TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF LEBANESE AMERICANS

My name is Toufic Baaklini. I am the Chairman of the Government Affairs Committee of the National Alliance of Lebanese Americans (NALA). NALA is a tax exempt charitable organization whose primary mission in the United States is to inform and educate our fellow citizens regarding issues of Lebanese/American interests, and to bring a heightened sense of awareness to our fellow Lebanese Americans of Lebanon's rich cultural heritage, which is seriously threatened by regional developments. NALA wishes to thank the Committee for honoring its request to submit this Testimony to the Subcommittee.

The past year has seen a total upheaval in the settled order of the entire Middle Eastern region. The introduction of a large Coalition force into Iraq, the toppling of the Ba’ath regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the subsequent attempts of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in that country to assemble an Iraqi governing entity to which it can transfer sovereignty by 30 June 2004 are events which have caused this upheaval.

To the West, in the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories, the unfettered military operations of the Likud-led Sharon government has sidelined the Road Map for Peace initiative and replaced it with unilateral action such as the construction of the Wall of Separation and the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza which was accompanied by the assassination of Sheik Yassim, the spiritual leader of the Hamas movement, as well as his successor.

In addition, Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni Muslim fundamentalist movement operated from the boarder region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, continues to prey upon targets in moderate Arab States of the region as well as participate in the insurgency campaign being conducted against Coalition forces operating in Iraq.

The region in which Lebanon exists is as unstable politically as it has been since the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the close of World War I in 1919. Though Lebanon is the home of Hezbollah and allows the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), the Abu Nidal organization (ANO), and HAMAS to operate in training camps located in the Bekaa Valley, as yet, the turmoil of the region has not reached Lebanon.

The Syrian Occupation. Over most of its territory, Lebanon remains a state occupied by neighboring Syria. Though there have been a number of apparent redeployments of Syrian troops from the littoral region of Lebanon to the interior Bekaa Valley, Syria continues to maintain the same level of military presence and a stranglehold on public policy making and the private sector in Lebanon. Syria also maintains a network of military intelligence personnel operating independently in Lebanon and in non conformance with the 1989 Taif Accord and implementing agreements reached in 1991. These forces undermine the authority of the central government according to the most recent State Department country report.

Through a combination of Syrian intelligence activities and government officials appointed by and owing their positions to Damascus the Syrian occupiers by ceding more and more Lebanese policy making authority to the Syrian occupiers, Syrian hegemony is sustained in Lebanon.

According to the just issued Report on Global Terrorism, the State Department wrote the following:

“Lebanon remains host to numerous US-designated terrorist groups. At the same time, a number of legislative, legal, and operational initiatives showed some promise in Lebanon’s counterterrorism efforts. However, Beirut continues to demonstrate an unwillingness to take steps against Lebanese Hizballah, the PIJ, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC), the Abu Nidal organization (ANO), and HAMAS.

The Lebanese Government recognizes as legitimate resistance groups those organizations that target Israel and permits them to maintain offices in Beirut. Beirut goes further by exempting what it terms “legal resistance” groups -- including Hizballah -- from money-laundering and terrorism- financing laws. Lebanese leaders, including President Emile Lahud, reject assessments of Hizballah’s global reach, instead concentrating on the group’s political wing and asserting that it is an integral part of Lebanese society and politics. In addition, Syrian and Iranian support for Hizballah activities in southern Lebanon, as well as training and assistance to Palestinian rejectionist groups, help promote an environment where terrorist elements flourish. Hizballah conducted multiple attacks in the Shab’a Farms region during 2003, including firing antitank rockets.

The Lebanese security forces remain unable or unwilling to enter Palestinian refugee camps -- the operational nodes of terrorist groups such as ‘Asbat al-Ansar and the Palestinian rejectionists -- and to deploy forces to much of the Beka’a Valley, southern Beirut, and the south of the country bordering Israel. Furthermore, Syria’s predominant role in Lebanon facilitates the Hizballah and Palestinian rejectionist presence in portions of Lebanon.

The Lebanese Government acknowledges the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee’s consolidated list but does not acknowledge groups identified by only the US Government: Beirut will not take action against groups designated solely by the United States. In addition, constitutional provisions prohibit the extradition of Lebanese nationals to a third country. Lebanese authorities further maintain that the Government’s provision of amnesty to Lebanese individuals involved in acts of violence during the civil war prevents Beirut from prosecuting many cases of concern to the United States -- including the hijacking in 1985 of TWA 847 and the murder of a US Navy diver on the flight -- and the abduction, torture, and murder of US hostages from 1984 to 1991. US courts have brought indictments against Hizballah operatives responsible for a number of those crimes, and some of these defendants remain prominent terrorist figures.

