Lebanon is a volcano gestating an eruption. While a powder keg will soon explode, a volcano could explode tomorrow or ten years from now. A conflict in Lebanon may be imminent, as well as being progressively managed and delayed. The fact is that the country is experiencing a crisis on several fronts and that an explosion could be catastrophic, with effects felt throughout the region.
Last Thursday, the 14th, shootings in Beirut left around six people dead, as well as thirty wounded. Images circulating on social media showed the use of rocket launchers and rifles. The main reason for the hostilities is the dispute over the direction of investigations into the explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, which left more than 200 dead.
judgment and economy
The explosion, one of the most violent on record, disregarding the nuclear ones, has already been addressed here in our space. Negligence and corruption likely played an essential role in the tragedy. Hezbollah claims that the current investigations conducted by Judge Tarek Bittar are a harassment of the party, while supporters of the judge claim Hezbollah only wants to prevent the discovery of bribery schemes at the port.
Mainly, the supporters of Lebanese Christian groups, whose main example is the Kataeb party, whose former name was Falanges, an association with Spanish Franco fascism. Tarek Bittar, although from a region with a strong Sunni presence, is a Maronite. The sectarian issue is also part of the bias charges against the judge. The fact is that a judge would hardly have the agreement of everyone involved in Lebanese politics.
The dispute over the explosion, however, is just one of the elements that fuels the Lebanese volcano. The Lebanese economy is in tatters. The local currency has lost around 90% of its purchasing power since August 2019 and more than half of Lebanese are on the poverty line. According to UN agencies, soaring food prices have led to food insecurity in the country.
The crisis is explained by five factors. The country’s long political crisis, which has seen six governments since the 2011 protests; the lack of liquidity of Lebanese banks, whose banking system is quite opaque; sequels of the US sanctions on the Syrian economy, which is highly interconnected with Lebanon, including the aforementioned banking system; the physical destruction, damage and port stoppage caused by the explosion.
Lebanon suffers, for example, from a lack of fuel, since, historically, its main supplier was Syria. Today, this trade is very difficult, due to sanctions against the Syrian economy, due to its civil war. Which leads to the fifth factor in the crisis: the increasing military expenditures by the various Lebanese actors, in a process that is very difficult to assess.
state within state
A quick online search lets the reader know the military budget of the US, France, Japan, a number of countries. In the case of Lebanon, this is more difficult. How much of the Lebanese economy is spent on armaments depends not only on the budget of the armed forces, but also on the expenses of all militias and paramilitary groups, from all political strands and sectarian, Christian, Sunni and Shiite groups.
The reader needs to set aside any simple explanation of Hezbollah. It is not just a political party, a paramilitary militia, an extremist group, any of those terms. Today, Hezbollah is all of these together, it is practically a “State within a State”, with its own organization and authority, an independent budget and its own armed forces.
Estimates are of around fifteen thousand fighters in the armed wing of Hezbollah, with a vast arsenal. It’s not just personal weapons, such as rifles, but thousands of rockets, artillery pieces, drones, missiles, armored combat vehicles, an entire structure similar to that of an army, with veterans from different conflicts, such as the wars in Syria and Yemen .
The “State within the State” has in Iran its main ally, an alliance driven not only by Shiism, but also by having a common enemy, Israel. Hezbollah was created in 1985 as a reaction to the Israeli intervention in the Lebanese Civil War. The group receives weapons and instruction from Iran, which, in turn, manages to have an ally literally on the Israeli border.
internal conflict
As a way to balance this influence, the Lebanese army receives armaments and contributions from the USA and France, with Saudi funding. In November 2014, for example, a triangular cooperation was signed between the French, Saudi and Lebanese governments. France provided Lebanon with $3 billion in armaments, paid by the Saudis to prepare the regular Lebanese state forces.
The Lebanese army is theoretically one of the few universal institutions in the country, without sectarian division, but in practice Christians have a profound influence on the institution. It is very clear that, in an eventual civil war, two of the main forces involved will be the army and Hezbollah, and they will hardly be on the same side. Not to mention the various smaller groups. This is the level of tension that has reached Lebanon.
It is possible that, without the UN peacekeeping mission, the conflict would have already broken out. None of the local actors wants to risk drawing more international pressure against them. His term, however, needs to be renewed every year. Brazil currently commands the naval component of the mission, with the task of curbing arms trafficking into Lebanon.
Lebanon is at a historic crossroads. The wounds of the civil war that lasted fifteen years were never fully healed and the state’s sectarian system favors radicalization, not dialogue. When hundreds of thousands of people in poverty already feel they have nothing to lose and that guns can be the solution, the volcano can erupt. It’s just not known exactly when.
***
I apologize to the reader for the absence of the column last Friday, orders from the medical department.
#Lebanon #erupt #Filipe #Figueiredo