The Sunni Community and Hariri’s 'Future Current'

Friday-Lunch-Club

ICG full Pdf. Report/ here

Saad Hariri, who inherited from his father the mantle of leader of the country and of the Sunni community, faces an unenviable task. His first challenge is to reverse the sectarian-based identification and mobilisation which served him so well in recent years – and culminated in his decisive triumph in the 7 June 2009 legislative elections – but no longer can constitute his principal political asset.

Insofar as he heads a national unity government, the prime minister can rule efficiently only if he minimises heretofore dominant confessional and political fault-lines.

It will not be easy. Defiance and rejection of the Shiite Hizbollah movement, Syria and Iran played a critical part in his political ascent, providing him with powerful domestic and international backing. Moreover, the underlying local and regional factors that fuel these sentiments remain largely unresolved, making it difficult for Hariri to moderate his Sunni base or bring along his foreign backers.

Hariri’s difficult internal and external repositioning is compounded – and this represents his second major challenge – by the fact that both arenas remain highly fluid and unsettled. Lebanon’s incipient normalisation with Damascus is a gamble, necessary yet risky nonetheless.

Hostility toward Syria among the country’s Sunni community convinced of the regime’s role in Rafic Hariri’s assassination and chafing after decades of Syrian domination, still runs deep; several of Lebanon’s foreign supporters are uneasy about Damascus’s regional posture; and the two countries almost certainly will face tremendous obstacles in their quest for more balanced relations. Resumption of Israeli-Lebanese hostilities – a possibility not to be discounted – almost certainly would revive the contentious issue of Hizbollah’s weapons which has been set aside since the new Lebanese government’s inauguration.

Hariri’s third challenge is that he leads a unity government which, in many ways, is unprecedented and thus whose sustainability is unknown. Historically, Lebanon has tended to be ruled by broad coalitions. But these have involved lopsided power-sharing arrangements in which some political parties in effect were in control at the expense of others. In contrast, the current government faithfully reflects the actual balance of power. The outcome of a prolonged political impasse and institutional paralysis, the cabinet must prove it can produce something quite different. In other words, even assuming foreign actors refrain from destructive interference, the dysfunctional political system could well generate sufficient crises and deadlocks on basic issues of governance to render Hariri’s self-proclaimed priority – the country’s economic recovery – a pipe dream.

Lastly, the Future Current – whose influence and prominence grew under circumstances of exceptional communal mobilisation – is facing the re-emergence of a traditionally more fragmented, diverse Sunni landscape. Local leaders and Islamist movements seek to reassert their authority, question Hariri’s leadership or resist his domination. A more pluralistic, diverse Sunni community would not necessarily be a bad thing, arguably signalling the transition toward a more peaceful, less polarised form of politics. But it also could vastly complicate the prime minister’s task....

..... Hariri (Rafic) had established himself as an important Sunni leader: he had helped the community acquire a more equitable share of power through the Taef accords and, because so many Sunni figures had died during the war, he filled the vacuum. An observer of the Sunni scene said:  

Hariri faced three important obstacles. First, insofar as the vision was very much his own, the line separating public policy from personal interests had a tendency to blur.

Secondly, his project depended to a large extent on a peaceful regional context and in particular avoidance of renewed Arab-Israeli warfare. This was critical in ensuring that Lebanon attracted investments, businessmen and
tourists. In the early 1990s, this seemed possible. The civil war had come to a close, the Israeli-Arab peace process was launched, both Iraq and Iran appeared to be contained, and three-way coordination between Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria had significantly improved. In 1996, Hariri drew on his broad regional and international network to help end Israel’s “Grapes of Wrath” operation in Lebanon.

As a result, he stood accused of promoting his own business at the expense of the broader good, in particular when private companies he owned either in part or in full undertook colossal public works – not always in full transparency. This was coupled with a broader and oftentimes vehement critique of his economic policy: a laissez-faire approach and a monetarist policy aiming at exchange rate stabilisation that some viewed as overly costly in social terms and massive public expenses that saddled the country with heavy debts.
Finally, Hariri’s gambit hinged on Syria’s goodwill, whose presence in and influence over Lebanon were enormous, intrusive and internationally sanctioned. The very fact of his prime ministership reflected an understanding between Damascus and Riyadh which recognised the primacy of Syrian interests in Lebanon, while giving Saudi Arabia a role through Rafic Hariri.

