Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Interview with Amal Saad-Ghorayeb on the status of Hezbollah.
At a time when Islamist movements across the Arab world have chosen to participate in official political processes, grave concerns have arisen over the nature and repercussions of this participation and over whether the Islamists are equipped to rule should they rise to power through democratic means.
The decision by the United Nations Security Council to establish a Special Tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri and others under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter has dramatically raised tensions in Lebanon.
On June 19, the Carnegie Middle East Center hosted an in-house discussion with Timur Goksel, former senior advisor of UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), on the challenges and opportunities facing the current UNIFIL II mission. The event was attended by a number of scholars and commentators as well as CMEC staff. The talk was moderated by CMEC director Paul Salem.
Facing an urgent need to defuse crises in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, the United States is now focusing primarily on Arab states' foreign policy behavior and relegating democracy promotion to the background. But despite the risks of encouraging political change in an already chaotic region, abandoning Middle East democracy as a strategic goal would be a tragic and unnecessary mistake.
As the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq enters its fifth year, conflicts and political rivalries in the region appear to be assuming a sectarian edge unseen since the Iraq-Iran war. This time round, though, a new element is in play. It has to do with what is perceived as the growing role being played by Arab Shia who many see is making a radical break with a long tradition of political inactivity.
Five months after the end of the war, Lebanon, Israel and the region are still feeling its aftereffects. In Lebanon, the claims of victory were mixed with a sober assessment of the massive socioeconomic losses, and the popular unity during the war was followed by deep division and rising tensions.
The session, part of the Carnegie Endowment's NEW VISION launch, examines the state of the Arab political reform agenda, what can be expected in terms of political change in the region, and what the U.S. efforts should be to promote regional reform.
Last Thursday's confrontation on the campus of the Arab University in Beirut appeared to confirm that the ghosts of the civil war are back with a vengeance. Lebanese leaders had little to offer their constituencies sectarian abuse, while Washington's rhetoric on the political crisis in Lebanon is further complicating an already tense situation.
After the war of last summer, Lebanon had settled back into a pretense of normality, shattered periodically by massive demonstrations in the streets of the capital, as Hizbollah mustered its supporters in an attempt to force the government to call for early elections. The government refused to give in. Hizbollah is now trying to break the impasse.