Lebanon on the brink

The spectre of violence is perennial in Lebanon, a complex country that is accustomed to political crisis. This week may reveal if the slow fracturing of Lebanon's state institutions will be weathered or spiral into civil war.

The country's twice-delayed presidential election is now set for Monday as the country's divided politicians seek a compromise candidate to succeed pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. However, the fact that no convincing compromise candidate has emerged from months of discussion suggests that such a person may not exist. 

The same old problems are holding Lebanon back: friction between the country's different communities, and the continual interference of foreign governments as they use Lebanon to pursue their own agendas.

Damascus wants a president who will block the UN investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, in which Syria has been implicated.  Its Hizbollah ally wants to block any moves to enforce UN resolutions requiring it to disarm.  Lebanon's governing anti-Syrian March 14 coalition, led by Hariri's son Saad, wants the opposite.

Growing tension has marked the preamble to the election: last weekend Hizbollah conducted one of its biggest-ever military manoeuvres in south Lebanon involving thousands of unarmed guerrillas. The message was clear. The vote has already been postponed twice as a result of the pro-Syrian opposition using its boycott to deny the March 14 coalition a quorum. 

The March 14 majority in parliament has been whittled down to a bare two, partly through assassinations of MPs in its ranks, the latest of whom was the victim of a car bombing in September.  He, like many of his colleagues, had been out of the country for his own safety and only returned two days before. 

Many interpreted the latest killing as a signal from Damascus to March 14 not to elect an anti-Syrian candidate.  Other March 14 leaders have hunkered down in a heavily defended Beirut hotel that they rarely leave.  Meanwhile rival groups are arming for conflict as the tensions rise ahead of the end of Lahoud's term on November 23. 

This week's session may also be postponed, pushing Lebanon to the brink of the worst crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990.  The March 14 coalition claims the constitution allows it to use its bare majority -- if it still has one -- to elect a president outside parliament.  Lahoud and the opposition disagree, and Lahoud could invoke emergency powers to install a president of his choosing. 

The resulting standoff could produce two rival governments, worsening violence and the prospect of a return to civil war, especially if the UN Security Council establishes a tribunal to try Hariri's killers.

War-weariness to the rescue?

Will war-weariness save Lebanon? Alex Klaushofer, writing in openDemocracy, notes that the ghost of civil war in Lebanon is a forceful reminder of the price of conflict, giving rise to a determination that it must not happen again.  He maintains that even younger Lebanese know the dangers of a direct clash: "They are too young to remember the civil war of 1975-90, but they grew up on its tales and consequences," he writes.