"No Longer Willing to Endure": The Slogan of Political Sunnism!

The Sunnis had found themselves quite alone when Yasser Arafat's PLO boarded French ships, with all their arms and equipment, bound for Tunisia. It was August 30, 1982; Bachir Gemayel had been elected President of the Republic, and the Israeli army was about to move into West Beirut.

With the departure of Abu Ammar and his contingents, who had fueled Lebanon's civil and sectarian war, a chapter had come to a close. Taking stock of the situation, President Takieddine al-Solh, a shrewd statesman and keen observer, expressed himself with bitterness in these words: "The Muslims sacrificed so much that they perished in the process" (1).

By this he meant the Lebanese Sunnis—more precisely those in urban centers—who had so wholeheartedly embraced Arab causes that, in the end, they found themselves defeated and, what is more, realized just how far power had slipped from their grasp!

In the wake of these fast-moving events, the daily newspaper Al-Safir published a documentary spread over several issues under the title: "Al-Dahiya, rubᶜu al-Watan" (2).

It was a warning shot heralding the imminent rise of the Shiite confessional group—long marginalized—onto the Lebanese stage.

This was not without stirring legitimate concern among native Beirutis.

Indeed, the Twelver community was about to take over from the Sunni community as the leading Muslim actor on the political scene. Moreover, when the February 1984 uprising led by the Amal movement and the PSP broke out, seasoned journalist Sarkis Naoum did not hesitate to make prophetic remarks. He announced to anyone who would listen in the corridors of the daily An-Nahar that Lebanon had entered the "Shiite era," as West Beirut had slipped out of Amine Gemayel's control!

And from that point on, the influence of political Sunnism would steadily shrink throughout the 1980s.

This current would lose its footing to another branch of Islam—a younger branch—that was asserting its rights both in the courts and on the battlefield.

Even the rise of Rafik Hariri to power from 1992 onwards, which offered a brief respite, was not enough to restore the luster of a community whose political ascendancy stretched back to the Mamluks and the Ottomans.

The rubble and the "resetting"

The rest of the story is well known: Mobilized and radicalized by Iran, organized through Amal and Hezbollah, and backed by the Alawite regime in Damascus, the Shiite community asserted itself—it must be admitted—against every other component of the Lebanese mosaic.

Yet, seized by the hubris that spares no one, it came to believe it could play in the big leagues. Among other blunders, it managed to alienate both the United States and the State of Israel, and it intervened militarily in the Syrian civil war—two fatal mistakes that would lead it straight to ruin and mire it in unwinnable conflicts.

For Hezbollah, its armed wing, remotely controlled from Tehran, had believed that by supporting Bashar al-Assad it could maintain its grip over Sunni masses that were either exhausted or incapable of finding common ground.

Only a charismatic leader like Nasser could have united them and galvanized them out of their stupor. But such a hero, capable of carrying out a political "resetting," was slow to emerge. For a long time, "Sufianism" (3)—or political Sunnism—would keep a low profile, biding its time for better days.

"Sufianism" and the rise to power

But fate has a way of springing pleasant surprises and toppling even the most entrenched regimes. And so the Syrian people would rid themselves of the usurper Bashar al-Assad, while unfortunately harboring a deep and lasting resentment toward those who had attacked them—whether from Lebanon or from Iran.

The latter, belonging to the Shia orbit and led by Hezbollah as their figurehead, had become militarily involved on the various fronts of the civil war. As a consequence, in the Syrian collective imagination, Umayyad Damascus had been desecrated, and the blood that had been shed was crying out for vengeance. This thirst for retribution—this eye-for-an-eye logic—will continue to poison relations between Lebanese Shiism and the Sunni heartland of Syria for a long time to come.

But in the meantime, the Sunni establishment, suddenly reinvigorated by Assad's fall, would henceforth refuse to endure in Lebanon the indignities it had suffered on a daily basis as long as the Alawite Assad dynasty sat enthroned in Damascus.

No encroachment upon its reserved share in the public administration or the state apparatus would henceforth be tolerated.

'Sufianism' would slowly, and even painfully, reconstitute itself, while Iran and its proxies were busy fighting Americans and Israelis elsewhere.

Yet this Sunni resurgence hardly meant that our President of the Council would be free, without hindrance, to take the initiative in governing! A quiet struggle would be waged at every political juncture to make one viewpoint prevail over the other.

And what about the Egyptian hypothesis, then?

As it happens, on August 7th, a defense agreement was concluded in Mecca between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan. Some have seen in it a Sunni NATO designed to confront both Israel and Iran. This was no doubt reassuring for 'Sufianism,' yet a key player was conspicuously absent from the table: Egypt!

If the land of the Nile were to join the Mecca alliance, its contribution would be undeniable: possessing the largest Arab army, it would bring its diplomatic weight, strategic depth, and Arab legitimacy to the table.

It would serve as a balancing factor, and some are already saying that its entry into the alliance 'would prevent it from being overtly anti-Iranian.'

Who knows! In any case, Egypt would counterbalance Turkey, which has Finlandized Syria. And, last but not least, its new status would certainly raise eyebrows in Tel Aviv, whose relations with Ankara are already deteriorating.

As far as Lebanon is concerned, however, an Egypt somewhat more engaged in regional rebalancing can only strengthen the position of our President of the Council and of the executive branch in general.

Yet its most important role would be to temper the vindictive impulses of the Syrians toward a Lebanese confessional community whose militias blundered into a civil conflict that was not their own.

And as far as we are concerned, that is precisely where Cairo could prove indispensable to our civil peace!

1) «Tafana al-muslimun hata fanu».

2) Which plainly meant: 'The Shia southern suburb represents a quarter of the homeland.' The message could not have been clearer: from now on, it had to be reckoned with!

3) Political 'Sufianism' (al-Sufianiya al-Siassiya) refers to Muᶜawiya ibn Abi-Sufian, founder of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus.