state had been conquered by a foreign army, the Reagan administration issued only a mild rebuke. The Israelis then sent Phalangist militiamen into Sabra and Shatila, two Palestinian refugee camps on the southern outskirts of the city. There, the Phalangists massacred over 1,000 civilians under the watch of Israeli occupation forces, who did nothing to stop the ongoing atrocity and even launched flares into the camps so to allow the Phalangists to continue their assaults into the night.
In Israel, the growing popular opposition to their right-wing government's invasion and occupation of Lebanon greatly intensified when Israeli complicity in the massacres became apparent, prompting massive demonstrations calling for a withdrawal of Israeli forces and accountability for Israelis responsible. (An independent Israeli commission, in a February 1983 report, singled out General Sharon for responsibility and his political career at that point was thought to be over. However, he later served as Israeli prime minister from 2001 until his debilitating stroke early this year with the strong support and praise by both President George W. Bush and Congressional leaders of both parties.)
Also controversial was the premature U.S. withdrawal which left the defenseless Palestinian refugee camps vulnerable to the Israeli-backed Phalangist massacre. Secretary of State George Schultz acknowledged to colleagues, “The brutal fact is we are partially responsible.” Deputy National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane went as far as to privately claim that the early departure of U.S. forces was “criminally irresponsible.”
Joined by smaller contingents of French and Italian forces, U.S. troops returned to Beirut by the end of September and Israeli forces withdrew to positions just south of the Lebanese capital. Bachir Gemayel's older brother Amin, the political leader of the Phalangists, assumed power as president and was soon faced with a popular uprising against his far right-wing government. While France saw its military presence as part of “a mission of maintaining peace and protecting the civil population,” the United States insisted that its troops were there to “ provide an interposition force ” and to provide the military presence “requested by the Lebanese Government to assist it and the Lebanese Armed Forces.”
By that fall, it became apparent that the United States hoped to use its military presence to pressure the Lebanese government to negotiate a permanent peace agreement with Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal and to force the withdrawal of Syrian forces in the eastern part of the country as well as the remnants of armed Palestinian groups in the northwest. The Reagan administration even pledged that U.S. forces would remain until the Lebanese army had reconstituted itself and foreign forces withdrew.
Lingering resentment at the U.S. support for the devastating Israeli invasion that summer compounded by anger at the increased military role of U.S. forces in the country resulted in a terrorist backlash: In April 1983, suicide bombers struck the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people.
Under heavy U.S. pressure and with Israeli forces still occupying much of the central and southern parts of the country, the Phalangist-led Lebanese government signed a peace treaty with Israel the following month. The agreement was never ratified, however, due to popular opposition and was formally canceled soon thereafter.
By the end of the summer of 1983, as popular resistance to the country's Phalangist leadership installed under Israeli guns gained ground, U.S. forces began intervening more directly in support of the rightist government, exchanging fire with Shiite rebels in suburban Beirut slums and bombing and shelling Druze villages supportive of the Socialist-led resistance in the Shouf Mountains. The American air strikes and the utilization of big guns from the battleship New Jersey resulted in large-scale civilian casualties. Despite concerns by peace and human rights groups in the United States, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives joined with the Republican-controlled Senate to authorize the continued presence of U.S. forces in Lebanon for an additional 18 months.
Fighting between U.S. forces and the Lebanese resistance continued into the fall, resulting in scores of American and hundreds of Lebanese casualties. In October, a suicide bomber attacked a Marine barracks near the Beirut Airport, killing 241 servicemen.
Fighting escalated still further in the winter months, with U.S. warplanes bombing Syrian positions in eastern Lebanon. Using rhetoric similar to that now being used to justify the ongoing U.S. war in Iraq, administration officials insisted in the face of growing anti-war sentiment in the United States that a withdrawal of American forces from Lebanon would threaten the peace and stability of the entire region and would be seen as victory for terrorists.
By early 1984, however, as a result of growing opposition within the United States to a counter-insurgency war which appeared to be creating more terrorism and instability than it was suppressing, the United States finally withdrew its forces from Lebanon.
The damage to America's reputation had been done, however. As a result of U.S. support for the Israeli invasion and its subsequent intervention on behalf of what was widely seen as an illegitimate right-wing minority government, Lebanon had evolved from being perhaps the most pro-American country in the Arab world to, by the mid-1980s, perhaps the most anti-American country in the Arab world.
