Op-Ed Lebanon's Tragic Flaws

Author: Theo May

I've been in Beirut now for just over one incredible month. Three weeks ago, I was in the city when moderate levels of civil strife broke out, leaving nine dead and a couple hundred wounded. While those days were certainly memorable, the most fascinating days were those that came after the violence. The city was dead on the day that Hezbollah blocked roads across the country with burning tires. Because no cars could get on the roads, stores were closed and people stayed home. Walking to work that morning, I was able to stroll down the middle of the street for the whole forty-five minute walk, without ever having to move out of the way of oncoming traffic.

The next day, however, was an entirely different story. With newspaper headlines across the country screaming that Lebanon was on the verge of civil war, and with politicians denouncing one another for inspiring the previous day's violence that they swore had pushed the country over the edge, I was wary of what I might find on the streets.

To my amazement, I stepped outside to find a day like any other. It was something I had read about in history books, but it was truly awe-inspiring to see a city functioning as normal, despite the violence from the day before and the poisonous rhetoric from politicians on all sides. People I talked to on the street seemed defiant in their attitudes towards the previous day's roadblocks, brawls and gun battles. It's not that they didn't care about the fate of their country, it's that yesterday was just another day in the often sad march of Lebanon's history.

And that's when it hit me - fifteen years of intense fighting between 1975 and 1990 had hardened the Lebanese and, more importantly, created in them the uncanny ability to take a punch and bounce right back.

Herein lies the problem, there is hardly a blow big enough to make the Lebanese stand up and yell, "Stop!" Their ability to come back so quickly is both their greatest and most tragic asset. Unfortunately, Hezbollah realizes this and its strategy in Lebanon reflects its understanding of the population's high threshold for pain.

When militants, likely tied to Syria, killed Former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February, 2005, it crossed the line of what the people could stomach. Demonstrations of record sizes raged in the city center until the Syrian government folded under the pressure and withdrew its military from the country. Hezbollah knows it cannot afford to perpetrate an act on that scale to win its war, because the people will not tolerate it.

Instead, it is waging a war of attrition with periodic demonstrations, perpetual rhetorical barrages against the government and a now two-month old sit-in strike in Beirut's center. Hezbollah is not averse to violence in this new war. It wants to provoke the other side into starting the conflict so it can term its retaliation "defensive." We saw this in the summer war against Israel and we're seeing it again today across the country.

Hezbollah finds itself in a jam now, though. Last week, the Siniora cabinet provocatively passed a measure establishing the tribunal to try those suspected in Hariri's murder, something that Hezbollah has ferociously opposed. On the other side, Israel is stepping up its rhetoric against Hezbollah in light of bombs it found along the border last week and what it sees as an intensification of the rearming of Hezbollah by Syria and Iran.

The problem for Hezbollah is that it will find it increasingly more difficult to wage its protracted low-level "tolerable" war against the Siniora government as it comes under increasing pressure from two sides.

The next few months in Lebanon will be fascinating as we watch Hezbollah try to fight its battles while not pushing the Lebanese people to the end of their collective rope. But Hezbollah cannot afford two wars at once. Back in the day when it was an underground guerilla movement, it could have skirmished on many fronts. Today, as Hezbollah seeks to remain a national institution, it can ill-afford to lash out at the increasing pressure, especially since it's coming on two fronts.

Hezbollah is at a crossroads. Can it find a way to continue to inflict low-grade pain on the Lebanese people without awakening that powerful activist muscle the citizenry is so capable of flexing? Siniora and Israel, unwittingly embracing the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" adage, have put Hezbollah in check. If the Lebanese people can lower their pain tolerance, which makes them so resilient, they are in a position to put Hezbollah in something resembling a checkmate.

Theo May is an International Studies Major with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies. He is currently living in Beiruit and working for the English newspaper, The Daily Star.