The Accidental Prime Minister
Fuad Siniora: "We managed to stop Israel from winning."
BY MICHAEL YOUNG
Saturday, October 7, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
BEIRUT--There was a time, not so long ago, when Fuad al-Siniora was the most vilified man in Lebanon. As the person in charge of the nation's finances under the late prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, he was regarded by the Lebanese as the abominable taxman. On the evening of Hariri's assassination on Feb. 14, 2005, it was another Mr. Siniora I recall seeing among a gathering of anti-Syrian opposition figures at the Hariri mansion--a proper technocrat, seemingly misplaced amid the promenading politicians. Yet when the opposition elected a majority to parliament later in the year, Mr. Siniora emerged, almost naturally, as the successor to his onetime boss. For now, despite efforts by an array of forces to bring his government down, Mr. Siniora remains firmly in place.
There is an urban Sunni merchant's litheness in that metamorphosis from staid number-cruncher to persuasive prime minister. A native of the southern port city of Sidon who started his career as a Citibank executive, Mr. Siniora is velvety and unflappable, as befits a maven of the Levantine marketplace. He avoids hard angles in favor of nods, winks and baroque compromises--qualities essential for herding the fat cats that make up Lebanese government.
Mr. Siniora receives me in his cavernous office in the Grand S?rail, an Ottoman barracks that after World War I housed the French Mandatory authorities. The vast structure, built in 1853, was destroyed during Lebanon's civil war, before Hariri rebuilt it as a headquarters for the prime minister. Mr. Siniora now works as well as lives there, with his family. These days, like most of Syria's Lebanese foes, he spends much time indoors, to avoid assassination.
During the summer war between Hezbollah and Israel, Mr. Siniora walked a tightrope. A seven-point plan he devised was instrumental in creating a framework for an exit from the conflict and the extension of Lebanese state authority to the southern border. But this little endeared him to Hezbollah, which controlled an autonomous area in the south from which the Lebanese Army had been excluded. As Israel began bombing after the abduction of two of its soldiers on July 12, the prime minister had to balance conflicting interests: to use the violence as leverage to loosen Hezbollah's hold over the south, but without appearing to betray the party, which controls two ministers in his cabinet.
The high-wire act is continuing. That's why Mr. Siniora will admit that "it's definitely difficult now for Hezbollah to conduct any military operation south of the Litani River"--but he won't gloat. On the contrary, he insists, "We managed to stop Israel from winning, for the second time since the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war. This is important in the conscience of the Arabs." When I point out he is being disingenuous, that he and his allies in the parliamentary majority were never keen to see Hezbollah make gains, let alone endorse its claim of having scored a "victory" against Israel, Mr. Siniora says: "There were heroic efforts by [Hezbollah] combatants and by Lebanese who received the displaced. But I don't claim we won a victory. We could have sent the army south without this war, and we've now done so for the first time in 35 years. But here were the negatives: My country was reoccupied; it was destroyed; Israel took us back 10 years [economically]; and we must comply with international resolutions that affect Lebanese sovereignty."
I bring up a prickly moment two weeks ago when Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, speaking at a rally in Beirut's southern suburbs, mocked Mr. Siniora. Last August, during an Arab League foreign ministers' summit in Beirut at the height of the fighting, the prime minister dissolved into tears in the midst of a speech defending Lebanon's Arab bona fides. In his address, Mr. Nasrallah affirmed: "Tears don't liberate [land]." What did Mr. Siniora think of the statement? "I don't react to every word I hear. I take it easy. I have a high degree of serenity. . . . Yet the impact of those tears on all the Arab world was greater than a thousand rockets [Hezbollah] fired on Israel."
There was a less obvious subtext to the exchange. The Arab summit was very much an effort by the predominantly Sunni Arab states to contain Shiite Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their way of doing so was to support the Siniora plan, which sought to remove excuses for new wars in the south. This succeeded: Aspects of the seven-point plan, including Lebanon's declaring a desire to return to the 1949 Armistice Agreement with Israel, were integrated into the U.N. resolution that ended the fighting, and Hezbollah agreed to them, albeit reluctantly. Mr. Nasrallah, in ridiculing Mr. Siniora, was expressing antipathy for his attachment to a Sunni Arab order that Hezbollah loathes.
As for a return to the armistice, I suggest to Mr. Siniora that this is easier said than done. Some experts argue the agreement is no longer valid, given its repeated violations; others say it needs to be updated. More importantly, Hezbollah and Iran don't like it. Mr. Siniora is dismissive: "It doesn't have to be updated or renegotiated. It was approved by the government, and will be implemented de facto." But going back to an armistice first requires a resolution of the disputed Shebaa Farms issue. The U.N. says the farms area, occupied by Israel, is Syrian; the Lebanese say it is part of Lebanon. Mr. Siniora wants to place it under U.N. auspices until this is decided, in effect forcing the Israelis out. His aim is to deny Hezbollah a reason to pursue armed resistance there. But the U.N. is not enthusiastic. Won't this only encourage Hezbollah to say Mr. Siniora's methods have failed, justifying the guns again? "What can armed resistance bring?" he retorts. "Israel recently reoccupied Lebanon. Only diplomacy made them withdraw."
