The Father's Success and the Son's Failure: Explaining the Growth of Lebanon's Resistance to Syria's Invisible Occupation

In the 15‐year period since the Syrian military entry into Lebanon on June 1, 1976, allegedly to put an end to the civil war that broke out there a year earlier, Syria firmly solidified its control of the country, as evidenced by the signing of the “Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination between Syria and Lebanon,” on May 22, 1991, which granted Syria a special status. Yet, 14 years later, on April 24, 2005, the Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon. This article seeks to explain this relatively rapid decline in Syria's standing in Lebanon by examining the strategies of the two Syrian rulers who indirectly controlled this country during those years. It examines what was right in Hafiz al‐Asad's strategy in Lebanon, and what did not work in Bashar's policy. In 2000, the year of Hafiz al‐Asad's death, Syria's status in Lebanon seemed unshakable: 1) Lebanon's president (Emile Lahoud) acted as Damascus's puppet; 2) Hezbollah, the Shi‘a militia Hezbollah largely accepted Syria's authority while it simultaneously tightened its control over southern Lebanon and also began gaining popularity in the rest of the country; and 3) finally the politics of the noble families, which had characterized Lebanon since its establishment, began to gradually give way to a politics where a political figure is measured by the level of his connections to the country's power base in Damascus. Yet, merely five years later, Syria was under immense pressure to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. This suggests that we must look at the difference between the strategies of Hafiz al‐Asad and his son Bashar for controlling Lebanon to better understand the rapid deterioration in Syria's standing in the country. We argue that the difference in the degree of anti‐Syrian pressures from Lebanon's society and political elements between the two tenures is largely rooted in the different strategies that the two Syrian presidents adopted for informally ruling Lebanon. We identify three main areas where Bashar al‐Asad made mistakes due to his failure to continue his father's methods. First, Bashar put all his cards on Hezbollah, thus antagonizing all the other groups which resented that Shi‘a dominance. Second, in stark contrast to his father, Bashar distanced himself from the regular management of Lebanon's ethnic politics. Hafiz al‐Asad made sure that all the leaders of the different ethnic groups would visit Damascus and update him on their inter‐ethnic conflicts, and then he would be the one who would either arbitrate between them or, for expediency reasons, exacerbate these feuds. Once the ethnic leaders had to manage without Damascus, they learned to get along, making him far less indispensable for the running of the country. Finally, Bashar, unlike his father, did not make a real effort to gain international and regional legitimacy (or at least de‐facto acceptance) for Syria's continued control over Lebanon. Most conspicuously, while Hafiz participated in the First Gulf War against Iraq, his son supported Sunni rebels who fought against the United States‐led coalition forces there. This foreign acquiescence was significant since the Lebanese felt they had a backing when they demanded Syria's withdrawal in 2005. These different strategic approaches of the two rulers meant that the father's policies wisely laid the ground for some of the most controversial measures which were needed as part of any attempt to monopolize control over another country, such as Lebanon (assassinating popular but too independent‐minded Lebanese presidents/prime ministers or extending tenures of loyalist ones), whereas the son's policies myopically failed to do so properly. Indeed, the article will show that while both the father and the son took these same controversial measures, the responses of the Lebanese were completely different. Admittedly, some historical developments increased the Lebanese propensity to rise up against Syria, and these meant that Bashar did in fact face a harder task than his father in maintaining Syria's informal occupation. The Israeli withdrawal from its so‐called “security zone” in south Lebanon meant that one justification for the Syrian presence was gone. More importantly, the risk of renewed eruption of the civil war (which in turn had meant for many years a greater willingness by the locals to tolerate the Syrian presence which prevented the war's resumption) declined significantly due to a variety of processes that could not have been halted even with better “management” of the interethnic strife from Damascus (i.e., making sure that the ethnic groups remained in deep conflict with each other). Nevertheless, as we will show, Bashar's mistakes played a crucial role in bringing the rival ethnic groups together by making Damascus their joint enemy.     

Israel: Divided by Religion and Education

Israel is a democracy splintered by religion and education. Two of its fastest growing religious groups, ultra‐Orthodox and Muslim Israeli Arabs, are not learning democratic principles or marketable skills that enable them to assist in the economic development of the country. Even Israelis who are attending secular and religious Israeli government schools are academically behind in mathematics as measured on 2011 international achievement tests of PISA and TIMSS. The history of religion and education from 1928 to 1955 built the foundation for the current divisions. The impact of the Ottoman and British occupation on citizens is particularized thorough the experiences of Elias Tuma, who lived under British and Israeli government systems. Today's educational system in Israel reinforces religious and sectarian conflict among its citizens. Educational and religious structural suggestions are provided for readers to consider. The implications of this work for future research are provided.     

