Jumblat at Brookings

A friend who attended Walid Jumblatt's talk at Brookings wrote this:

This morning, The Saban Center at Brookings hosted Walid Jumblatt in advance of his meetings with Secretary Rice. The audience was standing room only in the Brookings Auditorum, perhaps 200-250 people. Jumblatt made brief comments, opening with references to his father, and the price his father paid for resisting Syrian ambitions in Lebanon. He said that he had felt he had to compromise with Syria in 1978, and that he regretted having done so. Noting that it had taken 28 years for him to find the courage of his father, he expressed the hope that his father is satisfied with the position he is taking against Syria today. It was an interesting and revealing way to leapfrog over Jumblatt's complicated ties with Syria in the period since his father was killed, and re-connect himself to a purer form of anti-Syrian, Lebanese nationalist sentiment.

His stress during the Q&A was on the paramount need for the removal of Lahoud, and the need to do so without conceding to the demands of other Lebanese parties on Sheba Farms, or to take other steps that would compromise the sovereignty of the central state. Speaking of Syria's future, he rejected the argument of Bashar that if the regime fell there would be chaos in Syria. The view seemed especially instrumental given that he also offered a thinly veiled critique of US policy in Iraq by pointing out that there is no central state in Iraq anymore, and suggesting that while the removal of Saddam was for the good, the outcome has created "challenges" all across the Middle East. At the same time, he seemed to be arguing against regime change in Syria via external intervention, suggesting it would need to be the work of the Syrian opposition itself. He seemed relatively unconcerned with the possibility that a post-Asad Syria might be Islamist, reflecting on the elections in Palestine and offering the view that in the long run, democracy is preferable even it produces short-term outcomes like the victory of Hamas. He also seemed to take the view that governing will temper the radicalism of Hamas. When asked why the U.S. should care about Lebanon, the argument was that having democracies in the region is good for the U.S., and that if the U.S. didn't act on its expressed commitment to political reform, it will undermine U.S. credibility.

He expressed an interest in U.S. support for efforts to strengthen the Lebanese military, in particular.

Jumblatt said he met with Khaddam in Paris, wouldn't comment on his potential as a possible leader of the opposition, but did affirm his sense that Khaddam's testimony to the Mehlis commission was "important."