Would Hezbollah play along, given its Iranian agenda? "I must assume that, and act as if Hezbollah has a Lebanese agenda," he answers. However, his government is not taking chances: "There are no restrictions on the Lebanese army's movements in the south. It has clear instructions to prohibit the appearance of weapons or uniforms, and to confiscate them." More worrying is that the U.N. force helping the Lebanese might be attacked by al Qaeda, or by Islamists supported by Syria. Does Mr. Siniora consider this likely? "I don't think so," he answers, adding, far less reassuringly, "but we should take our precautions."
The prime minister tells me once again that he has "a high level of serenity," but he does seem unsettled by the increasing pressure from Hezbollah, Christian leader Michel Aoun, Syria and Iran for him and the parliamentary majority to accept a new "national unity" government. He even sounds mildly irritated: "Change is unwarranted. Our performance this summer was outstanding. We passed the seven-point plan, reworked the U.N. resolution on Lebanon in our favor, ended the hostilities, sent the army south, forced Israel out, and gained international support, including financial support. What more could be done?"
Some discern more sinister designs in the effort to bring the government down. A few days ago, on Wednesday, the influential Christian Maronite bishops issued a statement implying that the call for a broader cabinet was a furtive way of blocking progress in the Hariri investigation. In the coming weeks the government must consent to guidelines for a mixed tribunal to try those accused of involvement in the late prime minister's murder. Syria is the leading suspect, and Mr. Siniora's allies fear the push to change the government is meant to ensure there are enough pro-Syrian ministers to block any cabinet vote on the tribunal--or impose a limper court.
The prime minister is sanguine. "This is a tempest in a teapot. My experience in this cabinet is that in a very limited number of cases did we resort to voting. The tribunal was agreed upon [in a national dialogue between Lebanese leaders], and it's in no one's interest to make an issue of it." But his last phase is plainly a warning to Hezbollah, one Mr. Siniora repeats: "If someone tries to stop the legal process, then we must make sure we don't go back on what was agreed." When I ask whether Syria is the Svengali behind the new government plan, he sidesteps only slightly: "The effort is being made by people who are pro-Syrian."
But Mr. Siniora's strongest argument against a cabinet change comes in an anodyne phrase: "Nabih Birri says it might be difficult to form a new government, and could take Lebanon into a crisis to no one's advantage." Mr. Birri is the parliament speaker, and a Shiite. By invoking him, Mr. Siniora is using one powerful Shiite to offset the demands of another, Mr. Nasrallah, in warning that a political vacuum might ensue.
Politics are not the only thing the prime minister has to worry about. With a $40 billion debt, a GDP estimated at only $18 to $20 billion, and losses from the July-August conflict estimated by some U.N. agencies at over $10 billion, Lebanon is in dire financial straits. Mr. Siniora says the situation was already "unsustainable" before the "catastrophe," making reform imperative. What he outlines, however, is a dilemma.
Lebanon's credit rating is set to go down in the near future, and the government urgently needs revenue. However, Mr. Siniora is first to admit that, given the country's dark mood, "we cannot raise taxes, this would lead to a recession. We need alternative sources." He means privatization, particularly of the lucrative fixed and mobile telecommunications network.
Fair enough, except that unless the government shows tangible progress on financial reform soon, particularly on privatization, a long-anticipated international donor conference to help Lebanon out of its debt noose will not materialize. And like so much else, privatization remains vulnerable to political discord. So, when Mr. Siniora says the conference might happen "I hope before the end of the year," I have my doubts.
A government priority is compensating those whose homes were destroyed in the recent fighting. Hezbollah garnered publicity by handing money to victims out of suitcases, an approach it sought to contrast with the slowness of the state's reaction. Does Mr. Siniora see himself in competition with the party? "No. We have an obligation toward the people. It was not their mistake that they suffered." He accepts that "Hezbollah might politicize the relief effort against the government," and when I ask whether the party's distribution of funds had provoked problems in certain villages, Mr. Siniora probably sees an opportunity to get one back: "I've heard there are problems. Giving more aid to certain people and less to others creates a great deal of sensitivity."
As we wrap up, the inevitable question provokes an inevitable answer. I ask Mr. Siniora what it feels like being a marked man. "I'm a believer. I know that if anything must happen, it will happen. But I take my precautions. I'm afraid of God. My mother once said: 'Don't be afraid of whoever is afraid of God.' " Many of Mr. Siniora's enemies will readily admit, of course, to a fear of God. What he must worry about is that they will increasingly fear Fuad al-Siniora, the accidental prime minister who may have turned out to be more than they bargained for.
Mr. Young, a Lebanese national, is opinion editor at the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and a contributing editor at Reason magazine.
