March Meanings

THOMAS FRIEDMAN writes: "The spreading virus that "things can change and I can make a difference" is the most important thing happening in the Arab world today. The fact that Hezbollah had to resort to a mass rally, just like the Lebanese democracy movement's, is itself a victory for the democrats."

"President Bush should stay in the background and keep focused on defusing the Arab-Israeli conflict, which will deprive Hezbollah of all its excuses to remain armed."

-- I think Friedman has got it right. The demonstrations we have witnessed in both Beirut and Damascus are part of the spreading impact of a new political sensibility. Syria has not had a mass demonstration on the scale of yesterday's for 40 years and it was not all staged. Bashar needs popular support and Syrians may be waking up to that knowledge. They do not have to be sheep. Syria is waking up. Perhaps only one eye is open, but it is open.

In the midst of the demonstration coverage on Syria TV yesterday, the programers cut away to a prerecorded interview with a Baath Party hack intellectual about the significance of the March 8th Baath Revolution of 1963. It was quite extraordinary. The Syrian interviewer asked the Baathist analyst, "Why do we celebrate March 8th if it was really a military coup?" The Baathist had to explain that even though the military took over, the Baath was helped to power too. Then the interviewer asked if democracy had really been established in Syria as the Baath Party insists. The Baathist had to deliver a tortured explanation about how Syria is like a ship in a storm. Due to outside pressures, the ship needs a strong captain, etc. "Mistakes have been made," he ultimately confessed. It was qutie extraordinary to see a Syrian TV moderator press a Baathist like this. His answers were convincing to few, to be sure.

Baathism is largely dead here. Although demonstrators still expressed their anti-Americanism and some chanted old slogans about giving their "souls and blood" for the president, there were no banners proclaiming the tried and true Baathist slogans, such as "Unity, Freedom and Socialism." Everyone wants to see Bashar pull the country out of its current mess in Lebanon, but what they are really waiting for is to see if he will reinvigorate internal reforms. They are counting on him to assemble the Baath Party Congress later this year and prove that he is serious about putting some fire under the reform process.

If he fails to do that, things will go badly for him. People are still clinging to the faith that he wants real reform and will bring it once he consolidates his grip on power. There are many signs that the President has consolidated his grip on power over the last several months. Whether he will use that power to push through reform, however, remains to be seen. There are a growing number of doubters.

Finally, The Palestine issue remains central. Some of my friends, such as Tony Badran and Michael Doran, argue that it is not central to the regional order and that Washington should keep it on the back burner until Arab regimes are democratic. I don't agree. The Golan issue and the crappy treatment of the Palestinians are real sticking points. As we saw in both Nasrallah's and Bashar al-Asad's speeches, it is the issue of occupied territories that keeps their struggle alive. People are still willing to buy into the resistance rhetoric because justice has not been done. End the land disputes and both Baathism and Hizbullah defiance will sputter out. There will be nothing left for them to debate but democracy and developing their own countries. All the new banners up in Damascus bear the slogan: "We support you (Bashar) in your attempt to strengthen Arab nationalism and Syria's roll in the region." Once basic UN resolutions concerning the remaining occupied territories are applied, the power of this last slogan of Baathism will drain away.


JAD MOUAWAD writing in the NY Times explains that "The decision to reappoint Mr. Karami is partly a reflection of the political void among Sunni politicians left by the death of Mr. Hariri."

-- The rise of Hizbullah and collapse of the Sunnis after the murder of Hariri demonstrates once again how important Za`ims are in this part of the world. Without a charismatic and powerful leader, religious communities cannot fight at their weight, political parties crumble, and democracy limps along. It is a major weakness of sectarian politics, or the "politics of za`ims," as I have written elsewhere. Without strong and unified Sunni leadership, (The Prime Minister must be a Sunni according to Lebanon's confessional arrangement) the Lebanese system will have real troubles creating a political center.


STEVEN WEISMAN in a N.Y. Times article entitled: "U.S. Called Ready to See Hezbollah in Lebanon Role," writes, "France has argued that Hezbollah ought to be encouraged to concentrate on politics. Our language on this has been since Hariri's death not to go too far beating up on Hezbollah," a French official said. "It might hurt, and it won't help. We could be a turning point now, with Hezbollah maybe turning to politics and politics alone. The United States is no longer making a case of using this issue to disarm Hezbollah and brutally crush them."

-- This is an important shift for the US, if it is true. Israel is still pressing to see Hizbullah disarm, but how do you do it? The US does not want more UN troops in Lebanon and must follow France's lead on strategy toward Syria and Lebanon. Should the US lose European support for its Lebanon strategy, it will be powerless.