Ongoing Anti-American Terrorism
The rebuilt U.S. embassy was blown up again in September 1984, killing 54 people. What had once been one of the safest Middle Eastern countries in which Americans could travel became the most dangerous. Despite almost all American residents of Lebanon departing the country, several fell victim to assassinations and nearly a dozen others were kidnapped and held hostage. Reagan administration efforts to buy Iranian influence to pressure the Lebanese hostage-takers to release their American captives led to the arms-for-hostages deals which later came to light during the Iran-Contra scandal.
Despite the enormous attention given to the American hostages, and much to the consternation of human rights groups, the U.S. government expressed little concern regarding the fate of thousands of young Lebanese and Palestinian men seized by Israeli occupation forces and sent to prisons in Israel and Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon. Hundreds were held without charge for more than 15 years and many later reported they had been routinely tortured.
Another U.S. response to Lebanese terrorism was counter-terrorism, including the formation of a CIA-backed Lebanese intelligence unit designed to target suspected Shiite radicals. In March of 1985, in an unsuccessful effort to assassinate the anti-American Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, this U.S.-trained and -funded hit squad planted a bomb in a working class Beirut neighborhood which killed 80 civilians.
In June of 1985, Lebanese hijackers—including a man whose family had been killed by shells launched from the battleship New Jersey— seized a TWA airliner and forced it to Beirut, holding the passengers and crew hostage on the airport tarmac for 17 days. A U.S. Navy officer on board was executed.
In an interview with the New York Times, former President Jimmy Carter observed, in regard to Lebanon, “We bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers, women and children and farmers and housewives, in those villages around Beirut. As a result, we have become a kind of Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of hostages and that is what has precipitated some terrorist attacks.”
The Rise of Hizbullah
By the summer of 1985, guerrilla warfare by Lebanese Communists, the Lebanese Shiite Amal militia, some Palestinian factions, and other guerrilla movements forced the Israelis to withdraw their occupation forces from central Lebanon back into the far southern part of the country originally seized in 1978. Meanwhile, Syrian forces—which still controlled most of the eastern part of the country—were turning their guns against Maronite strongholds in the east and in mountain regions of the north, shelling a number of Christian towns and villages.
The Lebanese terrorists who had targeted Americans included both Sunni and Shiite extremists. Many of the latter coalesced into the Hizbullah (Party of God), developed with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Much the movement's support was drawn from the hundreds of thousands of Shiites who, following years of Israeli attacks, were forced from southern Lebanon into the shanty towns on the southern outskirts of Beirut. In the wake of the forced departure of the PLO and the destruction of the LNM by successive interventions from Syria, Israel, and the United States, Hizbullah and older Shiite militias like Amal rose to fill the vacuum.
In the parts of southern Lebanon north of the Israeli-occupied sector, Hizbullah came to exercise almost full control and began an armed struggle against the remaining Israeli occupation forces. Israel, with American military, financial, and diplomatic support, continued its defiance of the UN Security Council by maintaining its occupation of the southernmost strip of Lebanon, now claiming it was necessary to protect Israelis from the Hizbullah. Yet this threat from Hizbullah was very much an outgrowth of U.S. and Israeli policy: the group did not even exist until a full four years after Israel began its occupation of southern Lebanon.
Through the remainder of the 1980s, Lebanon remained under the control of the Syrian army, the Israeli army, and a myriad of Lebanese militias. With Lebanon's central government, which had still not re-formed a standing army, unable to challenge the Israeli occupation, the Hizbullah—despite its radical brand of Shiite Islamic ideology—was thereby able to take the lead in the nationalist resistance to the Israeli occupation.
The End of the Civil War
In 1989, an agreement was signed in the Saudi Arabian city of Ta'if which would end the civil war by disarming the militias and revising the French-imposed Constitutional structure to lessen Maronite dominance. The settlement was initially blocked by General Michel Aoun, who had been serving as interim prime minister since September 1988 of one of two rival Lebanese governments which had been set up at the end of President Gemayel's term. In March 1989, he had declared a “war of liberation” against the Syrian presence in his country. Aoun was supported by Iraq, one of the few Arab governments to speak out against the ongoing Syrian military presence in Lebanon. (When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Saddam Hussein declared that Iraqi forces would not leave that occupied emirate unless Syria also withdrew its forces from Lebanon.)
