Lebanese leaders hate Hezbollah as much as Gulf leaders hate Iran

There is one sad but immutable truth of Lebanese politics: for the country to enjoy a modicum of short-term stability, its leaders need to lie. And for the last two years, after Hezbollah cadres overran Sunni areas of Beirut and attacked the Druze-majority Chouf Mountains in May 2008, many of Lebanon’s most prominent politicians have adapted to the new balance of power by disavowing their formerly anti-Hezbollah positions.

WikiLeaks just made their task more difficult. The release of State Department cables from 2008 — when tensions between the U.S.-backed Lebanese government and the Hezbollah-led opposition were at their height — are going to ruffle some feathers in Beirut. The cables do not yet appear on the main Wikileaks site, but were instead published by the Arabic-language Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, which is a fierce critic of U.S. influence in Lebanon. While the cables appear real, we weren’t able to confirm their authenticity directly — a former Bush administration official noted that they looked genuine, but said that it’s impossible to know if names or details have been changed. The State Department declined to authenticate the documents, pointing to the Obama administration’s policy of not commenting on the contents of any specific cable.

Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr is bearing the brunt of the revelations. In one cable, he promises U.S. diplomats that the Lebanese army will not become involved in the event of an Israeli invasion of the country, because "this war is not with Lebanon, it is [with] Hezbollah." Murr, a Christian, also pleaded with U.S. diplomats to convince Israel to spare Christian areas of the country, limiting its attack to Shiite-majority regions.

But it’s not only Murr that should be getting heartburn from these cables. Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Druze community, has gone the farthest in publicly disavowing his former anti-Hezbollah positions — but these documents show his highest lieutenants doing all they can to convince the United States to turn the screws on Hezbollah. In August 2008 — notably, after the May violence and resulting power shift caused Jumblatt to disavow much of his anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah rhetoric — one of his Druze allies, acting Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander Maj. Gen. Shawki al-Masri, made the case to U.S. officials that they should provide the LAF with attack helicopters. "We need this equipment to face this armed group Hizballah," he pleaded. "Else, we cannot face them."

The documents also show Jumblatt deputy Marwan Hamadeh, then telecommunications minister, drumming up support for a forceful reaction to revelations that Hezbollah maintained its own fiber optics network throughout the country. The Lebanese government’s attempt to dismantle the network would lead to Hezbollah’s May 2008 invasion of Beirut, and alter the balance of power in the country. "Iran Telecom is taking over the country!" were Hamadeh’s first words to U.S. officials in briefing them on these developments in late April. He later promised that he was preparing a campaign against the network that would "destroy [opposition leader Michel] Aoun and mobilize Christians, as well as influence those Shia who are already beginning to worry about Hezbollah."

In a piece of spectacularly bad timing, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri happened to be on a state visit to Tehran when the first batch of WikiLeaks State Department cables was released. The prime minister hasn’t escaped the glare of the documents’ revelations. "Iraq was unnecessary," he reportedly told U.S. officials in August 2006, "Iran is necessary." No doubt, Iranian officials are not too thrilled about that quote. Don’t be surprised if Hariri bent the truth a little in response.