U.S. provokes crisis to widen Middle East war

The same forces behind the Iraq war are at it again. Bush, Cheney and company are coordinating an international hate campaign against Syria, Iran and the Lebanese political party Hezbollah.

The Bush regime seeks to blame the three for the Nov. 21 assassination of Lebanon’s ultra-right-wing industry minister, Pierre Gemayel. His was the latest in a string of political assassinations in Lebanon. The U.S., Britain, France and Lebanon’s governing March 14 coalition are setting up a Western-controlled “international court” to “investigate” the killings.

Gemayel was the leader of the openly fascist Falange party, which takes its name from Francisco Franco’s party in Spain. With Israeli army help, it murdered thousands of Palestinian children, women and men in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in September 1982.

Many Lebanese, especially the poor and working class, don’t believe the “official story” on Gemayel’s killing. They suspect the U.S. or Israel was involved. They see a U.S. plan to block democratic change in Lebanon and set the stage for a wider war in the region.

The U.S. and Israel have a long and bloody history of intervention in Lebanon, and they certainly want to block a national unity government in which Hezbollah and the nationalist March 8 alliance would play a leading role. Hezbollah is based among Shia Muslims, Lebanon’s largest and poorest community.

Washington proclaims outrage over the death of a fascist. But it provided Israel with the bombs and missiles it used to kill nearly 1,300 Lebanese civilians this summer. Children in South Lebanon are still being killed and maimed by U.S.-made cluster bombs that litter the region. The U.S. demands an investigation of the Gemayel assassination, but it vetoed U.N. condemnation of Israel’s murderous assault.

When Israel attacked Lebanon in July, the government did nothing. The people’s resistance, led by Hezbollah, repelled the U.S.-funded assault. Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters held off 40,000 Israeli troops. That victory gained the party support in all Lebanese communities.

It is Hezbollah—not the government—that is now rebuilding the war-torn villages of South Lebanon. A Hezbollah measure for emergency payments to workers made jobless by the war was blocked by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

Assassination saved pro-U.S. regime

Had Gemayel not been assassinated, Lebanon’s U.S.-backed neoliberal Siniora regime may have fallen. It has been illegal since Shiite ministers resigned from the cabinet after national unity talks broke down. Lebanon’s National Pact requires that all the country’s major communities be represented in government.

March 8 leaders charge that negotiations failed after the U.S. Embassy urged the governing March 14 coalition to take an intransigent position. Shortly after the talks broke down, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned of more assassinations in Lebanon.

Gemayel’s death mobilized the right wing and created an atmosphere of fear and crisis. Pro-U.S. mobs roamed the streets, attacking Syrian workers and the offices of opposition parties. The March 8 alliance postponed plans for mass protests aimed at forcing the government to resign.

But a general strike called by the U.S.-backed March 14 alliance fizzled. It is likely, however, that mass protests by the March 8 alliance will go ahead. On Nov. 26 Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem promised to “surprise” the regime with “street protests, civil disobedience, sit-ins and union actions.”

Hezbollah and allies fight for democracy

The United States and its allies paint a picture of a “democratic” Lebanon under siege by Syria and Iran. U.S.-backed Lebanese politicians Samir Geagea, Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt accuse Hezbollah of trying to forcibly create a Shiite state.

In fact, the March 8 alliance includes not only Hezbollah but the Free Patriotic Movement, which is largely Christian, the Shiite party Amal and the Lebanese Communist Party. It is fighting for a government that is more representative of Lebanon’s people and oriented to the Arab world, not the U.S. or France. It unites the oppressed Shia with progressives and democrats in Sunni, Christian, Druze and Armenian communities.

In a speech Nov. 19, Hezbollah leader Syed Hassan Nasrallah said, “I am asking that all various political factions in Lebanon—including secular, patriotic, communist, socialist, leftist and Nasserite parties—be part of the proposed government of national unity. ...

We are also asking for other Sunni Muslim groups that have previously played major roles in the Lebanese arena to participate in the proposed government of national unity. This includes some former presidents and prime ministers who still enjoy a lot of public and national support. ... We are demanding our right to a national unity government. This is a just Lebanese, constitutional, political, moral and democratic demand. This is a way to save the country.”

United States supports sectarian rule

The U.S.-backed March 14 coalition came to power in the so-called “Cedar Revolution” of 2005. It unites Hariri’s Future Movement and Jumblatt’s so-called Progressive Socialist Party with the openly fascist, Christian supremacist Lebanese Forces and Falange parties. Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea served 11 years for the assassination of nationalist Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karameh.

Under Lebanon’s “confessional” system, the president must be from the wealthy Maronite Christian minority; the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim. Seats in parliament are allotted based on religion.

Shia Muslims are underrepresented in this system, which is based on census figures from 1932. Palestinians, who have lived here since they were expelled from their homeland by the illegitimate state of Israel in 1948, are completely excluded and disenfranchised. So are more than 200,000 Syrian workers in Lebanon.

This system, created under French colonialism, has been kept in place by U.S. and Israeli guns. U.S. Marines landed in Lebanon to crush a popular insurrection in 1958. Israel has bombed and invaded Lebanon, especially the largely Shiite South, repeatedly over the last 40 years.

Throughout the 1970s Israel armed Christian-supremacist militias to wage war on Muslims, Palestinians and the left. In 1982 Israel’s U.S.-armed war machine flattened West Beirut’s Muslim neighborhoods and installed Gemayel’s uncle, Bashir Gemayel, as president.

After Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, the Israeli army helped his Falangists and Lebanese Forces massacre Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila.

Ronald Reagan then sent U.S. Marines to occupy Beirut while Israeli troops withdrew to the South. The U.S. Sixth Fleet randomly blasted Lebanese villages in order to crush popular resistance. It failed. The resistance movement drove out the Marines in 1984 and Israel in 2000.

The corporate regime in Washington certainly wants to control Lebanon. It is the banking center of the Arab world and was once an export route for Iraqi oil.

But there is a more sinister agenda: a wider war in West Asia. The U.S. has deliberately orchestrated Shiite-Sunni civil strife in Iraq. It now appears to be extending that strategy to the entire region, with the ultimate aim of war against Syria and Iran. Such an adventure would boost the profits of big oil firms and arms manufacturers.

An international conference in solidarity with the resistance brought hundreds of delegates from around the world to Beirut Nov. 16 through 19. Participants heard Hezbollah deputy general secretary Naim Qassem, Lebanese Communist Party leader Khaled Hadadeh and former prime minister Selim Hoss call for the unity of Islamic and secular nationalist and left forces in the struggle against the U.S. and Israel. The conference’s final declaration called for an international front in solidarity with the Lebanese, Palestinian and Iraqi resistance.