Why you should care about Nahr al-Bared

The Lebanese Army claimed today to have finally defeated Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni militant group based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared. Reuters article. Not only was the entire operation a very delicate one, but, if Fatah al-Islam has truly been defeated, this could prove to be a turning point in the fight against theocratic violence.

Fatah al-Islam is not a Palestinian group. Although their leader, Shaker al-Abssi, is Palestinian, the organization itself is very much multi-national. It is linked with al-Qaeda in both ideology and methodology. That is to say, it sought a location where the national government did not exercise authority. In this case, it took advantage of Lebanese fear to control the highly-Palestinian area around Tripoli.

This benefited Fatah al-Islam in two ways. Firstly, the organization could operate with minimum scrutiny from the Lebanese government. Secondly, when the Lebanese Army was forced to react, it had to be very cautious not to destroy Lebanon itself.

When one examines the treatment of the Palestinians by their Arab "bretheren" over the past 60 years, the situation in Lebanon is may be the worst. Palestinians are refused citizenship, education, housing, medical care, essentially everything they could use to improve their lives. During the Civil War, being Palestinian was frequently fatal. For details, read the Biblical shibboleth story, and pretend that it happened in Arabic.

The Army had a dilemma. If they were too cautious and failed, then Fatah al-Islam and other non-state actors might view the Army's weakness as an opportunity to take over the state, thus restarting the Civil War. However, if they used too much force, then the Palestinians in the refugee camps might believe that the Lebanese were using the situation as an excuse to massacre them. This would cause an uprising and restart the Civil War.

The good news is that Lebanon will continue to exist for the time being. But what does that have to do with the Middle East at large?

Remember that Fatah al-Islam took hold in a place where the Lebanese government ostensibly could not reach it. We have seen the same scenario exactly with Hamas in Gaza this summer, with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last summer, and the Taliban and al-Qaeda are increasingly becoming entrenched in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, examples of successful government action against these groups is thin on the ground, a fact which has not been omitted in their recruitment propoganda.

I hope Lebanon has set an example for both timid governments and potential terrorist recruits. That a determined secular government, even with a weak Army, can defeat false warriors for God.