In and of itself, Hariri’s economic policy hardly was inimical to Syrian interests.

In 2000, however, whatever prospects existed had darkened substantially with the collapse of Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, followed by the elections of George W. Bush in the U.S. and Ariel Sharon in Israel, neither of whom appeared particularly keen to relaunch peace talks.

....... At the outset at least, Hariri tried hard to accommodate his neighbour.

Tensions between Hariri and Syria began to surface in 1998. These likely were caused by several interrelated factors. To begin, Hariri had acquired an extraordinary stature as de facto head of state, bringing together broad Sunni support, a national vision and powerful international backing....

Eager to cut him back to size, Damascus took advantage of the increasing difficulties encountered by Hariri’s economic project. The political transition in Damascus also played a part; Hafez al-Assad, sick and in his final years, almost certainly was seeking to consolidate his regime’s position in Lebanon prior to handing power over to his son, Bashar.

The most tangible phase of the crisis occurred in November 1998, when Syria orchestrated the election to the presidency of Emile Lahoud, former army chief of staff. Lahoud immediately positioned himself in opposition to Hariri; his inaugural address pointedly stressed “the preeminence of the rule of law, the strengthening of governmental institutions, the requirement for transparency and accountability in the conduct of public affairs and the promotion of social justice and equality”, all of which were intended as indirect attacks on the outgoing prime minister. Ultimately, Hariri ruled himself out and the cabinet, led by Salim al-Hoss, was almost entirely reshuffled.

Tensions reached a new level when, after his triumph in the 2000 parliamentary elections, Hariri regained the prime ministership. This led to a stormy relationship with the president, reflected in sustained domestic paralysis and growing Syrian intrusion. Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from South Lebanon simultaneously encouraged greater Lebanese opposition to Syria’s military presence and Hizbollah’s armed status, both of which were chiefly justified by the continued occupation. Anti-Syrian criticism ceased being a principally Christian affair, as others – notably Walid Jumblatt, head of the Druze community – joined their voices. The Syrian regime faced the U.S. invasion of Iraq as well as heightened pressure from Washington and Paris....

Hariri, under pressure, formed a more pro-Syrian government. Then, a year later, parliament extended Lahoud’s mandate.... In American and French eyes, Syria had crossed a redline; in Hariri’s, this was a turning point that pushed him to resign the premiership and join the Lebanese opposition. ....

... on 14 February 2005, he was killed in a massive explosion.....

......The event had sectarian implications: Rafic Hariri’s death awoke deep, lingering fears among the Sunni community which quickly rallied around his son, Saad, and shifted its national, regional and wider international alliances......

.... For Sunnis, the situation was more ambiguous. A number of local leaders, including Omar Karameh in Tripoli and Abdel Rahim Mrad in the Bekaa Valley, became Syria’s unconditional allies. At the other end of the spectrum were (relatively minor) pockets of resistance, chiefly among Islamist activists who, in turn, were severely hit by the Syrian-Lebanese security services.45 In Northern Lebanon, principally Tripoli, Syria’s presence was tantamount to an occupation, a reflection of Damascus’s alarm at the prospect of an Islamist movement that eventually could cross into its own territory.....

The intensity of the Sunnis’ reaction and their stunning communal mobilisation cannot be explained solely by anger at Syrian practices or loyalty toward Rafic. ....
...... a multitude of converging resentments, discomforts and anxieties: resentment at Syria’s ability to thwart Hariri’s project; discomfort at the lack of any credible alternative; and anxiety stemming from a more general sense of vulnerability. The end result was a massive, overpowering instinct of communal solidarity.....

Historically, Sunnis have tended to identify with the Arab nationalist movement and to seek support in the wider Sunni Arab world, an outlook manifested in the decision to side with the Palestinians during the civil war. Rafic Hariri’s more specifically Lebanese project appealed to many, and the collapse of Arab nationalism further eroded the pan-Arab ideal. Still, the desire to belong to a wider Islamic, Arab environment lingered. As a Sunni resident of Bab Tebbaneh said, “to us, Lebanon remains an artificial construct with which we simply could not identify”....

