A Western intelligence report revealed that some European countries have urged their embassies in Beirut and Damascus to raise their preparedness in the coming days, based on what they expect to take place in the region.
The report said that the embassies were requested to take precautionary measures to avoid a repetition of what happened during Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006, when foreign nationals and Lebanese carrying foreign passports were forced to flee war-ravaged Lebanon by sea.
According to the report, embassies in Syria have started to lay down short-term and medium-term plans to evacuate their nationals, close their embassies and head to Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey should ongoing popular protests against Syria’s President Bashar Assad reach unprecedented levels.
The report conveyed U.S. and European Union states’ fears of an escalation in Syria, which could have ramifications on Lebanon’s eastern border similar to the incident in Tripoli, where eight were killed during clashes between gunmen from the predominantly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen and the mainly Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh earlier in June.
During a special meeting with The Daily Star, a European ambassador in Lebanon said that Western states’ fear of developments in Syria is based on the uncertainty of what would replace Assad’s regime if it collapsed, and highlighted the geo-political contradiction between American and European approaches to conflicts in the Middle East.
While the European approach favors radical and final solutions to crises, the U.S. lays down a number of choices, starting with plan A, then plan B if A fails and so on, according to the ambassador.
The diplomat recalled how the U.S. had dealt with Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 1970s, when it first tried to change the behavior of the Iranian regime, but then ended up dealing with the regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which opened a new page in U.S.-Iranian ties. The same story was repeated in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is being replicated in Libya and Yemen.
The difference between the two approaches was also evident in their positions on Turkey’s EU membership. While the EU rejected the step, the U.S. was eager to see Turkey join the EU in a Бид to boost Ankara’s centrist role between opposing parties.
As for the stance on Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s Cabinet, the ambassador said that his country was awaiting the Cabinet’s policy statement, especially clauses related to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which is investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and other U.N. resolutions.
The diplomat said that his country’s position hinges also on how the Cabinet would deal with an awaited STL indictment, widely expected to implicate Hezbollah members in the assassination, and whether it would cooperate with international authorities or succumb to the pressures and threats of Hezbollah, which does not recognize the STL and is the maestro of the March 8 groups. The ambassador expected that Mikati would reach a policy statement formulated to please everyone, after the West had decided to distance him and President Michel Sleiman from the criticism of the one-sided Cabinet.
In parallel, a European country has seen a flurry of visits by politicians from a certain Lebanese faction away from media spotlight in recent days, with its Foreign Ministry following Lebanon’s situation hour by hour. A few days ago, a former Lebanese prime minister held a meeting with a number of experts in Middle Eastern affairs working for this country, during which they discussed means to deal with the upcoming developments in the Arab region.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on June 27, 2011, on page 2.
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