Lebanon Chases a Seat on the UN Security Council

Earlier this week, the government of Libya pressed the United Nations Security Council to take up the tricky matter of the recent UN report on Israel and Hamas’s actions during the 22-day war in Gaza. Many Western states seem to be hoping the report, by former South African judge Richard Goldstone, which found that some of Israel’s measures may have consitituted war crimes, would somehow just go away, but Libya may now force the Security Council to issue an opinion on the matter.

Libya is in a position to do this because it presently holds the essentially permanent “Arab seat” on the council. (In addition to the five permanent members — the US, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom — there are ten other non-permanent seats in the Council that are doled out in two-year terms by regional bloc; one is always an Arab state.) In past years, the Arab seat has been held by “moderate,” pro-Western states like Tunisia or Oman or Morocco. Then, in 2001, Syria took the helm, and much of the west — and particularly Israel — was up in arms: how, in the aftermath of 9/11, would a country thought of in the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism negotiate matters of international peace on the Council? In the end, Syria’s impact was marginal — at least as far as Western states’ anxieties were concerned — and after that, the seat went back to friendlies (Qatar held it from 2006-2007). When Libya took over, in October of 2007, the Bush Administration — in full-re-engagement mode — chose to not oppose the nomination.

Today, it’s looking increasingly like Lebanon’s turn. (The selection will take place on October 15th.)  When President Michel Suleiman went to New York for the General Assembly, he devoted a significant portion of his time there to lobbying other states on this matter. (The Austrians lent early support.) He also prominently mentioned it in his Assembly address (pdf).

But there are obstacles. For one thing (these are not original to me), how would Lebanon, a small country with a small UN operation, manage the significantly increased workload? And another concern: how would Lebanon contend with the horse-trading and lobbying that accompanies the seat — and how will it deal, if at all, with Israel? And, moreover, how could a country still divided over its basic governance speak with a single voice? (Michael Williams, the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, recently said that Lebanon must have a “fully functioning government” to properly fill this role.)

And, as UN person put it to me recently, perhaps the biggest issue: “It is quite rare for a council member to be a ‘party’ to Council business. Lebanon is a frequent topic of discussion at the Council. How would Lebanon handle itself in those discussions?”

Last month, when I was in New York, I visited with Nawaf Salam, the Lebanese Ambassador to the UN since 2007. If Lebanon does end up with the Security Council seat, Salam will find himself with a lot more work in a job that is already plagued by the “slow machinery” of bureaucracy. “It’s a frustrating job,” he said candidly.

Salam, who is 55 years old, is a good-natured former political science professor and civil society veteran — he is on the board of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies and served on the 2006 commission to reform the electoral law. It is not entirely clear if he has the political force to, say, shout down Israel’s allies across a Council session (he says when his time in public service is over, he expects to return to academia), but if his recent statement during the reauthorization of UNIFIL’s mandate is any indication — “I am sure you have no doubt about the identity of the party which must be held responsible for obstructing the full implementation of Resolution 1701″ (pdf) — he is not afraid to speak his mind.

In September, Salam and I did not specifically discuss the Security Council seat, but he did tell me that, as he sees it, the fact that Lebanon is subject to matters that concern the UN is hardly a problem — if anything, it will have the opposite effect. “Anything in Lebanon will not be sustainable unless there is progress in the region,” he said. “Lebanon will be the party that will get the most of any real progress in the region. Lebanon will benefit from progress on the Palestinian track, Lebanon will benefit from progress on the Syrian track, and Lebanon will benefit from the overall momentum of peace negotiation.”

Earlier this week, Salam told me by email that he was confident that Lebanon would win the non-permanent seat. If it did, he added, his office staff would double.