The US is threatening Syria and the Lebanese opposition is making things as tough as it can for Damascus. But just because the US and the Lebanese opposition share an animosity towards Syria does not mean they are in collusion, writes Mohamed Sid-Ahmed A three-player game going on, and it is one in which the players are far from equally matched. The US is capable of leaning on Syria so heavily that Syria has to struggle for a way to ease the pressure. Syria, in turn, has the ability to bend any Lebanese government to its will. The disparities between the players create a state of disequilibrium that jeopardises the entire region. The disparities themselves have their roots in what has come to be termed the "mono-polar global order", by which is meant an international order in which the US, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar global order, acquired military and economic superiority over all other countries of the world. With the onset of the monopolar order we assumed that the process of globalisation had reached fruition, whereas in fact its features have far from settled yet. National sovereignty is still a cherished principle and cannot be entirely discounted as an operative factor in international relations. However, the very ambiguities in this state of transition have offered an opening to augment tensions between the nations of the Middle East. I stress Middle East because the theatre of tensions is no longer restricted to Palestine and Iraq but has extended to comprise what President Bush has dubbed the Greater Middle East, which includes Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and many of the countries of Central Asia which had formed the Muslim sector of the Soviet Union. It is unlikely that the Lebanese opposition and Washington will come to terms in a manner that jeopardises Washington's relations with the Lebanese government. It is just as unlikely that the US (and France) will abandon the Lebanese opposition if only because all three players are parading under the banner of democracy. This applies even though the US realises that democracy may, in practice, serve anti-American parties such as Hizbullah, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield recently acknowledged. Because of the disparity in power between the players the stronger party will always be tempted to impose its perception of what democracy means which makes the weaker party feel that ideas are being forced upon it. In this manner even democracy comes to seem as though it is an alien value imposed from abroad. Clearly, then, it is difficult to reconcile disparity of power in relations with democratic principles. There is always a sense that the stronger power dominates and imposes its conditions, and that the stronger power can and will impose its conditions because it derives its negotiating strength and its ability to threaten from its sense of might rather than from its faith in principle, even if that principle is democracy. At the heart of democracy is a regulating mechanism that transcends the will of individuals. It is this mechanism that guarantees that the interests of the whole prevail over the part and that the people take precedence over the rulers. There are strong indications that this core concept of democracy is spreading, acquiring impetus and gaining strength. Major events, in diverse and far-flung places, confirm this: in Georgia and Ukraine in Central Asia, in Brazil in the heart of Latin America, in Iraq and Palestine where elections held under international supervision received widespread acclaim and in Lebanon where, in the wake of the assassination of Al-Hariri, the spectre of civil war has been resurrected though the Lebanese people until now remain committed to a peaceful and democratic route away from the abyss. Throughout the world there are numerous testimonies to the fact that people everywhere have their hearts set on a peaceful democratic outlet, though not necessarily democracy as understood and propounded by the West. But we have every right to ask what connection we are supposed to draw between the democracy the West is calling for and the atrocities that have occurred in Abu Ghraib, and are still occurring in the American prison in Guantanamo Bay, places that have come to symbolise the trend to repress democratic freedoms in the war against terrorism. The most delicate issue at this moment in the Middle East is the heated dispute between Syria and Lebanon. Is there a peaceful solution to this problem, one that will bring security to Syria and national sovereignty to Lebanon? Is there a way to ensure that security for Syria does not conflict with the right of the people of Lebanon to self-determination? Is there a safe way out of this predicament other than Syria and Lebanon adhering to the rules of democracy and forswearing recourse to military force, violence and repression? The problem is not limited to Syria and Lebanon. Indeed, it has already been internationalised. Everyone seems to be pressuring decision-makers in Syria to yield and withdraw its forces immediately from all Lebanese territories. Israel has occupied the Golan Heights for nearly four decades and the international community has done nothing to shake Israel's hold over the Syrian territories it occupies. Syria, meanwhile, is being treated in accordance with an entirely different set of standards. We are facing an issue that is impossible to resolve without returning to the fundamental principles of democracy. It is an issue that should compel the Arabs -- before all other international parties -- to assume the onus of devising a viable solution.
