On May 7th, violent clashes between the Hezbollah and Saad Hariri’s Mostaqbal movement broke out in Beirut. Two days later the Hezbollah had taken control of West Beirut. The fighting then moved towards the north of the country and the Shouff mountains that overhead Beirut, which makes them a strategic point to control. The Shouff, where the fighting between the opposition and the Druze militia of Walid Jumblatt intensified over a few days, also holds a very specific advantage for the Hezbollah: the road to Syria. Controlling this road means securing arms and munitions supplies for the Hezbollah. In addition to the street violence shaking Lebanon, the main roads, as well as the port and airport were closed, preventing circulation in and out of the country.

Hezbollah, a radical Shia group backed by Syria and Iran, emerged in Lebanon in the 80s, partly in reaction to the Israeli threat. Ever since then, the movement grew in importance and popularity; it now can rely on strong popular support, and maintains several seats in the parliament. The tensions between Saad Hariri’s majority and Hezbollah have kept on growing for several years now. Besides, Lebanon has been unstable for a while, weakened by internal as well as external tensions. A multi-confessional country, Lebanon has never really recovered from its civil war from 1975 to 1990, and old hostilities between Christans and Muslims, Sunnis and Shia, still divide the country. The role of Syria in Lebanese domestic affairs keeps on weakening the country as well. Since its withdrawal in 2005, political assassinations keep increasing, eliminating one after the other every single potential threat to the Syrian supremacy in the region. Since September 2007, the presidential elections have already been postponed 19 times. Israel too, seems to be keen on preventing Lebanon to stand strong and stable; the July 2006 war, destroying all the major infrastructures of Lebanon, brought back the country ten years behind. With the recent crisis, it is now the ghost of the civil war that is vividly resurfacing.

The confrontations in Beirut as well as in the rest of the country were triggered after the government had declared firing the airport security chief, close to the Hezbollah, as well as the banning of the telecommunication network of the group. Given the Hezbollah's reaction, the Lebanese government decided a week later to abrogate those two controversial measures in order to restore domestic stability, which in a way granted a degree of victory to the opposition. Following those concessions from the government, the fighting stopped and the roads, port and airport of Beirut re-opened.

The international community unanimously condemned the violent reaction from Hezbollah to the government’s measures. Similarly, surrounding Arab countries issued statements reproving the group’s reaction. On May 14th, a delegation headed by the Qatari Prime Minister went to Beirut in order to find a reasonable solution to the crisis, which would satisfy all the concerned parties. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al-Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar and the Arab League's envoy, accompanied by the Arab League’s secretary, General Amr Moussa, met successively with Fouad Siniora, Lebanese Prime Minister, Nabih Berri, Chief of the Parliament and Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s Secretary General.

The leaders of the different parties then left to Doha to discuss the three key issues that could untangle to crisis and restore stability in Lebanon: the disarming of Hezbollah, the presidential elections and the creation of a national unity government.
The negotiations did not go smoothly from the beginning but all parties finally agreed on a compromise. A president was elected, and the opposition managed to obtain a blocking minority in the parliament.

Although an accord was signed, peace in Lebanon still seems fragile. If Lebanon were to go back to instability, it would probably be much worse than in the past, and aggravated by 18 years of underlying tensions. The question that is now at the forefront of Lebanese politics is whether the Doha accords’ solution will actually succeed in establishing the political and social peace Lebanon has been expecting for so long.

Dalia Bahous
Research Assistant

It is hard to believe in a coincidence. Are those negotiations part of a greater plan?

Those three measures are definitely linked, even though I do not believe in a real regional peace plan. The current context is favourable to agreements between opposed parties. Syria in particular, has nothing to lose and everything to win. The United States is busy electing a President, the Israeli Prime Minister is entangled in a corruption scandal and the Hezbollah just achieved a successful show of strength in Lebanon. Damascus is in a strong position to negotiate the restitution of the Golan Heights (occupied since 1967 by the Hebrew state), like Egypt formerly reclaimed the Sinai in 1967.

The negotiations between Israel and Syria were confirmed on the same day as the Lebanese agreement was. What links both events?