... For the most part, Lebanon’s Sunnis have tended to contest Western regional policies. .....they grew increasingly hostile to the U.S., viewed as blindly supporting Israel and unsympathetic to Arab aspirations. Anti-American sentiment deepened further in reaction to President George W. Bush’s “war against terrorism”, perceived by many as a struggle against Islam.

The situation changed with the 2005 assassination of Rafic Hariri. ..... Domestically, the community entered into what a former Hariri aide dubbed an “unholy alliance” with its historical foes, anti-Syrian Christian parties.

The Future Current invoked two rationales to justify its stark international and domestic realignment. The West and particularly the U.S. were seen as indispensable partners in what was emerging as an uneven, life-or-death battle against Syria and its allies, Hizbollah and Iran.....

.... The Future Current’s international repositioning provoked mixed reactions among its base. Although criticism of Syria and its allies resonated widely, the defence of Western and particularly American policy was a harder sell. Many Future Current followers, while grateful for Washington’s support, nonetheless accused the U.S. of pursuing a foreign policy hostile to both Arab and Muslim interests.

A Future Current member put it as follows: “We need the Americans against Syria and Hizbollah, but when it comes to Iraq or Palestine, we remain profoundly anti-American”.....

....... Perhaps the most striking transformation in Sunni attitudes since 2005 has been the intense sectarian polarisation and hostility toward Shiites. Tensions had existed in the past, but for the most part they had remained dormant ....

Several leaders of the moderate axis began to describe regional tensions as a fight against a Shiite threat, ....

[May:2008:]
We cannot rely on the army. Amal and Hizbollah militants can enter any place they want and create disorder before the army steps in. Our best and only response is for our youth to take charge of protecting Sunni neighbourhoods.

The Future Current’s response to growing popular pressure was not to establish its own, centralised militia; Hizbollah’s overwhelming military power would have rendered any such endeavour futile and counterproductive. Instead, it created a private security organisation charged with protecting its leaders – a reaction to the assassination of several March 14 figures between 2005 and 2007. It also recruited young militants to join Future Current-funded and managed groups to defend Sunni neighbourhoods......

Reacting to cabinet decisions it viewed asundermining its operational capacity,109 Hizbollah and some of its allies mounted a vast military manoeuvre.

Within a few hours, the movement was in control of Sunni-dominated West Beirut. Saad Hariri was under siege in his residence, his personal guard, and the Future Current’s private security and other forces having been routed. The Sunnis’ defeat was swift, unambiguous and humiliating.

The May 2008 crisis carried several harsh lessons for the Future Current. To begin, it was utterly outmatched by its opponents’ cohesiveness, determination and advance planning. Even within Hariri’s entourage, criticism concerning the movement’s strategic choices was bitter and rampant. Sunni militants who joined the fighting blamed their leaders for “abandoning them”. Just as importantly, the events attested to the impotence of the Future Current’s foreign allies. The U.S., France andSaudi Arabia watched passively from the sidelines as Hizbollah flexed its muscles. During the subsequent Doha negotiations, March 14, feeling betrayed, had little choice but to accept most of the opposition’s demands which, buoyed by the international community’s support, it had resisted until then. In a way, the outcome also marked the end of the Future Current's brief flirtation with a military logic. ......

The domestic realignment was matched by regional and international repositioning. After the Doha accord, France broke ranks with the U.S. and rapidly normalised relations with Syria ...The Bush administration itself, although not fundamentally altering its stance, softened its pressure on Damascus and disengaged somewhat from Lebanon.... Riyadh adopted a more balanced approach and encouraged normalisation of ties between Syria and Lebanon, in particular by pressing Saad Hariri to visit Damascus ....

...... the Future Current for now appears able to preserve its dominant position among Sunnis. Continued uncertainly in the domestic and regional arenas is likely to convince most that closing ranks behind Hariri is still a priority. ......