In October of 1990, Syrian forces in Beirut led an attack on Aoun's stronghold, ousting the general and finally ending Lebanon's 15-year civil war. The senior Bush administration backed the Syrian attack against Saddam's most regionally important ally, with State Department officials acknowledging that the assault and resulting Syrian domination of subsequent Lebanese governments would not have been possible without the U.S. government's support. (Ironically, despite his earlier alliance with Saddam Hussein and his role in a number of notorious massacres, General Aoun has been widely feted and praised by both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill as a hero for his anti-Syrian stance.)
During the early 1990s, a revived central Lebanese government and its Syrian backers disarmed most of the militias that had once carved up much of the country. Due to the ongoing Israeli occupation in the south, however, the Israeli-backed SLA remained intact, as did Hizbullah, whose low-level guerrilla warfare against Israeli occupation forces had strengthened its popular support. Despite Lebanese participation in the U.S.-organized Madrid peace conference in 1991, it became apparent that an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon was not a high priority for the United States.
With the U.S. veto power preventing the United Nations from enforcing its resolutions calling for an Israeli withdrawal, the UN was largely powerless to deal with the situation. Even on the ground, the UN's role was limited: Israel had long refused to allow United Nations peacekeeping forces, initially dispatched to Lebanon in 1978, to take up positions on the Lebanese side of the Israeli-Lebanese border as the Security Council demanded, so they were forced to patrol a “no man's land” just north of the Israeli-occupied zone between Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the SLA on one side and Hizbullah on the other side. Caught in the crossfire, scores of UN soldiers—with only side-arms at their disposal—were killed, primarily by the SLA.
Hizbullah and the Balance of Power
Through most of the 1990s, Hizbullah periodically fired shells into northern Israel, killing and injuring a number of civilians. Hizbullah claimed it was in retaliation for Israeli attacks against civilian areas in southern Lebanon which had taken a far greater number of civilian lives and pledged to cease such shelling once Israel ended its occupation. Meanwhile, the United States condemned Hizbullah not just for its occasional attacks inside Israel but also for its armed resistance against Israeli soldiers within Lebanon, despite the fact that international law recognizes the right of armed resistance against foreign occupation forces. The United States was apparently hoping that enough Israeli pressure against Lebanon would force the Lebanese to ratify a separate peace treaty with Israel and thereby isolate the Syrians. Similarly, the Syrians saw an advantage of allowing Hizbullah to fight Israel in Lebanon as a means to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Golan region of Syria, which had been seized by the Israelis in the 1967 war and had been under Israeli military occupation ever since.
In an effort to discredit Hizbullah's efforts to free Lebanon from foreign military occupation, U.S. officials began to portray the populist Shiite movement as simply a proxy of the Syrians. In reality, Syria had originally backed Amal, a more moderate Shiite movement which had previously clashed with Hizbullah. As Hizbullah, despite its fundamentalist ideology, gained in popularity among the Lebanese as a result of leading the resistance against the Israeli occupation, Syria increased its support as well, though more through allowing them freedom of action than through substantial military or financial support.
Throughout this period, much of the ordinance and delivery systems used by the Israeli forces against Hizbullah and civilian targets in Lebanon were from the United States, part of the more than two billion dollars of taxpayer-funded military assistance sent annually to the Israeli government. Successive U.S. administrations rejected demands by human rights groups that such military aid be made conditional on an end to Israeli attacks on civilian areas.
The United States repeatedly defended the Israeli assaults, vetoing UN Security Council resolutions condemning the violence as well as questioning the credibility of human rights groups and UN agencies that exposed the extent of the humanitarian tragedy. To cite one notable case from 1996, the Israelis launched a mortar attack against a UN compound near the Lebanese village of Qana that was sheltering refugees from nearby villages which had been under Israeli assault for several days, killing more than 100 civilians. Reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and other investigators all indicated that the bombardment was probably intentional. However, despite the failure of the Clinton administration to provide any evidence to challenge these findings, the United States insisted that it was an accident. Some reports have indicated that the U.S. decision to veto the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's re-election the following year was related to his refusal to suppress or tone down the UN's findings on the Israeli assault on Qana.
