Militia Ties Complicate Lebanon’s Fund-Raising Drive

When Israeli warplanes blew up a Syrian radar station near here last week, many Lebanese breathed a sigh of relief. For once, the conflict between Syria and Israel had produced casualties and property damage that were not Lebanese.

But as Prime Minister Rafik Hariri travels to the West this week hoping to win financial support for his country’s ailing economy, there is still widespread acceptance that Lebanon will remain a proxy battlefield in the conflict between Israel and the Syrian-backed Hezbollah militia.

That reality will complicate Hariri’s mission when he meets with President Bush today and asks for help propping up an economy suffocating under a $24-billion debt. Officials on all sides of the debate agree that, even if he wanted to, the prime minister is powerless to deliver on what the West has asked for: a commitment to deploy the Lebanese army along the border with Israel and to stop cross-border attacks by Hezbollah.

“The decision-making process is not made by the prime minister,” said Farid Khazen, a political scientist at American University in Beirut, alluding to Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. “This is a country where decisions on domestic policy and foreign affairs come from outside. How is he to reconcile the different objectives? The answer is, it is impossible.”

The conflict between Hariri’s economic agenda and Hezbollah’s political agenda got an unusual public airing this week. After an Israeli soldier died in a Hezbollah attack April 14, prompting Israel to strike the radar station, killing at least three Syrian troops, Hariri openly questioned the logic of causing a stir when he is trying to sell investors on Lebanon.

Hezbollah leaders responded strongly, appearing on television to question Hariri’s commitment to their cause, a sure sign that officials in Damascus, the Syrian capital, were not happy with his remarks.

“If there is any contradiction between liberation and investment, liberation and political reform, liberation and democracy, clearly liberation comes first--knowing that we take pains that these don’t contradict each other,” Mohammed Raad, leader of Hezbollah’s bloc in parliament, said in an interview with The Times on Monday.

Last year, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon after 18 years of occupation, but Hezbollah insists on a further pullback, from a small disputed patch of land called Shabaa Farms, where Syria, Lebanon and Israel meet. The guerrillas have recently stepped up cross-border attacks, leading to the capture of three Israeli soldiers and the killing of three more.

All of this is occurring under the watchful eye of the new Syrian president, Bashar Assad, whose country maintains thousands of troops in Lebanon and who, government officials here said, makes most of the policy decisions, whether domestic or foreign.

Though there was concern that Assad would escalate the conflict in response to the Israeli attack, officials here said that Syria cannot afford a direct conflict with Israel and will continue to rely on Hezbollah.

With this backdrop, billionaire businessman Hariri, along with 58 government ministers and aides, is visiting the Vatican, France, the United States and Canada this week as part of a campaign to save his country’s finances.

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Cairo Bureau Chief Slackman is on assignment in Lebanon.