There is a fundamental link between both events. Understand that Hezbollah’s victory in Lebanon has changed the regional order. No one imagined the Shia militia ever capable of taking control of Beirut in only a few hours. The anti-Syrian majority got worried in front of such military power and offered them the veto right they had been asking for. This last measure locks the Lebanese government, and represents the consecration of the Syrian and Iranian influence in the Cedar country. Now, Damascus does not have to fear the investigation on the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister. The Syrian president, Bachar el-Assad, now dreams to retrieve the Golan to strengthen his authority within a regime in the midst of a crisis, and to eventually rebuild ties with the United States. On the other side, the Israeli Ehud Olmert seeks to secure its border with Lebanon and appease the tensions in Gaza. That, or Damascus could ‘reason’ with Hezbollah and Hamas....

A kamikaze from Gaza, got himself blown up yesterday at a check point. Does Hamas want a truce?

Yes, this is the sign that an agreement is near: the radical branch of the Islamist movement is trying to undermine it.

Why does Iran let it happen?

Iranian diplomacy is rather contradictive. Teheran succeeded in Lebanon. It became a key actor in Iraq (the rebel Shia leader, Moqtada Sadr just let the army enter the territory he controls). The Islamic Republic clearly influences Hamas. Its goal has finally been reached: to become THE regional power. Unavoidable for war as well as for peace. Yet, nothing is permanent in the small arrangements of the moment. At the slightest threat against Iran, violence will recur.

The United States is not exactly pleased with these changes. Why not oppose them?

I see Washington’s approval as a sign of exhaustion. The Americans are entangled in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel’s war in Lebanon was a total failure. George Bush put himself under pressure to reach an Arab-Israeli peace agreement by the end of his term. An American veto against the Lebanese accords and the on-going negotiations would be counter-productive for the US.

Libya has all of a sudden become one of the hottest stopovers for European Leaders. Is political realism back in this land? Do the Libyan Leader and his entourage tremble with fear at the thought of being judged by an International Court on their less then glorious past? Must this recently converted rogue state de worried? Not really! After Lisbon and Brussels, Paris in now unfolding the red carpet for the Colonel.

A state has never been surrounded in a shroud of mystery such as the Libyan Jamahiriya has. The regime in Tripoli not only handles its affairs in an ambiguous manner, but it also prohibits the smallest inquiry into its reign. Ever since the regime came to power in a Coup on September 1st 1969, it has shown itself incapable of handling social, economical and political matters. Muammar al-Gaddafi, with his grasp on power, has become the irreplaceable of African and Arab Leaders; and he somehow has accommodated himself to the different mutations that have shaken the international stage these past decades.

To read the Libyan political system is like facing a blank wall, which increases the suspicions and doubts on its internal evolution and foreign policy. In his latest speeches, the Libyan Leader has stated that guns have become irrelevant and should be replaced by pens. Which is an attempt to distance his regime from the reputation it gained by sponsoring terrorism these previous years.

This regime has survived internal and external pressures thanks to a balancing game played by the political forces, the Army and the Tribes. Gaddafi has very deftly played the part of balancing agent these past 30 years. But ultimately what saves the regime is the incredible natural wealth of its land, which Western Democracies are dying to get their hands on. Who can resist such a market where everything is to be sold? This country pays cash, so who cares about all those Libyans deprived of their basic rights.

Stability in Libya is intimately linked to this one man: Muammar al-Gaddafi. Without him, not only is there a power vacuum but Libya’s future is uncertain. Gaddafi does not hesitate in confiding his favourite son Seif-el-Islam with important missions. Yet this seemingly organised succession in not reassuring.

Libya’s progressive return to the International stage (which started with its mediation in the Algerian desert European hostage crisis and the forced liberation of the Bulgarian nurses) is just a face-lift, much needed by the exhausted regime. It is true that the success obtained by Gaddafi’s son could usher new actors with different perceptions on foreign policy thus breaking away from the path set by the Guide and his men. But the young son lacks a political programme, consensus around him and vision for the future.

A new generation of young Libyan technocrats that are into political realism, has been attempting these past years to be part of the decision making process in Tripoli. But the old guard composed by the revolutionary committees is against normalising relations with the West, and employ all in their means to continue their grasp on power.

Libya has been paying a high price to satisfy the demands of the victims of the Lockerbie incident. But this settlement is one of the biggest embarrassments in the fight for human rights and it is shameful, as if paying a couple of million dollars was enough to wipe a country’s human right’s record clean in the eyes of the International Community. In the end this case serves to prove the West’s egoism who bypassed Libya’s real problems to focus on the amount of indemnities and market shares to be won.

