Bush Sees Hezbollah in Politics

In an apparent overture to an organization on the U.S. terrorist blacklist, President Bush suggested Tuesday that Hezbollah should put down its arms and become fully integrated into Lebanon’s political mainstream.

During an Oval Office appearance with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Bush was asked if he would support a political role for Hezbollah, a group tied to the 1983 truck bombing at a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans.

“We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they’re not by laying down arms and not threatening peace,” Bush told reporters.

Middle East experts said Bush’s remarks appeared carefully scripted to send a message to Hezbollah that the United States might accept a role for the militant Shiite Muslim group once Syria withdrew its forces from Lebanon. By doing so, Bush probably hopes to lessen Hezbollah’s opposition to a Syrian pullout, they said.

“President Bush is coming to two realizations on Hezbollah,” said Edward Gabriel, former U.S. ambassador to Syria. “They are a force to be reckoned with inside Lebanon, and they’re going to make it very difficult for America if they see America as an enemy.”

Hezbollah has 20,000 guerrilla fighters in Lebanon, 12 seats in parliament, and it sponsors a broad network of hospitals, orphanages, schools and recreational centers.

In two major demonstrations within the last eight days, Hezbollah summoned hundreds of thousands of supporters to protest U.S. pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon. During the rallies, the group’s members emphasized national unity, waving Lebanese flags instead of the trademark Hezbollah emblem, a fist clutching a gun.

Syrian President Bashar Assad last week promised a United Nations envoy that he would withdraw from Lebanon, as demanded in a U.N. resolution last year, but set no date. Bush has insisted that Syria withdraw before elections scheduled for May, so the Lebanese can vote without foreign intimidation or interference.

Bush is attempting “to let Hezbollah see that they don’t have to hang on to Syria to see a way forward for themselves in the new Lebanon,” Gabriel said.

The administration also can separate the issues of Syrian withdrawal and the disarming of Hezbollah by insisting that Syria leave first and then tackling the question of Hezbollah’s status, he said.

“They want to kick the can down the road, because they don’t want Hezbollah to get in the way of Syria getting out,” Gabriel said.

The U.N. resolution calls for all militias -- which would include Hezbollah -- to disarm. But it is unclear to many Middle East experts how that could be achieved except voluntarily. Hezbollah, which means “Party of God” in Arabic, has hundreds of thousands of supporters and is credited with forcing Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000.

“I think after the demonstration the past week, it has dawned on them [U.S. officials] finally that this is a mainstream organization, it is not a small fringe organization, and it has a very large constituency,” said a senior Middle Eastern diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat noted that Bush had called on Hezbollah to disarm itself -- but did not suggest that Hezbollah should be disarmed by force, “which would be a recipe for disaster.”

“It’s quite a clever text,” the diplomat said. “He did not ask for things which are impossible or which are so divisive that they would create big problems in Lebanon. What he’s asking for is more prudent behavior, more mainstream behavior by Hezbollah.”

Bush also said it was important for Hezbollah not to disrupt the critical Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that if Hezbollah were to disarm and renounce terrorism, “it would change the dynamic” in Lebanon.

“Organizations like Hezbollah have to choose,” McClellan said. “Either you’re a terrorist organization or you’re a political organization.”

The U.S. decided to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization after it renounced terrorism in 1988.

On Tuesday, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Bush’s remarks did not signal a new direction for U.S. policy.

“It’s the United States’ hope and desire and, I would dare say, goal that organizations that practice terror will someday renounce that terror and practice peaceful means to achieve their goals or to advance their interests,” Ereli said. “That’s as true for Hezbollah as it is any organization.”

But Gabriel and the Middle Eastern diplomat as well as several lawmakers said they had interpreted Bush’s language as a marked tactical shift for an administration that has cited support for Hezbollah by Syria and Iran as a key reason for U.S. antipathy to those regimes.

“Hezbollah has the blood of Americans on its hands, and it is awfully difficult to forgive them so quickly, especially when they have not denounced terrorism,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday.

The administration campaigned last year to convince the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist group. U.S. officials said as recently as last month that Hezbollah had a global network that included cells in the United States that have been used for fundraising.

“Hezbollah may be the A-team of terrorists and maybe Al Qaeda is actually the B-team,” former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said in 2003, in remarks that were often repeated by other administration officials. “And they’re on the list and their time will come.... We’re going to take them down one at a time.”

Bush’s apparent overture to Hezbollah comes less than a week after the president decided to make a concession to three European countries negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program. Bush dropped long-standing U.S. objections to Iran joining the World Trade Organization and agreed to allow it to buy spare Boeing aircraft parts for its aging civilian fleet.

The administration insisted it was not changing its position on Iran.

James A. Phillips of the conservative Heritage Foundation said Bush’s remarks on Hezbollah could be helpful if the United States could drive a wedge between Hezbollah and its Syrian backers -- but he was skeptical that could be done.

“It could pay dividends if Hezbollah gave up its arms and stopped supporting Palestinian terror attacks against Israel,” Phillips said. “I just don’t see that happening because it would be a betrayal of Hezbollah’s ideology.”

The group is heavily influenced by Iranian Islamic revolutionary ideology and is committed to destroying the state of Israel.

Bush is scheduled to meet today with Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, a key opposition leader who has been calling for Syria to leave Lebanon “without enmity” and restore normal relations with its neighbor. Sfeir reportedly supports a political role for Hezbollah.

Bush is seen as likely to reassure the patriarch of the U.S. commitment to ensuring Syrian withdrawal. In private, however, the two leaders may discuss incentives for Syria to make a face-saving withdrawal, Gabriel said.

Israeli officials in Washington declined to comment on the development, but Israeli sources said they did not see that Washington had changed its policy on Hezbollah. Hezbollah was created to resist Israeli troops that invaded Lebanon in 1982. After Israel withdrew, its fighters have continued to skirmish sporadically with Israeli soldiers along Lebanon’s southern frontier.

Israel accuses Hezbollah, with Syrian support, of funneling aid from Iran to pay Palestinian militants to carry out attacks against Israelis.

Hezbollah enjoys a following among poorer Lebanese for its network of social services, supported by an energetic fundraising operation.

The group is especially strong in suburbs of Beirut, areas of the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah is seen by many Lebanese as “an efficient and not a corrupt liberation movement,” the Middle Eastern diplomat said, and one that is carefully positioning itself to expand its strength in parliament in the elections planned for spring.

The day after its massive demonstrations in downtown Beirut, Hezbollah sent a small army of workers to clean the streets, without informing the city government, the diplomat said.

However, the group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has said Hezbollah must keep its weapons.

Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood in Beirut contributed to this report.