Tripoli and Middle East Currents

BEIRUT -- When I returned to live and work in Lebanon some years ago, a wise Lebanese friend advised me to go to Tripoli in north Lebanon if I really wanted to understand the complex forces that drove the country and the region. He was right, as I discovered on several visits to the city. Today that advice is more valid than ever, though sadly the Middle East 's prevailing politics and ideologies often assert themselves violently. 

Here is what Tripoli these days allows you to grasp in one fell swoop:
- the richness and variety of Middle Eastern political culture;
- the complex linkages between local groups and regional and world powers;
- the intersection among economics, religion, ethnicity and ideology;
- the consequences of the convergence of social deprivation and political marginalization;
- the prevalence of violence as a means of expression by Middle Eastern states, opposition groups, and foreign powers;
- the expanding phenomenon of small, localized terrorist groups; and,
- the frailty of the modern Arab state. 

As far as I can tell, only the Chinese and Ethiopians are not represented in Tripoli. Everyone else who deals in politics and warfare seems to be a player.

The August 13 bomb in central Tripoli that killed and injured scores of soldiers and civilians was the latest in a string of violent incidents that have increasingly plagued north Lebanon. In the previous two months, local groups largely identified as "pro-government Sunnis" and "pro-Syrian Alawites" have clashed violently, requiring the intervention of the army to separate them. Last summer, the Qaeda-inspired Fateh el-Islam group fought a prolonged battle against the Lebanese army in Nahr el-Barid refugee camp, leaving hundreds dead and the camp demolished. Many Lebanese accuse Syria of unleashing Fateh el-Islam in Lebanon, which the Syrians deny.

The continuing violence in and around Tripoli partly reflects a shift in the center of gravity of Lebanon's convoluted governance system, from the previous heartland of street fighting and occasional bombings and assassinations in the Beirut and central Mount Lebanon areas. But the forces at play in the north are not merely a spillover from a fatigued and pacified Beirut. The underlying conditions that allow the current political violence to happen have percolated and grown for nearly half a century.

Salafist Islamist movements, for example, have expanded slowly and steadily since the 1960s, mostly focused on non-violent educational, religious and charitable activities. They reflect in part the wider trend of local religious movements that step in to offer services when modern Arab central governments lack the legitimacy or efficacy needed to meet their citizens' basic needs, in terms of political representation, social services, identity expression, or -- in the worst cases -- basic physical security. They are also in keeping with the particularly Lebanese tradition of configuring political participation and representation in sectarianism and ethnicity. And they distribute their allegiance and alliances across the political spectrum, making these movements as much about politics as about faith.

The violent Islamist offshoots like Fateh el-Islam, the former Dinniyeh Group, Usbat el-Ansar, and others are a more recent phenomenon. They are partly anchored locally in north Lebanon and some refugee camps around the country, and partly reflect the injection of extremist ideologies from abroad, usually via the radicalizing influences of jihadist movements in Afghanistan and, most recently, Iraq.

Interestingly, various Lebanese have charged that mainstream Salafist Islamists or some of the radical armed groups have received financial support from two opposing quarters: Syria (because it allegedly wants to destabilize and control Lebanon), or Hariri-allied Lebanese quarters and some Arab and Western governments (who allegedly seek to counterbalance or even confront the power of Hizbullah-Syria-Iran). The fact that both accusations seem credible shows just how messy this situation is.

All the negative forces that have transformed the contemporary Middle East into a region of violence, instability and confrontation can be seen at work in north Lebanon: festering and lawless refugee camps, a weak Arab state, populations that turn to religion when modern statehood does not provide for their basic needs, weak local economies that create masses of impoverished people who are susceptible to mobilization by demagogic or extremist movements, and direct external interference by Middle Eastern and Western countries.

That several recent incidents in north Lebanon have targeted the army is particularly troubling, especially since the armed forces in Lebanon have emerged in the past 15 years as both a symbol and a valued, functioning manifestation of the Lebanese people's desire to reinvigorate their unified state and central government. How quickly Lebanon achieves stable, satisfying statehood seems to depend on four issues: the status of bilateral relations with Syria following the visit of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to Damascus last week; the ability of the upcoming national dialogue to resolve the imbalance and incongruence between Hizbullah's significant military capabilities that are outside the authority of the state; the fate of the Arab-Israeli conflict; and the state of Iranian-Western and Iranian-Arab ties.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.