Experimental and Analytical Study of Seismic Soil-Pile-Structure Interaction in Layered Soil Half-Space

The dynamic interaction of pile foundations, embedded in a horizontally stratified soil profile, with superstructures under low to moderate earthquake excitation can be handled in different ways. In this article, the soil-pile-superstructure dynamic interaction problem has been investigated using the coupled finite element-boundary element method. Comparison with shaking table experiments of a small scale model pile shows a good correlation with the proposed method in terms of the kinematic response of pile foundations and the structural response. A parametric study of the proposed model has yielded important results essentially concerning the amplification factors of the pile foundation and the superstructure.     

Geochronology of plutonic rocks from the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone,Iran and new zircon and titanite U-Th-Pb ages for granitoids from the Marivan pluton

The Sanandaj-Sirjan zone of Iran is a metamorphic belt consisting of rocks which were metamorphosed under different pressure and temperature conditions and intruded by various plutons ranging in composition from gabbro to granite. The majority of these granitoids formed along the ancient active continental margin of the Neo-Tethyan ocean at the southeastern edge of the central Iranian microplate. Geochronological data published in recent years indicate periodic plutonism lasting from Carboniferous through Mesozoic to late-Paleogene times (from ca. 300 to ca. 35 Ma) with climax activity during the mid- and late-Jurassic. The age constraints for plutonic complexes, such as Siah-Kouh, Kolah-Ghazi, Golpayegan (Muteh), Azna, Aligoodarz, Astaneh, Borujerd, Malayer (Samen), Alvand, Almogholagh, Ghorveh, Saqqez, Marivan, Naqadeh and Urumieh, clearly indicate the periodic nature of magmatism. Therefore, the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone preserves the record of magmatic activity of a complete orogenic cycle related to (1) Permocarboniferous(?) rifting of Gondwana and opening of the Neo-Tethyan ocean, (2) subduction of the oceanic crust, (3) continental collision and (4) post-collision/post-orogenic activities. The formation of the Marivan granitoids, northwestern Sanandaj-Sirjan zone, for which we present U-Pb zircon and titanite ages of ca. 38 Ma, can be related to the collisional and post-collisional stages of this orogenic cycle.     

Asteropygine trilobites from the Late Devonian of the Kerman region,Iran

The discovery of two new Frasnian species of the subfamily Asteropyginae, Bradocryphaeus kermanensis and Radiopyge hamedii, in the Haruz section north of Kerman, east-central Iran, demonstrates for the first time the presence of North Gondwanan trilobites in this region. The two new species provide a link between faunas from Afghanistan to the east and the Alborz Mountains in north Iran. The recognition of R. hamedii confirms the validity of Radiopyge Farsan, hitherto known only from Afghanistan, as well as the presence in some Frasnian Asteropyginae of six pairs of lateral pygidial spines.     

Protecting Human Rights Through Constitutional Adjudication ‐ Jordan as a Case Study

This article aims at defining the role of constitutional courts in protecting the fundamental human rights of individuals, by relating the importance of constitutional judicial review and the established international standards related to the way it is performed. The study also provides an in‐depth analysis of the structure and working mechanism of the new constitutional court in Jordan with regard to its main functions described in the constitution of providing oversight of the constitutionality of laws and regulations in power, and interpreting provisions of the constitution. The study concludes that current statutory provisions with respect to the court proceedings and the method of undertaking its judicial work serve as safeguards that strengthen the role of the court in promoting individuals’ human rights. The study defines a vision of what is anticipated from the new constitutional court of Jordan and other courts in the field of defending human rights from the contemporary threats the world is facing, which only serve to increase fears among individuals that their basic rights are subject to serious attacks and violations.     

An International Constitutional Court: Future Roles & Challenges

This article comprehensively examines the 1999 recommendation of the Tunisian government to create an International Constitutional Court that is designed to enhance the principles of democracy and human rights and to strengthen the constitutional doctrine which states that the people are the source of authority in a given country. This proposal, which was strongly advocated by former Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Marzouki during his term in office, aims to underscore the importance of establishing an international judicial entity and analysing its bylaws with respect to its terms and conditions, formation, jurisdiction, and selection of judges. The article traces the trajectory of the movement, from the proposal stage to the latest developments in formally establishing the international judicial entity. Finally, the article identifies various possible difficulties and challenges that are likely to stand in the way of implementing the proposal.     

Iranian Women's Participation in the Academic World

This article intends to give a comprehensive picture of women's participation in the scientific field in Iran in the last four decades, among students and members of academia. One major fact is that despite the legal and cultural impediments the proportion of young women in the universities has risen above 50 percent. Another is that this increase has occurred much more at the undergraduate level than at the graduate and post-graduate levels. In the academic world, women are still far outnumbered by men, particularly at the higher levels of the hierarchy. We intend to show how the discrepancies are structured between the undergraduate and the graduate levels on the one hand, and between the lower and higher levels of academic hierarchy on the other, and propose an interpretation of these two major tendencies.