Cities that start with B

IN THE NEWS
Everyone has their fingers crossed that Baghdad and Beirut have nothing more in common than the fact that their names both start with the letter B. However, the recent spate of kidnappings has a lot of people spooked. Will Iraq collapse into the kind of grinding, bloody, daily bombings, firefights, and kidnappings that Beirut suffered in the 1980s? Since kidnappings are all that's left to complete the picture, perhaps there's reason to be concerned.

Iraqis have their reasons for violence, but their not exactly the same as those of the Lebanese militias. The Lebanese civil war had its roots in the country's constitution, which had fixed representation in the legislature for every ethnic group. Over time, the Muslim birthrate outstripped that of the Christians, increasing pressure for a constitutional revision that never occurred. Add to this already explosive mix aggrieved minority groups like the Druze, outside meddling from Iran and Syria, and the exiled PLO leadership, you're left with a situation so bad that it would have been amazing had Lebanon not had some kind of civil war. What made the situation worse, of course, was the Israeli invasion, followed by the abortive US peacekeeping mission. The tragedy of Lebanon, once a model of Middle Eastern prosperity and civility, was overwhelming.

Kidnapping in Lebanon quickly became an effective political tool. All a group needed was a bit of ruthlessness and cunning, some identifiable Westerners (who were all over Beirut), and some safe houses, and you had the basic tools for gaining leverage far beyond the size of your organization. Some of the hostage-takers in Beirut were significant players, like the Hezbollah; others were minor leaguers, who saw how effective hostage-taking could be as a political weapon.

Baghdad in 2004 isn't quite Beirut in 1984. The clan and sectarian divisions In Iraq are not as deep or bitter as they were in Lebanon. The engine for much of the violence in Iraq is the US/Coalition occupation--but, of course, we have to be careful to note that some of the people fighting the US today will not automatically lay down arms once the Americans leave. Now that the Baathist regime is gone, there is no political poke in the eye like the Lebanese constitution. (But it's worth noting Lebanon's cautionary tale about setting electoral quotas for particular groups.)

Iraq, unfortunately, has reached a point that Lebanon once did: factions are seeing the undeniable effectiveness of kidnapping. The Philippine government wasn't keen on keeping troops in Iraq for too much longer, but the kidnapping of a Filipino national certainly hastened their departure. Since there is no effective police force, and a lot of foreigners, the opportunity is clearly there for many groups to grab quick notoriety and leverage.

Once again, we have to fall back on the Iraqis to deal with the political violence in that country. And again, it all comes down to basics: people willing to give us information; people familiar enough with the language and the culture to know what to do with this information; the ability to provide safe passage to people going about their daily lives; decisions about what necessary to spread that security through ever-larger portions of Iraq. Once the kidnappings gain momentum, they're hard to stop. The White House has made Iraq more important than Lebanon ever was. That fact doesn't negate the political reality, however, that an increasing number of Western (or Egyptian, or Filipino) hostages creates.

Comments

[ali]

I hope Lebanon will be a model for Iraq. We will be extrodinarily lucky if Iraq becomes as democratic. Lebanon is half Christian and that restrained Hezabollah. The same is not true in Iraq, with Saddam gone it's a country ripe for domination by Shia Mullahs.

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