Sectarian Actors in Foreign Policy Making: 2006 Lebanese War Revisited/Dis Politika Yapiminda Mezhepsel Aktorler: 2006 Lubnan Savasi'na Yeniden Bakis.

• Author: Tinas, Murat
• Position: Report

Introduction

This article analyses the role of sub-state sectarian actors in foreign policy making in weak states. By re-visiting the July War of 2006 (1) in Lebanon, it questions how sectarian communities perceived and reacted to the foreign policy events, how they framed their policies and how sectarian identity shaped alliances. In doing so, this article, based on several interviews and many informal conversations in Lebanon, scrutinizes how foreign policy decisions are being taken in weak states and argues that in such cases, sub-state actors are able to act as quasi-state actors. On 12 July 2006, a Hezbollah attack on Israeli targets resulted in the deaths of three Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two, followed by an Israeli rescue operation which resulted in the deaths of an additional five soldiers. (2) The Israeli government described the attack as an act of war and initiated a full-blown military response. Casualties of the 33-day war included an estimated 1,200 Lebanese, most of whom were civilians, and nearly 140 Israelis, among whom 43 were civilians, as well as 4,000 injured and around a million displaced. In addition to the humanitarian casualties, most of the infrastructure of southern Lebanon was either damaged or destroyed; some 15,000 homes and 900 factories, markets, farms, shops and other commercial buildings were wrecked. (3)

What is striking from the perspective of foreign policy studies about 12 July is that Hezbollah launched a cross-border attack that triggered a war between two states. In other words, it acted as a sovereign and independent player that took a very real foreign policy action as a sub-state actor a foreign policy action that a sovereign actor, namely Israel, responded to as if Hezbollah had been the legitimate and notified drawee in Lebanese territory. Thanks to the existing studies on the July War, there is now a fairly good understanding of causes and consequences of the war from different perspectives. However, this study argues that the existing studies still fall short in explaining the role of sectarian actors in Lebanese foreign policy making, their perceptions of and identities in this war, and their positions vis-a-vis each other and that of the Lebanese government.

In addition to its contribution to the existing literature on the July War, this study also aspires to address a void in foreign policy studies regarding the role of non-state actors. Although there is ample research on the proliferation of actors, which underlines a shift from realist, state-centric perspectives, (4) the role of sectarian actors as sub-state actors is understudied. Especially in countries where society is divided along sectarian identities and sectarian groups play significant roles in politics, understanding their role in foreign policy making needs further elaboration. By taking Lebanon as a case study, this article aims to highlight the role of sectarian groups as sub-state foreign policy actors and thus to contribute to the literature in this context.

Questions of whether Lebanon has a coherent foreign policy, who makes it, and how decisions regarding war and peace are made emerge as interesting research areas. Particularly in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, a study on the July War that bears these questions in mind seems more current than ever as sectarian consciousness is degenerating into sectarian enmities at the regional level. Lebanese society is deeply divided along sectarian lines, with a weak government organized through a confessional system. Although eighteen religious groups are officially recognized in Lebanon and this study assures that sectarianism is a flexible and heterogeneous identity system shaped by circumstances--considering the period under study, this study focuses on the perceptions of the four most populous and influential sectarian communities through representatives of the mainstream opinion of each: Saad Hariri and the Future Movement for Sunnis, Hezbollah under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah for Shi'as, Patriarch Sfeir and the Patriarchate for the Maronite and Walid Jumblatt for the Druze.

The Breakdown of the Unspoken Agreement in the Delicate Regional Context

Despite previous conflicts and ongoing struggles, the border between Israel and Lebanon remained relatively quiet after the establishment of Israel till the late 1960s. The main reason for the clashes were the armed conflicts between Israel and Palestinian groups that had been forced to settle in Lebanon in 1970. (5) Israel had invaded Lebanon twice: first in 1978, and then more seriously in 1982. Up to the present day, the border issue between these two countries has been affected by many factors, including but not limited to the activities of armed Palestinian groups, Israeli historical claims, access to water, the enhancement of defensive capabilities, the long occupation of southern Lebanon by Israel, Hezbollah's arsenal, and cross-border violations. One of the key actors in Israeli-Lebanese relations has been Hezbollah, which had been established under the conditions of the 1982 Israeli invasion when Shi'as became further marginalized. (6) Immediately after its establishment with Iranian support, Hezbollah began organizing continuous attacks on both sides of the border, which resulted in Israel's withdrawal in 2000. This did not end the conflict, however, as both sides continued to launch cross-border attacks.