How can a state that violates its peoples’ rights everyday be forgiven in exchange for a stash of dollars? If the victims of the Lockerbie incident and the Bulgarian nurses found lawyers and support within their governments to pursue justice, have we thought about the Libyan victims and political activists who have been rotting in prison cells these past 25 years?

How to believe in a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Mediterranean Union - such as promised by Sarkozy - when in his own country, he accepts to launder the Libyan regime because the latter is willing to pay cash. Redeeming a country just because it is tired of being treated as a rogue state in not a trade agreement.

Translated by Ines Ward
Research Assistant Trainee at CERMAM

This was Mr Sarkozy’s second State Visit to Algeria since having taken office in May 2007. He had already visited the country on the 10th of July 2007 where he exposed his Mediterranean Union project. The project was officially unveiled during a State Visit to Morocco in late October and further detailed during Euromed’s Ministerial Conference that took place on the 6th of November in Lisbon. One could expect that Mr Sarkozy’s aim in visiting Algeria was to promote this Union, especially as during that time, his project was being adopted by the French Commission on Foreign Affairs. If that was the case it went by unnoticed, for the political agenda was dominated entirely by energy concerns.

The relation between Saudi Arabia and the United States has always been seen as a controversial one. Why does a country like the US who wants to promote democracy and freedom in the Middle East ally itself with Saudi Arabia, known for its violation of human rights and more recently as a nest for extremism and terrorism? And why does Saudi Arabia, whose constitution is the Koran, who is the keeper of the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, and who practices an extreme version of Sunnisme called Wahhabism; ally itself with these American infidels? Well the answer is not new and can be summarised in the following manner: oil for protection.

What interests us more particularly is the military dependency of the Saudis on the Americans. Why and how are they helped by the States? The Saudi Kingdom has faced many kinds of threats such as Arab Nationalism or the Iranian Revolution. We are going to look into them more in detail. This study will go as far as the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks.

It all began on February 14th 1945. On that day, President Roosevelt and his Majesty King Abdul Azziz Ibn Saud met onboard the USS Quincy in the Red Sea, to discuss military and energy concerns. In exchange for exclusive access to Saudi oil, Roosevelt would provide the Saudis with military aid and set up an Air Base in Dahran. The US already had dealings with the Saudi Family obtaining the first Saudi oil concession in 1933 for what was to become ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company), and granting them urgent financial help. Following World War II, King Abdul Azziz was in urgent need of an ally and the Americans seemed the best possible partner. The King had conquered his kingdom with the help of loyal tribesmen and religious fighters called the Ikhwan. But once the Kingdom was declared in 1932, the tribesmen went back to their daily lives and the Ikwan revolted against the King when told to stop their Jihad. They were surpressed. By 1945 the King had very few men left to defend his vast kingdom. But there was another pressing matter. In 1924, Ibn Saud kicked the Hashemite family out of the Holy Cities and conquered the Hedjaz region. Just a year before, the British had created two States for the Hashemite family that neighboured Ibn Saud’s land, Iraq and Transjordan. The King was militarily weak and feared the Hashemites’ irredentism, who in his eyes were backed by the British. It was only natural to turn to the Americans who were winning the War.

This relationship underwent its first strain just two years later in 1947, when the US backed the creation of a Jewish State in Transjordan, in the UN General Assembly resolution n° 181. This unleashed a fury in the Arab World which also overtook Saudi Arabia, and in 1948 the Arab League declared war on Israel. But despite threatening to take action against ARAMCO, Abdul Azziz did nothing. The creation of Israel, although morally unacceptable, did not constitute a menace to him. It was more urgent to conserve US military support, in the wake of growing communism which could topple his Kingdom. Three years later, the US signed a Mutual Defence Agreement with the new King Saud Ibn Abdul Azziz. In exchange Saudi Arabia would prolong the lease on Dhahran for an additional five years.