The Lebanese Government has insisted that “Imad Mugniyah” -- wanted in connection with the TWA hijacking and other terrorist acts, who was placed on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists in 2001 -- is no longer in Lebanon. The Government’s legal system also has failed to hold a hearing on the prosecutor’s appeal in the case of Tawfi z Muhammad Farroukh, who -- despite the evidence against him -- was found not guilty of murder for his role in the killings of US Ambassador Francis Meloy and two others in 1976.”

Thus under Syrian occupation , Lebanese governmental institutions have been subordinated in their function of serving Lebanese national interests to serving those of neighboring Syria.

In December 2003, President Bush signed into law the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. The Administration, on May 11, 2004 implemented the Act by imposing some of the sanctions authorized by the passage of the Act in order to bring about the purposes of the Act, which are to end Syrian sponsored terrorism and to end Syrian occupation and exertion of hegemony over Lebanon.

To the south, Hezbollah irregulars continue to be the military force in control of the border area with the State of Israel. There continues to be low grade military activity between the Hezbollah irregulars and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) over the contested Shebaa Farms district of Mount Herman. Though the matter should be settled diplomatically before the appropriate international tribunal, the Lebanese authorities have not so acted, and have instead, subordinated this interest in a peaceful resolution of a border dispute to a Syrian national interest in maintaining Hezbollah in Lebanese territory on a military footing.

Israel, in conducting negotiations for a prisoner exchange between Israel and Lebanon, with Sheik Hassan Nasrallah rather than with the appropriate Lebanese authority, has only exacerbated and heightened the perception of governmental legitimacy of Hezbollah where none, in fact, exists.

In addition, those negotiations have given further credence to terrorists tactics that are emulated by Hamas and Iraqi insurgents in an effort to achieve the same success and prominence as Hizbullah.

Developments in the Peace Talks -- There are no developments in the Peace Talks.

Prime Minister Sharon of Israel is intent upon settling the Israeli – Palestinian conflict in isolation from its continuing official state of war with Syria and LebanonPrime Minister Sharon has rejected President Yasser Arafat as an appropriate diplomatic interlocutor and indeed has stated in press reports his intent to assassinate President Arafat in the same fashion in which the leadership of Hamas is in the process of liquidation. In so doing, Sharon has effectively left Israel with no Palestinian negotiating partner.

The Bush Administration’s initiative, styled the Road Map for Peace is likewise moribund as the Sharon Government pursues a unilateral path to peace with the Palestinians which involves unilateral withdrawals and the erection of walls of separation between the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories. In doing this Prime Minister Sharon has the full support of the US Administration.

These unilateral actions, particularly the express statements of the Sharon government indicating that the right of return for Palestinian refugees shall not be honored in Israel, has led to hightened agitation in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and added to the security concerns.

The Growing Influence of Hezbollah -- Hezbollah reaped a huge political windfall from this May 2000 Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, as it has taken sole credit for forcing the Israeli pullout. Already it has 7 seats in the Lebanese Parliament and controls 50 others giving it the largest voting bloc of that assembly. It runs 2 radio stations, a popular television station, a network of hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, schools and martial arts centers, as well as welfare and rehabilitation centers for war casualties and it pays pensions for relatives of killed fighters. Since the early 1980’s, Iran has pumped an estimated $2 billion dollars into this effort in Lebanon.

Their ultimate goal, says Professor Nizar Hamzeh, a Lebanese scholar, is to capture the Lebanese state from within, if not from without. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah, has said that after the Israeli withdrawal, the organization will become thoroughly involved in political activities. Militarily, he has recently declared Hizbullah an integral part of the Palestinian struggle fully at the service of Hamas in a joint public address with Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal.

Hezbollah has now become the template for successful insurgencies against a conventional force trained under Western military theory. Its leaders have taught its methods to elements of Hamas and the PIJ for use against the IDF in the Occupied Territories and Gaza. More ominous, these same tested methods, used by Hezbollah against the IDF in southern Lebanon are evident in the insurgency currently being conducted against American led coalition forces in Iraq.

