The story of a defeat

Michael Totten’s analysis of Lebanon reminds readers that determined groups with clear ideology, force tend to win, at least in the MidEast

By JONATHAN SPYER
iranian anti-aircraft missile_311 reuters (photo credit: Stringer Iran / Reuters)
iranian anti-aircraft missile_311 reuters
(photo credit: Stringer Iran / Reuters)
The Road to Fatima Gate is the first book by US journalist and blogger Michael Totten. Over the last several years, Totten has built a reputation as one of a new breed of reporter, the kind made possible by the rapidly changing nature of the media industry. As mainstream news organizations struggle to generate sufficient revenue, so budgets for maintaining reporters in the field shrink.
And as the classic foreign correspondent with his large local staff and expense account fades into memory, reporters of the type represented by Totten have emerged to take his place.
Operating independently, self-financing and self-motivated, Totten has taken himself to some of the Middle East’s most dangerous hot spots. His reporting and writing are characterized by a willingness to take risks and get into the field, and an affectionate but not uncritical attitude toward the region.
In his book, Totten seeks to observe and understand the tragic trajectory of Lebanon over the last half-decade, from the murder of prime minister Rafik Hariri and the departure of Syria, to the present situation of effective Hezbollah domination.
Totten was one of a group of American journalists and researchers whose imaginations were captured by the Cedar Revolution of 2005, and the promise it seemed to herald of a Middle East freed from the suffocating grip of politicized religion and militarized politics.
The story he tells is not a happy one. It is the story of a defeat.
Through analysis, interviews and his own experiences living in Beirut and traveling in both Lebanon and Israel, Totten observes and depicts the gradual eclipse of the hopes of the March 14 movement in Lebanon, in the face of the implacable will and capacity for violence of Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers.
The book is a description of an intellectual journey. We observe as the author’s initially somewhat excessively optimistic view of Lebanon and the region is gradually tempered by experience and disappointment, leading to the starkly realistic observations in the conclusion.
On the way, Totten describes a number of adventures. There is a slightly hair-raising encounter with Hezbollah, whose media officer Hussein Naboulsi, by turns unctuous and hysterical, threatens the author in Beirut after misinterpreting a sarcastic comment he makes on his blog. Totten accurately captures Hezbollah’s unique blend of crude menace, paranoia and ideological other-worldliness.
This close-up view of Hezbollah sets the scene for the subsequent tracing of blighted hopes. We observe the “strategy of tension” adopted by Syria after its departure, manifested in the mysterious murders of a string of pro-independence politicians, journalists and officials. Totten depicts the tense, strange, Hezbollah-dominated border zone in the south – the Shi’a Islamist heartland of the muqawama (resistance) to Israel, the West, and the democratic forces in Lebanon.
The 2006 war finds the author on the Israeli side of the border, observing the Katyushas falling on Kiryat Shmona. He then describes the push for power initiated by Hezbollah in the period following the war. We observe from up close the protest tent city erected by the group’s supporters and the supporters of Gen. Michel Aoun in the last months of 2006.
The book reaches its narrative height in a gripping account of the events of May 2008, when Hezbollah first turned its guns on its fellow Lebanese. At this point it becomes clear, as a friend of Totten’s tells him, that “the dark age of Hezbollah is upon us.”
Read from the Israeli side of the border, The Road to Fatima Gate has a feeling of inevitability about it. Few Israeli observers of Lebanon shared the West’s hopes regarding the Cedar Revolution. There was, from the outset, a gaping flaw in the whole project. This was its inability and unwillingness to defend itself in the wake of attacks from its Iranian-backed and Syrian rivals. The March 14 project opted to plant the politics of nonviolence in what is perhaps the world’s least hospitable soil for such an approach. The results have been predictable. Lebanon now belongs to Hezbollah.
The author contends, with good reason, that in the longer term, the Iranian regime and its regional allies are probably doomed. In the short term, however, he concludes that “pacifism only works where it is reciprocated.” Throughout the book, Israel is seen as a kind of foil – or antithesis – of Lebanon and the Arab world as a whole. The Jewish state’s ability and willingness to defend its liberties by force if necessary stands in stark contrast to the Lebanese politicians successfully intimidated by the ruthless cohorts of Iran. Israel’s democracy and open society also set it apart.
The book contains a wonderful evocation of the contrast felt when traveling to Israel from the Arab world: “Arab countries have a certain feel,” writes Totten. “They’re masculine, languid, worn around the edges and slightly shady. Israel felt brisk, modern, shiny and confident… With its clean and orderly streets, its glass skyscrapers and its booming technology sector, Israel looked richer and more powerful – and it was.”
The Road to Fatima Gate is a cautionary tale. It reminds readers that determined, Machiavellian individuals and groups with a clear ideology and a willingness to use force tend to win, at least in the Middle East. Given the current events in the region, such a lesson could not be more timely. This book is well-written, evocative, compassionate and insightful. It deserves a wide audience.