The Israeli-Lebanese border was frequently violated by both sides between the 2000 withdrawal and the 2006 war, although most of these violations could be considered minor. Although Israel declared that it had completed its withdrawal from Lebanese territory in May 2000, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government did not confirm this statement, arguing that the withdrawal could only be completed after the Israeli Army left Shebaa Farms, Ghajar village and Kfarshouba Hills, which were to be Lebanese territory. Especially Hezbollah persisted in its claims that the withdrawal of the Israeli Army from Lebanon had not been completed which provides a kind of legitimization for

Hezbollah to remain armed, and continued its cross-border attacks. (7) The ongoing violations of the Israeli-Lebanese border during this period followed unwritten rules, as Hezbollah targeted Shebaa Farms and Israel shelled Hezbollah outposts, yet both sides avoided attacking civilians, and none of the incidents escalated into a major clash. That is, until the Hezbollah attack of 12 July 2006, which occurred outside the disputed Shebaa Farms. (8)

Hezbollah's attacks might not have become the casus belli for Israel if not for geopolitical transformations during the 2000s which substantially reconfigured broader inter-Arab relations and regional alignments. The 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent developments polarized the region, with a US-backed alliance of Sunni Arab states at one hand and an Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah axis at the other. After the 2005 election of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, relations between the US and Iran witnessed a dramatic turn. In addition to the nuclear issue, Iranian officials also changed their attitudes towards the country's near geography thanks to regime changes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The fall of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein presented a good opportunity for Iran to expand its influence, while the occupation of Iraq and the failure to maintain stability there eroded American prestige. (9)

The power struggle in Iraq after the fall of Hussein manifested itself as a bloody sectarian war, out of which new alliances led by Saudi Arabia and Iran emerged. Iran found room for manoeuvre as a regional power, strengthening its relations with Syria and Hezbollah and positioning its anti-Israel discourse at the centre of its regional policies. Meanwhile, concerns over the rise of Iran as a Shi'a power brought Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, most of the Gulf States and the United States, as well as Israel, into alignment. Notwithstanding the interests of major Middle Eastern powers and international actors, non-state actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah and other fundamentalist groups used this struggle to alter the regional balance according to their own interests.

This region-wide polarization was constructed through the rhetoric of Sunni-Shi'a division. As a mirror of the Middle East, these developments had direct repercussions on Lebanese politics. Following the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in early 2005, and suspicions about the possible involvement of Hezbollah and some Syrian officials into this tragic event, Hezbollah and Amal mobilized approximately half a million people to show their support for the presence of Syria in Lebanon on 8 March. In response, Syria's opponents, including Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt and traditional Christian leaders, organized the largest demonstration in Lebanon's history with the participation of around one million supporters on 14 March. (10) These demonstrations led to the establishment of the anti-Syria March 14 Alliance and pro-Syria March 8 Alliance, which still constitute the main pillars of contemporary Lebanese politics. Indeed, the coalition of Lebanese sectarian leaders mirrored the composition of the warring regional camps as well, with the March 8 Alliance--led by the Shi'a Hezbollah--as the manifestation of the Iranian-Syrian coalition and the Sunni-dominated March 14 Alliance representing the US-led regional alliance.

Hezbollah's Perception and Initiating a War

Why did Hassan Nasrallah decide to launch a sudden attack on Israel which triggered Israel's disproportionate response compared to those of previous attacks? (11) There is a significant amount of literature on the underlying causes behind Hezbollah's behaviour, which seems to fall into two broad categories: one which considers Hezbollah as a proxy for Syria and Iran, and another which considers it to be an independent sub-state actor. The first...