A New Role for Saudi Arabia in Lebanon
Daoud Shirian Al-Hayat - 20/09/06//
After the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon, Dr. Abdul Aziz Khoja, resumed contacts with the Hezbollah leadership, some Lebanese parties started creating some scenarios of a possible Saudi role in solving the dispute among them. This comes at a time when mutual accusations among political leaders in Lebanon have reached the point where they threaten to blow up the political situation in a way that could cause the collapse of State institutions. In its editorial last Monday, the 'Al-Safir' newspaper, reporting some politicians' ideas, expected a new proposition from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This "could include an invitation to several concerned political leaders to hold talks with the Saudis themselves, and it could subsequently move on to propose a 'mini Taif Agreement' or a small conference to revitalize the decisions taken at the Taif conference…"
Positive signals are being sent to Saudi Arabia and to its role in Lebanon through those in the Lebanese media which refused the Saudi stance on the war or which follow parties which attacked this stance. This is an important indicator about the fact that some parties wish to transcend the conditions and the stances which emerged during and after the war. At the same time, however, it also proves something to those who limited themselves to reading only the first Saudi statement, who ignored how Riyadh attempted to stop the war (that is, by showing a political stance that was not to the liking of the street charged with slogans), and who provoked the Saudi role and tried to depict it as a cover-up for the war.
In fact, these people have discovered that the Saudis were right and that Saudi Arabia, which had been violently discredited by Arab and Lebanese media, is the only country capable of calming down the atmosphere and the tension among the parties and of removing the destructive political consequences of the war.
There is no doubt that Saudi Arabia will not dispose of its positive role in Lebanon, as it is the State which achieved real political success in this country. In fact, the Taif Agreement revitalized political life in Lebanon, so that the Taif Republic was able to strike a balance among its sects, to secure a fair distribution of power, to move the country out of the war culture and to put it on the track toward achieving development and dialogue. However, today's conditions are different. The problem in Lebanon is no longer just a dispute between local parties, and what is happening there today has now moved beyond Taif and Lebanese sects. The July War has further complicated the situation and has pushed Lebanon into all the hot files of the region. Now this country has become a location or at least a passageway where solutions to others' regional, or maybe even international, issues are found.
The possible Saudi role in Lebanon will not come quickly for the reasons I have pointed out, in addition to the fact that, this time, Saudi Arabia is fearful and, according to some people, is siding with this or that party. This means that it will not start fulfilling its new role before being guaranteed that the fact that it was the mastermind of the Taif Agreement will not be ignored and that its role used to and still consists of dealing with Lebanon as a homeland for everyone and not just for a specific class or sect. Moreover, it wants to be guaranteed that it will not bear responsibility for others' mistakes and that its role will not be turned into a political hanger.
The solutions which are proposed in Lebanon deal with the foreign presence in the country and all parties realize that this presence is now linked to international resolutions and that calming down the Lebanese political arena will not and cannot be achieved by straining relations with foreign counterparts. Therefore, Saudi Arabia will try to distance itself from the responsibility of this presence, since it did not strive to bring these forces in, but attempted to stop the war in order to prevent their presence. Nonetheless, the Arab political memory forgets, or sometimes pretends to forget, and in the past it has already accused the Saudis of bringing foreigners into the Gulf, despite the fact that the country which brought these forces into action was the one that waged the war on Kuwait.
Today, the presence of foreign troops in Lebanon has been imposed by international conditions for well known reasons, and every endeavor by Arab countries to solve Lebanese problems will not succeed in driving these foreign forces out, unless the Lebanese people agree on the effort of building the country and of eliminating the causes which justify others' guardianship over them.
Furthermore, the parties of the region should understand the expected Saudi role and should not consider Lebanon as an arena for settling regional scores. Lebanon must remain a factor of appeasement and not a scene of tension and strain. Moreover, Riyadh believes that dealing with a country like Lebanon, if it is just a group of sects, is not useful. Lebanon's strength was and will always be in its ability to contain diversity and to allow coexistence, and any attempt to violate this civilized advantage will mean killing Lebanon and inflaming the region.
However, the most important issue, as far as the Saudi role is concerned, relies on the fact that some Saudis believe in the necessity of separating reconstruction from the political role and of not keeping one hostage of the other. Saudi Arabia does not have a special agenda regarding Lebanon, and what it is primarily concerned with is that its efforts in reconstruction and in the political field will benefit the Lebanese citizens. In the past, it has already tried to deal with the Lebanese political class with regards to rebuilding the country, thinking that giving this political class a role in this process would oblige it to stabilize political reconciliation. Unfortunately, the result is well known: the reconstruction was not carried out as was hoped and the politicians' voracity made the problem unsolvable. Hence, what is needed today is that Saudi institutions take on the responsibility of spending on reconstruction by dealing with local or foreign executors.
If this method is not followed, the political role will be distorted and the effort for reconstruction will be hijacked. Saudi Arabia can apply this method efficiently through its developed financial institutions.
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