By the late 1990s, increasing casualties among Israeli soldiers in occupied Lebanon led to growing dissent within Israel. In response to public opinion polls showing that the vast majority of Israelis wanted their forces to pull out of Lebanon, Martin Indyk, President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Israel who had also served as his assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, publicly encouraged Israel to keep its occupation forces in Lebanon indefinitely. In other words, the United States was encouraging Israel—against the better judgment of the majority of its citizens—to defy longstanding UN Security Council resolutions that called for Israel's unconditional withdrawal. When veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas asked about his ambassador's comments at a press conference the following day, President Clinton replied, “I believe it is imperative that Israel maintain the security of its northern border and therefore I have believed that the United States should be somewhat deferential under these circumstances.” Given the Clinton administration's demands during that period that the United Nations impose strict sanctions against Arab countries like Iraq, Libya, and Sudan for their violations of UN Security Council resolutions, President Clinton's public defense of Israel's ongoing violations of UN Security Council resolutions reinforced the widespread perceptions in the Middle East and elsewhere of rampant American double standards in its approach to international law.
The Israeli Withdrawal
In May 2000, ongoing attacks by Hizbullah against the IDF and SLA forced the Israelis and their proxy force to make a hasty retreat out of Lebanese territory. In the wake of the failure of those advocating a diplomatic solution to end the Israeli occupation, this perceived military victory by the Hizbullah greatly enhanced the status of the movement among the Shiites and others. Many cite the failure of the United States to allow diplomatic means to succeed in ending the occupation, either through the U.S.-led peace process or through the United Nations system, as a key factor in convincing many Palestinians that the only way to end Israeli occupation of their lands was through armed struggle led by radical Islamists. Indeed, the violent Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began just four months later.
Since then, except for a few minor incidents, the Israeli-Lebanese border has been quiet. The small number of shelling incidents from the Lebanese side appears to have come from small leftist and Sunni groups, not from Hizbullah. There has been periodic fighting, however, between Hizbullah militia and Israeli occupation forces in the disputed Shebaa Farms area along Lebanon's border with the Israeli-occupied Golan in southwestern Syria.
Though Israel has continued to violate Lebanese air space in violation of UN Security Council resolution 425 and related resolutions—actions which Secretary General Kofi Annan has labeled as “provocative” and “at variance” with what was required of Israel by these Security Council mandates—a nearly-unanimous 2003 Congressional resolution praised Israel's “full compliance” with the resolution.
Hizbullah never disarmed its militia as required and neither did the Lebanese government nor the Syrians attempted to force them to do so. However, since Israeli forces were withdrawn and the SLA disbanded in 2000, the numbers of Hizbullah fighters are down to around 1,000. The movement functions today primarily as a political party with elected representatives serving in the Lebanese parliament. A detailed report published in July 2003 by the International Crisis Group, an independent organization with close ties to the U.S. foreign policy establishment, described the Hizbullah of today as “maintaining the rhetoric and armed capability of a militant organization but few of its concrete manifestations.” Despite the fact that Hizbullah had not been implicated in any terrorist attacks for more than a decade, the Bush administration's insistence that they should be treated as a “terrorist group” rather than a political party was therefore greeted with widespread skepticism in Europe and elsewhere.
A Hizbullah-sponsored rally in Beirut on March 8 of last year in opposition to Western pressure against the Syrian and Lebanese governments forced Bush administration officials to acknowledge that they are indeed a powerful force in Lebanese politics which could not be simply dismissed as a band of terrorists. In response, despite reports from the State Department and Congressional Research Service which confirmed the absence of any terrorist attacks by Hizbullah over the past dozen years, the U.S. House of Representatives six days later passed a resolution by an overwhelming 380-3 margin condemning “the continuous terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah.”
In Lebanese parliamentary elections that May, a slate led by Hezbollah won 80% of the vote in southern Lebanon and ended up with approximately 25 seats in the 128-member national assembly.
The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act
In a 2003 bill signed by President Bush and passed with only eight dissenting votes in both houses of Congress, the United States strengthened sanctions against Syria. The legislation cited, as one of its key grievances against Damascus, the ongoing Syrian violation of UN Security Council resolution 520, passed in September of 1982, which called for “strict respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity, and political independence of Lebanon under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon through the Lebanese Army throughout Lebanon.” A reading of the full text on the UN resolution, however, reveals that it was primarily directed not toward Syria but at Israel, which had launched a major invasion of Lebanon three months earlier and at that point held nearly half of the country, including the capital of Beirut, under its military occupation. Indeed, while one could certainly make the case that this resolution also applied to Syria, Israel was the only outside power mentioned by name in the resolution.
