Lebanon Struggles to Maintain Stability After Assassination

And Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He was a senior Fulbright scholar in Syria in 2005 and runs a Web site called SyriaComment.com.

Hisham, let me start with you. Between the end of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, what was going on in Lebanon?

HISHAM MELHEM, Washington Bureau Chief, An-Nahar: Greater tension, greater polarization, particularly between the Sunnis and the Shia, and a greater fear on the part of those who supported the government that it will be subjected to greater pressure from the Syrians and the Iranians and Hezbollah to bring it down or to enlarge it to the extent that Hezbollah and their allies would have absolute veto power on the decision-making process.

And that's why recently the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said, "Either you will enlarge it to give us a greater share, or you call for early elections, or we will meet you in the streets and bring it down." And they want that to prevent a serious international tribunal that would investigate the killing of Hariri and all those assassinations that took place, including the killing of two of my colleagues in An-Nahar.

And also, the other issue Hezbollah is insisting upon, which is not to discuss in any serious fashion what to do with Hezbollah's military wing, what to do -- the disposition of their weapons, and their status within Lebanon as a state within the state.

RAY SUAREZ: Joshua Landis, who would have an interest in having Pierre Gemayel killed?

JOSHUA LANDIS, University of Oklahoma: Well, there's a real tug of war going on for Lebanon. With the United States' entrance into the region in 2003 in Iraq, the overall -- America was attempting to pull Lebanon out of Syria's sphere of influence. Syria is determined not to let that happen.

And after the Lebanon war this summer, the failure to destroy Hezbollah left Lebanon split into two. Hezbollah believes that there is -- a majority of the Lebanese people are in its favor and it wants to gain government power, and it's trying to bring down the Lebanese government.

There are many people who might have carried this out, but we have to see this in the context of this larger regional and great power struggle to pull Lebanon onto their side.

JOSHUA LANDIS: You know, everything goes to Syria. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, part of the Christians, and various Sunni leaders have all formed the coalition in order to bring down this government and to keep Lebanon in the sphere, Syrian-Iranian sphere.

And, you know, this is a struggle going on. We saw this summer Israel try to assassinate the leading Shiite leaders and to destroy Hezbollah in order to keep Lebanon firmly in America's orbit and to keep this government, the Siniora government, firmly in power. That failed. Now we see the other side shoving back.

RAY SUAREZ: Hisham, do you agree with that?

HISHAM MELHEM: I agree, in the sense that there is a confrontation now taking place between the United States and the West in general, and another coalition in the region led by Iran, supported by a third-rate partner, Syria, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas and the others.

Iran and its friends see at this moment, at this juncture in history, that America's moment in the Middle East is about to end. That is, the Bush administration's policy of spreading democracy and regime change in Iraq and that the United States is boxed in Iraq, it's in a defensive mode, its friends are on the defensive, and that Iran is on the ascendancy, as well as its own friends in Hamas and Hezbollah and all that.

After the recent war in the summer, there was an attempt in Lebanon to create this myth that Hezbollah and Iran and Syrians won the war. And so what you have now in Lebanon -- we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of Lebanon's long traditional liberal Western orientation, and this Lebanon, this vision of Lebanon, to be replaced by an Iranian vision.

To put it bluntly, Ray, they want to turn Beirut into a Tehran on the Mediterranean, that is create a culture of resistance -- to put Lebanon in a perpetual mode of confrontation with the United States, the West and Israel, similar to the way Iran sees itself in the region.

Iran is the country that is on the ascendancy in the region. Whatever Syria has by way of regional influence is derivative from its Iranian connection and connection with Hezbollah.

They watch the American elections. They watched the debate here. They watched the expectations about the Baker-Hamilton report and everything. And essentially, they are ecstatic when they see this mass conversion in Washington that is taking place at this stage, mass conversion into the school of political realism.

Everybody today, Ray, in Washington is a political realist. And the Iranians and the Syrians are sitting pretty, expecting the Americans to sue for a way out of their deep hole in Iraq. And they are going to let you in, into a long, long historic bazaar.

And these people, the Iranians are very cunning. They're 4,000 years of political cunning behind them, and they are willing to inflict pain. And they are willing to endure pain. While I'm all for engagement, one has to do it with an open eye.

You want to engage the Syrians in Lebanon bilaterally? Fine, but the Syrian price is going to be high. They want to regain their previous hegemony over Lebanon, and Lebanon to them is more important than the Golan. In the case of Iran, they want recognition of their regional stature as the influential power here, as well as the nuclear file. Very big price.

JOSHUA LANDIS: I agree only partly. I think that he's drawn this very black-and-white picture of good and evil, and I don't think that's correct.

Syria is demanding a number of things. They're demanding the Golan Heights back that was occupied in 1967 by Israel. They want influence in Lebanon, and they don't want Iraq to fall apart. They want to be engaged in dialogue to find a solution to these problems.

And, you know, the United States and Syria have dealt together for two decades. And the U.S. in '91, when it first went to war against Iraq in the Gulf, had Syria on its side, because in a sense it said, "You can keep Lebanon in your sphere of influence." And Syria said, "Yes," they kept Lebanon in their sphere of influence.

And what happened to Lebanon during that period? It repaired itself in the civil war. It grew. Hariri was an ally of Lebanon, and he rebuilt Lebanon. It was pro-Western.

Because of Syrian influence and Syria's in Lebanon does not mean that the country turns into an Iranian -- you know, a small Iran on the Mediterranean. It means that Syrian interests are taken into concern, and it doesn't mean the end.

But I do think he's right on the sense that we see the tide flowing out of U.S. power. In 2003, the United States thought it was going to remake the Middle East, destroy its enemies, and build up friendly Western allies throughout the Middle East.

What have we seen? We've seen that all the elections that America has encouraged have brought forward Islamists who are angry at America -- that's in Palestine, in Egypt, Iran, in Iraq itself, and in Lebanon, with Hezbollah's gaining seats through elections.

Now those people want to push their advantage. The United States tried to destroy them in this war in the summer, and they failed. Now, what is the United States going to do? Are they going to go back and bomb these people? They can't. They don't have any more power.

And in a sense, Syria is letting them know that. Their allies are letting them know that, saying, "You come and talk to us. And concede some things to us, and we can stabilize this situation."