Saida and the Iranian project in Lebanon

What took place in Saida, the capital of the Lebanese south, the city of Riad al-Solh and Rafiq Hariri, falls under the obvious plan to force all of Lebanon to submit and domesticate its people. The purpose behind the wilful murder of two supporters of Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir, who objected to the Hezbollah banners, due its sectarianism and allegiance to Iran, is simply to punish the Sunnis of Saida, nothing more. Why beat about the bush? There is a desire in Iran to gain control of Lebanon, events in Syria notwithstanding. That is the essential matter that we can arrive at by paying close attention to the statements by Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, only days before the events in Saida. Jumblatt, who, until recently, was national leader and whose first priority is to guarantee the future of his small sect which occupies important locations in the geographic map of Lebanon, spoke of a new political equation: A new Taif agreement in return for the disarmament of Hezbollah. The Iranian regime is certain to lose Syria. There is a lie that has persisted for too long called the Syrian regime. The ruling family didn’t realize they had to leave after they had collected a fortune that would enable them to live as they wish anywhere in the world. The family didn’t realize you had to make use of the fortune when you lack the ability to maintain power and control over the Syrian people and Syrian future. Now that more than 70,000 Syrians - in the most conservative estimates - have been killed, it is too late to leave in a correct and appropriate manner. Iran knows this. The Iranian regime is not lacking in cunning. Perhaps what Iran knows more than anything, is that the status quo in Syria cannot be preserved. It insists, however, on not losing Lebanon as well, after having invented all that money and effort in it since the early 1980s and after it succeeded, in its own mind, in changing the nature of local Shiites and after it has bought a section of the Christian population by its militia, Hezbollah, taking on the Christian Michel Aoun. Iran has been able to use Aoun to serve its ends, giving him deputy ministers who believe they resemble politicians to a great degree and that they are in the loop about what’s going on in the world and the Middle East and the region surrounding Lebanon. Over and above, Iran has been able to impose a government on Lebanon and the Lebanese people, exploiting to a great degree the inability of Mr Najib Mikati, the Sunni son of Tripoli, to refuse Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s requests. There is a margin within which Najib Mikati can play, within the limits of Hezbollah’s agreement and approval, of course. When it comes to essential matters, however, such as the cover-up of General Wissam al-Hassan’s assassination, or refusing to resign the position of Prime Minister, there is no room for playing or playacting.   What does Iran want now? It clearly wants to change the nature of political power in Lebanon, so it can be, at best, the owner of a one-third blocking minority in the country. It believes that the method it followed with the Shiites can apply to the whole of Lebanon, especially that it has the only armed party in Lebanon, the Christians are split amongst themselves and the Sunnis are unprepared for a confrontation of a military nature. The evidence for that is the ease with which Hezbollah gunmen were able to control the Sunni districts of Beirut on May 7 and 8 2008, and the Lebanese army’s total inaction before the bloody events. Iran’s message to the Lebanese people seems to be that, without a new Taif Agreement that leads to, among other things, splitting power into thirds, between the Christians, the Shiites and Sunnis. There is no possibility of Hezbollah relinquishing its weapons, which have been directed from the beginning at Lebanese chests. There is no objective to those weapons other than spreading misery in the country, destroying its economic life and driving the largest number possible of Lebanese people out of their country, in addition of course to deepening the Sunni-Shiites schism and isolating Lebanon from its Arab surroundings. In the years 1989 and 1990, Michel Aoun was in control of the Baabda Palace as Chief of Staff and head of a provisional government tasked with supervising the election of a new president to follow Amine Gemayel. Thanks to ‘the General’s’ fictitious heroics and hollow speeches, he was able to secure Syrian control of all of Lebanon, including the Lebanese presidential palace and ministry of defence. This helped empty the Taif Agreement, which stipulated for a 50/50 sharing of power between Muslims and Christians, of its Arab and international content, enabling the Syrian regime to apply it its own way. This happened, especially, after Aoun prevented the elected President, the martyred René Moawad, from reaching Baabda Palace, making it easier for the Syrian regime to get rid of him along with the pure Lebanese patriotism he represented. Even more, Aoun went as far as to wage war against “the Lebanese Forces” which, at the time, was a militia aiming at bringing down the Christian region over the heads of its people with the support of his then-patron, the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Michel Aoun has never managed to be more than an instrument, or an instrument of an instrument. He served the Syrian regime in the past more than he has ever served any Lebanese citizen. In 2012 and in the years before it, it seems that he has placed himself in the service of the Iranian project which aims at a new Taif that stipulates a Shiite Vice President with specific executive powers and right of veto against any decision by the Lebanese people, even if agreed upon by the majority. Like the Syrian project in Lebanon failed, so will the Iranian project. It will fail among Shiites before it fails in all of Lebanon, only because this project is completely empty of cultural content relating to partnership between Lebanese people and their sense of equality and citizenship rights, in Saida and elsewhere. And also because Iran will discover sooner or later that the Shiites of Lebanon are Lebanese first and that it has no successful model to give to them and their children, apart from spreading the culture of death and misery. The people of Lebanon, including the people of Saida, will resist the Iranian project because it is rejected in Iran to begin with. How can it be possible to impose a project on Lebanon at a time when it is proved every day that it is rejected in its country of origin? --   The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday. 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