Why Condi Won't Be Coming to Lebanon

When Condoleezza Rice was in Lebanon early last year, she told the country's Speaker of Parliament that she would love to come back to Lebanon to go skiing. Now it just so happens that her latest trip to the Middle East -- to promote the White House 'surge' plan for Iraq -- has coincided with the opening of ski season here. And yet, not only won't Rice be hitting the slopes, she won't be coming to Lebanon at all.

The fact that Lebanon isn't on Rice's itinerary is significant because supporting the pro-American government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is one of the Bush administration's most important stated objectives in the Middle East. Ever since the Syrian occupation of Lebanon ended in 2005, after a series of demonstrations that the Sate Department dubbed the "Cedar Revolution," the American government has touted Lebanon as an example of the success of its freedom and democracy agenda in the region.

Moreover the Siniora government, which came to power in the wake of the Cedar Revolution, would seem to need American help more than ever. Syria's power is once again on the rise in Lebanon, as a coalition of pro-Syrian political parties, led by Hizballah, have vowed to shut down the government through a series of mass protests until Siniora steps down.

But a visit by Rice to Lebanon right now would probably play into the hands of the pro-Syrian opposition. Rice is one of the most recognizable and most regularly caricatured world leaders in the Lebanese press. Nothing short of a visit by President Bush himself would do more to rally the opposition protests, which for the moment seem to be flagging.

Rice became a controversial -- indeed a hated -- figure in much of Lebanon after she worked to delay an international push for an immediate cease-fire during this summer's war with Israel, saying the conflict represented "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." Her comment -- which came as Lebanese civilians, especially children, were bearing the brunt of the conflict -- will haunt American policy in Lebanon at least until the end of this administration.

Indeed, the opposition demonstrations that have clogged central Beirut for the last several weeks are in large part a reaction against the government's relationship with the US, as personified by Rice (who last visited Lebanon in July when the war broke out.) In interview after interview with the largely Shi'ite Muslim protesters -- many of whom came from the towns in southern Lebanon or neighborhoods in southern Beirut hit hardest during the war -- I heard variations of a similar complaint against the government: While we were getting hit by American-made bombs dropped by the Israelis, the government was up at the American embassy meeting Condoleezza Rice.

Rice's last planned trip to Lebanon -- scheduled for this past August --didn't work out so well. A day before she was to arrive on her way back from Israel, Israeli bombs destroyed a building sheltering Lebanese civilians in Qana, killing at least 28 people, 16 of whom were children. The Lebanese trip was cancelled by mutual agreement between the American and Lebanese governments. Not long afterwards, a huge poster appeared on a highway overpass in central Beirut depicting Rice with vampire fangs dripping with the blood of Lebanese children.

Rice hasn't abandoned Siniora. She may meet with members of the Lebanese government at a Paris donor conference to raise money for Lebanon's postwar reconstruction later this month. But she won't be skiing with them anytime soon.

By Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut