About That Syrian National Council’s Goodwill Message to the Lebanese

Michael Young is cautiously optimistic that the message by the Syrian National Council is “potentially, a highly significant moment in the uneasy Syrian-Lebanese relationship”, but he acknowledges the skepticism:

There continues to be a perception in Lebanon, perhaps justified, perhaps not, that whoever controls Syria will pursue some form of hegemony over its smaller western neighbor. Long before the Baathists came to power in Damascus, defenders of this thesis argue, Syria had designs on Lebanon, and that won’t soon change.

So why should the message of goodwill be anything more than jaw-jaw, i.e. the natural act of ally-building weak parties typically engage in before getting to power and seeing Rome from above? Here’s Young’s best shot at an argument for optimism:

a large number of those suffering during [the lebanese civil war] tens of thousands killed, injured, maimed, kidnapped or humiliated by Syria or its epigones — did not merit their fate, nor were they ever consulted about what Lebanon’s affiliation with Syria should be like.

That is why the initiative of the Syrian National Council is so necessary. There is baggage to clear away, as well as myriad misperceptions on both sides. Lebanese and Syrians must overcome the insufferable sense of contempt they still frequently display when talking about each other. Syria risks today what Lebanon faced three and a half decades ago, so destructive sectarianism is not solely a Lebanese curse. Yet as more Syrians suffer and become refugees, the Lebanese should recall how greatly they welcomed the empathy, and indulgence, of outsiders in their times of need.

To grossly oversimplify his point, he’s basically saying that now that the Syrians understood what the Lebanese went through, we could be bound by a common victimhood toward a better, more respectful relationship.

Perhaps. But if I were a betting man, I’d still bet on the next Syrian leadership attempting to pull strings in Lebanon (after all, in this region, who doesn’t?). Young himself wrote about the temptation of Lebanese factional leaders to interfere in Syria once the Assads are gone. The new leaders in Damascus might very well want to pre-empt such meddling and decide to do what Syria has done very well for a long time: Playing off the Lebanese against each others.