Who's the Threat to Democracy in Lebanon?

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Lebanon is having very important elections in early June which may well determine whether the country continues to possess some real autonomy or whether it is incorporated into the Iran-Syria-led bloc of radical anti-Western Islamism.

The side favoring Iran and Syria includes: the Shia groups Hizballah and Amal; the Christians of Michel Aoun; a herd of traditional, patriarchal Sunni Muslim politicians; and a tiny group of Druze defectors. They are buoyed by tens of millions of dollars from Tehran and Damascus, as well as the power of Hizballah's militia, which is armed by weapons bought by Iran and smuggled in by Syria. More than a dozen terrorist attacks have assassinated leading anti-Syrian politicians of the March 14 coalition, including that group's original leader Rafiq Hariri.

The democratic side gets no money from the West and little or no diplomatic help. On the contrary, in the rush of some Western states to be nice to Hizballah, they are crushing the hopes of the majority who don't want to be satellites of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad (known unaffectionately as the "giraffe" back home) and the Iranian regime's mullahs.

Now the New York Times has entered the fray and courageously discovered that someone is trying to "fix" the Lebanese election. And who's that?

Why Saudi Arabia of course! Yes, I have no doubt the Saudis are doing this but when you see an article headlined "Foreign Money Seeks to Buy Lebanese Votes" you sort of expect that there is more than one type of foreigner present.

Iran is mentioned twice; Syria not at all. True the article says: "Even a narrow win by Hezbollah and its allies, now in the parliamentary opposition, would be seen as a victory for Iran - which has financed Hezbollah for decades - and a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the money flows."

In other words (and yes the article does say in passing that Iran has "financed" Hizballah), Iran is mentioned only because this is the Saudi rationale for intervention.

To talk about money trying to sway the Lebanese election without talking about the Iranian-Syrian effort is ludicrous.

The future of Lebanon is now at stake and if it is taken over by the extremists, it will have a terrible impact on the Middle East and indeed the world. The Iran-Syria bloc will be seen as the wave of the future, the wagon onto which many opportunists and foolish people will leap. The radicals will have a new base of operations for seeking to take over more countries.

I am not suggesting that Hizballah and its allies will take over all the geographic areas of Lebanon. That's too difficult militarily given the opposition of anti-Hizballah Sunni, Christian and Druze communities. They will focus on controlling the country's foreign and economic policies, turning it into a fortress for radical Islamist forces and probably preparing for some war with Israel in a few years.

By the way, Hizballah has made ample propaganda use of the New York Times article which was the lead news item in the April 23 evening news show of its television station, Al-Manar. They are using the article as propaganda to say that their enemies are on the Saudi payroll. In addition, they are quoting the same passage I quoted above, saying that a Hizballah win would be "a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt."

Oh, but they aren't talking about Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Hizballah's television station changed the ally in question to: Israel. That's right. Thanks to the Times, Hizballah is portraying the March 14 coalition as an ally of Israel and a lackey of America. And after all, the Times has lent its prestige (what remains of it) to implying that the March 14 democrats are corrupt and Hizballah along with its friends aren't.

So if a pro-Iranian, pro-Syrian government takes over Lebanon and becomes in effect a dictatorship, Hizballah's leaders can say in the words of that famous old advertising campaign: "I got my job through the New York Times!"

This is the second time within a month that newspaper has provided Hizballah with propaganda following the vicious anti-Israel cartoon published in the New York Times a few weeks ago.]

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org. His blog, Rubin Reports is at http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/.