The State of the Lebanese Economy - The government embarked on a number of reforms to help cope with the large budget deficit and a crippling public debt, 180% of GDP at end 2003 compared to 152% in 2001. Some 52% of the debt is held in local currency. Tax reforms included the introduction of VAT in January 2002, which has been judged a success, surpassing expectations on revenue and implementation. Lebanon’s economic reform measures to deal with the crisis convinced the Paris II donors to provide substantial political and financial backing, mainly from Arab countries, France, Italy and Belgium. The reforms included fiscal measures to bring the budget deficit down to 8.4% of GDP in 2003 (15.6% in 2002), privatization of telecommunications, electricity and other state assets (expected to yield €5 billion by end 2004), and improved debt management to reduce debt service, which presently account for 80% of state revenue. The European Commission urged Lebanon to proceed further with its reforms, and to seek IMF backing for its programs. The Lebanese delegation at the second Economic Dialogue in Brussels on 24 November 2003 outlined some of the difficulties leading to delay in the Paris II measures, mainly in privatization, and confirmed that around 80% of pledges had been received.

There has also been slippage on fiscal targets. The budget deficit was 38% of expenditure for the first nine months of 2003, compared to 40% the year before, but above the 2003 target, which had assumed revenue earnings from privatization. Faced with uncertainty over the future of privatization policy, the Treasury presented two sets of figures on spending and revenue in its 2004 budget, one with privatization, and one without. Debt servicing alone will account for 44% of the budget. The budget deficit agreed for 2004 is set at 32% of spending, compared to the 25% promised at Paris II.

The 2003 Iraq war brought mixed results for Lebanon. There have been promising signs of re-established trading ties with Baghdad; and Arab tourism and construction which temporarily eased back during the war, soon resumed steady growth. Foreign reserves rose 79% to €12 billion in October 2003.[1]

Lebanon remains burdened with the presence of over one million Syrian workers in Lebanon who are seriously underbidding skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled work away from Lebanese workers and then remitting the funds to family in Syria. This poses a serious drain on the Lebanese economy at a time when it is trying to re-emerge from years of war and neglect. The Lebanese government is powerless to protest this drain as it finds itself bound to Syria as a dominated partner in bilateral economic treaties which condone this practice that is beneficial to Syria.

In addition there are, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) 350,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon which pose an additional economic burden on the country.

USAID – Lebanon has recently concluded a 5 year $60 million dollar commitment to Lebanon. According to the State Department, “USAID’s intention over the three year span of 2003-2005 is to build on past programs, melding elements of the existing strategy into one that conforms with the goals and objectives of the Administration’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI[2]). This strategy will fuse expansion with integration by targeting value-added and growth-oriented sectors, geographic areas, and reforms; and promote economic and political governance, environmental health, and safety and security in was that enhance Lebanon’s overall well-being.”[3]

n Expanding economic opportunities – in productive sectors and ‘growth poles’

n Strengthening foundations for governance – with municipalities and civil society

n Improving environmental policies and practices – for water management and sanitation

n Promoting mine awareness and victims’ assistance – for residents of south Lebanon

n Strengthening American Education Institutions – as key development partners.

These six strategic areas are grounded in the following six anchors, according to the State Department Report:

In terms of funds, the Administration has reduced its budgetary request for Lebanon in the USAID accounts from FY 2002 where total program funds requested were $35,600,000 to $32,500,000 for FY 2004.

The United States seeks to maintain its traditionally close ties with Lebanon, and to help preserve its independence, sovereignty, national unity, and territorial integrity. The United States also supports the withdrawal of all non-Lebanese forces from Lebanon, including Syrian forces, and the disarming and disbanding of all armed militias. The United States believes that a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Lebanon can make an important contribution to comprehensive peace in the Middle East.

One measure of U.S. concern and involvement has been a program of relief, rehabilitation, and recovery which, since 1975, has totaled more than $400 million. This support reflects not only humanitarian concerns and historical ties but also the importance the United States attaches to sustainable development and the restoration of an independent, sovereign, unified Lebanon. Current funding is used to support the activities of U.S. and Lebanese private voluntary organizations engaged in rural and municipal development programs nationwide, improve the economic climate for global trade and investment, and enhance security and resettlement in south Lebanon. The U.S. also supports humanitarian demining and victims’ assistance programs.

Over the years, the United States also has assisted the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Lebanese American University (LAU) with budget support and student scholarships. Assistance also has been provided to the Lebanese-American Community School (ACS) and the International College (IC).

