THE TWELFTH PRESIDENT OF LEBANON, A PROFILE

On October 23, 2004, the term of current Lebanese President Emile Lahoud will come to an end. Lahoud is the eleventh president of Lebanon since the country gained its independence from France on November 22, 1943, and the third president of the Republic under the 1989 Taif Accords[1], which substantially modified the constitution so as to diminish the power of the office of the presidency, transferring those powers to the Prime Minister and his cabinet. 

 

Congress has passed the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. The Bill, as of December 2, 2003 awaits the President’s signature to become law. That Bill, upon becoming law will require not only that Syria redeploy all of its forces out of Lebanon, but that the Lebanese Government should then deploy the Lebanese Armed Forces into all parts of Lebanon, including South Lebanon in accordance with UN Resolutions.[2]

 

The Lebanese Government has, since at least the imposition of the Taif Accords, been selected by the Syrian Government and has served Syrian security, diplomatic, economic and political interests. Part and parcel of the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty is the rescue of the Lebanese Government back to the service of the Lebanese people and Lebanese national interests. As we have seen in Iraq, it is not enough to insure the success of democracy that the heavy foot of the dictator be removed from the necks of a subjugated people. Unlike Iraq, Lebanon is a country with experience in self government and a long history of government operating through democratic institutions. These institutions are not in need of being created, but of being revived and reawakened after years of suffocating occupation.

In 1980, Bashir Gemayel told officials of the Reagan Administration that if the violence, which has been contained in Lebanon, is not eliminated from Lebanon, it will spread to engulf the entire region. That was prophetic. 

 

In 1983, when Hezbollah sponsored the terrorist bombing of the American Embassy and the American Marine Compound at Beirut Airport and the US responded by withdrawing its troops, the die was cast for all that has come since. Today’s problem with terrorism began in Lebanon, and the beginning of the solution will be in Lebanon as well. If Iraq is to be the experiment in democracy for the Middle East, Lebanon surely is the laboratory. 

 

The United States has a stake in the Lebanese Presidential elections and the determination of the individuals who will provide political leadership to that country. A profile of the next president of Lebanon must be one that takes into account not only the future advancement of American interests, but also their current deterioration. The hands off policy toward Lebanese political affairs, which successive US Administrations have followed since February 1984 when the Marines loaded up on their transports, must come to an end. That policy has led to the erosion of American interests both in safeguarding the oil production and transportation areas as well as fostering the political, diplomatic and economic integration of Israel into the region. The threat, common to both interests is from terrorism spawned in Lebanon 20 years ago. Now after 20 years of neglect, its tentacles have touched 3000 American lives on American soil. President Bashir Gemayel was assassinated on September 14, 1982. His prophesy came true within 20 years. 

 

The characteristics of the Twelfth Lebanese President, should therefore be these: 

 

1.      Independence in word and deed;

2.      Personal integrity and a commitment to end the corruption within the Lebanese Government;

3.      A commitment to the establishment of the rule of law, in word and in deed;

4.      A bridge builder between and among the Lebanese; and

5.      A commitment to serve the national interests of all the Lebanese people.

By independence it is meant that the new president should not seek guidance from Syria, or any other government in fashioning or implementing public policy, especially security policy, for Lebanon. Hezbollah resistance fighters in Lebanon serve more the national interests of Syria and Iran than that of Lebanon at this point in time. The time has long since past when Hezbollah should take its proper role in Lebanon as a political party and turn over all military functions to the duly constituted Lebanese Army (LAF), which is subject to the civilian authority of the state. As the final justification for Hezbollah military activity is the disputed Shebaa Farms district of Mount Hermon, the new Lebanese President should commit to the following: 

 

a.       Submit the territorial dispute in the Shebaa District to the proper United Nations tribunal for final determination in order to peacefully resolve the sovereignty issues presented between Lebanon and Syria and establish the international boundary between the two states accordingly. 

 

b.      Deploy the Lebanese Army to south Lebanon to secure the border with Israel and Syria, relieving Hezbollah fighters of this military duty. 

 

c.       Assume from Hezbollah the sponsorship of all programs by which housing, health care, education and other social services are being provided to those who live in poverty in Hezbollah’s major areas of operation such as south Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the Bekaa Valley. 

 

Much of Hezbollah’s popularity with the people of Lebanon is directly tied to thefact that it has financial resources, in the approximate amount of $100 million dollars annually, which it expends for its social programs, as well as resistance efforts. These funds come from Hezbollah’s Iranian sponsors. In order to combat the power and influence of Hezbollah, which directly impacts the independence of the Lebanese President to act in the south, this financial edge must be countered. It can be countered in two ways, both of which require United States assistance. 

 

First, the United States should use its new influence in Iraq to pressure the Iranians into ending its financial subsidy of Hezbollah, thus drying up its funds. In the wake of the First Gulf War, we have seen in the West Bank and Gaza, that the power of the PLO was severely crippled when Kuwait and other Gulf States terminated their financial subsidies in retaliation for Arafat’s support of Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait. When the PLO was no longer financially able to meet the social needs of the West Bankers, the people abandoned their allegiance to the PLO in favor of Hamas, which was fully funded by Iran, for both social services and for the political message. Hezbollah in Lebanon can be similarly reduced in power and influence by cutting off its financial resources. 

 

Second, the United States should provide aid to Lebanon directed to the very same clientele that Hezbollah now serves and in the same, if not greater amounts. 

