International Pawn

Many nations have used Lebanon for their own strategic aims. Is it about to happen again?

BEIRUT, Lebanon - In his office on the top floor of a nondescript building in east Beirut, Lebanon's former ambassador to the U.S., Simon Karam, uses a silver fountain pen to sign some paperwork.

"This pen was given to me by Gibran Tueni. He was a close personal friend," he says. There is sadness in his voice.

Tueni, an anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker, was killed in a car bombing Dec. 12. (On Dec. 27 Lebanese authorities announced the arrest of a Syrian man in connection with the murder. Read the full story).

Tueni was driving to work when the remote control car bomb was detonated, sending his vehicle tumbling over a cliff to the street below, where it still sits today. 

It was the latest in a series of political murders targeting critics of

Syria, but for Karam, this one hurt the worst.

Like many here, Karam thinks that Syria, at some level, is responsible.

"It's not just a personal assessment. I think most Lebanese feel in the heart that's true," he says, in a soft but resolute voice.

After former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed by a massive truck bomb near downtown Beirut in February, political demonstrations and international pressure forced Syrian troops out of Lebanon, ending a military presence of nearly 30 years.

The troops are gone, but Syria's presence is not, says Karam.

"The Syrians will try to get back what they lost, but they have lost a major battle. They want to keep it destabilized to a large extent," he says.

Karam has a history of being at odds with Syria, even when he was working directly under their influence as Lebanon's ambassador to the U.S. in 1992 and 1993 -- during the period when Hariri was prime minister.

"I tried to represent Lebanese interests," he says, "which didn't go without Syrian pressure."

That pressure was most evident when

Israel invaded southern Lebanon again in 1993 after incursions in 1978 and 1982.

"My situation continued to deteriorate until July 1993, when the Israelis invaded due to Syrian and Hezbollah provocation," he says. "I was left on my own in Washington to try to contain this. When I was able to provide an understanding to the American administration, the Lebanese government was unwilling to endorse it. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was supposed to come here and focus on securing an Israeli pullout."

But Karam says Syrian pressure quashed an accord because late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad wanted the U.S. to deal with him, not with the Lebanese.

"We could host the theater of the onslaught," Karam says ruefully, "but could not harvest any political benefit."

Karam eventually was forced to resign. Hariri, Karam says, had to disassociate himself from a policy that put Lebanese interests over Syrian interests.

Karam says he received death threats, and has considered seeking political asylum in the U.S. But, believing he could do more to help his country from home, he returned to Lebanon.

He was in a unique position to observe Lebanon's role in a geopolitical game in which, during Lebanon's bloody civil war from 1975 until 1990, the country was a battleground for Syria, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Syria moved into Lebanon in 1976 to separate warring Christian and Muslim factions and ostensibly to help control the PLO, which was launching attacks on northern Israel from Lebanese soil.

Nabil de Freij, a Lebanese member of parliament from Rafik Hariri's Future Party, says Syria did not make the move without the consent of the international community. "Syria never wanted to accept Lebanon as a free and independent country," he says. "When they go to the

United Nations they say they want a free and independent Lebanon, but it's not true."

Other political factions in the current government disagree about Syria's role in Lebanon -- most vehemently, Hezbollah, or the Party of God, the only group in Lebanon still allowed to maintain an armed militia.

"The Syrians played a key role in the stability of Lebanon in putting an end to the civil war," says Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Naboulsi, "and Syria really supported the resistance, which ended up forcing the Israeli enemy out of Lebanon."

The mostly Shia Amal Party is also considered pro-Syrian, but takes a more nuanced position.

"There should be big difference between interference and assistance," says Amal member of parliament Ali Bazzi. "Lebanon cannot tolerate any kind of interference from anyone. Everyone should deal with Lebanon as a free and independent state. But that also means we need to be open to relationships with the Arab world. Lebanon cannot be governed by Syria, but Lebanon cannot also be a threat to Syria."

But Karam says that in the past, Syria was able to use political instability in the region to tighten its control over Lebanon, even when the 1989 Ta'if agreement -- which helped solidify a new government between Lebanese warring factions -- called for a Syrian withdrawal within two years.

Karam says that at the time, when then-U.S. President

George Bush was putting together an international coalition against

Saddam Hussein after

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, he needed Syrian cooperation.

"For this, the U.S. was willing to sacrifice Lebanese interests," Karam says. "The U.S. administration chose to look the other way when Syria was committing the worst acts and refusing to withdraw... The U.S. accepted de facto Lebanese annexation by Syria."

"The Syrians will try to get back what they lost, but they have lost a major battle."— Simon Karam

Now, despite

President George W. Bush's support for Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon, there is concern among some here that Lebanon could become a victim of U.S. strategic interests -- the need for Syrian help with Iraq -- yet again.

"We understand Syrians are turning toward cooperation with U.S. in terms of Iraq," says Karam, "so we'll wait and see what happens."

But Karam says the U.S. is already benefiting from Syrian assistance in tightening control over its southern border, where foreign fighters are reportedly entering Iraq to attack U.S. forces and Iraqi government and civilian targets.

U.S. State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez disagrees with that assessment.

"Rather than seeing action and response to our concerns from [Syria], we've only seen more acts of what I would call regional destabilization," Vasquez says. 

Antoine Zahra, a member of parliament who represents the mostly Christian constituency in the north, argues that Syria doesn't have the same leverage as in the 1990s. "There's a new western strategy which will not let Syria control the region again," he says.

But Karam and others also say that while the U.S. and two regional allies, Turkey and Israel, are happy that Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon, they don't want the retreat to spark a collapse of the Syrian government.

Turkey and Israel are "putting pressure on us and the Europeans not to profoundly and terminally destabilize the current regime in Damascus," says Karam. "The current regime presents a level of stability for borders, and is a preferable alternative to a Muslim fundamentalist government in Damascus, or the development of another situation like we see in Iraq."

However, if the political killings like those of Hariri and Tueni continue and evidence of Syrian involvement continues to mount -- as UN investigator Detlev Mehlis' reports suggest -- then Lebanon's outcry for a truly independent democracy may not be so easily pushed aside by the strategic interests of larger and stronger nations in the region.

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