In 1993, the U.S. resumed the International Military Education and Training program in Lebanon to help bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)--the country's only nonsectarian federal institution--and reinforce the importance of civilian control of the military. Sales of excess defense articles (EDA) resumed in 1991 and have allowed the LAF to enhance both its transportation and communications capabilities, which were severely degraded during the civil war.[5]

The above language is taken directly from the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs of the United States State Department and reflects the policy of a bygone era. It was an era of maintaining the status quo, insuring security, at times at the expense of freedom. President Bush will shortly announce his Greater Middle East Initiative to the annual Group of Eight summit in June 2004.

This initiative is truly revolutionary as it is the first serious articulation of a strategy to introduce self-government to the states of the region. Whether that strategy is born or still-born depends, under existing U.S. policy, exclusively on events unfolding in Iraq. Those who would oppose this U.S. initiative in the region have only to deal a politico-military defeat on the U.S. in Iraq. Such a defeat of U.S. interests will not only have the effect of killing the yet unborn Greater Middle East Initiative, but will, at the same time begin the process of transforming the region to fundamentalist type rule.

Rather than bring the region into the 21^stCentury, an American defeat in Iraq will hurl the region back to the 13^th. An American defeat in Iraq is defined as an American withdrawal from the country without a stable regime capable as serving as a vessel in which the people of Iraq can invest there aspirations for self government compatible with the culture and history of the people.

Lebanon is the place and now is the time to open a new American front on the battlefield of ideas in the region. Such a revolutionary new strategy as President Bush proposes cannot be implemented piecemeal, state by state. For state by state, the forces in the region that oppose self government and the rule of law can defeat the effort. Current US aid to Lebanon was anemic under the old American regional strategy that called for stability at the cost of freedom. It is completely inadequate in this new revolutionary era created on March 19, 2003 with the initiation of hostilities in Iraq. The American financial commitment, rather than being reduced should be increased in all areas, particularly those in which European and Islamic economic forces have entered the competitive field.

In the post-Saddam era, these others are filling the void, created by the American policy vacuum in Lebanon. The European Union is in the process of assimilating Lebanon into the EU orbit. In 2003 Lebanon and the EU entered the EU-Lebanon Interrim Agreement on trade and commercial issues.

In response to enlargement in May 2004, the European Commission adopted the “Wider Europe – Neighborhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbors” The communiqué of 11 March 2003 (European Neighborhood Policy), set out a new framework for relations with the Southern Mediterranean, Russia and the Western Newly Independent States (NIS) – countries who do not currently have a perspective of membership but who will soon find themselves sharing a border with the Union.

In the political arena, the substantial Shiia population within Lebanon supports political activity and ideology espoused by Hezbollah, which ideology originates in Iran. Currently the only countervailing political force in the country that is on par with the financial backing enjoyed by Hizbollah is that of the EU. As public policy is usually reflective of economic realities and interests, Lebanon, once the most pro-US state in the region, is being stolen away.

The EU has organized constituencies within the Sunni and Christian economic elites and Hezbollah has its constituencies organized within the Shiia community. The United States maintains a deep reservoir of respect and association within all of the communities of Lebanon who have family members residing in the States. Most particularly this is true of the Lebanese Christian community, the most pro-American group in Lebanon.

However, this potential constituency group in Lebanon remains unorganized and wary of U.S. intentions. It waits for signs of support from the United States, while the United States waits for signs of political life from this group. As both await signs from the other, the entire opportunity presented to the United States in Lebanon is steadily slipping away.

In Iraq, America is desperate for regional allies who know the landscape and who can negotiate it. Iraqi-Lebanese commercial ties are very strong. The Lebanese are Western oriented, while at the same time knowledgeable players in the Eastern arena. They are a ready pool of individuals who are uniquely qualified to lend legitimacy to the democracy project that President Bush is to propose. Rather than being foreigners, they are indigenous, natives to the region, who have espoused democracy and self rule throughout their history and can introduce this culture of self-government to the region, in a way that is compatible with the existing culture.

Yet this essential resource goes untapped and indeed, through US neglect, it is being co-opted by potential rivals in the region, the EU, and by those who oppose EU and US incursions into the region, the fundamentalists.