The Lebanese government is notoriously corrupt. This corruption has cost the government the loyalty and allegiance of the people, many of whom consider the government to be illegitimate. In order for the government to be effective in any mission, particularly in its providing a needed safety net of social services to the poor, the government must be clean and led by individuals who are personally uncorrupted and incorruptible. Integrity starts at the top. If the leadership is corrupt, it creates a culture of corruption to the lowest official. But if there is integrity at the top and rigorously enforced, then a culture of integrity is thereby created. 

 

The cost of doing business in Lebanon is burdened by the fact that so many public officials must receive their “commissions”. The burden on the economy is such that the Lebanese middle class, which was devastated by 20 years of war, has yet to make a come back in what was once the only Arabic country in the region with a thriving middle class. Economic mobility, allowing for the regeneration of a middle class, is essential to creating internal stability in Lebanon and for that to occur, the obstacle of political corruption must be removed. 

 

The new Lebanese President must be committed to an independent judiciary, which will enforce the rule of law. There can be no more use of the judiciary as a tool of the executive to punish those who would criticize the government, nor to tolerate the criminal behavior of those who would serve the private interests of public officials. Trust in the government cannot be restored without this necessary element of equal treatment of all people under the rule of law regardless of religion, political affiliation, or region of the country from which they come. It is the hallmark of a middle class society that individual civil and property rights be safeguarded by a government so committed to the rule of law. 

 The next Lebanese President will be a Maronite Christian, as has all others before him. The new Lebanese President should, therefore, be a Maronite who is a consensus builder with very strong and well-established relationships to the people and leadership of all confessional groups in Lebanon. Lebanon is a country of minorities that requires any leader to reach out outside his own community and garner the support of others to true gain legitimacy.

 

A major weakness of Lebanese presidents, particularly in the post-Taif Accord era, has been the fact that their authority has been conferred upon them by fiat of the Syrian regime. With Syria as the source of political power in Lebanon, Lebanese political leadership has been more responsive to Syrian interests than to the interests of the Lebanese people. In order to break the hold of Syria and foster independence in the office of the Lebanese presidency, the authority and legitimacy of his presidency must arise from the Lebanese people themselves. For this reason, the office needs a bridge builder who can garner this internal popular support and conduct himself in office ever mindful that he must serve the interests of the Lebanese people, as the source of his political power.

 This leads to this final characteristic of the presidential profile and that is a commitment to the people of Lebanon and to their interests. A president who is independent, has integrity, is committed to the principle of equal treatment of all people under the law, as administered by an independent judiciary, and who is a consensus builder within Lebanon, is a president necessarily committed to the Lebanese people and their interests.

 

American interests can be served in no greater way than to have such a president leading the Lebanese Republic. If Iraq is to be the laboratory for testing the theory of self-rule in the Arabic world, Lebanonis the place where theory has already given way to reality. The institutions are already in place for self-government, they only need to be set free from the smothering presence of Syria and the Lebanese who feed off of their presence. Lebanon today can serve as the paradigm for a free self governing Iraq in the future.

 

A Lebanese president committed to the Lebanese people will not enter into trade agreements whereby agricultural commodities produced in Lebanon cannot be transshipped in Syria, yet all things produced in Syria can be sold in Lebanon so that Lebanese farmers are forced into drug production. The new President should not allow the interests of Lebanese families to be subordinated to Syrian interests in such a way, but should engage and enter into trade agreements with Italy and France, if and when Syria cuts off land routes to Kuwait and Iraq.

 

Rather than allow Lebanese generated electrical power to be diverted to Syria, creating economically disruptive electrical blackouts in Lebanon, the new President should be committed to building hydroelectric dams, harnessing the energy of Lebanon’s powerful snow fed rivers to turn turbines generating electricity that can not only provide reliable electrical power to Lebanon, but generate a surplus to be sold and exported to the whole region, thus generating hard foreign currency to pay down the massive deficit which saps the country’s economic health.

These are just some of the areas where a Lebanese president, committed to his country’s national interests, can transform, not just Lebanon, but the region in a positive way, thereby advancing the cause to which the United States has committed itself, which is the spread of human rights, self government and economic development for all of the people of the region. The seeds of political terrorism, of which the United States has now become a victim, are economic deprivation; the disparity between the most wealthy and the desperately poor; and, the absence of economic mobility in a regime where the desperately poor have no vested interest in the existing order and so find no resistance to bringing about its destruction.

Before we can have the chance to turn back political terrorism in Iraq, we must first turn the political corner in Lebanon. Syrian political hegemony in Lebanon has fostered the unhindered expansion of Hezbollah political and military power, not only within its Lebanese base, but region wide, leaving its fingerprints not only in the Palestinian territories, but also now in Iraq. Whereas, in the past, Hezbollah posed a challenge to the security interests of American regional allies, today it poses a challenge to the security interests of the United States itself with regard to its operations in Iraq.

 

The United States needs the twelfth president of Lebanon as a reliable ally to reduce Hezbollah from its current status as a regional player adversely affecting US interests, to its proper role as a Lebanese political party operating within the rules and context of the Lebanese parliamentary system. The United States needs a twelfth president of Lebanon to make of that country a template of self-government in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society, to serve as the pattern from which such an experiment can be successfully created in Iraq.

[2] SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

It is the sense of Congress that—. . .

(3) the Government of Syria should immediately declare its commitment to completely withdraw its armed forces, including military, paramilitary, and security forces, from Lebanon, and set a firm timetable for such withdrawal;