Cartoon by Finn Graff
Hezbollah had been nearly untouchable in Lebanon. But the people are fighting back.
By David Ignatius
The Washington Post: By The anti-corruption protests that have swept Lebanon over the past two weeks have a remarkable and little-noted feature: They’re in open defiance of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that dominates Lebanese politics.
And there’s another aspect of this reform movement that’s highly unusual for a Middle East that often seems addicted to bad news: It appears to be succeeding, at least initially. Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his government resigned on Tuesday, and President Michel Aoun said Thursday that he wants a new government of technocrats, as the protesters had demanded.
“The new ministers must be chosen according to their expertise and experience, not political loyalties,” Aoun said Thursday night. A member of the protest movement told me after Aoun’s speech that Hezbollah might try to vet the new cabinet members, but added that his call for a nonpolitical government is a step forward.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had urged formation of a new government Tuesday and called on the Lebanese army and Internal Security Forces to “ensure the rights and safety of the protesters” from Hezbollah militants who have assaulted protesters in recent days.
A senior State Department official told me during an interview Thursday afternoon that U.S. economic support might follow. “If Lebanon undertakes meaningful economic reform and fights corruption, we will work with international organizations to get international economic financing,” the official said, including unlocking the $11.7 billion package of aid that was pledged by international donors last year but remains frozen.
The protesters have ignored threats from Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader. Nasrallah said Oct. 19, when the protests had just begun, that he opposed the demand for a new government. And he warned last Friday that the street movement was creating “a vacuum [that] will lead to chaos, to collapse.” The protests continued, unabated.
“Hezbollah has been deeply wounded by what happened,” said Robert Fadel, a former member of Lebanon’s parliament who has been among the protesters in the streets. The message to the Iranian-backed militia was that “they can’t continue to govern in the same way,” he said.
Hezbollah had been nearly untouchable in Lebanon until this wave of demonstrations. But even the militia’s Shiite Muslim supporters have been in the streets, despite gangs of Hezbollah militants who tried to suppress the movement.
The senior State Department official described the protests as “a remarkable development, totally indigenous, nonsectarian, almost unprecedented for Lebanon.” He said the United States wanted to keep it that way and make sure that a new government actually begins reforms — such as privatizing the corrupt telecommunications and electricity sectors — rather than simply talking about such changes.
Some Trump administration officials have argued for simply letting Lebanon collapse, forcing Iran and its Hezbollah proxy to pick up the pieces. But this super-hawkish view seems to have lost ground to Pompeo’s arguments for backing the reformers. The senior official summed up Pompeo’s view this way: “He believes Lebanon is worth investing in. We will support them if they’re willing to make changes.”
The protesters seem happy for American support, so long as the United States keeps its distance. “We don’t want the U.S. to push Lebanon any harder,” said Fadel. “We don’t want another Venezuela here.”
Hariri is out in Lebanon. Abdul-Mahdi is on the way out in Iraq. So we are having some regime changes in the Middle East, but without harsh sanctions and the interference by Trump/Pompeo.
Maybe there’s a lesson in there!
It is clear that thanks to president Trump's infinite wisdom & brilliant policy of max. financial pressure on terrrorist islamic regime of Iran through economic sanctions, we are seeing the nests of terrorism in Iraq, syria, lebenan, collapsing, al-baghdadi, killing himself and his toolehs whilst crying like a dog, Trita al-parsi and his tooleh keyboard jihadists hallucinating, amd me having a good laugh before heading for work!
And all this without a single loss of American life!