Is Damascus planning a return to Lebanon?
Most analysts believe Syria wants to come back – but not just now
While Lebanon probably need not fear an impending incursion by the almost 10,000 Syrian troops on Lebanon”s northern border, the recent Syrian deployment has nothing to do with the stated aim of deterring smuggling and instead puts the international community on notice that Syria considers restive North Lebanon a threat to Syrian security, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Monday.
While the troop movement about two weeks ago could represent the first step toward renewing the presence of Syrian soldiers on Lebanese territory, Damascus” immediate priority was to protect itself from the unceasing unrest in North Lebanon, said Oussama Safa, executive director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. "The nature of the deployment is not offensive," he said. "The way they are deployed does not indicate an invasion is imminent."
"The Syrians are there because Tripoli is fast becoming a proxy land for regional and international score-settling. Tripoli has become a regional mailbox to exchange messages. The nature of the deployment is to make sure you are sealing yourself off from what is becoming a volatile border."
A September 29 car bombing in Tripoli targeted a bus carrying Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) soldiers, killing four troops and three civilians, two days after a car bomb in Damascus killed 17 in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood.
Syria knows any attempt now to move its soldiers into Lebanon would meet stiff international opposition, but the deployment also signals that Syrian President Bashar Assad has not abandoned the long-term goal of regaining control over Lebanon, said Hilal Khashan, chair of the department of political science and public administration at the American University of Beirut.
"They want to re-enter Lebanon," he said. "There is no doubt in my mind about it. They are on the track for creating the preconditions for their re-entry. They want to create the preconditions that would allow the international community to allow such a re-entry."
While one can question the efficacy of such a conspicuous deployment in preventing the infiltration of any militants into Syria, the move does also serve as a trial balloon to gauge the world”s response to Syrian troops approaching Lebanon, said retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political science at Notre Dame University.
"Deployment means they are testing the ground … to see the reaction," he said. "They are shaping and creating the context that may allow them – one day in one place – to come back."
"When you want to fight terrorism, you don”t fight it publicly," he added. "That”s why the message is more political than military."
The main condition for any Syrian return rests on the level of security in North Lebanon and Syria, and the shaky situation is likely to deteriorate, said Khashan. "In the next few weeks and months the situation will grow worse," he said, adding that grenade explosions were becoming a near-daily occurrence in Tripoli.
"I hate to say it, but I expect more violence in the North, and I expect the violence to spread to the Ain al-Hilweh area," Khashan added, referring to Lebanon”s largest and most turbulent Palestinian refugee camp. "It is very, very tense over there."
In Syria, Assad will likely pin any security incidents – a striking departure in the usually locked-down Baathist state – on Sunni extremists connected to Lebanon, Khashan said.
"The Syrian regime will find it expedient to blame the Islamic militancy," he said. "They were quick to say the perpetrators [of the September 27 bombing] were connected to Jund al-Sham," he added, referring to the militant group based in the Ain al-Hilweh camp.
"We all know that Jund al-Sham is a [Syrian] intelligence creation, and the same goes for Fatah al-Islam," which fought the LAF in a three-month battle in the summer of 2007 at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli, Khashan said. "If their intelligence were so sophisticated, they should have been able to prevent the attack in the first place."
The deployment might also aim to stir up trouble in the North Lebanon electoral base of parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri, who has blamed Damascus for the February 2005 assassination of his father, five-time former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center. "It could be that it”s [Assad”s] form of pressure on Hariri and people there is a saber-rattling kind of thing," Salem added. "I don”t think they”re preparing to invade."
Salem said he doubted Syria was plotting to return its troops to Lebanon just as Damascus was emerging from years of isolation following Rafik Hariri”s killing. After 29 years in Lebanon, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops following the assassination, and only with the election of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has Syria been able to chip away at its pariah status. Sarkozy invited Assad to Paris for a summit of Mediterranean leaders in July, and the French leader visited Damascus last month.
"It would strike me as counter-productive … to send troops back into Lebanon," Salem said. "That would ruin the progress they”ve made with Europe and France, or at least damage it. That would really be shooting themselves in the foot.
"It”s a non-starter in the West, and they know that."
"They”ve been building their new profile on having withdrawn from Lebanon," Salem added. "This is one of the pillars of their new PR. Syria put a lot of effort into putting itself forward in a certain light.
"They might harbor wishes to come back at some point – they might like to do it, but that would ruin their own strategy."
Despite the prominent French role in Syria”s re-emergence, the ultimate direction of the troop deployment will probably not become clear until after a new US administration settles in next year, Salem added.
"This [Syrian] strategy will sink or swim next spring or summer," Salem said.
For now, the unchallenged deployment underscores the interregnum in the region as the US waits for its presidential election on November 4 and Israel could face early elections if Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni cannot cobble together a new cabinet, Hanna said. "This is the vacuum in the international system today," Hanna added.
"The Syrians are trying to create and shape a certain environment favorable to impose [a return to Lebanon] on the new administrations" in the US and Israel, Hanna said, adding that these designs stood behind Assad”s recent statement that the deployment fell in line with UN Resolution 1701, which ended the summer 2006 war with Israel.
Syria”s decision to move its soldiers to Lebanon”s frontier also symbolizes the failure of US policies in the region to weaken Assad or his partners, Hanna said. The deployment builds on the successes of Syria”s Lebanese allies in the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance, who gained a blocking minority in a new national unity Cabinet in Doha following street violence in early May, Hanna added.
The Syrians "have got the momentum," he said. "They are recovering Lebanon as a seat of influence. They have leverage in Lebanon."
Although Syria will probably not take definitive action with its troops for several months, Assad”s desire to return his soldiers to Lebanon and restore Syria”s regional clout appears clear, Khashan said.
"The Syrians want to market themselves by re-entering Lebanon as a regional power," he said. "Syria wants to reclaim its regional status."
"The Syrians will not re-enter Lebanon now," he added. "The Syrians are patient. They never lose sight of their objective. The Syrians are simply positioning themselves, but they will not re-enter Lebanon until there is a new administration in the US."
"This is just a message telling the world, “There is a problem coming from North Lebanon, and we want the world to know about it until further developments occur.”"