There are indications that the chief prosecutor might announce indictments sometime before the end of the year,144 and speculation is mounting that he might implicate Hizbollah members. Warning about the potential implications of such allegations, Jumblatt compared them to the “Aïn Remaneh bus” – an allusion to the attacks that triggered the 1975 civil war.

The Future Current is both extremely centralised and tremendously fluid. It has organised around patriarchal figures – Rafic and then, to a lesser extent, Saad –, assigns important roles to Hariri family members148 and works somewhat in the manner of a royal court in which access to resources generally is a function of proximity to the ruling family. At the same time, the Future Current never established party-like organisational or ideological structures (even though it formally registered as a party in 2007).149 It lacks a clear political program, ......

In so far as the Future Current has presented a unifying vision, it essentially has been a negative one, predicated on hostility toward Hizbollah and its local and foreign backers....

Over time, however, the dominant traditional style of patriarchal politics, combined with a lack of cadres, institutions and internal coordination mechanisms, could prove costly. Militants at times take actions without any oversight. The Future Current’s support, powerful as it is, remains, in the words of one of its parliamentarians, “imperfect, fluid and fragile”. A local UN expert commented: “Patron-client politics create erratic loyalty; one’s allegiance quickly can shift against the leader, as soon the leader stops providing funds”.

There also is a large gap between stated principles and actual behaviour. The Future Current denounces others, notably Hizbollah, for undermining the state, yet its policies have differed little in their impact. It too has stepped into the economic, social and security void left by the state as a means of addressing constituent demands, asserted influence over state institutions, encouraged a sectarian discourse and sought out foreign assistance.Such practices, followed by much of the political class, perpetuate the state’s weakness. ......

The Future Current’s most acute dilemma today is that the more it plays on and appeals to Sunni fears and insecurities – the more it retains its current system of patronage – the less Hariri can aspire to a national role....

.....Under the circumstances, and under Saad Hariri’s dual role as head of the movement and leader of the nation, an important question is how long the Future Current can maintain its quasi-hegemony. ....

Contrary to some expectations, Lebanon’s heightened sectarianism did not boost the appeal of Sunni Islamist movements. To the contrary: their popular support waned even as confessional tensions rose......,

.... the Future Current held an obvious comparative advantage. In contrast, most of the smaller Islamist parties lacked a coherent political project, let alone a united leadership; very few took proper account of the country’s multi- confessional identity, political pluralism or relations to the West.....

Many Islamist activists acknowledge they made a mistake in letting the Future Current monopolise the scene. They now realise that the Current’s positions and commitments are not always reliable. There is a thirst for greater pluralism among Sunnis.....

1. Dar al-Fatwa’s religious authority has waned due to charges of corruption routinely levied by both religious leaders and ordinary citizens.

Secondly, and partly as a result, it has failed to impose itself as the paramount supervisory and regulatory institution it is meant to be. The effect has been felt in the often chaotic proliferation of small religious centres whose diplomas Dar al-Fatwa refuses to validate and where more militant, radical teachings can and do take place.....

Thirdly, and consequently, it has sought to compensate for its lack of grassroots legitimacy through closer ties to the community’s political leadership, letting itself be caught in the country's political and religious polarisation. ....notably by resorting to a more divisive and openly confessional rhetoric.....

2. Jamaa Islamiyya, the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is arguably the nation’s best organised Sunni Islamist movement,.....

Since 2005, the movement has been somewhat at odds with the community’s overall ideological stance.....

As the sectarian rift and Sunni distrust of Hizbollah deepened following Hariri’s murder, Jamaa Islamiyya has had to walk a fine line,

.....building a stronger relationship with Jamaa Islamiyaa and its relatively moderate brand of Islamism proved beneficial to Hariri’s movement, for it satisfied the Future Current’s more religious constituency without alienating its Christian partners.....

3. Salafis

In 1995, a jihadi salafist group murdered the head of the Ahbash, a pro-Syrian Islamic association, on the grounds that it was heretical. In response, the Lebanese and Syrian security services cracked down on salafists, drawing little distinction between their violent and non-violent expressions. This downward trend accelerated as of 1999 following bloody fighting between a jihadist group and the Lebanese army. Tens of militants, both missionary and jihadi salafists, were arrested....