It is interesting to note that none of the supporters of the Syrian Accountability Act had ever called upon Israel to abide by UN Security Council resolution 520, much less called for sanctions against Israel in order to enforce it. Indeed, virtually all of the backers of this resolution who were then in office voted in support of unconditional military and economic aid to the Israeli government during this period when Israel was in violation of this very same resolution for which they later voted to impose sanctions on Syria for violating. Annual U.S. aid to Israel went from $1.7 billion at the time Israel began its occupation of southern Lebanon in 1978 to $4.1 billion in 2000, the final year of Israel's 22-year occupation, effectively rewarding Israel for its violation of Lebanese sovereignty and international law.
The Syrian Accountability Act and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act did not give Syria any incentive to withdraw from Lebanon since the bill required that sanctions be maintained even if Syria completely pulled out of Lebanon due to other policy differences. The bill also imposed sanctions on Syria until the Syrian government agreed to a series of additional demands which most international observers found unreasonable, such as the insistence that Syria unilaterally disarm itself of certain weapons and delivery systems that hostile neighbors such as Israel and Turkey were allowed to maintain.
The Final Chapter
In September 2004—nine months after the sanctions bill against Syria was signed into law—the United States and France pushed resolution 1559 through the UN Security Council, which reiterated the call for all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon. Syria's violations of these two resolutions were frequently cited by President Bush, the mainstream media, and Congressional leaders of both parties to highlight Syria's status as an international outlaw. However, given the U.S. tolerance of the Israeli government's violations of UNSC resolution 520, 425, and eight other resolutions during Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon calling for Israel's withdrawal—as well as the U.S. veto of several other resolutions challenging Israel's occupation of and attacks against Lebanon—it again raised questions regarding the sincerity of the United States' commitment to the Lebanese people's right of self-determination.
Popular Lebanese anger at the continued Syrian presence in their country and the widespread belief that Syrian intelligence operatives were responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005 led to a series of massive nonviolent protests in Beirut—nicknamed the “Cedar Revolution”—which compelled Syrian forces to finally leave Lebanon at the end of April. Elections in June led to a victory by an anti-Syrian coalition and the overbearing influence on the Lebanese government long wielded by Syrian intelligence has waned considerably.
Though the Bush administration expressed its enthusiastic support for last year's popular anti-Syrian uprising, efforts by the United States to portray itself as a champion of Lebanese freedom and sovereignty are disingenuous in the extreme. For nearly a half century, the United States—like the French, the Syrians, the Palestinians, and the Israelis—has used Lebanon to advance its own perceived strategic interests largely at the detriment of the Lebanese people themselves.
As a result, it is unlikely that the widespread anti-American sentiment in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Arab world will change as long as U.S. demands that principles of self-determination, human rights, and international law be respected only when the violator of these principles is not allied with the United States.
**Stephen Zunes is the Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). He is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).

US, France want resolution on Syrian-Lebanon ties
26 Apr 2006 23:24:15 GMT
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, April 26 (Reuters) - The United States wants a new U.N. Security Council resolution on what it calls continued Syrian interference in Lebanon and Iran's backing of guerrillas there, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Wednesday.
Bolton said the council should react to a recent report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which urged a delineation of borders between the two countries, disarming the the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbollah militia in the south, and establishing formal diplomatic ties.
The report, prepared by U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, is a response to Security Council resolution 1559 of September 2004 that called for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and for Beirut to disarm militia so it could control the entire country.
"We think a resolution would be appropriate at this point," Bolton told reporters. "I think highlighting the areas of deficiency in Syria's performance ... would be important to show the Council's continuing resolve."
France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, agreed on the need for a resolution but gave no details on what the measure would contain.
But China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, this month's council president, was cautious, saying, "The region is already complicated, we don't want to make it more complicated. We are not so enthusiastic about more resolutions."
And Syria, in a letter, said Annan's report exceeded the mandate of the September 2004 resolution because setting borders and establishing diplomatic relations fell "within the domestic jurisdiction in both countries,"
"Pushing the Security Council by some parties to adopt new resolutions or statements will not lead to calm down the situation in Lebanon or the region, but to the contrary it will escalate the situation of instability and tension," it said.
The letter, signed by Milad Atieh, Syria's deputy U.N. ambassador also said that Syria's "troops, military assets and security apparatus withdrew from Lebanon on April 26, 2005."
ASSASSINATION PROBE
Bolton said the resolution could include a call for Syrian cooperation with the U.N. investigation into the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri, in February 2005 that has implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials.
