In a staggering display of hypocrisy, US President George Bush told trainee US military officers on March 8 that parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in Lebanon in May could not be free and fair so long as 14,000 Syrian troops remained there.
"All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections, for those elections to be free and fair", Bush declared. "The Lebanese people have the right to determine their future, free from domination by a foreign power. The Lebanese people have the right to choose their own parliament this spring, free of intimidation."
In the very same speech, Bush hailed the January 30 elections in Iraq — elections held in the intimidating presence of 150,000 US occupation troops — as having unleashed a popular movement for "freedom" and "democracy" across the Middle East.
The US-engineered elections in Iraq, however, were not aimed at enabling the Iraqi people to determine their future, but to provide a "democratic" facade for Washington's attempt to install a pro-US puppet government that will hand over Iraq's vast oil wealth to the control of US corporations.
The big majority of Iraqis who participated in the elections voted for candidates who campaigned for the withdrawal of the US-led occupation troops, but who have since dropped this demand — knowing full-well that Washington has no intention of meeting it and that their political survival depends on the continued presence of tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq.
Similarly, Bush's rhetoric about "standing with" Lebanese people in their desire for "democracy" is a total fraud. This is exposed by the fact that not once in this or any of his other speeches has Bush demanded an end to Lebanon's gerrymandered electoral system — in which the pro-Western leaders of the privileged Christian minority have traditionally dominated Lebanese politics.
As a condition for granting the country independence in 1943, Lebanon's French colonial rulers imposed acceptance of an unwritten agreement that allocated parliamentary seats on a 6-5 ratio of Christians to Muslims.
In April 1975, a full-scale civil war erupted, in which the Christian militia of the extreme right-wing Phalangist party fought against the militias of the Shiite and Sunni Muslim majority and their Palestinian refugee allies. By early 1976, the war was going poorly for the Phalangists and Syria, with the full endorsement of the US and other Western powers, sent 40,000 troops into the country to prevent them being defeated.
However, in the wake of Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, Syria began providing assistance to the Shiite-based resistance movement Hezbollah and accommodated to Muslim demands for an end to Lebanon's "confessional" political system, which favours the Christian minority.
The 16-year-long Lebanese civil war — in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed — came to an end in 1990, after the Lebanese parliament enacted the Syrian-backed Taif Agreement. Under the agreement, there was to be a phased withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and political reforms giving the Muslim majority a greater say in the country's political system.
However, the present electoral system in Lebanon still falls a long way short of being "free and fair". While Muslims make up 60% of Lebanon's population, and Christians 40%, parliamentary seats are divided between them on a 50:50 basis.
Under the Taif Agreement, Syrian troops are to be fully withdrawn from Lebanon when this "confessional" political system is fully abolished. However, this threatens to decisively weaken the influence of the most pro-US elements in Lebanon and strengthen the electoral weight of the radicalised Shiite poor and their Hezbollah leadership.
Hence, Washington's demand that Syrian military and security fores be immediately and completely withdrawn from Lebanon is aimed at stopping the full implementation of the democratic political reforms called for in the Taif Agreement. As in Iraq, Washington is not seeking to spread "freedom" and "democracy" in Lebanon, but to reassert US political and economic domination.
From Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005.
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