Wednesday, May 14, 2008

"...we took of bunch of Lebanese political actors who seemed to push all the right buttons for us..."

"Briefing On Beirut" at the New America Foundation, via "Lebanon Again", here
Flynt Leverett says:
"one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush administration in the Middle East is that in the aftermath of the assassination of Rafik Hariri in February 2005 to lash on to the so-called Cedar revolution to leverage the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, to leverage pressure on the regime through the International tribunal and to leverage the "Lebanese democracy". It was a colossal mistake for three reasons:
1- Let us not be overly romantic, Lebanon in the post-Hariri period is not a true democracy, it is a political order rooted in the distribution of political assets along sectarian lines and the patterns of distribution are way out of whack with demographic reality particularly with regard to the Shiia. The last conversation in the world the March 14 would like to have is about "one man, one vote".
2- I said it was a mistake because the Lebanese arena is, at best, a side-show in terms of America's real strategic interests and to use the Lebanese "democracy" for not engaging strategically with Syria and Iran is the height of strategic malpractice as far as I'm concerned for the American administration.
3- It's a mistake because, it does not work, what we did is basically what we did in the early eighties; we took of bunch of western-oriented Lebanese political actors whom we liked because they basically looked like us, talked like us, seemed to push all the right buttons for us in terms of what their political values were, and then we arrayed them against people who have real street credit. The results in the eighties were disastrous and the results now are proving to be very, very bad for US interest in the region. The Syrian regime is more strongly entrenched, more powerful and more influential, certainly Iranian influence strongly increased over the last three years and this policy was a colossal failure. Unfortunately this policy enjoyed strong bipartisan support...
It is a foreign policy based on illusion rather than one based on sober assessment on the ground reality and a clear understanding of what America's interests are. And to the extent that we are going to continue to try to play this game with the so-called March 14 coalition, it is going to contribute to further erosion of American standing and influence in this part of the region and if we should be ever foolish enough to think like in the eighties we can intervene by putting American military on the ground, the outcome will be the same as the eighties, many good soldiers and personnel will loose their lives for no good reason. "

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