Collaboration between both countries reached a new level in the following years, to counter the growing tide of Arab Nationalism. Initially King Saud was an admirer of Gamal Abdel Nasser, like the rest of the Arab World. Yet after the 1956 Suez Crisis and the growing Soviet influence in Egypt, he changed his mind. Saudi Arabia and the US have a common enemy in Communism, and united together in 1957 to implement the Eisenhower Doctrine, which promised a deployment of US troops to countries threatened by Communism. King Saud also received military assistance worth 180 Million dollars as well as military equipment. Yet Nationalism continued spreading in Syria and Iraq, both becoming Republics in 1958. Iraq funded anti-Saudi freedom movements in Saudi Arabia. But the real confrontation took place in Yemen where Egypt and Saudi Arabia fought a proxy war, each party defending a side in the Yemen Civil War. The threat of Nationalism only started subsiding when Nasser was defeated by Israel in the 1967 War.

A major change took place in 1971 with the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. It left a power vacuum which many countries were eager to fill, and tiny wars which before were unthinkable, occurred. Yemen bombarded Saudi Arabia and even invaded the frontier town of Wadia. Iraq signed a Friendship treaty with the Soviet Union to protect itself. The Americans under Nixon put in place the two pillar doctrine, Iran under the Shah assured stability and protection in the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia provided financial assistance. Together both countries would keep at bay the threat of Communism. The 1973 oil embargo did little to damage relations between the Saudis and the Americans. King Faysal secretly delivered oil to the US Navy in Vietnam, and later contributed to bring down oil prices. His successor King Khaled was rewarded the following year with two multimillion dollar contracts to modernise his army and a 650 million dollar economic cooperation agreement. All through the 1970’s, trade and financial ties grew between both countries. It is estimated that Saudi Arabia bought military equipment worth 34 billion dollars during the 1970s.

But the events of 1979 upset the fragile status quo in the Persian Gulf. On a minor scale, the storming of the Great Mosque of Mecca in November showed the weakness of Saudi troops, as they had to request foreign intervention. But it was the Iranian revolution that changed everything. The country that was in charge of assuring the stability of the Persian Gulf was now exporting revolution. That the Shah could be overthrown by religious extremists came as a choc for the Saudi family, they were not immune. But it was the support of their Shiite population for the revolution that made them tremble. The Shiites lived in the oil rich Hasa region and worked in the petrol industry. They had no political rights and were not even allowed to pray publicly, because Wahhabism considers them as heretics. This Shiite threat forced Saudi Arabia and Iraq to put aside their differences and join together against Iran. When Iraq fought Iran in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia was there to pay for the expenses. In total the Kingdom is said to have paid 25.7 billion dollars to Iraq. In 1988, Saudi Arabia and Iran broke all diplomatic ties and the ayatollahs continued questioning the rights of the Saudi family to protect the Holy Cities. The Americans, to reassure their Arab ally, put in place the Carter Doctrine: « American Military Forces will be used to gain control over the Persian Gulf region, and any assault on the Gulf will be regarded as an assault on the Vital Interests of the United States ».

Relations continued tense with Iran until the Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990. This came as a surprise to the Saudis, as Kuwait was one of Iraq’s allies during the war against Iran. But surprise turned to fear as for the first time the Kingdom was confronted with a real threat of invasion. Saddam Hussein’s tanks were just at the Saudi border. The tragic element was the Saudis’ admittance of their weakness; despite having spent billions of dollars on sophisticated military equipment they were unable to deal with an army that had just undergone 8 years of war. The Saudis had to ask their American allies to intervene. 150’000 American soldiers arrived in Saudi Arabia, the launching pad of operation Desert Storm. Following the success of this war, Saudi Arabia focused on reducing its military vulnerability. The Kingdom had an estimated 165’000 soldiers in the 1990s which is not enough to protect its vast borders, instead it has to rely on its Air Power. King Fahd also spent a third of his budget on military expenditures. Thanks to the guarantee of US support, the 1990s were a peaceful period compared to previous decades. Saudi Arabia resumed relations with Iran in 1991 and they even signed an economic cooperation agreement in 1998. There was a border dispute with Yemen which was resolved with a Peace treaty in 2000.

The terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 were a big blow to the US-Saudi relationship. Fourteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Wahhabism became a real concern as it was viewed by the Americans as a nesting ground for the kind of religious extremism that had led to 9/11. Their confidence in their Arab ally was shaken. Prince Saud Al Faysal came to America and addressed himself directly to the American Congress in the hopes of mending relations between both countries. It seems that since this historic low, relations have been improving, especially in domains like the fight against terrorism.

This relation is ancient, stable and has proved itself many times. So long as the Americans need Saudi Oil, the Saudis can be sure of having their protection. So for the foreseeable future it seems both countries will continue to be allies.