Hariri's assassination changed the political landscape of Lebanon and led to Syria's withdrawal of troops after 29 years. Lebanon also held parliamentary elections that resulted in a majority for anti-Syrian legislators.
Annan's report briefly and for the first time touched on Iranian involvement. He said that Hizbollah had "close ties with frequent contacts and regular communication" with Iran as well as Syria.
Bolton said this reference was important. "We see the effect of the financing by the Iranian government of terrorist organizations and their efforts to disrupt what we think should be progress toward a sovereign and democratic Lebanon."
But Roed-Larsen, in comments to reporters after briefing the council, said that contacts between Iran and Hizbollah were well-known but "we are simply asking Iran to be helpful in order to fulfill the obligations and requirements" of the resolution.
Hizbollah's armed presence is linked directly to the border controversy, with the militia maintaining it provides the sole resistance against a strip of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, known as the Shebaa farms.
The Security Council and the United Nations, using dozens of maps, say Shebaa is part of Syria but the two nations were free to change the border, which they have not done.
Syria and Lebanon have not had embassies on each other's territory since Western powers carved the two states out of the remnants of the Ottoman empire in 1920. Damascus says its many bilateral ties rather than embassies suffice for the present.

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Reuters
Apr 26, 2006 — BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon plans to ask the United Nations to extend an ongoing inquiry into the killing of ex-Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Wednesday.
"We will ask for a one-year extension maximum and it will be up to the U.N. Security Council to decide," Aridi told reporters after a weekly cabinet session.
The 15-member world body had extended the mandate of the inquiry, which started in June, for six months in mid-December after a request from the Lebanese government.
"This is a routine measure taken by the cabinet. It happened before so there is nothing new about it," Aridi said.
An interim report in December implicated senior Syrian officials in the February 14, 2005 killing and criticized Syria for its lack of cooperation with U.N. investigators.
A follow-up report in March said groundwork had been laid for better cooperation with Damascus, which denies any role in the murder.
Serge Brammertz, the inquiry's chief investigator who took over from German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis in January, interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday over his country's alleged role in the assassination.
Aridi said the cabinet would vote on the decision to ask for the extension in an emergency session next week.
In Washington, President Bush issued an order blocking the assets of anyone connected with the killing.
Bush also said additional steps were being taken "concerning certain actions of the government of Syria." Aridi declined to comment, saying the government had yet to discuss the order.
Syria, which entered Lebanon in 1976 to quell a civil war, ended its military presence there a year ago after an international outcry over Hariri's killing. It had been the dominant political force in its smaller neighbor.
Lebanon is working with the United Nations to set up an international tribunal to try the suspected killer. Four Lebanese ex-security generals have been charged in connection with the crime but no indictments have been issued so far.

Press Statement
Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
April 26, 2006
Lebanon and Syria: Anniversary of Syrian Military Withdrawal From Lebanon
One year ago today on April 26, 2005, Syria completed the withdrawal of its military troops and assets from Lebanon, ending nearly 30 years of occupation. The United Nations verified the military withdrawal as complete, but noted that it was unable to conclude with certainty that the Syrian intelligence apparatus had been completely withdrawn. Unfortunately, Syrian interference in Lebanon has continued throughout the past year via economic pressure, political interference and intimidation, and ongoing security incidents. Syria’s proxies have prevented the ongoing National Dialogue, which is being conducted in the spirit of the Taif Accord, from being able to properly address the Syrian-orchestrated extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term of office.
Today, UN Special Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen briefed the UN Security Council on the status of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559. The Security Council still has a crucial role to play in ensuring Lebanon’s transformation to a sovereign independent state. Disarmament of militias and extension of effective Lebanese sovereignty throughout the entire country remain priorities. Syria must immediately end the flow of arms to militias within Lebanon and cooperate with the Lebanese government on border security.
The Lebanese people have accomplished much over the past year, but much remains to be done. The United States, and the international community, stand with the Lebanese people as they work to reassert their independence and strengthen their democracy, and we support their call for national dignity, truth, and justice.
We call on the international community to continue to hold the Syrian regime accountable until it responds completely to concerns about its cooperation with the UN International Independent Investigation Commission, interference in Lebanon, insufficient action on the Iraqi border, sponsorship of Palestinian terrorist groups, and harsh crackdown on civil society.
2006/418