The Salafi movement experienced yet another setback due to the international context. The 11 September 2001 attacks in the U.S., followed by a series of explosions in Riyadh in 2003, prompted a significantly drop in out-side financial contribution to Salafi mosques and learning centres....

As Saudi support waned, Kuwaiti-inspired Salafism grew. But for salafists, the picture remained bleak....

After a period of disarray, Salafism reemerged in the wake of Hariri’s assassination. The Future Current re-newed ties with Salafi leaders, joined in shared hostility toward Syria and the Shiite community. The Future As a general matter, Salafis exhibit intense hostility to Shiism.

In August 2008, several Salafi representatives – including Hassan al-Chahal and Safwan Zu’bi – signed an agreement with Hizbollah aimed at ending “sectarian incitement” and rejecting “all acts of aggression.... But it came at a cost. In theory, Salafism rejects not only active political participation but also allegiance to any political leader not in strict conformity with its interpretation of Islamic law – a prohibition that is all the more pertinent in Lebanon’s multi-confessional context.

Among rank-and-file Salafists, therefore, the perception that some movement leaders had entered into deals with members of the political class caused considerable dis-qiet......

Jihadi Salafism

Lebanese jihadi groups first emerged in the course of the country’s long civil war. Prior to 1990, they essentially comprised non-Salafi, Islamist movements calling for armed struggle against Israel, as well as Palestinians from refugee camps. Over the subsequent decade, the return of fighters from the Afghan war contributed to the emergence of a Salafi jihadist movement which flour- ished chiefly among disadvantaged Sunnis from North Lebanon and the Bekaa. The so-called Lebanese “Arab- Afghans” were few in number yet found relatively hospitable terrain....

The first concrete jihadi manifestation in the Bekaa grew out of the return of another Afghan veteran, Mostafa Ramadan (also known as Abu Mohamed al-Loubnani), who is believed to have been close to the then-head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.... In 2005, parliament amnestied several Islamists arrested in connection with the Dinniyeh and Majdal Anjar incidents, most likely in order to contain and co-opt various components of the Sunni community at a time of intense sectarian polarisation and confrontation.

Likewise, Bahia Hariri provided funds to a Palestinian jihadist group, Jund al-Sham, in the hope of achieving a temporary and fragile calm....

The case of Fatah al-Islam is the most apt illustration of such ambiguities. Even as various parties accused one another of promoting the movement,257 its history points to collective responsibility. From the outset, Fatah al-Islam’s emergence was visible to all, and its expansion required at the very least extreme carelessness, if not active involvement by Syria, the Future Current, Tripoli’s missionary Salafist circles, Lebanon’s security apparatus and various Palestinian factions in Nahr al-Bared.

Each, at one point or another, seemingly expected to profit from Fatah al-Islam, even as it became increasingly apparent that it was beyond anyone’s control. ...

Despite the political class’ recklessness and the state’s short-sighted, overly security-based response, the jihadist phenomenon for the most part has remained manageable.

To a large extent, this is due to its relatively confined geographic space. In the Bekaa as in the South, Hizbollah’s powerful presence effectively curbed the jihadists’ progress. In Tripoli and North Lebanon, the tragedy that struck Nahr al-Bared has since held the jihadists in check.

Although many were outraged and radicalised by the harshness of state repression, the events led to an even sharper level of surveillance and repression. They also high-lighted the extraordinarily heavy cost of any future confrontation....

Many Sunni representatives were killed during the war, among them sheikh Sobhi Saleh; Nazem al-Qadri [a member of parliament]; prime minister Rachid Karameh; and mufti Hassan Khaled. These murders left Sunnis to themselves, unprotected, more fragmented, marginalised and exposed than other, more structured communities. Sunnis largely were excluded from political life, for example during the 1985 tripartite agreement. The three-way agreement was reached with Syrian support by Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader; Nabih Berri, head of the Shiite Amal movement; and Elie Hobeika, head of one of the Lebanese Forces’ branches. It sought, but failed, to end the civil war.

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