Arsal, a lynchpin of Lebanese national security

I am both shocked and astounded at how local media in Lebanon have worked to keep their readers, listeners and viewers wilfully ignorant of some basic and pertinent facts. With regards to the ongoing military operation in the area surrounding Arsal between the Lebanese Armed Forces and a hodgepodge of Syrian rebel groups, what has been completely missed by the media, as far as I can see, is the scale of the task at hand, that is assuming the task is to expel foreign fighters from Lebanon.

The area famously referred to by the media as Jroud Arsal, i.e. the territory mostly to the east, as well as to the north and south of the town, is huge. In fact, it’s about the size of Metn and Kesrouan put together, except it’s almost completely devoid of settlements and villages of any size. It is a vast, hilly, rugged, and uncontrolled expanse of territory bordering and extending into Syria. The hills tapper down to a plateau and on to the town of Koussair and Lac de Homs beyond that to the North, all of which are points that are vital strategically to the regime, the rebel groups and, most important for us in Lebanon, they are crucial for our own security.

A lot has been said about Hezbollah’s involvement in Koussair, in fact, by now its ancient history, also history is the rebel presence in that town. The Hezb was blamed and chided for dragging Lebanon into the morass that is the Syrian civil war, a war that has spawned what is to date one of the most dangerous groups of angry, armed, unpredictable and ideologically polarized fanatics the modern age has yet seen. The truth of Hezbollah’s involvement in Koussair from a purely dispassionate strategic military viewpoint is, however, very different. Only a close look at a map with topographic detail clearly marked as raised bumps can show beyond a shadow of doubt how truly dangerous Koussair could have potentially been for Lebanon had it remained in rebel hands.

The town is the real geographic (not political) terminus of the Bekaa Valley, the plateau that is Lebanon’s breadbasket, running almost the country’s entire length, bounded by the Mount Lebanon range to the West and the Anti Lebanon range to the East. The border separating Syria and Lebanon in the approaches to Koussair is little more than a bureaucrat’s pencil mark in the sand. There are no topographic features to speak off that could form any realistic defensive line should the worst happen and rebels get the upper hand and decide to extend their dominion into North Eastern Lebanon, indeed as one faction has already done in Iraq, or where ISIS also motivated by Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria when they decided to invade another sovereign country?

Once Koussair was lost to the rebels they decided to shelter in the rugged hilly terrain south of the town and in doing so found easy access through the porous border at the far North Eastern edge of Lebanon where nothing stood between them and Arsal, a major Lebanese town with access to supplies and medical care and with a sizable Sunni population that the rebels reasoned would be sympathetic to their cause. This is not new. The rebels have been up there for a while now. But it was direct and massive clashes with the army that brought this crisis to a head. The kidnapping of army soldiers has only served to complicate matters further. But these clashes were inevitable as where the sacrifices and I fear more sacrifices are to come.

Arsal was not just a supply depot for rebels who could drop in, resupply and leave, it still remains home to many Syrian civilian refugees, some, although not all, are families of rebel fighters. So, in essence, the army’s move came as an upset and rude awakening to the rebels and the very comfortable situation they enjoyed. There is no doubt that from a military perspective, controlling the high ground around Arsal would give rebels the upper hand in any potential invasion scenario of the North Eastern Bekaa, with the towns of Ras Baalbek, El Ain, and El Laboue directly in the path of their charge, so to speak. The plateau and the main road running down it all the way to Bar Elias and the lower Bekaa would be indefensible in that situation and the security of the entire Bekaa would be at risk. While the hole that was Koussair was plugged up by regime and Hezbollah forces, Arsal remains a serious gap in our national defense that needs to be addressed.

Whether you love or hate the Syrian regime is not the point, our present Lebanese political system is the product of a post 1975-90 Civil War arrangement, an arrangement entered into freely on our behalf by our then MPs meeting in Taif, supported by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US at the time. We have treaty commitments to the Syrian Government; those commitments were made with a regime that is today at war with many of its own frustrated and disenfranchised people. However, the regime does not recognize any distinction between the State and the regime. As they see it, they are the State. So, diplomatically, politically and even militarily speaking, we are bound to this regime like it or not, a regime many have dubbed a sinking ship but one that is proving to be increasingly unsinkable.

Regardless of sentiment, we, the Lebanese of all sects and political persuasions, find ourselves in the awkward position of being de facto enemies of rebels, many of whom are calling for political change in their own country, change that we could have all understood and sympathized with. We only need remember the dark days of Syrian tutelage to understand what the regime was and remains to this day. But, the evolving sectarian nature of the conflict in Syria and the sectarian composition of most rebel factions have touched a raw nerve in Lebanon, a country that has suffered greatly from sectarian infighting.

As a Christian raised in a Muslim country, the UAE, I used to think that reviving the Muslim Empire of the early Caliphs and Omar bin Abdel Aziz would be a good thing, that it would restore balance to a land that has lost its way, a land that has struggled to cope with and adapt to European-style nation Statehood. When we read the history of the great pioneers of this great Muslim faith, we read of selfless sacrifice, self-effacing piety and a real desire to improve the lives of the diverse peoples that the Caliphs ruled over. ISIS has proved to have none of these qualities; instead, it seems bent on capturing as much digital imagery of mayhem and beheadings as possible and publishing them online so as to cause a general panic and provoke a mass exodus in order to empty as much territory of its people as possible. That tactic sounds familiar; the pioneers of the State of Israel used these very same tactics to provoke mass panic and the flight of a large proportion of the native Palestinian population back in 1948.