Opinion by Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin Danielle Pletka – washingtonpost.com — – Fear is the secret weapon of tyrants — but it is also their greatest weakness. Lokman Slim, who knew no fear, was kryptonite to Lebanese Hezbollah. Slim founded Hayya Bina (Let’s Go), an anti-Hezbollah organization. For decades, he shrugged off Hezbollah threats. He campaigned tirelessly in neighborhoods dominated by Hezbollah against the group’s efforts to subvert Lebanese democracy and to subordinate Lebanese national interests to Iran’s. He was found dead on Thursday, shot repeatedly in the head and back. Although Hezbollah released a statement condemning the killing, within Hezbollah circles there was a hint of celebration. Jawad Nasrallah, son of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, tweeted (and later deleted), “Loss of some is in reality an unexpected gain and kindness for others. #NoSorrow.” Others took to Slim’s Facebook page to celebrate his slaying, rejoicing that Hezbollah “took out the trash.”
In Slim’s death, we see a microcosm of what Lebanon has become. What was once the Paris of the Middle East has become a snuff film of a country, every hero meeting his death at the hands of the true powers that reign in Beirut. In the 1970s, it was Palestinian terror subjugating Lebanon. Then Syrians. In the 1980s, Israel plowed north and then south, trampling its enemies. Iran moved in at the same time, its Revolutionary Guard Corps building the group that would become the true bane of the Lebanese people, Hezbollah. Turkey now waits in the wings, especially in northern Lebanon. Every person who has stood up to these interlopers has met an untimely end — Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri most famously, Slim most recently. In 2005, in the wake of Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution, Slim joined a diverse group of Arab reformers in a project to debate a democratic future for their countries. The following year, he presented his thoughts about how to counter Hezbollah corruption at a conference at our think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. In a subsequent AEI essay, he wrote, “Until Lebanese intellectuals are willing to draw a line in the sand and not allow Hezbollah and other hired thugs to define the debate, there is little hope for real dissent and reform.”
Slim was right. For many in the Arab world, that line in the sand was drawn in demonstrations across the Middle East toward the end of 2019. Fed-up Lebanese also took to the streets in Beirut, and succeeded in bringing down the government. But between covid-19 and a perennial inability to find substitutes for their usual political leaders, Lebanon’s brief glimmer of hope fizzled out. Even the August 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut, which left hundreds dead and thousands wounded and still scars the center of town, has failed to galvanize the nation to take real action against the Hezbollah interests that controlled the port and allegedly stockpiled explosives in the heart of the city. Like others of great courage around the world — think Alexei Navalny, Wang Quanzhang, Osman Kavala — Slim recognized that change had to come from within. He pinpointed Lebanon’s failure of governance as the main culprit and demanded that the state reclaim the mantle of leadership that Hezbollah had usurped. Unlike many among Beirut’s elites, however, he did not look to saviors abroad. He recognized that resistance begins at home and must be organic. But he also knew that without sustenance from abroad from nominal champions of democracy, such efforts were doomed to failure. Where are those champions? Under the Obama administration, the State Department cut funding to Hayya Bina and, in a letter explaining its decision, requested “all activities intended [to] foster an independent moderate Shiite voice be ceased immediately and indefinitely.”
Why does the world’s leading democracy demand an end to the fostering of moderate Shiite voices? Diplomats might privately say an unwritten condition of the Obama-Biden team’s deal with Iran was not to seek to roll back Iran’s regional interests. Perhaps. More likely the real — and perennial — reason was fear and weakness. Nor does the fault lie with the Obama administration alone. Though the George W. Bush administration celebrated a “freedom agenda,” fear pervaded its national security ranks. Rather than rock the boat, the Bush administration actually increased aid to Lebanon, afraid its government might turn to the next highest bidder. Fear is, indeed, what enables Hezbollah to thrive. And Slim’s imperviousness to it was what once again caused Hezbollah to show its true face. If President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken wish to succeed where their predecessors have failed, they must recognize that principle must trump their trepidations. They must, like Slim, be kryptonite to Hezbollah. His pen may now be silenced, but his voice need not be. Slim’s AEI essay should be required reading for every U.S. diplomat, now and in the future.
