A debate is brewing in Lebanon, most of it implicitly and some of it explicit, between those who believe the solution will only emerge from within and others who claim that it will only emerge, if it does, from the outside. The former have their eyes on the parliamentary elections that might be held in May. The latter base the little hope they have on the fact that the inside has been hollowed out.
The late politician and journalist Ghassan Tueni once coined a phrase that would become more of a slogan: “Others’ wars on our land.” The fact is that this phrase, which is linked - albeit indirectly - with the internal/external debate, does not stand up to any serious scrutiny or examination.
In Lebanon’s wars, the Lebanese fought against other Lebanese. True, others did take part in the conflicts, but most of those taking part were Lebanese who raised Lebanese slogans as well as the non-Lebanese ones. On top of that, domestic issues, some linked to social justice and others linked to sectarian justice, were always part and parcel of the battles they waged…
However, this phrase/slogan’s error does not eliminate the difference, even in principle, between intra-Lebanese conflicts that no one interfered with and those that others did interfere with. In the case of the former, the human and economic costs are lower, the war lasts for less time, and potential solutions are more likely to emerge and to do so faster.
This principle applies to all the major contentious junctures that the country has known in its modern history:
In 1952, amid disputes regarding Beshara al-Khoury’s term, the clash between the two Lebanese camps took a purely political course. It was decided by what had been the “White Revolution,” which did indeed topple this president without spilling a drop of blood.
In 1958, the intra-Lebanese dispute over Camille Chamoun’s term became intertwined with questions stemming from the role that was played by the “United Arab Republic,” which had been established as a result of Egypt and Syria uniting a few months prior. The conflict cost dozens of lives and went on for a few months. The solution was backed by a US-Egyptian settlement, the grounds for which had been paved by the US military intervention in Lebanon in response to the United Arab Republic’s intervention. The link between the inside to the outside seemed contained and controlled.
In 1975, things changed for at least three reasons:
- Everything Lebanese about the conflict was tied to what had been called the “Middle East conflict” at the time, from the Egyptian-Syrian split following the October 1973 war, to Anwar Sadat’s 1977 initiative, to the Israeli invasion of 1982.
- The Palestine Liberation Organization called the shots during the war politically and in terms of armaments before the Syrians’ role began expanding in 1977, fighting against the PLO at one point and alongside it at another.
- The sides taking part in the war, directly or indirectly, were very many and deeply hated one another. They would often seek to settle their disputes on Lebanese soil. The toxic Syrian-Palestinian, Syrian-Iraqi, and Libyan-Egyptian etc… relationships all came together in Beirut.
In 1982, having benefited from the previous stage, the external culminated its victory over the internal: the former was strong and armed; the Iraqi-Iranian war gave it its impetus, and the Syrian-Iranian alliance facilitated its route to Lebanon. The latter, on the other hand, was weak. It had been destroyed by the war, the Israeli and Syrian occupations, and then by the local wars in the capital, the suburbs, and the Mountain. What had remained of a national consensus was gone, and reestablishing a central authority with a capable army was no longer an option.
The birth of Hezbollah pushed strongly in this direction: it gave a foreign power, Iran, influence and cover that had been unprecedented in their scope and effectiveness. Thus, the Lebanese question was gobbled up and became totally tied up with external matters. The outside became the inside. The inside became the outside.
In the meantime, two attempts to reinvigorate or reinvent the domestic were made. March 14, 2005, saw the first attempt. October 17, 2019, saw the second. Both failed due to some subjective and objective impediments that have been discussed extensively.
Going over the course of events that have been unfolding since 1952, one notices that external aspects and dimensions have been on the rise, while the internal has been declining. This was the case for several reasons: The Cold War ended, creating chaos that could not be contained around the globe, identities exploded everywhere, and then, after the 2003 Iraq war, the United States began withdrawing from the region. As the revolutions of the “Arab Spring” failed and their lavish promises were not fulfilled, the Iranian state solidified its status as the most powerful fortress of nationalist-populist identitarianism in our world. Moreover, the world has become more interconnected and more interventionist. Lebanon is no longer the large village it was in 1952, a village whose concerns are its own and mean no one else.
Is it possible, in light of this state of affairs, to bet on a shriveled-up interior being changed through parliamentary elections that have never changed anything before?
This question does not imply that the unequivocal answer is in favor of relying on the outside. It merely points to the direction things are more likely to take. As for whether the outside’s contribution will lead to a solution in light of this internal void, that is another question.
