As a Middle East policy analyst who also has family ties to Lebanon, I visit quite often. I rolled out of bed one day and tried jogging along Beirut’ s famed middle-class seaside walkway called the Corniche this past weekend, only to discover that the simple concrete and metal rails overlooking the glittering Mediterranean were being pulled up to make way for gorgeous tiles and shiny aluminium. The prospect of these misplaced public works not only upset me but it disrupted my jog. However, it did get me thinking.
Generic urban renewal is of course a good thing. But Lebanon is a country with the absolute highest per capita debt-to-GDP ratio in the Arab world. A year ago in Lebanon and Israel, Hezbollah and Israel pounded each other so hard that 30 percent of the Lebanese population became internal refugees. Swaths of the South of Lebanon were flattened to dust. Ask yourself: if you were running Lebanon, would you be spending the people’s money renovating perfectly good waterfront in an area hardly affected by war, while a third of the country was devastated by war?
The Lebanese government should have other priorities like catering to the civilian victims of the war, or unifying the electorate. The Corniche renewal, albeit small financially, is a highly visible and largely unnecessary renovation. Pair this with vociferous complaints of poor Shia areas receiving more than their fair share of electricity blackouts: It is a clear sign that Lebanon’s current coalition, which is at odds with Hezbollah, must do more to revitalize hard-hit South Lebanon (and the other disadvantaged parts of the country).
Imagine the public outcry that would occur in the United States if after Hurricane Katrina, George Bush undertook highly visible development projects in Republican strongholds that were left untouched by Katrina – that’s how the situation looks to Lebanon s large Shia community, the key source of support for Hezbollah.
Perhaps a short-sighted policy, but why should this matter to us Americans?
Because over the past two decades, countries that have fallen apart have done so painfully and amid chaos. Yugoslavia divided into a half-dozen states, and Bosnia later broke apart into two further entities – one Serbian Greek Orthodox and one combined Croatian Catholic/Bosniac Muslim. Serbia and Montenegro broke apart. Kosovo may soon separate. The West Bank and Gaza are now ruled by two governments – Hamas in Gaza and Yasser Arafat’s Fatah in the West Bank, and analysts are talking about partitioning Iraq into Arab Sunni, Arab Shia, and Kurdish areas.
Could Lebanon be heading in the same direction? Are we about to see the emergence of two Lebanons – North Lebanon and South Lebanon, one governed by Hezbollah in the South while the rest of the country is run by the Sunnis and the various Christian sects?
This scenario is highly, highly unlikely, largely because neither Hezbollah nor the Lebanese government want this. But with the Lebanese presidential elections due this fall, we face the high likelihood that the two sides in parliament might not agree on a president. If this happens, Lebanon could have two functioning governments, two parliaments, two presidents, each claiming legitimacy.
Where would that leave Lebanon, America and the rest of the international community? Lebanon s decade and a half long civil war has taught the Lebanese that violence does not solve problems.
We must take steps to keep Lebanon’s seams intact. What Lebanon needs is for each side to have the strength to stop relying on its international supporters to promote their interests. Instead, the international community should encourage the various factions within Lebanon to work together to ensure that the outcome of the upcoming Presidential selection process does not lead to a divided Lebanon.
What the region needs are more partners who are willing to sit around the table to solve problems.
What the world needs is a Lebanese government that is building a positive future for all its citizens — and the support of the global community for a Lebanon in which government spending, electoral systems and the constitution are not based on religious difference but on the common humanity of all Lebanese. Why wait for Lebanon to fall apart? Wouldn t it be better to talk now and build a common future, before it ends up like Bosnia, or perhaps soon, Iraq?
Hady Amris a foreign policy fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and Director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