Founded on this strategy, NALA recommends to the Committee that the United States Government revolutionize its aid program so that it is consistent with the revolutionary strategy outlines to be proposed by the President. Lebanon is a key to American interests in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. A strong American presence is needed in Lebanon if the Greater Middle East Initiative is to be successfully implemented in the region.

In this new alignment, the line will be drawn, not between Muslim and Christian, Arabs and Israelis, or between oil producing states and non-oil producing states, but the new alignment in the region will be between those states which will follow the path of fundamentalism into oblivion and those that will follow the path of self government and freedom in the 21^st Century.

Under this new alignment, a state such as Syria with its minority autocratic rule under the Assad family since 1970, should be aligned with the West. The Assad Regime, for all of its many faults, is not a fundamentalist regime, but has fought fundamentalism. It maintains Hezbollah in Lebanon in a marriage of convenience. Hezbollah is actually under the control and surveillance of Syrian intelligence from its control and command down to its foot soldiers. It is a tool in Syria’s hand to be used against Israel.

However, Syria is riding the back of the tiger by this policy of strategically opposing fundamentalism, while at the same time tactically employing it as a policy implementation tool of the regime.

Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt should form the Western bulwark against the fundamentalists. Those fundamentalist cells existing in Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt must be addressed and eliminated, not with repression, but with democratic reforms that allow for more self-government in those states.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan form the heartland of the fundamentalists. Iraq hangs in the balance on the fulcrum of US resolve. Should the United States fail in Iraq, then the entire region is subject to falling into fundamentalist rule. Should the United States succeed in Iraq, then the pendulum of freedom will have swung and the days of fundamentalists and their 13^th Century method of government will come to an end.

Critical to the potential of the regional transformation envisioned by and articulated by President Bush is the securing of the remnants of representative government in the only regional Arabic state that has ever known, experienced and thrived under self rule, namely, the Republic of Lebanon. The Lebanese are uniquely equipped to put a Middle Eastern face on to the American policy of regional transformation. Democracy cannot be the product of a forced occupation, but must be freely accepted by a people. Israel cannot serve this purpose and no other state, save Lebanon can perform this regional mission.

As this testimony is being prepared, municipal elections are underway in Lebanon. These elections are genuinely contested and give testament to the vigor and vitality of self government in Lebanon. Absent the Syrian occupation, participation among the Christian ranks would swell.

The United States has served as a catalyst for revolutionary change in the Middle East. The old Cold War policy of promoting stability, even under autocratic rule and at the price of freedom for the people is not only outmoded with the passing of the bipolar Cold War, but is indeed lethal, as we saw on September 11, 2001. The Bush Administration has arrived at the correct, in fact the only solution to the conditions that gave rise to the September 11 attacks.

The people of the Middle East have long been assumed by those of us in the West to be incapable of self government. Indeed, colonial Great Britain deemed the people of the region as meant to be governed, not to govern. The Bush Administration is the first Western Government to express any degree of confidence in the ability of the people of the Middle East to engage in self government. The Greater Middle Eastern Initiative will be premised on this operating assumption. In this regard, it is revolutionary.

However, statements of strategy or rhetoric without action or the financial means to bring the strategy into being is a much worse policy. Empty rhetoric is usually harmless, however, in the Middle East, such rhetoric is inflammatory because it is received as a direct and present danger to the existing structures of authority, namely the religious authority. When threatened even with rhetoric, those authorities, acting with sanction from the Koran to defend the faith can justify militant action against the United States and all of its world wide interests.

President Bush has put the United States on record with this expressed intent to transform the power structures of the region by empowering the people of its component nation-states. By our own choice, Iraq has been made the pivotal point in whether this expressed intent shall succeed or shall fail. Failure in Iraq is adverse not only to American interests in human rights; American interests in the security of its allies in the region; but American interests in the security of the United States herself. Failure is not an option.

America needs every friend and ally it can assemble to insure that this initiative, regardless of the premise upon which it was launched, arrives at a successful conclusion. Allies from among the western democracies are necessary. Allies in the Middle East itself, however, are essential and allies among Arabic speaking people of the region who know democracy and who can teach it to their brethren are critical. Lebanon is critical to the success of these American interests.

The National Alliance of Lebanese Americans therefore recommend aid to Lebanon and a policy toward Lebanon reflective of that fact.

[1] - The EU’s Relationship to Lebanon – An overview March 2004

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/lebanon/intro/

[2] http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2004/asia_near_east/Lebanon.pdf

[5] Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs – November 2003 U.S. – Lebanon Relations