Stand Up for People Power

THE last time I saw Rafik Al Hariri, he stood up to Syria. It was two months ago in Dubai at the Arab Strategy Forum. One of my duties there was to chair a session with Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon.

A few hours earlier, a senior Syrian official had made some disgraceful remarks, essentially endorsing dictatorships. Meeting with Hariri before the session, I let him know that I was going to ask him to react to those comments. Hariri said, "Fine, I have no problem disagreeing with the Syrians. I’ve been doing it a lot recently." He added, "They have become a big problem for us in Lebanon. A big problem."

The United States has reacted with appropriate outrage at Hariri’s assassination last week. But beyond angry words, both the administration and Congress seem to have decided to pressure Syria (the suspected culprit) by ratcheting up the economic sanctions already in place against it. This is pointless, because economic sanctions, particularly unilateral American ones, have an unblemished record of failure. They will cost American companies, hurt ordinary Syrians and do virtually no damage to the regime.

Consider the record. Sanctions were put in place to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, stop Iran from going nuclear, deter Pakistan from proliferating, force Haiti’s junta out of power, get Serbia to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and force China to reverse its post-Tiananmen clampdown.

In the few cases where those results were achieved — Saddam out of Kuwait, Milosevic out of Bosnia — it was because the sanctions route was abandoned in favour of military force and coercive diplomacy. The most stunning case of ineffectiveness is surely the sanctions regime against Fidel Castro’s Cuba. These sanctions were put in place in 1960. Today Castro is the world’s longest-serving head of government. You would think that’s pretty compelling evidence that sanctions have not worked. Yet whenever we confront a rogue regime, our immediate impulse is to slap sanctions on it.

When sanctions have worked, it is because they have been multilateral sanctions, usually authorised through the United Nations. The US has begun to try to gather an international coalition against Syria. It is unlikely to produce UN sanctions, but it might put real pressure on the Syrian regime politically. If Bashar Al Assad were to get the cold shoulder from all of Europe and much of Asia, it would make a difference. Syria does not think of itself as a pariah state like North Korea — and if it does not stop funding terrorists, occupying Lebanon and crushing all dissent, it should be treated as such.

Washington has many gripes with Syria — its support for the insurgency in Iraq being the biggest — but it should focus single-mindedly on one issue that can gain international support: getting Syria out of Lebanon. Last week the geopolitical equivalent of a solar eclipse took place. France and the US cosponsored a Security Council resolution demanding that Syria withdraw from Lebanon. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Bashar Al Assad has blundered. Nasty despot though he was, Hafez Al Assad was admired by many observers for his "salami style" tactics. He worked slowly and piecemeal, never doing something dramatic abroad that could force a crisis and give outsiders a reason to form an alliance against him. (Internal policy was another matter; Assad’s brutality was legendary.) His son is clearly less skilful or powerful. If Bashar Al Assad did indeed order Hariri’s assassination, he has handed the world an opportunity to confront Syria’s de facto occupation of Lebanon. Most significantly, he has ignited anti-Syrian feelings in Lebanon. Syria will have to tread carefully in the face of this rising Lebanese nationalism.

Throughout the Arab world we are beginning to see people power at work. And strikingly, the autocrats who have long claimed to understand the Arab Street are bewildered by it. The Shias are rising but acting with restraint, the Palestinians are voting freely but endorsing diplomacy, the Lebanese speak up — not about Israel or America, but rather about Syria. Arab rulers will increasingly have to adjust to the actual feelings of their people rather than the caricatures that they have drawn up.

America, too, needs to understand better people power. President Bush is on a kiss-and-make-up trip to Europe, following Condoleezza Rice’s highly successful tour. He wants cooperation on Syria, Iran and many other issues. But the US confronts a real problem, made much, much worse by four years of utterly insensitive American diplomacy.

Policy elites may make up with us, but the public has not. Polls taken over the last month show that throughout Europe — from Britain to Poland — people are blisteringly critical of US foreign policy, America’s role in the world and George W. Bush. This pervasive anger and distrust limits how actively and publicly countries can support American initiatives and efforts. For every European leader, allying with Bush has costs domestically. If Bush wants to get Europe’s help, he needs to talk not just to its rulers but to its people.