The Withdrawal of Syrian Forces from Lebanon[not to be taken at face value]
Eyal Zisser
Moshe Dayan Center
for Middle Eastern and African Studies
TRel Aviv University Notes No. 112
September 27, 2004

Last week, the governments of Syria and Lebanon announced that Syrian forces
in Lebanon would be redeployed outside of Lebanese population centers and
that Damascus even intends to pull about half of its troops completely out
of Lebanon. Syrian sources stressed that these steps are in keeping with
the 1989 Taef Agreement that ended the Lebanese civil war. But they also
admitted that they are a signal to the international community, and
especially the United States, that Syria is responsive to voices from
Washington demanding Syrian respect for Lebanese sovereignty and the
withdrawal of Syrian forces.

This show of Syrian compliance, however, should not be taken at face value.
For years, Syria has been constantly redeploying its forces and reducing the
number posted in Lebanon, to the point where there are now only about 10,000
troops left of the 20,000 who were there in 2000. But even after this
latest reduction in force takes place, Syria will remain the ultimate
overlord of Lebanon. After all, Lebanon's rehabilitation has essentially
left the Syrian army without a role there. It is Syria's intelligence and
security agencies, along with its claque of Lebanese collaborators, who
preserve its absolute domination.

The latest announcement is therefore little more than a public relations
exercise whose purpose is to ease the growing international pressure on
Syria to withdraw its forces and restore Lebanese sovereignty. But Syria
will not and cannot respond to that demand. Syrian presence in Lebanon is,
first and foremost, an economic imperative. After all, Syria earns hundreds
of millions of dollars every month, primarily from the remittances of
hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers who have flooded the Lebanese labor
market but also from the involvement of senior Syrian officials in the
smuggling of drugs, weapons, and other goods. Moreover, Syrian presence and
control confer significant military-security and political benefits. And
since domination of Lebanon is the regime's sole foreign policy achievement,
conceding that would be a mortal blow to the image and self-esteem of Syria
and of the Ba'th regime that rules it.

Still, Syria had to do something to defuse the crisis sparked by its
decision to prolong the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Syria's
yes-man in Beirut, who has already been in office for six years. In early
September, intense Syrian pressure prompted the Lebanese Parliament to amend
the constitution so that Lahoud could stay on for another three years. This
action was taken immediately after the UN Security Council passed Resolution
1559, though it actually ignores and even defies it. Passed by an
impressive majority of 9 in favor, 6 abstaining, the Resolution calls for
respect for Lebanon's sovereignty and constitution, the withdrawal of all
foreign forces from Lebanon, and the dismantling of Lebanese and foreign
militias -- an obvious reference to Hizbullah. While the final Resolution
was a watered-down version of the original draft - it refrained, for
example, from mentioning Syria by name - the American and French sponsors
nevertheless made it perfectly clear whom they had in mind.

But though Syria was able to overcome the limited opposition in Lebanon to
its constitutional coup, its international "success" was far less
unequivocal. By reappointing its puppet in Beirut rather than appointing a
new one, Syria managed to do what no one else has done since the war in
Iraq - bring France and the United States together. True, the draft
resolution proposed by those two powers was eventually diluted, but not as
the result of any Syrian diplomatic initiatives. The changes were actually
adopted in response to Russian and Chinese concerns that such a forceful
resolution could serve as a precedent for criticism of their own policies.
And in the end, even Algeria refused to oppose the Resolution, preferring
instead to abstain.

On the face of things, at least, Bashar al-Assad "got away" with his gambit
in Lebanon, just as he rode out reactions to his support for Hizbullah and
his policy vis-à-vis Iraq. But the cumulative effect of all these episodes
may eventually prove be more than the current system can bear. After all,
Assad's behavior during the war in Iraq damaged his relations with the
United States, and his refusal to stop supporting terrorism has resulted in
American sanctions. The reappointment of Lahoud in Lebanon has now produced
a Security Council Resolution that could have further repercussions, since
it calls on the UN Secretary General to submit a follow-on report in early
October.

True, the US is not particularly determined right now to push a
confrontation with Syria. President Bush has adopted a forceful stance in
the past, but he is currently preoccupied with his election campaign and has
left day-to-day management of foreign policy to the State Department, which
traditionally prefers a softer line on Syria, based on dialogue accompanied
by mild threats. Besides, the major priority on the American foreign policy
agenda is Iraq, and Syrian help on that can be paid for in Lebanese coin.
As a result, when Assistant Secretary of State William Burns visited
Damascus in mid-September, he did repeat American demands that Syria stop
supporting Hizbullah and Palestinian terrorist organizations, withdraw its
forces from Lebanon, and help stabilize the situation in Iraq. But the only
Syrian commitment he received was a promise to act more vigorously against
Arab and other Muslim terrorists traveling to Iraq via Syria, a promise
seemingly fulfilled by the creation of a joint Syrian-American-Iraqi
security committee to monitor the situation on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
Moreover, Syria has undoubtedly noticed that US Secretary of State Colin
Powell agreed to meet his Syrian counterpart during the annual convocation
of the UN General Assembly, even though the French Foreign Minister was too
busy to do that.

But American equivocation may well be a passing phenomenon. After November,
and especially if George W. Bush is reelected, American pressure could
easily be revived. It is therefore not surprising that the Syrian media are
practically unrestrained in their endorsement of John Kerry.

In any event, Syrian is not about to terminate its presence in Lebanon - or
its backing for Hizbullah. And since there seems to be no Lebanese element
prepared to resist Syrian hegemony, only irresistible western pressure or a
major domestic crisis can bring about a real Syrian withdrawal.
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Published by TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies
& The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
through the generosity of Sari and Israel Roizman, Philadelphia